Welcome to the first edition of BiblioTech for Fall 2006. BiblioTech is brought to you by the Library Student Organization (LSO). This organization is composed of great and outstanding individuals that work on creating and providing you the best during your studies at the prestigious School of Information Resources and Library Sciences at the University of Arizona.
Be on the look for exciting professional events, fun social events and much more.
Read more!by Bruce Fulton
Welcome back! I trust your summer break was as great as you wanted it to be and you're now busy cruising through your classes this semester with celerity and zest. You're on your own if you need help grabbing the gusto, but if your problem is not enough time, then read on for more cool school tools that will help you work smarter and faster. Best of all, they're free!
If you didn't get a chance to play with RefWorks, our last issue's School Tool, be sure to take the time to review my article and play around with it. If you'll recall, it organizes your bibliographies and makes citation work really simple. And by the way, it's free to you because our library pays a pretty hefty chunk of change to make it available, so I hope you'll all take advantage of it. We saw how you could use online databases like OCLC WorldCat (for which the library also ponies up to make life better for you) to grab bibliographic information automatically and then make really great looking reference and footnote lists. Give them a try and don't forget to drop the library a thank-you box of chocolates sometime before you graduate!
Unfortunately, RefWorks is not so automatic when it comes to managing citations for web-based resources. For that, you'll need a different kind of tool, one of the so-called social bookmarking applications that feature export functionality. The idea behind the social bookmarking applications is that you use a web-based tool with centralized storage to bookmark web sites you find. Just add some keywords of your own choosing and share what you find with others (or optionally keep them private). The central application keeps track of how many times a site is bookmarked and what words are used to describe it. It's a way to find new things sites other like-minded people have found, and to organize your own list of sites a little more intelligently than you can with browser-based bookmarks, which can only be accessed from the computer on which they're stored.
Much has been written about social bookmarking (see this or that) so I'm not going to spend time deconstructing the whole genre. In fact, I'm only going to talk about a small piece of the whole pie, and not the big piece at that. It will be worth your time to take a look at this or that so take a look. There are at least a couple of dozen popular services out there now, and they all have unique features that add functionality to the basic concept. Del.icio.us (yeah, just go ahead and pronounce it "delicious") is possibly the best known of these, but I use FURL most of the time because of the ease of converting and managing my bookmarks with RSS and especially because of its rich bibliographic export feature. The best part is, it stores a personal copy of the web page for you so if the link goes dead later, you still have the information!
Unlike the free tools the University or the library provide through student fees and budget allocations, the social bookmarking tools are free for you because they're paid for by advertisers or managed by a company that wants your business. A few offer premium subscriber services. FURL, free to you and pretty much ad-free on the bookmarking end, is actually part of the LookSmart search portal. They use the things you bookmark, in part, to return search results to customers who do see ads.
Getting Started:
So, let's get to the tool. First of all, you'll need an account. Just go to http://www.furl.net and sign up. You'll need an email address, a username and password, and you'll get a confirming email you need to use to validate your address. That's all there is. Next, visit the Get Started page that shows you a couple of different ways you can add FURL to your browser. They have a tool bar you can download, or easier yet, just drag a link to your browser bookmarks list. Most popular browsers for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms are supported.
Now, start surfing. When you find a page you want to save, click the FURL button on your browser. If you have a pop-up blocker, you might need to hold the control key or use some other recommended method as explained in the FURL Help guides. You'll see something like this:
FURL will do as good a job as it can picking up the title, the URL and a clipping if you have some text highlighted when you run FURL, but check it all out and make sure that it is what you want. Then, give it a rating if you like, select a topic or enter a new one, and add some keywords if you like. As with RefWorks that we looked at last time, you can be creative about your topics, so if you're doing research for a class, go ahead and make IRLS501 a topic. Or, create a topic for a paper you're working on, or whatever you like. That's it! Furl has saved the entire page for you along with the title, URL, access date and some other info you don't see here. There's one peeve, though - FURL won't handle PDFs directly, even if displayed in your browser. I get around that by FURLing the referring page and then saving a copy of the PDF to my computer. You can also edit the entry to refer to the direct URL.
TIP: Since FURL is saving the page, you might want to bookmark the "print me" url of magazine and newspaper articles that are more than one HTML page so you get the whole thing.
