Search results

This paper aims to introduce the OJAX++ virtual research environment (VRE) and illustrate how it can enable researchers to organise and collaborate on their research in one place while using their own choice of popular web‐based applications.

Recent state‐of‐the‐art reports have highlighted trends in best practice VRE design: the move towards lightweight, modular, Web 2.0 VRE frameworks, and the importance of interoperability and integration of third party applications in such frameworks.

OJAX++ is a practical demonstration of these trends.

The OJAX++ VRE is freely available under an open source licence.

The aim of VREs is to facilitate the research process and the OJAX++ VRE illustrates an implementation of this goal.

The OJAX++ VRE demonstrates best practice in VRE design, as highlighted in recent state‐of‐the‐art reports.

HTML has reinvented itself as an XML application. The working draft of the latest version, XHTML 2.0, is causing controversy due to its lack of backward compatibility and the deprecation – and in some cases disappearance – of some popular tags. But is this commotion distracting us from the big picture of what XHTML has to offer? Where is HTML going? And is it taking the Web community with it?

The aim of this paper is to look at the changes to library services that arose from the institutional adoption of virtual learning environments and discusses how these may influence the development of user facing information services for researchers using similar virtual research environments.

The paper reviews the impact of institutional VLEs on the provision of added value library services to learners and discusses the potential for these developments to influence the librarian‐researcher relationship and the information services provided to the research community using an institutional VRE.

The wide‐scale introduction of institutional VREs provides librarians with an opportunity to establish closer working relationships with academic researchers to support the development of a number of information discovery and management tools and services that are embedded in the workflows and virtual research workspace of the research community.

This provides a useful resource for librarians, academic researchers and university research policy makers who are engaged in the support of academic research.

The paper reviews the provision of information services to researchers and learners using virtual community environments in a contemporary context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of the emergence of virtual research environments (VREs) and related e‐research tools for scholarly work and communications processes.

The concepts of VREs and of e‐research more generally are introduced and relevant literature is reviewed. On this basis, the authors discuss the developing role they play in research practices across a number of disciplines and how scholarly communication is beginning to evolve in response to the opportunities these new tools open up and the challenges they raise.

Virtual research environments are beginning to change the ways in which researchers go about their work and how they communicate with each other and with other stakeholders such as publishers and service providers. The changes are driven by the changing landscape of data production, curation and (re‐)use, by new scientific methods, by changes in technology supply and the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research in many domains.

The paper is based on observations drawn from a number of projects in which the authors are investigating the uptake of advanced ICT in research. The paper describes the role of VREs as enablers of changing research practices and the ways in which they engender changes in scholarly work and communications.

Librarians and other information professionals need to be aware of how advanced ICTs are being used by researchers to change the ways they work and communicate. Through their experiences with the integration of virtual learning environments within library information services, they are well placed to inform developments that may well change scholarly communications fundamentally.

The paper contributes to emerging discussions about the likely trajectory and impact of advanced ICTs on research and their implications for those, such as librarians and other information professionals, who occupy important support roles.

To describe a small‐scale quantitative evaluation of the scholarly information search engine, Google Scholar.

Google Scholar's ability to retrieve scholarly information was compared to that of three popular search engines: Ask.com, Google and Yahoo! Test queries were presented to all four search engines and the following measures were used to compare them: precision; Vaughan's Quality of Result Ranking; relative recall; and Vaughan's Ability to Retrieve Top Ranked Pages.

Significant differences were found in the ability to retrieve top ranked pages between Ask.com and Google and between Ask.com and Google Scholar for scientific queries. No other significant differences were found between the search engines. This may be due to the relatively small sample size of eight queries. Results suggest that, for scientific queries, Google Scholar has the highest precision, relative recall and Ability to Retrieve Top Ranked Pages. However, it achieved the lowest score for these three measures for non‐scientific queries. The best overall score for all four measures was achieved by Google. Vaughan's Quality of Result Ranking found a significant correlation between Google and scientific queries.

