Electronic Instruction at Carlson Library

Abstract

In this age of increasing electronic instruction in academic libraries, the University of Toledo's Carlson Library, like many other academic libraries, is trying to come of age. The library's instruction program has traditionally used a paper-based instructional format. However, with the introduction of the library's OPAC, CD-ROMs, the Internet, and OhioLINK in recent years, we are faced with a number of challenges which this paper will discuss. The main challenge is that we are trying to teach electronic resources without a mediated classroom in the library. We need to bridge the gap between the paper-based instruction program and electronic resources because our current teaching methods do not always allow for patron interaction with the technology. Increasingly, instruction is having to take place at the Information Desk, where there are time constraints and library users are unclear about the kinds of information they want or which electronic resources they need. Adapting to these new and growing resources and developing the skills needed to teach them are among the important challenges librarians at Carlson Library face.     

The Information Literacy Challenge

Abstract

Technological changes are occurring rapidly. As one result, students entering college are bringing very disparate computer skills and attitudes. Some students are reluctant to embrace new technologies; others demand electronic resources for all assignments. By considering the computer access and Internet resources available to elementary school students today, we can only imagine what our users of tomorrow will expect from libraries. Although college students may arrive at our libraries with increased computer skills, their knowledge of electronic information may be lacking. Definitions of information literacy and an overview of information literacy skills are outlined. The Digital Information Literacy program at The University of Texas at Austin, as well as the technological environment and facilities at the institution, serve as a case study for integrating information literacy skills into traditional services and partnerships.     

Automatic generation and refinement of hypertext links

Abstract

Current generation of hypertext systems suffer from the limitations that they are static in nature, and they do not support the automated process of link creation very well. Because of the efforts involved in manually creating links, the hyperbases created using these systems are seldom modified even when they were found not to fully support the requirements of the intended users. This paper studies the development of automated tools to aid in the process of link creation, browsing, and link refinement. Only relation links are considered in this study. The automated tools are developed to help in three of the major stages of developing and using hypertext applications: (a) during authoring to generate a set of relation links between pairs of nodes; (b) during browsing to recommend an optimal set of starting nodes for the users to begin browsing, and to guide the users at each stage of browsing by suggesting a set of “next” nodes to traverse; and, (c) during training to modify, remove and add links based on users' feedback data collected. The training will result in long-term changes in the hypertext structure.

In order to test the effectiveness of the training process objectively, a navigator is built to simulate the browsing activities of the users. The effects of training have been evaluated on two text collections using a variety of objective measures. The results indicate that the training process has improved the effectiveness of the hyperbase to support browsing.     

Optimising Publications for Google Users

Abstract

Librarians should think explicitly about Google users whenever they publish on the Web, and should update their policies and procedures accordingly. The article describes procedures that libraries can adopt to ensure that their publications are optimised for access by users of Google and other Web search engines. The aim of these procedures is to enhance resource discovery and information retrieval, and to enhance the reputation of libraries as valued custodians of published information, as well as exemplars of good practice in information management.     

User Expectations in the Time of Google: Usability Testing of Federated Searching

SUMMARY

As libraries expand their services into the world of federated searching, librarians need to work with users to discover what their expectations are and how the library can customize the software to meet users' expectations. This article describes the user testing performed at Texas A&M University during 2005 as the libraries implemented a new federated search service called Search Now (ExLibris' MetaLib). Over fifty volunteers–including undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and library faculty and staff–helped to test the new system and offered suggestions for improvements. Problems were noted and, where possible, modifications were made to improve results. These modifications were then tested again. Major issues noted during the usability testing included: user expectations of search performance; information included in and the layout of the search results; availability of advanced search options; and lack of ability to limit by format, scholarly nature of journal, date and full-text availability. Suggestions for further development are also presented.     

Web Filtering: Where,How and Why: Control of Internet use: some considerations about the implications of this type of control in the light of the Italian experience.

