OK - 10 minutes after I set up that feed, another six articles came flowing in. After looking at them more closely - I decided to add the Academic Libraries descriptor to the search. Should be more relevant and less voluminous.

Ebsco feeds

I set up a feed from Academic Search for the Subject heading :DE "INTERNET in library reference services" After browsing a lot of articles related to reference service in academic libraries and technology, it seems this subject heading combined several features I was looking for. It also didn't have a huge amount of articles associated with it, so I shouldn't be deluged, plus the articles seemed interesting!

We'll see how it goes! I also set up a separate folder in the Google reader to corral these references should they become overwhelming.

students and it

This is interesting - from the LIS News blog:

Students and IT

from LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News by Martin

A report just released by the Educause Center for Applied Research offers some interesting factoids on how today’s college students are using information technology. A sampling:
• More than 80 percent own laptops, an increase from 65.9 percent in 2006. More than 70% of entering freshmen have a laptop less than one year old.
• 85% are using social network sites, primarily Facebook, and most do so daily.
• Almost 84% use text messaging regularly, and instant messaging is used by almost 74%.
• Students consider themselves quite Internet savvy. Almost 80% say that they can use the Internet to effectively and efficiently search for information. Half say they are “very skilled” and one-third claim to be “experts.”

ebsco preferences

I can very much see how the emailing and formatting preferences would be useful to a researcher or student with a big project. I am very no frills with respect to databases - I hone in on the basic common features. I guess I'm used to teaching the basics to freshmen and trying to teach concepts that translate across databases. But I am not the end-user.

I find the visual search in Ebsco much less frightening than the concept map in Credo. It's basically a narrowing of topic by subject heading. It is probably an easier way for student to narrow their search. They start with the broad topic and the narrowing terms are given to them.

credo

Ok as for the concept map in Credo, I obviously do not have that kind of brain, because I find it very strange.

e books

After browsing our collection of NetLibrary ebooks for a long time and seeing many interesting titles, I got nostalgic and picked The Humanities : A Selective Guide to Information Sources, Ron Blazek and Elizabeth Aversa, Libraries Unlimited, 1994. And now that I think about it, it is probably the same edition I have from library school. I just love those specialized reference books. Ok now I'm double-checking the access from our catalog and there is a 2000 edition in NetLibrary too. Not sure why it's necessary to have both.

While not as much fun to browse as a "real" book, I found the NetLibrary version easy enough to navigate.

arXiv

This is pretty cool:
http://www.physorg.com/news142785151.html

"Reinforcing its place in the scientific community, the arXiv repository at Cornell University Library reached a new milestone in October 2008: Half a million e-print postings — research articles published online — now reside in arXiv, which is free and available to the public."

Here we are

I never thought I'd see this in print. I decided in high school that Groovy Pavement was to be the name of my future rock band. Since I haven't formed the band yet, I thought I'd lend the name out.