Cleaning Up the List:
Now let's take a look and see what we have. Go to http://www.furl.net and log in if necessary; then select My Archive. You can, of course, filter by topic, keyword, date or other parameters:
I'll let you play around with the different options and organization tools. For now, click on the Edit icon (in the middle, with the pencil) for one of the resources you've saved.
If you're lucky, the author will have included tags for author, publication date and source. The fact is, though, most people don't put metadata in their web pages so you'll probably have to enter the information manually. I wish FURL would let you add these at the first on-screen pop-up, but for now, edit mode is the way to make sure your references are solid.
Creating Your Bibliography:
When it comes to making a bibliography, you have a couple of options. Start by Selecting the My Tools tab and then Export. Doesn't this look interesting? Mmmm...
You can get a bibliography directly just by selecting a topic and then MLA, APA or Chicago Style format. FURL will create the bibliography on a new web page and you can cut and paste it into your document. Sweet!
What you'll probably want to do, though is select RIS/EndNote citation format. Why? Because RefWorks can import it! As you can see, the FURL bibliography might need a little massaging to get it the way you want it. If you pull it into RefWorks, you can manage your print and web citations all in one file and create a single bibliography or citation list. Just save the FURL export, start up RefWorks, and then use the RIS/Endnote import filter to place the items in the Refworks folder of your choice.
Other Fun Things:
FURL also makes it easy to add your resource list to a web page. A wizard will ask you a few questions and then create some code you can cut and paste into your HTML that will dynamically update your website with your resource list -- even as you keep adding resources:
Take a look at the Webliography on RSS and Podcasting I've been working on to see an example of how this can be used.
Also Noted:
As I mentioned earlier, I usually use FURL because it saves a copy of the page and has the most flexible tools available for generating a bibliography. Another tool I've used, though, is Connotea. According to their web site, "Connotea was created by Nature Publishing Group's New Technology team. The ideas behind it come from del.icio.us, a general collaborative bookmarking service. Connotea takes this concept and adds extra features to tailor it to the needs of scientists." Functionally, it works very much like FURL, with a browser button and pop up screen. Geared more toward scholarly publications, it can potentially grab more bibliographic information as show in this screen shot:
Unfortunately, it doesn't know about too many publications, and when it doesn't, it is a bit less flexible than FURL. Take a look at the journals it supports; if you're hitting those, consider Connotea. Connotea doesn't create bibliographies automatically, but it exports in RIS/Endnote format just like FURL. You'll still need RefWorks for the heavy loading. And nothing says you can't use all of these tools, each for the purpose they serve best.
That's it for this issue. If you have any questions, send them on. Or, if you've got a great idea for a cool school tool, let me know. Until then, keep on citing!
Read more!by Dana Von Berg
Research in the field of library and information science is crucial to the education of our current and future generations. The library is the cornerstone of society through its offering of services which range from story times for children, to a place of research for scholars. This resource is invaluable to society which can foster education and learning amongst its inhabitants, thus creating a better informed, better educated and more productive society. Research into how libraries can adequately meet the needs of the patrons they serve is critical to our society. Researching the current needs and expectations of a library's patronage, along with educational programs can help a library effectively plan for the future, thus helping to ensure its adequacy for our society in years to come.
It is of paramount importance for libraries perform a "needs assessment." A needs assessment involves "an assessment of what the patronage needs and evaluating how well the library is meeting this need" (Gardner 192). In any type of academic library, it is prudent for the librarians to work closely with the teaching faculty to learn about the types of assignments the students are being given and which ones involve library research. Possessing this knowledge can provide knowledge as to which types of library materials or resources the students will be needing at present and in the future. Librarians will also have a clearer picture of the types of resources the library is currently lacking and can therefore work towards purchasing these items. By working with the teachers, the librarians can help to foster a greater need and hopefully an interest in the use of the library. More frequent library usage can greatly assist a student in achieving a higher level of comfort with library usage, which can greatly help students as they progress through their educational endeavors.
