Kickstart your institutional repository with content from publishers

I’ve developed a Google Spreadsheet script to help libraries gather information to tackle their greatest challenge regarding institutional repositories: recruiting scholarly content.

Publishers vary in their copyright policies. Some grant no public re-use rights to the published PDF, while others permit authors to upload the published PDF to an institutional repository. Mashing up a list of those publishers against articles written by your faculty would normally be time intensive.

This script leverages Google Scripts and the SHERPA/RoMEO API to automate looking up publisher copyright for individual faculty articles from your institution. 

Get started

Grab the code at http://pastebin.com/sXknBHDq. Detailed implementation instructions are included in the comments. You can also watch this short installation screencast below.

#ACRL2013 poster session materials

PDF of #ACRL2013 poster handout

 ACRL2013 poster handout

Further reading

The Code4Lib Journal - "Using XSLT and Google Scripts to Streamline Populating an Institutional Repository" (2013) - by Stephen X. Flynn, Catalina Oyler, Marsha Miles

Library screencasts should be beautiful

I've spent many hours the past few weeks working on this.

Background: 2012 is the first year all College of Wooster seniors are required to submit their Independent Study Theses (IS) digitally to the library. We have prepared on many fronts for this occassion. On the technology front we developed a DSpace instance through OhioLINK to preserve the ISs. On the policy front our library director successfully lobbied the faculty who voted for a new policy that compels student to make a digital submission. On the marketing and outreach front, we placed posters around campus, trained all library staff and Research Help student employees to be able to answer questions, and created both print and screencast instructions to guide seniors through the process.

How the screencast was made: I teamed with several library colleagues and one student employee. We created a script in Google Docs, the student recorded the audio using an Olympus LS-10, and I recorded the screencast using Screenflow on the Mac. While recording only took a few minutes, the editing was a tremendous undertaking. More hours than I can count were spent ensuring that the video was as concise and beautiful as possible.

Screencasting tips:

• Use beautiful software. Screenflow/Camtasia on the Mac, and Camtasia on Windows are both powerful and easy to use, and fairly inexpensive compared to Adobe. Stay away from Jing, Screencast-o-matic, and other free solutions. You get what you pay for.
• Don't waste the viewer's time. Start your screencast with a bang. Don't introduce yourself, don't spend more than 10 seconds saying what the screencast will cover. When was the last time someone told you, "I loved waiting for that!!"? Never. Nobody likes waiting. Just get right to it. 
• Edit, edit, edit. Cut one second here, and one second there. Cut a half second here and there. If you can take a 5 minute video and cut it down to 2 minutes, while covering the same amount of content, you have saved your viewer 3 valuable minutes. Multiply that by 1,000 views, and you've saved the human race over 2 days.
• Don't make the viewer squint. Constantly stay zoomed in to the relevant area of the website you're showing. You'd be amazed at how few people fullscreen a web video, so if you stay zoomed out, the viewer won't be able to see anything. Also, liberally apply call-outs, highlights and annonations in your screencast. If you click on a link, it should be clear.
• Add music as long as it isn't too cheesy.

Why beautiful screencasts matter: Your library has a message. You want students to make the most of your online resources and databases. The more beautiful and well produced your screencast tutorials, the more your message will spread. A student is more likely to learn from an enaging screencast, and even share the link with a friend. Best of all, beautiful screencasts are a lot of fun. I've had a blast working with colleagues on developing ideas for new screencasts, recruiting library staff to be voice actors, and showing the end result to students. Screencasts can be used beyond library tutorials. Students could use screencasts to present their original research. I hope others consider adding it to their librarian toolbox.

Introducing OpenCoverLetters.com

Open Cover Letters is a new website I created that displays real anonymous cover letters from hired librarians (and archivists). I came up with the idea during my recent job search (which happily concluded last month!). I strongly believe that humans learn effectively from imitating and emulating exemplars. As a child I taught myself how to play drums in part by watching jazz drummers at live concerts. We all become more effective writers when we read and emulate high quality writing. As a job seeker and cover letter writer, I tried to find good example cover letters. Many websites offer generic advice, but cover letter expectations differ from industry to industry. What library search committees expect slightly differs from other fields.

Enter www.OpenCoverLetters.com. For the first time, library job seekers can get an idea of what library search committees and hiring managers expect. That's because every single cover letter on that website was written by someone who got an interview and eventually won employment in a library.

The hiring process is unfortunately, but for legitimate reasons, shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows who their competition is. Nobody except the search committee knows why one candidate was favored over another. Open Cover Letters is my attempt to open up the process a little, and I hope it becomes useful to future librarians.

Using screencasts to transfer organizational knowledge

Screencasting is usually viewed by libraries as an innovative tool to teach patrons how to use the library's services. What if rather than instruct patrons, screencasts were used by an outgoing employee to explain their work and train their replacement in absentia?

This Friday I will depart the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library for a new position. I've done a lot of work on the Plain Language Medical Dictionary iPhone app. I know a lot about the inner workings of this project. With limited time I couldn't write a manual of everything that I know with screenshots. Instead, I've chosen to create a series of screencasts where I informally explain how to install the developer tools, update the app and submit the changes to the App Store.

I captured a one minute excerpt of one of my screencasts so you can see what I'm doing.

Rather than being one to many, this is a one to one screencast. It's meant to be viewed by the future graduate student assistant that will replace me. I speak and use the computer as if the person were sitting next to me. I didn't write a script or cater to a general audience. For the sophisticated and highly technical tasks of updating and maintaining the Plain Language Medical Dictionary, there is probably no better way to transfer my knowledge. Written manuals are dense and time consuming to read and write. After 30 minutes of watching the series of ~5 minute screencasts that I created, the future employee will have a sufficient orientation to continue my work.

While training an employee in person is probably the best way to communicate and transfer organizational knowledge, for situations where an outgoing employee worked alone, screencasting is a wonderful way to ensure the smooth transition and continuation of special library projects.

The future of DynaMed: a quick look

DynaMed is a database that provides point-of-care evidence-based summaries of over 2000 drugs and diseases. It's aimed primarily at primary physicians, med students and health sciences libraries serving researchers needing quick clinical reference information. There's even a patient education component to DynaMed, making it possible for patients with library savviness to access the same primary information about a drug that their own physician has. Over the past week DynaMed has notified their customers that a "preview" of their new user interface is available to test. I paid a visit to their demo website see what all the fuss was about.

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