As with any search engine evaluation, the results pertain only to performance at the time of the study and must be considered in light of any subsequent changes in the search engine's configuration or functioning. Also, the relatively small sample size limits the scope of the study's findings.

These results suggest that, although Google Scholar may prove useful to those in scientific disciplines, further development is necessary if it is to be useful to the scholarly community in general.

This is a preliminary study in applying the accepted performance measures of precision and recall to Google Scholar. It provides information specialists and users with an objective evaluation of Google Scholar's abilities across both scientific and non‐scientific disciplines and paves the way for a larger study.

To highlight the potential of web services for libraries.

A brief description of web services is followed by a discussion of the importance of web service standards and the role of initiatives to encourage the development and use of such standards in libraries.

Web services offer many advantages to the library community, but the majority of these advantages will only be realised if web services are standardised.

This paper is a call to the library community to prevent the proliferation of proprietary web services by supporting the development and use of standard web services.

The goal of this column is not to argue the pros and cons of digital archiving, or to propose solutions to its problems, but to describe it as a research subject and a social phenomenon.

This column relies on cultural anthropology, in particular the approach that Clifford Geertz championed, and for cultural anthropology, language and its social context matter.

Archiving systems abound with competing claims about effectiveness. Transparency and evidence of public testing is rare, with a few exceptions. The lack of public testing does not mean that systems do less than they claim, but it does mean that libraries, archives and museums need to press for proof if they want to have confidence in the product.

When betting on the future, these cannot be certainty, but bets placed should be based on knowledge.

Many libraries are now designing and implementing their own tools to meet users' needs for search and data discovery. The aim of this study is to share the experiences of the HAM‐TMC Library, one of the largest US medical libraries, in creating and implementing such a tool.

A narrative of the process demonstrates the genesis of the project and highlights the importance of collaboration with entities outside the usual library sphere.

Results show that libraries have choices to make in designing their own futures and in offering innovative services to their users. Taking a proactive approach can yield exciting results.

Many libraries accept federated search and other technologies directly from their library management system vendors as the simplest way to proceed with implementing new technologies. The HAM‐TMC Library recognized that its particular information environment required learning the “problem space” thoroughly before investigating available options. As a result, the new tool the Library is providing is much more likely to meet specific user information needs.

The purpose of the evaluation described in this paper is to determine the usability of the services provided by the EBSCOhost Mobile application.

The methodology employed was usability testing, comprising pre‐ and post‐usability test questionnaires and “think out‐loud” usability tests.

Recommendations are made concerning changes to the interface to ensure greater usability.

In this study, the only mobile device used in the testing of EBSCOhost Mobile was the iPhone 3GS. None of the participants had used or owned a smartphone previously.

Libraries are increasingly turning to the Mobile Web to offer new services to their patrons. Smartphones are likely to become central to the future delivery of information services.

The purpose of this article is to promote the usage of an open‐source gateway product that will enhance the functionality of a Z39.50 server that is maintained by a third‐party vendor.

The required functionality improvements, needed by the LC Z39.50 server (i.e. the problems LC needed to solve) will be listed and described. Possible approaches to solving the problems will be listed. The selected open‐source gateway product and its features will be described. A possible instance of the product's configuration file will be provided and annotated.

It is possible for many third‐party server problems to be corrected or controlled even if the server application is not accessible by vendor APIs. LC was able to do this by installing the YAZ Proxy, a product that is both a Z39.50‐to‐Z39.50 gateway and an SRU‐to‐Z39.50 gateway. The proxy provides a way to filter and sanitize problematic Z39.50 requests, and it also allows the ILS system server to support retrieval of XML records and to support access via an XML‐based search protocol. Dramatic system performance improvements resulted from the installation of this product.

The paper describes an inexpensive way to provide performance improvements to a ILS system Z39.50 server and to provide enhancements that allow XML retrieval of MARC records and the support of an XML‐based search protocol.