A recent study¹ has determined that the average amount of time users spend on the Internet at their workstations is on the order of five and a half hours per week. Italy is in second place after the United Kingdom in use of the Internet from the workplace. When this type of access is available there is also the potential for its abuse. And so it was found that, out of a sample of 200 interviewees, 51% admitted to browsing sites not pertinent to their business during work hours, and, this is how three of the five and half hours are spent. Where exactly? The type of websites visited when one should be working vary from leisure time activities, to shopping, to pornography.So how do companies respond to this problem? In Italy, 55% of the sample admit that they have not yet undertaken any definite actions with regard to this issue, 17% have implemented policies, 7% carry out active system monitoring and 14% use content and surfing filters.     

Privacy Enhancing Technologies: Protecting Information Online

Use of the Internet around the globe is on the increase. An estimated 40 million users in the UK alone, now have access to the Internet either at home or at work. However, despite the increase in awareness about the Internet as an information source, people who make use of the Internet for personal or business purposes are generally unaware that whilst browsing the Web they may make their personal information available to the Web sites that they visit.     

Real-time Internet news browsing: Information vs. experience-related gratifications and behaviors

This study utilized lab observations with 49 subjects to observe what users encounter and how users behave in real-time Internet news browsing. We analyzed users’ selection of news platform, exposure to different topics of news content, and usage of different presentation elements by coding the screen videos. In addition, survey data with the subjects allow us to explore the links between gratifications and Internet news browsing behaviors. Our analyses suggest that users exert their control through actively and selectively interacting with the news services at the platform, content and presentation level to fulfill their different gratifications. In specific, gratifications based on information utility and those based on usage experience show different relations with different kinds of news browsing behaviors. Both the theoretical and methodological contributions are discussed at the end of this paper.     

网站浏览路径预测

用户浏览因特网网站点击某个链接后,该链接的网页往往需要一段时间才能传送到用户端.为了缩短用户的等待时间,利用网站服务器的空闲CPU时间,对用户下一个HTTP请求进行预测,以便预处理下一个网页是一种可能途径.使用已分类的网页信息、用户配置文件和网站日志进行预测,介绍并且分析了16种预测算法.实验结果证明某些算法是比较有效可信的.     

Diversified users’ satisfaction with advanced mobile phone features

Mobile phones are widely used all over the world, and with their increasing number of value-added features, they are becoming far more than a mere mobile voice communication device. Rather, they provide a powerful platform for accessing information universally. This paper reports a study which scrutinized users’ preference levels with five new mobile phone design features facilitating universal information access through mobile phones: camera, colour screen, voice-activated dialling, Internet browsing, and wireless connectivity (e.g. Bluetooth, infrared, etc.). The survey study involved college students and investigated the degree to which each of the above features impacts the users’ overall satisfaction and enhances the potential of mobile phones to contribute to different aspects of universal access. Our results show that colour screen, voice-activated dialling, and Internet browsing feature can strongly predict users’ satisfaction level, and their preference levels together account for 22.7% of the variance of the users’ overall satisfaction. Users’ satisfaction levels are significantly different between models with colour screen feature and those without, and models with Internet browsing features and those without. Since mobile phone design needs to accommodate the needs and preferences of diversified user groups, the performed study also investigated the difference in users’ preference levels of the five new features for different ethnic groups, and difference in mobile phone owned by different genders. The result indicates that Asian female users in the U.S. market have higher preference level on colour screen feature than Caucasian female users. Significantly higher percentage of male users own phones with camera, Internet browsing, and wireless connectivity features than female users. The empirical study reported in this paper provides a comprehensive picture of how new design features can enhance the mobile phone as a universal access device, and what impact they have brought about. It can also help manufacturers adopt a universal design perspective in view of the differences in preference levels of users with different ethnicity and genders.     