LIS research can contribute to making our society more educated and better informed, thus helping to provide the world with more creative and innovative persons throughout a wide range of fields. A way that libraries and educators can accomplish this is to assess the library skill levels of its patronage in order to provide a higher quality of Bibliographic Instruction (BI). An effective approach to assessing the quality of bibliographic instruction is the following: 1) administer a survey to students which contains questions regarding the use of the library catalog and related resources; 2) proceed with the bibliographic instruction, making adjustments to fit the current overall level of library skills indicated from the results of the survey; 3) administer the test upon completion of the bibliographic instruction to see if the scores have improved (Kunkel 431). This type of research can greatly aid in the effectiveness and relevance of the bibliographic instruction being administered. By having a more effective approach to bibliographic instruction, students can receive the type of instruction they need to promote their success with research assignments in college, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will obtain lasing knowledge as a result of their assignment research.
With diligent research practices, such as a needs assessment and bibliographic instruction in place, libraries will have a clearer picture of what their patrons need and what they will need. Information of this caliber is needed to move forward with a degree of credibility and agility. Future generations will benefit from the hard work involved with the research process, which strongly assists a library in its ability to provide future generations with a place where the information they seek comes together and provides a rich learning environment.
References
by Susan C. Vargas
Over the past decade, libraries have formed relationships with vendors of new kinds of services and of markedly changed products. One source of new relationships is the outsourcing of services formerly provided within a library’s staff. Some libraries now contract with vendors to provide professional librarian functions such as cataloging, selection, and reference services. In addition, these new relationships, along with libraries’ relationships with traditional vendors, are increasing in complexity. Thus, contracting with vendors of new services and with vendors of information in newer formats requires new management skills on the part of librarians. Part of the broad issue of managing these vendor relations is the narrower issue of vendor assessment. This review will focus first on the topic of vendor assessment in the general scholarly management literature and then on the coverage of this topic in the scholarly managerial literature within library science.
General Management Literature
The strategic importance of vendor selection and subsequent assessment is well established in the literature of business purchasing, beginning with the seminal work on vendor selection criteria published in 1966 (Weber, 1996). Significant research continues to be done on this topic in part because of its particular relevance to manufacturers in a just-in-time environment where vendor price, quality, and delivery are key performance criteria. There are even numerous trade journals and scholarly journals devoted to vendor relations and performance evaluation. Among them are Supply Management, Materials Management and Distribution, Journal of Supply Chain Management, and Summit (a Canadian magazine about public sector purchasing).
Weber describes the three common and flawed current approaches to vendor evaluation (1996). First is the “categorical or key-factor rating method” in which potential vendors are assigned subjective, largely intuitive, ratings based on the evaluator’s judgment and experience. A second current method is the complex “cost-ratio method” which requires a comprehensive, precise cost-accounting system to determine the buyer’s internal operating costs associated with the vendor’s quality, delivery, and service. The third common approach, the “linear average or weighted-point method,” modifies the first method by providing numerical weights to the subjective evaluation criteria.
Many other approaches have been described and proposed in the literature. Researchers have suggested using more objective quantitative approaches, including mathematical programming models, statistical approaches, and analytical hierarchical processing. Weber, for instance, demonstrated the use of a mathematical programming model employing data envelopment analysis to measure vendor performance on multiple criteria and to identify comparative benchmark values (1996, p.28; see also Talluri, Narasimhan, & Nair, 2006, p.212). Dogan and Sahin employed mathematical models to select vendors using activity-based costing and fuzzy present-worth techniques (2003, p.420). Babu and Sharma gave an example of analytical hierarchy processing (2005, p.101). Still other researchers proposed methods which combine both objective and subjective data. An example is Li, Fun, & Hung, who used two-dimensional analysis to propose a performance measure based on both quantitative and qualitative criteria (1997, p.753). Going the opposite direction are other research groups which proposed vendor performance measurements based on an evolutionary fuzzy system for evaluating attributes described linguistically (Ohdar & Ray, 2004, p.723; Jain, Tiwari, & Chan, 2004, p.735).
Given the vast array of approaches to vendor evaluation and the fact that no single evaluation method is completely satisfactory, there is now research relating to strategies for choosing an evaluation technique. Purdy and Safayeni discuss the advantages and limitations of a variety of methods for evaluating potential and current suppliers, and they classify the methods by whether the focus is on information from product- or process-based domains and whether the information acquisition mode is direct or indirect (2000, p.435). They posit that buyers normally must use indirect methods for evaluation of potential vendors and that buyers should use methods in all four categories once a vendor relationship has been established (p.441).
