2010/04/21-22 - AuCataloging update ready

The new EE6-enabled AuCataloging webapp is ready for release. I spoke with Jon about installing Glassfish v3 on lib.auburn.edu, but he wants me to wait and deploy the new code on a separate server that he's building for the purpose. In the mean time I'll look at adding OAI support to the Vufind import tool.

2010/04/19-20 - finally some ref stats

A basic reference statistics webapp is finally up for testing. The code leverages littleware's new task-tracker APIs. I should be able to update the click-counter and cat-request apps to use the same engine. The new code also ports the entire AuCataloging site to java EE 6 including facelets and JSF annotations, so we need to upgrade our server to run glassfish v3. The following e-mail has more details.

From: rdp0004@auburn.edu 
To: libhelp@auburn.edu 
Subject: setup 'glassfish' user on www - give Reuben password 

Hello LibHelp!

Would you setup a glassfish user on napoleon
with a valid home directory (/home/glassfish or whatever),
and send me the password, so I can
install and configure the new glassfish v3 server ?
https://glassfish.dev.java.net/

I have several updates to the AuCataloging webapp nearly
ready to release that require the glassfish upgrade.
http://lib.auburn.edu/AuCataloging/

If you just setup a 'glassfish' user for me, then I can
take care of most of the setup, so I won't have to pester
Jon so much. 
Or - if you prefer, I can install the new glassfish
on some other server (maybe repo), then we can just add a 'proxy' rule
to www's Apache config.
Once I have the v3 server ready to go,
then we can shutdown the old v2 server installed
under /glassfish. 
What do you think ?

Thanks for the help!

Cheers,
Reuben


--- Reuben Pasquini 4/20/2010 1:59 PM 
Great - thanks for the feedback! :-)

Let me know when you're ready to meet to polish this thing
up to work the way you want.
Hopefully we'll have time to beta test
before the next reference-stats collection.

I'm going to include what I have now as part of an update
to the AuCataloging tools that I'll try to release by next week:
http://lib.auburn.edu/AuCataloging/
I'll go ahead and add an
"output data to csv" 
link, so we can pull the data into Excel too - like the click-counter.
The reference data is saved to a database - 
so it won't go away on server restart.
I'll eventually update the click counter to use the database too.

Cheers,
Reuben


--- Liza Weisbrod 4/20/2010 1:47 PM 
This is great. Not that I don't love my paper forms, but this is
better....

--- Marcia Boosinger 4/20/2010 1:19 PM 
Yes, I could get to it and WOW! This is fabulous! Liza and I are
actually going to be talking in her evaluation tomorrow about starting
this as a project so this is perfect timing. I had no idea you were
working on it in this form. Thanks so much and we'll be back in touch
very soon.
Marcia

--- Reuben Pasquini 4/20/2010 12:48 PM 
Hi Marcia!

Can you connect to this link ?

http://lib_au15798.ad.auburn.edu:8080/AuCataloging/en/refStat/statForm.jsf

If so, then what do you think ?

Cheers,
Reuben

Aaron, Marliese, and I exchanged the brief e-mail thread below discussing a recent study of the changing role of academic libraries. I want to try to put together some concrete ideas that express a coherent strategy for the library that addresses the issues in the e-mail. Once I have my thoughts in order, then we can schedule some meetings to see what other people in the library think. Hopefully we can articulate an update to the library's strategic plan with action items that move the library in some new directions.

--- Aaron Trehub 4/19/2010 9:49 PM 
Interesting exchange.  Will add my $.02 when I get back.

Aaron 



--- Marliese Thomas 4/19/2010 10:58 AM 
Not so fast! I do agree with what you're saying. 
My thought was more, I guess, from the point of view of how it 
seems many librarians anticipate innovation. 
It seems so much of what we do and discuss is how to react to trends 
and devices than actually being involved in their creation or development. 
As you say, most people see us as a delivery system, not the innovators 
themselves. So, not so much with the beginning of Joe's comments, more 
how we prepare for something we don't know exists or isn't 
immediately relative (and incorporated) to current functions.  

:)
Marliese

-----Original Message-----
From: Reuben Pasquini
To: lib_systems 
To: Marliese Thomas 
To: Aaron Trehub 

Sent: 4/19/2010 10:50:03 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: One Report, Two Findings: Library Roles Changing, Open Access Not Compelling

Marliese and Reuben disagree again! ;-)

I think the trends in the report are probably right -
faculty and students view the library as a purchaser
of online databases, and faculty are not interested in
open access unless it will help get tenure.

Joe is overly optimistic.
I don't think Joe's iPod argument applies.  We're more like
horse-buggy makers at the dawn of the automobile age.
I don't see the iBuggy on the horizon.

In fact we're already changing.
The MDRL and Study Commons have little to do
with supporting research.
A lot of the online work we do could just as easily
be done by OIT.

