senate house presentation slideshare
TRANSCRIPT
Giuseppe Sollazzo@puntofisso
How can IT systems and technologies be applied to Senate House Library,
with its unique volume, range and quality?7 November 2014
Senate House Library
Me
Senior Systems Analyst at SGUL
● IT Operations team leader● 250+ servers, 30K users● Library-related R&D
Ministerial Advisor on Open Data and Transparency
● Open Data User Group - Cabinet Office● Health and Social Care Transparency Panel - Dept of Health
Problem 1: Discovery
Search
● OPACs● Google-based approach
○ The more it knows you, the less it tells you● Discovery Tools
○ Summon, Primo, Ebsco Central…○ Popular with “normal” users: they look like Google
■ Advanced users don’t like “advanced search”
The “Answers People”
● By Essex County Council● Search as a human skill, through an IT medium
○ iterative and interactive
Research Approach
● Metadata is good, content is king● Big Data
○ what can we learn about our collections?● N-Grams, LDA, etc
○ novel ways to search for content○ analyse content to make search more interesting
Problem 2: Physical vs Virtual
The Big Issue for Libraries
● The world is increasingly digital● Not all digital is good
○ e.g. e-books can be used as a platform lock-in■ what about spreading culture?
● We still need physical space○ to store books○ to study○ to meet
Archiving
● Remote locations● Experimental solutions
○ Robots, Drones○ NFC, iBeacons
Digitisation
● Increase access to rare books● How?
○ Open standard/source as a way not to be locked in● Reaching out to users
○ “Libraries without Walls”■ Bringing libraries to public spaces
Library Box
Giuseppe Sollazzo20:02 Today
Resolve
Problem 3: Building Knowledge
Traditional Activities
● Deposit & Access● Networking● Serendipity
How do we use IT Systems in this context?
● Digital Scholarship
New methods
● Foster information literacy○ build participation○ run courses
● Extend access to resources○ MOOCs
● Digital Humanities○ OCR, Text Analysis, …
VIVO Web
● Semantic Web approach to encouraging networking● Linked Data● Machine-readable description of people, papers, etc…
Crowdsourcing
● British Museum: MicroPast○ Archaeological Research○ Tasks that need human intelligence
■ location of photographed scenes■ identification of subject matter in historic archives■ transcription of letters and catalogues
● Applications for digitised books
Conclusions
IT + Library
● “Blacksmiths of Knowledge”○ Traditional library service support○ Knowledge services ○ Data analysis○ Skills building
Open
Open Source
OpenCollaboration
Open Data
Open Access
Thanks!
Giuseppe Sollazzo@puntofisso
www.puntofisso.net
Open
Open Source
OpenCollaboration
Open Data
Open Access
Innovation
The Virtuous Loop
Search (books)
Data
ProduceKnowledge,
tools
Public vs Academic Libraries
● Public Libraries are laboratories of R&D○ meeting points for learning○ hackspaces, tinkering, making○ “we lend x”, where x is no longer just a book
● Academic Libraries have a traditional mission○ more difficult to innovate○ scholar-to-student○ book-oriented
Senate House Library Specificity
● Central University● Users● Humanities● Rare books● Large collections● Thesis deposit
Open Data
Open Data
● Share knowledge● Encourage people to join in the academic conversation● Opportunity for revenue streams
○ courses, apps, data visualization, sale of librarian skills● Research Data Management
○ bespoke, CKAN, … ○ what in a digital humanity context?