Integrating Library Services

ABSTRACT

The migration of information resources and library use from predominantly print/on-site use to electronic/online use has created a fragmented set of systems for libraries and users. In addition, the growing complications associated with doing research in libraries as compared to the ease of use of Web-based search engines is causing libraries to review system design and review their approach to the provision of information and services. Popular trends including information portals, federated/meta-search systems, and link resolvers are being used in attempts to re-integrate library systems and provide better search interfaces. Despite their advantages, each of these applications falls short of creating the seamless experience that patrons are becoming used to finding on the Web. As a possible solution to this, a specific suggestion of an information service based Web service application is discussed to help connect users to libraries at a point of information need. doi:10.1300/J136v12n03_10     

Handheld Librarians: A Survey of Librarian and Library Patron Use of Wireless Handheld Devices

ABSTRACT

Wireless technologies are becoming more prevalent in American society, but are they in our libraries? This article is a result of a survey of 766 librarians (mostly academics) across the United States on their use and perceived use of their customers of personal digital assistants (PDAs), smartphones, webpads, and other handheld wireless devices. How are these devices being used? What percentage of libraries support wireless handheld device users, and how is this support delivered? Is there a demand for more services for these users and for what are they asking? Have libraries modified content to meet the needs of wireless handheld device users, and if so, what content have they changed? Last, what are librarians’ perceptions of wireless handheld devices and the cost and licensing of wireless content?     

Exploring spatial datasets with histograms

As online spatial datasets grow both in number and sophistication, it becomes increasingly difficult for users to decide whether a dataset is suitable for their tasks, especially when they do not have prior knowledge of the dataset. In this paper, we propose browsing as an effective and efficient way to explore the content of a spatial dataset. Browsing allows users to view the size of a result set before evaluating the query at the database, thereby avoiding zero-hit/mega-hit queries and saving time and resources. Although the underlying technique supporting browsing is similar to range query aggregation and selectivity estimation, spatial dataset browsing poses some unique challenges. In this paper, we identify a set of spatial relations that need to be supported in browsing applications, namely, the contains, contained and the overlap relations. We prove a lower bound on the storage required to answer queries about the contains relation accurately at a given resolution. We then present three storage-efficient approximation algorithms which we believe to be the first to estimate query results about these spatial relations. We evaluate these algorithms with both synthetic and real world datasets and show that they provide highly accurate estimates for datasets with various characteristics. Recommended by: Sunil Prabhakar Work supported by NSF grants IIS 02-23022 and CNF 04-23336. An earlier version of this paper appeared in the 17th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2001).     

Permanently online – Permanently connected: Explorations into university students’ use of social media and mobile smart devices

BackgroundWith the availability of mobile smart devices, many adolescents have developed the habit of being online and connected with other users almost all the time.ObjectiveThe aim of this paper is to provide a definition of being permanently online (PO) and permanently connected (PC) and to explore students’ current PO/PC behaviors.MethodsAn online survey was conducted with 178 university students in Germany to explore the intensity of their PO/PC behaviors in various social situations, the differences in being PO and being PC, students’ feelings about a possible loss of Internet access, and their online responding behaviors. We also shed some light on the associations between being PO/PC and various aspects of well-being, as well as between PO/PC and demographics and lifestyle.ResultsSmart device usage behaviors at night and behaviors in various social situations during the day indicate that PO and PC behaviors are occurring frequently. The results show that being connected to others (PC) seems to be more relevant to the participants than browsing the web (PO). Moreover, the participants expressed strong emotional responses about a temporary loss of Internet access. Coping behaviors in response to increasing number of incoming messages and permanent availability are reported.ConclusionThis exploratory study demonstrates the relevance of the concepts of being PO and PC to students, and points out further research gaps.     

LAURIN: A Distributed Digital Library of Newspaper Clippings

Among the wide range of digital libraries, an interesting, yet quite neglected, subclass is constituted by those exclusively dealing with newspaper clippings. Compared with book–oriented digital libraries, clipping libraries are more difficult to seize, since they are wide and unstructured, and the subjects and content of a clipping are completely heterogeneous. LAURIN is an EU–funded project involving seventeen participants from several countries, including two software companies and a large group of libraries, whose main purpose is to set up a network of digitalized newspaper clipping archives that can be easily accessed through the Internet, for searching and retrieving clippings. The project also provides the libraries with models and methodologies to be used for scanning, digitalizing, storing, indexing, and making accessible newspaper clippings. This paper concentrates on the main architectural features of the LAURIN distributed system, exposing the peculiarities deriving from the diverse users and tasks it supports.     