Vendor evaluation strategies exist within the context of an organization and its processes. Choosing an assessment approach is just one of the seven steps of a process of developing and deploying vendor assessment outlined by Gordon (2005, p.20). Although this article is found in a trade press, it includes a useful bibliography of books about supplier evaluation and managing relationships with suppliers. Another aspect to consider is that many of the assessment techniques require technological tools such as software packages. Examples of descriptions of such software implementations were provided by Choy, Lee, and Lo (2004, p.191), by Humphreys, Huang, and Cadden (2005, p.147), and by Lau et al. (2005, p.61).
Library Management Literature
Libraries, like other organizations described in the general managerial literature, must deal with vendors and hence must assess both potential and ongoing vendor relations. While the scholarly library literature contains few descriptions of general vendor assessment approaches, it does contain many descriptions of specific approaches to evaluating particular types of library vendors. First the general and then the specific vendor type approaches will be described below.
General Strategies for Assessing Library Vendors
There are two often-cited classic articles in the library literature of vendor assessment. Alessi listed relevant criteria for selecting new library vendors and evaluating the performance of on-going library vendors (1992, p.117). Barker’s account of a comprehensive library vendor evaluation project at the University of California, Berkeley provided methodological insights, both in establishing the goals of the evaluation and in carrying it out (1986, p.265). Barker’s article also provided helpful examples of vendor selections, coding, and adaptation of automated systems.
Lam described the practical details of optimizing spending and maximizing efficiency by librarians in their day-to-day dealings with vendors (2004, p.146). Lam explained how to set up a vendor assessment system using common spreadsheet software such as Excel and how to decide what items to monitor – commonly turnaround time, missing titles, discount rates, invoice accuracy, and quality. Lam’s advice is most suitable for assessing monograph vendors but could easily be applied to assessment of other vendors.
Walther gives some very general guidelines for evaluating all types of library vendors as well as offering insights into the decision of how many vendors a library will choose to contract with (1998, p.149). The thrust of this article, however, is in explaining library-vendor communications, a factor that cannot be discounted in an environment of complexity in products and services.
The journal Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory offered an issue on supplier performance and evaluation in 1994. Among the articles in that issue are some relating to general vendor evaluation. Black identifies the reasons why acquisitions librarians undertake vendor evaluation, and describes the organizational benefits of these assessments (1994, p.57). Crotty describes how the forces of change in library acquisitions impact vendor evaluations and offers practical suggestions for incorporating evaluation into a library’s workflow (1994, p.51). Dolby relates the assessment of vendor quality to the basic tasks of acquisition (1994a, p.45). Practical tips are provided for evaluating suppliers in a manual system (Roberts, 1994, p.71) and with automated systems (Kent, 1994, p.79). Dolby authored a second article which discusses interpretation of raw results and the advantages of preparing a formal evaluation report (1994b, p.89)
Approval Plan Vendor Assessment
Multiple strategies for evaluation of approval plan vendors can be found in the library literature. Brown has published articles about how academic librarians evaluate approval plan vendors in an environment where technological development is pervasive and approval plans offer a proliferation of new products and features. Brown, along with Forsyth, offer a very detailed article which reports the results of a survey which requested ratings of 79 criteria in approval plan vendor selection (1999, p.231). The criteria divide into 6 categories, ranked here from most important to least: corporate reputation and business practices; approval plan management expertise; acquisitions services; outsourcing of physical processing; outsourcing of cataloging; and electronic financial transactions. The article describes which criteria are most important to which kinds of academic institutions and provides data-driven hints for selecting an approval plan vendor (p.259-262).
In another article, Brown offers additional insights from the same survey of academic librarians who evaluate approval plan vendors (1998, p.341). Brown found differences in practices based on library budget size and based on the extent to which libraries use new vendor-offered services such as electronic financial transactions and outsourcing of physical processing and cataloging. Brown predicts that evaluation will change as these newer services become more sought by libraries.
More has been written on approval plan vendor selection and assessment. Carpenter described evaluation of approval plan vendors in an approach much simpler than that of Brown and Forsyth (1998, p.329). Carpenter simply relates the most important issues that Oberlin College Library found in evaluating its approval plan with a particular vendor, Blackwell. Carpenter also identified a number of other resources for identifying evaluation criteria, including a bibliography and an ALA guide. Approval plan vendor selection was also discussed as part of a presentation by Schatz and Baldwin in 1998.
