Data. The final frontier.
A couple of recent events got me thinking about differences and similarities of public and academic libraries in the digital age. I used to think that current and future digital developments would in the end result in public and academic libraries moving closer to each other, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Let me explain how this happened. On April 1st I attended the UgameUlearn 2010 symposium organised by Delft University Library and […]
Location aware services in a digital library world This is the third post in a series of three [1. Mainframe to mobile – 2. Mobile app or mobile web? – 3. Mobile library services] While library systems technology and mobile apps architecture make up the technical and functional infrastructure of mobile web access, mobile library services are what it’s all about. What type of mobile services should libraries offer to their customers? As stated before, […]
Technology, users and business models This is the second post in a series of three [1. Mainframe to mobile – 2. Mobile app or mobile web? – 3. Mobile library services] Mobile access to information on the internet is the latest step in the development of information systems technology, as described in the previous post in this series. The two main features that distinguish mobile devices from other devices are: Access to the web literally […]
The connection between information technology and library information systems This is the first post in a series of three [1. Mainframe to mobile – 2. Mobile app or mobile web? – 3. Mobile library services] The functions, services and audience of library information systems, as is the case with all information systems, have always been dependent on and determined by the existing level of information technology. Mobile devices are the latest step in this development. […]
New models, new formats Recently I have been experimenting a bit with reading newspapers on my mobile phone (a G1 android device), or maybe I should say “reading news on my mobile”. I looked at two Dutch newspapers that adopt two completely different approaches. “NRC Handelsblad” publishes it’s daily print newspaper as a daily “e-paper” in PDF, Mobi and ePub format, to be downloaded every day to the platform of your choice. In order to […]
On Sunday December 27, 2009 I was in the opportunity to visit the, otherwise closed, library of The Netherlands’ oldest museum Teylers museum in my home town Haarlem, together with a small group of Dutch library twitter people. We were very kindly shown around by librarian Marijn van Hoorn, who explained to us the library’s history and collection. Now I’m not going to say something about the pleasant real life consequences of getting to know […]
About cataloging physical items or units of content 2009 is the year of the e-book, or perhaps better: of the e-book reader. This is an important distinction that I will explain below. E-books are becoming more popular because of the increasing availability of various cheap e-book readers. But what is an e-book? Is it the same as a book? Some people say yes, some people say no. This question shouldn’t be so hard to answer, […]
Metasearch vs. harvesting & indexing The other day I gave a presentation for the Assembly of members of the local Amsterdam Libraries Association “Adamnet“, about the Amsterdam Digital Library search portal that we host at the Library of the University of Amsterdam. This portal is built with our MetaLib metasearch tool and offers simultaneous access to, at the moment, 20 local library catalogues. A large part of this presentation was dedicated to all possible (and […]
What will library staff do 5 years from now? I attended the IGeLU 2009 annual conference in Helsinki September 6-9. IGeLU is the International Group of Ex Libris Users, an independent organisation that represents Ex Libris customers. Just to state my position clearly I would like to add that I am a member of the IGeLU Steering Committee.These annual user group meetings typically have three types of sessions: internal organisational sessions (product working groups and […]
On August 17, after I tested a search in our new Aleph OPAC and mentioned my surprise on Twitter, the following discussion unfolded between me (lukask), Ed Summers of the Library of Congress and Till Kinstler of GBV (German Union Library Network): lukask: Just found out we only have one item about RDF in our catalogue: http://tinyurl.com/lz75c4 edsu: @lukask broaden that search 🙂 http://is.gd/2l6vB lukask: @edsu Ha! Thanks! But I’m sure that RDF will be […]