This month the University Libraries installed public (self-service) scanning workstations at thirteen University Park locations. In Pattee Library and Paterno Library the workstations are available in the Education and Behavioral Sciences, Business, Social Sciences, Maps, Gateway, Arts & Humanities, and News and Microforms Libraries, as well as in Special Collections and Reserves. They are also available in most of the branch library locations: Architecture, Engineering, Earth and Mineral Sciences, Physical Sciences, and the Pollock Laptop Library.
These networked LIAS workstations are equipped with the Microsoft Office XP software including Publisher and Image Composer, as well as Photoshop and are configured to deliver output to cd-rom, zip-drive, floppy disc, student U: drive or upload to PASS space. There is no charge for using the machines, except for printing charges, if applicable. Users are expected to provide their own zip disks or cd-rom's. The workstations require authentication and while they are primarily intended for use by students, faculty, and staff of the University, special arrangements may be made for others who need digital copies from the Libraries collections.
This new service option was designed as a direct response to the perceived needs of library users and to facilitate access to the Libraries' vast print collections. As the nature of research and teaching change and adapt to an increasingly digital environment, the capacity to scan texts and images, rather than photocopying them, has become an important tool. Working within the constraints and guidelines of copyright law, library users will be able to incorporate scanned images from the Libraries collections into their coursework and research.
The University Libraries is working on several things to improve its website, one of which is implementation of a website search engine. Since the Libraries have several no-cost options available to it, we've chosen to perform a limited evaluation of those options and select the best one for release to our patrons after the end of the fall semester. Initially there were only two options, but since Penn State selected Google as a University-wide search engine, we now have a third option.
We installed and configured the Verity search engine, which comes free with our ColdFusion license, and the Novell search engine. We then had a group of Libraries faculty and staff members evaluate both search engines and provide us with feedback. Based on that feedback we are making some changes to the configurations of both search engines. In addition, Google has been added to the mix, a new version of Novell has been released and is being installed, and a new version of ColdFusion MX, which improves the performance of Verity, has been released and is being installed. Once all of these are configured properly we will ask our testers to take another look at them and then a product will be selected for final implementation.
Some of the factors to be considered when selecting a search engine are:
We consider the selection of one or more of these initial search engines to be a short term solution. In the future we will be implementing several new software systems and will re-evaluate search engines once those systems are in place.
Libraries have a traditional sense of "place". They collect materials; provide access to their resources using description as the handle. Whether over the web or over the counter, we've always had a sense of the Libraries as a place of service.
The Libraries aren't unique in thinking of web spaces as "places." Ask any web user and you're likely to hear them speak of "going" to this spot or having "visited" that place on the web. It's part of the standard metaphor of the web: if you're in one place and you link somewhere else, then you're in that place instead (when in fact you've never physically moved).
Since the rollout of the ANGEL course management system last year, a number of librarians have had an opportunity to take a fresh look at the idea of "place" as it relates to providing library services.
Take a look at the Library Resources for IST pages at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/itech/ist/ist_library_resources_home.htm. These are standard html pages-nothing fancy happening here. But, what we've done is to link to these pages from within ANGEL course section spaces. This means that an IST student will have direct links to subject-specific materials when they need them, and appearing in the setting in which they are already doing their work. They don't have to "leave" one context" to come over to "our place", enter it, find what they need and then go back. The idea is to project a library presence, in the form of library-selected subject-specific resources, directly into the IST class environment in which the students need them, when they need them.
We aren't making them come where we are. Instead, we're trying to show up where we think they'll need what we have, at the point in the process at which their need will occur.
This idea of projecting a library presence into non-library places can have a physical counterpart as well. With the coming opening of the new IST building, plans are afoot to place the IST Librarian into the IST building to promote direct interaction between IST students and library resources. "My hope is to overcome the idea that if we build a magnificent library and fill it with resources and experts then we've done our jobs," said IST Librarian Michael Pelikan. "I believe that I can connect more IST students to library resources by going where they are when they need the material, rather than waiting for them to come to me."
The ANGEL pilot project has included subject resource material from a number of Penn State Subject Librarians. Contact the Subject Librarian in your field to find out what we can do to support you and your users, where they are and when they need it.