Examining the Effects of Passive WeChat Use in China

ABSTRACT

Passive usage of social network services (SNSs) refers to individuals’ browsing behavior and information consumption without active interaction with other SNS users. Using the data collected from 295 users of WeChat, the most popular SNS in China, the authors identify two types of passive use and test their different consequences. Confirmatory factor analysis in Study 1 shows passive WeChat use includes two subdimensions, namely, passive social and nonsocial use. Passive social use means browsing friends’ posts, whereas passive nonsocial use refers to browsing information on WeChat official accounts. The partial least squares structural equation modeling results in Study 2 suggest that both social and nonsocial use have positive effects on users’ social capital and online well-being, and further increase their continuance usage of SNSs. However, passive social use is also associated with users’ depressed mood, which in turn decreases their continuous usage intention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Discovering user profiles for Web personalized recommendation

With the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, large volume of user access data has been gathered automatically by Web servers and stored in Web logs. Discovering and understanding user behavior patterns from log files can provide Web personalized recommendation services. In this paper, a novel clustering method is presented for log files called Clustering large Weblog based on Key Path Model (CWKPM), which is based on user browsing key path model, to get user behavior profiles. Compared with the previous Boolean model, key path model considers the major features of users‘ accessing to the Web: ordinal, contiguous and duplicate. Moreover, for clustering, it has fewer dimensions. The analysis and experiments show that CWKPM is an efficient and effective approach for clustering large and high-dimension Web logs.     

Reduced GUI for an interactive geometry software: Does it affect students' performance?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe an experimental study to reduce cognitive load and enhance usability for interactive geometry software.Design/methodology/approachThe Graphical User Interface is the main mechanism of communication between user and system features. Educational software interfaces should provide useful features to assist learners without generate extra cognitive load. In this context, this research aims at analyzing a reduced and a complete interface of interactive geometry software, and verifies the educational benefits they provide. We investigated whether a reduced interface makes few cognitive demands of users in comparison to a complete interface. To this end, we designed the interfaces and carried out an experiment involving 69 undergraduate students.FindingsThe experimental results indicate that an interface that hides advanced and extraneous features helps novice users to perform slightly better than novice users using a complete interface. After receiving proper training, however, a complete interface makes users more productive than a reduced interface.Originality/valueIn educational software, successful user interface designs minimize the cognitive load on users; thereby users can direct their efforts to maximizing their understanding of the educational concepts being presented.     

Internet browsing application based on electrooculography for disabled people

This paper describes an Internet browsing application based on electrooculography (EOG) aimed at people with a severe motor disability, i.e., people who cannot move their arms. This application is made up of two subsystems: writing and browser. It allows the user to navigate through Internet introducing text, clicking on active elements and moving around the screen using only their eyes. It also includes a word predictor to increase navigation speed. An EOG algorithm is capable of detecting four different directions of the users’ eyes movement: left, right, up and down, and the blink. With these five commands, the user has full control of the application. Six healthy volunteers tested the Internet browsing application by performing three different tests that consisted of writing, searching and mouse controlling tasks. The results show that all users are capable of completing the whole tests in a reasonable time and they improve their speed with training. These results suggest that the Internet browsing application could be used by disabled people, improving their integration in the information society.     

VideoZoom spatio-temporal video browser

We describe a system for browsing and interactively retrieving video over the Internet at multiple spatial and temporal resolutions. The VideoZoom system enables users to start with coarse, low-resolution views of the sequences and selectively zoom-in in space and time. VideoZoom decomposes the video sequences into a hierarchy of view elements, which are retrieved in a progressive fashion. The client browser incrementally builds the views by retrieving, caching, and assembling the view elements, as needed. By integrating browsing and retrieval into a single progressive retrieval paradigm, VideoZoom provides a new and useful system for accessing video over the Internet. VideoZoom is suitable for digital video libraries and a number of other applications in which streaming methods provide insufficient quality of video, video downloading introduces large latencies, and generating video summaries is difficult or not well integrated with video retrieval tasks