Conclusion of the semester

Hopefully the pleasure I took in completing these competencies and exploring the technologies showed through the evaluation: 20 points out of 20 were awarded for the blog work I completed.

It was fun :-)

Competency 8: Exercising an Internet search for relevant web site

The study module for the week is Internet searching, and our competency task is to conduct an Internet search for a web site relevant to this blog's focus.

I was most intrigued with the module's information on social search engines, so I used the home page of Flickr to do a search on the topic of Library 2.0.

As the first graphic illustrates, the simple term "Library 2.0" returned almost 3,000 results for the search. These are personal photos, professional photostreams and visual items that have been tagged or labeled by human hand as being relevant to this topic. The top hit seen on this graphic (click on graphic to see larger image) is from Michael Casey, arguably Mr. Library 2.0 himself, and his Flickr resources offer innumerable views and events.

From these search returns, I found a very interesting photo which lead me to a very interesting website, the Yale University Science Libraries page and its innovative use of Library 2.0 technologies, seen here to the left. Check out the site, and see the intriguing implementation of Library 2.0 features at http://www.library.yale.edu/
science/socialnetworking.html

This site is an intriguing look at the various Web 2.0 ways that the Yale libraries are reaching out to engage involve their patrons in the information sphere.

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Competency 7: Multimedia

For Competency 7 we share some form of multimedia (audio, video, graphics, etc) that reflects the twin topics of the blog.

I found a perfect fit, again*, for a multimedia file that focuses on Library 2.0 and the place it has in the academic library. Appropriately enough, this concept map was created by Michael Habib, a grad student in the SILS (School of Information and Library Science) program at UNC-Chapel Hill during the last semester of his graduate work.

I particularly like Michael's visual approach to understanding the various facets of influence in both the virtual and the physical spheres of academic libraries and the innovations of Library 2.0. The URL for his blog and the site of the original posting is given below.

http://mchabib.blogspot.com/2006/08/academic-library-20-concept-models.html

*... which begs the question if we librarian bloggers are merely proliferating our thoughts for our own benefit. Is anyone beyond the bibliosphere in on this discussion?

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Competency 6: Successive Fractions search in LibLit

Of the various search models, the success fractions procedure is an interesting one. It starts with a broad concept, typically yielding way too many results, and then strategically narrows the search by applying additional limiting terms: Boolean operators, proximity operators, or non-subject attributes such as language or document type. These non-subject attributes extend the power I have to produce more relevant results.

As with other database competency searches, the query for this search: How do academic libraries implement Library 2.0 in their practices?

1) First search set is the broad (Library 2.0 OR user services) within the Library Literature database (LibLit), with the SmartSearch option, which returned 3,733 returns.

2) The next step to narrow or limit the returns appended a second attribute with the Boolean AND operator: (Library 2.0 OR user services) AND (academic OR university) in the SmartSearch mode. This returned a nicely fewer number of returns, 811, but it's still way too many.

3) My successive limiting descriptor was that of date. The other 3 competency searches had found documents that speak to the history of the Library 2.0 phenomenon; this time I imposed the "Within last 12 months" Date attribute, and this time the search returned only 48 documents. Finally, to tweak the results closer to what I wanted to read, I additionally added a fourth limiter: "Feature Article" in Article Type, and this brought me to a reasonable 28 returns.

The image displayed to the right (clicking on the image itself links to a larger, clearer display) shows these search terms and the final results. One interesting bit of information that I gleaned from the "Last 12 Months" delimiter is evidence that Library 2.0 is spreading to smaller countries around the world. Because my focus is on U.S. academic libraries, I found that Hits #9 and 10 would be most relevant to what I intended with my search.

This search model allows the user to deliberate and consider what s/he is requesting of the database as each successive term or limiter is applied. Indeed it made me aware of the bigger picture of Library 2.0 and academic libraries "out there." I would find this model particularly helpful in cases where I need to feel my way through the various perspectives for the core search concept.

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Competency 6: Specific Facet First search model within the LexisNexis database

Continuing with the competency of information-seeking strategies within varying databases, this post discusses using the "Most Specific Facet First" strategy as it might be done within the LexisNexis database.

This search model is described in the text Information representation and retrieval in the digital age (Chu, 2007) as "efficient" because the searcher begins with "the term that should take the least amount of time to be processed" and because "there would be no point to continue the search if the number of results retrieved ... seems unacceptable" (i.e. too small a return). (p. 86)

For this post I continue with the previous search query which follows the theme of this blog: What are some of the things being done in academic libraries to implement Library 2.0?