Suppose we group MDRL, 
e-journal and database management (ez-proxy, link resolver, ...),
web site and server admin (ETD, Voyager, Vufind),
and transfer all that responsibility and budget to 
an "online resources" subgroup under OIT.
OIT gets almost all the materials budget, the systems
department, and a group of 4 or 5 e-journal and database
specialists (Jack, Paula, ...).

What's left for the library ?
A staff budget over $4 million
to manage a book budget under $250K, 
reference, and ILL.

We need a new plan.

Cheers,
Reuben


--- Marliese Thomas 4/19/2010 7:49 AM 
I would agree with Joe's observation. It is difficult to see how far 
something can be taken if you don't even know what the new variables are. 
I think one of the challenging things about working with VuFind is grasping 
how much can realistically be done to it and how much 
are we asking Reuben and Clint to accomplish. Additionally, I 
believe many librarians err on the side of being cautious of how 
change will affect students (and jobs) because we can't anticipate 
how new things will be received and/or if they will become 
ubiquitous (iWhatevers). In the realm of teaching, there is an extra 
caution about teaching something that potentially will not be there 
or will be greatly changed, and that change will not be fully understood 
by the students. 

Interesting. Thanks, Aaron. 
Marliese



--- Aaron Trehub 4/18/2010 10:19 AM 
Folks,

Some more comments on the Ithaka report, which can be found at:

http://www.ithaka.org/ithaka-s-r/research/faculty-surveys-2000-2009/faculty-survey-2009

Aaron

--- Joseph Esposito  4/16/2010 3:44 PM 
One could argue that the survey got it right or wrong, but I hope 
no one puts too much time into surveys.  People don't know what 
they think.  They can't imagine innovations.  A survey of 
physicists 20 years ago would not have given us arXiv.  That took 
Paul Ginsparg.  A survey of anyone 10 years ago would not have 
offered us the iPod, iPhone, and iPad (though someone could have 
predicted the dumb names).

Those products, which are transformative in modern society, 
required Steve Jobs.  The future of libraries and the status 
among faculty is something that must be invented.  Find the 
inventor.

Joe Esposito

--- Philip Davis  4/15/2010 5:06 PM 
One Report, Two Findings: Library Roles Changing, Open Access Not Compelling
by Kent Anderson
Scholarly Kitchen
April 15, 2010
http://j.mp/92pRAi 

quote:

"It's been a fear among librarians for decades, a perception 
among publishers for years, and now a survey shows it's now a 
clear opinion among faculty and researchers -- libraries are 
increasingly viewed as information purchasing agents inside 
academic institutions rather than intellectual partners.

An unrelated perception that's been argued for years is that open 
access is of dubious value to scholars, with their dedication to 
its ideals hardly rising above lip service."

2010/04/12-15 - death and taxes

It has been a weird week at the library. Henry died on Friday, Tom died on Sunday, and taxes are due today.

I installed the mobile-vufind code on our public server at http://catalog.lib.auburn.edu/mobile/.

I met briefly with Midge to discuss her work towards digital collections for honors theses and architecture senior projects. She's working away on a copyright and liability disclaimer for the undergrads to agree to. Hopefully we'll approach the Honors College and Architecture in a few weeks.

Finally, I made good progress on a web-tool for collecting reference statistics. I'll hopefully be able to release a beta next week or the week after.

2010/04/08 - refStats with READ

The littleware.apps.tracker framework passed some initial regression tests this morning, so I decided to go ahead and begin some setup for the "references statistics" web application. Marcia wants to use the READ system for collecting reference stats. I'll just deploy the ref-stats tool as another sub-application under the AuCataloging web app. I need to upgrade AuCataloging to organize each sub-applications in its own folder (click-counter, cat-request, login-support, etd, ref-stats, ...), and to use java EE 6 bean annotations and the littleware session runtime. Hopefully I'll have a simple demo ready to play with by by the end of next week.

2010/04/06-07 - mobile vufind, tracker testing

Yesterday I integrated the vufind mobile theme with our devcat vufind instance at http://devcat.lib.auburn.edu/mobile/. It's always nice when someone else does most of the work - thanks vufind.org! I'll check with Clint about pushing the mobile site out to the production server tomorrow.

Today I got the tracker task-tracking system up to beta-testing stage. The first test is failing with the derby database I test against - I'll work on it some more tomorrow.

2010/04/05 - repo is go!

Dean Bonnie sent an e-mail last Friday that she spoke with Midge about setting up collections on repo for Honor's College theses and Architecture Senior Projects. The dean wants to ensure that a student accept a publication agreement which certifies that a submission is not plagiarized or libelous. That shouldn't be a problem. The good news is that we can go ahead with the project.

I spent a little time working on repo today - fixing some CSS rules that were loading images from a dev server, and setup SSL protection for login credentials. I also worked on the littleware tracker system.

2010/04/01 - Google Topeka

Happy April Fool's Day! Google has a "Topeka" banner as a joke.

I'm making good progress on the littleware.apps.tracker package, but still have at least a week of work to go before I'll be ready to start on the reference-question survey webapp.

No response from Dean Bonnie on the Honor's Theses and Architecture Projects collections. I'll have to track her down next week.