Monograph Publisher Assessment
In 2000, Lewis assessed the quality of publishers of political science monographs by surveying librarian members of the Association of College and Research Libraries Law & Political Science section (p.313). This article could aid collection development librarians in the field of political science but is not otherwise useful for vendor assessment as it does not describe the criteria used by librarians in their evaluations.
Monograph Vendor Assessment
A standard guide cited in the library literature is the American Library Association’s Guide to Performance Evaluation of Library Materials Vendors (1988). The title is misleading because the guide’s scope is evaluation of in-print monograph vendors. The guide provides evaluation criteria and various approaches to statistical analysis, and is a good place to start when planning any evaluation process.
One of the few assessments of individual vendors within the scholarly library literature is Orkiszewski’s study of Amazon.com as a library book and media vendor (2005, p.204). Orkiszewski compared Amazon.com to the standard library vendors used by Appalachian State University on the issues of availability, pricing, predictability of discounting, fulfillment, and speed. The study shows that Amazon.com’s database is quite comprehensive, its system for ordering out-of-print copies is convenient, and it fulfills orders faster than typical library vendors. Amazon.com’s prices would have been 7.7% higher than those of typical library vendors had books and media of all types been ordered. However, Amazon.com offered certain types of materials at greater discounts than typical vendors, including books about art, computer science, home economics, and theater; trade books, especially recent best sellers; and DVD’s more than other formats.
Serials Vendor Assessment
A standard guide to assessment of serials vendors is the American Library Association’s Guide to Performance Evaluation of Serials Vendors (1997). This guide “describes the factors to be considered before beginning a review and explains criteria that may be utilized” (p.1). The guide, as well as its annotated bibliography, provides an excellent starting point for any library vendor assessment project. The guide notes that serials vendor evaluations have typically been conducted in crisis situations and recommends that serials vendor evaluation instead “be incorporated into the regular work flow and that clear objectives for vendor performance be established and communicated to vendors” (p.1).
Additional strategic choices in serials vendor selection and evaluation are discussed by Bonk (1985, p.51), Derthick (1986, p.1), McDonough (1991, p.221), and Kent (1994b, p.83). Bonk’s article is much cited and discusses both the analysis necessary to devise a serials vendor evaluation and the criteria to consider. Derthick describes the criteria upon which members of the Association of Research Libraries base their vendor selection. McDonough offers a weighted criteria plan for serials vendor performance studies and reviews objective and subjective criteria to consider in the process. Kent focuses the assessment process on just two factors: price and service.
Electronic Journal Vendor Assessment
There is considerable variety among electronic journal providers. The smallest vendors offer individual electronic journals, next are commercial publishers which offer their own journals, and biggest of all are distributors of electronic journals from multiple publishers. Pavelsek provides a checklist for evaluating providers of multiple electronic journals which will allow a clear picture of the products, features, and services offered (1998, p.39). Pavelsek applies this evaluation technique to two vendors: JSTOR, an archiving service that provides only back files, and Project Muse, a provider of current electronic journals.
Miscellaneous Vendor Assessments
The library trade journals offer additional advice about contracting with vendors of other kinds of services. Libraries which are considering contracting with a vendor to provide digital reference services should look at Hirko’s article to learn about criteria for assessing these services (2002, p.16). Evaluation criteria for document delivery suppliers are discussed by Jackson (2004, p.242) and Walters (1994, p.14). Bridge briefly describes the use of site visits and demonstrations as techniques for selecting a library automation vendor (1993, p.56). A current and much more thorough, book-length treatment of evaluation of library networked services is provided by Bertot (2004).
Summary
Many of the articles in the library literature of vendor assessment provide general ideas and areas to consider in the evaluation process. Pavelsek (1998, p.40), however, argues that vendors should be evaluated using prescribed guidelines so that decisions can be better informed. Such precise guidelines are not often found, with even fewer guidelines able to accommodate new criteria necessary to evaluate rapidly changing vendor programs and services. Librarians should begin a vendor assessment project by reviewing the ALA’s Guide to Performance Evaluation of Library Materials Vendors, which mainly addresses monograph vendor assessment, and the ALA’s Guide to Performance Evaluation of Serials Vendors. Practitioners seeking guidance will find little direct assistance from general managerial literature but will find helpful articles in the library literature for both practical and intellectual strategies for evaluation of most types of vendors now working with libraries.
References