As identified in the previous post, the concepts within this query could be expressed as:

Library 2.0

academic libraries

("Implementation" for this search purpose is more of a delimiter or a descriptor rather than a search concept.)

Often the searcher can identify the most specific or least prolific concept, the one that will return the fewest hits from a database. Since I'm using LexisNext for this experiment, I am going to assume that the concept "Library 2.0" is the most specific of the concepts. (LexisNexis is described as "a full-text resource for news, business, legal research, medical information and reference," according to the Texas Woman's University database description.)

Just to verify my assumption, I do quick searches within LexisNexis (Major U.S. and World Publications only) on the single concepts by themselves, and I find these numbers for results:

Library 2.0 - returns 595 possibly relevant information sources;
academic libraries - 999 returns (maximum number)
So indeed, the first concept would be my most specific facet.

(Click on the image to view the search and returns more clearly.)

Reflection: The ideal situation for a effective and efficient Specific Facet search would be to begin with a concept that would take little time to be processed and which would return an acceptable number of results. However a return of 595 hits, as in my case with the term "Library 2.0," is still too broad to be an effective search. Thus this particular search model indicates that I would need to continue my search using another model, one which would allow me to narrow my hits with a second or third concept. For the specific query with which I began, this has proven to be an ineffective search model.

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Competency 6: Building Block search with WorldCat

When making an information search in an electronic database, one of the friendlier search models is the Building Block format. This involves identifying the core concepts within the search query and developing synonyms and phrasings that will precisely pull all related materials from that database.

For example, a search for relevant information on this blog's focus of Library 2.0 in the academic setting could begin with a search query such as this:
What are some things that academic libraries are doing to implement Library 2.0?
And the core concepts within that query could be:
Library 2.0 . . . academic libraries . . . . implementation

Seeking synonyms for those core concepts, and linking them together with Boolean connectors, could yield something like these 3 search sets:
s1 = library 2.0 OR library technology OR internet technology
s2 = academic librar* OR university librar* OR research librar*
s3 = implementation OR program implementation OR polic*

The * represents truncation or a way to expand the search by telling the database algorithm to look for all words that begin with "libr," as in "library," or "libraries," or "librarian," and so on. The asterisk (*) is what this particular database, WorldCat, uses to indicate truncation.

The graphic I've posted here shows these 3 search sets entered into the WorldCat database search fields and further connected with the Boolean AND connector. (Click on the image to see a larger, clearer view.)

I had not indicated any particular field within the database records, so this would return the largest possible number of results.

However, the search shown returned 1,864 "hits" or results. This is too many returns -- I'll go back and use some of the WorldCat limiters to narrow my search. The first hit is shown here, and it makes me wonder how it is connected to what I'm looking for.

(When I investigate the first return, I find that the keywords are found individually, NOT as phrases as I thought I was indicating [i.e. it finds the word "library" in the bibliographic description of the item, and "2.0" somewhere in the description, but NOT as "library 2.0" together]. As I narrow those results, I'll try to sharpen the focus as well.)

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Competency 6: Citation Pearl search in Academic Search Complete

The next four posts will demonstrate competency in database searching using four different search models within four different databases. This first search demonstrates the citation pearl growing search strategy implemented in the Academic Search Complete subscription database.

The strategy begins with a known item and extends the search for like information using the associated index or subject terms that the article reveals. Specific to my blog topic of Library 2.0 in the academic setting is Michael Casey's September 2006 Library Journal article titled "Library 2.0." The terms associated with this article were:

• PUBLIC services (Libraries)
• LIBRARY planning
• LIBRARIES -- Automation
• INFORMATION technology, and
• LIBRARY users.

From these terms (and adding the focus of university libraries) I created the search displayed in this image.

The search yielded 17 hits, all of which were strategically relevant and discussed Library 2.0 concepts within the academic library. Several in particular were keepers; the citation for one such hit:

Checking Out Facebook.com: The Impact of a Digital Trend on Academic Libraries. By: Charnigo, Laurie; Barnett-Ellis, Paula. Information Technology & Libraries, Mar2007, Vol. 26 Issue 1, p23-34, 12p, 2 charts, 4 graphs; (AN 24655398)

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