Daily Archives: February 14, 2008

4 posts

Ten Things… about Academic Libraries

TTW readers know I love a good “Ten Things” post! Run, do not walk to: http://infonatives.wordpress.com/ Ten great things an online academic library can do: Communicate with the academic community Get proper subject librarians who know their stuff to generate the content for the library website! Provide high-quality, easy to use tools to put the content the users created online in various formats (see 4) Keep the content updated Provide consistent interfaces, preferably a single consistent interface where possible Present users with the resources they use, making things one click away Structure information, making it customizable where this is appropriate […]

Put Virtual Reference in the User’s Pocket

Some say that IM is on the verge of extinction and that forging into such territory for virtual reference so late in the game is a waste of a library’s energy. You can surely count me as one of those who agrees with that statement. I predict, as do many others, that virtual reference needs to fit in users’ pockets – in their cell phone. We need to look at the trends happening now (according to PEW, 2006): -47% can’t live without their cell phones -35% use SMS and 13% would like it added to their features The preceding stats […]