Add ‘pedia’ to clone
Doctors, nurses and medical researchers now have a new place to play on the web. Here they can spill the beans about what they know, receive status-enhancing international recognition (without throwing a tantrum at Hong Kong airport), post their research papers, and help create an online medical encyclopaedia. It’s an exclusive kind of club because you have to have a Ph.D. to edit the knowledge base. It’s called Medpedia. And it’s Here.
Have we been misled?
Conventional wisdom and an army of evangelists tell us that open access results in wider dissemination of scientific papers. But the NSF, reported in Science, argues that this logic might just be wrong. On average, when an article was published online after being in print for a year, its use increased 8 percent. But when they were published online commercially, usage increased by about 12 percent? Find out why on here
The Top stories of 2008
If Mrs Obama, like Mrs Bush, had strong library connections, she might have made the top ten. This year the weighty issues reported by the Library Journal Academic Newswire were very serious stuff indeed. From university libraries sued by publishers and Harvard’s OA mandate, to copyright in the digital age and what to do about orphan works: these stories dominated the headlines and the thoughts of librarians. The top ten is on this page.
No hijacking traditional knowledge
India’s traditional knowledge sources have been carefully guarded. But now, the European Patent Office has access to its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. Packed with ancient medical knowledge, the database offers translations of manuscripts and books in five languages. Patent examiners will use the TKDL to evaluate patent applications especially those seeking to patent traditional knowledge as new inventions. Read more here.
Uncovering archives and rare photographs
Searching for photos in large and heavily populated collections is not the easiest of tasks. But that is about to change because using the Getty Research Institute’s Archivist Toolkit, researchers can access GRI archives previously out of reach. They include the Asia and Orientalism collection and 26,000 rare 19th and 20th century photographic prints.
See the photo on this page.
Preventing collective alzheimer’s
All countries value their national heritage, especially their written heritage. That’s why we have libraries and archives. But not all countries are able to collect and provide the long term preservation and storage these documents need. Happily, Singapore does. And even though it is a relatively young country, it takes seriously the collection of heritage items.
As you can see on this page.
Saving the past for the future
Owners of historic collections have been cautious about digitizing often because of copyright questions. Now Dutch libraries and rights holders have struck an agreement with a Digitisation of Public Heritage Committee. Libraries, under certain conditions, will receive permissions from rights holders to digitize their collections and make them publically available for teaching and research. You need a similar agreement in Singapore or Hong Kong?
Turn to this page for the details.
Will we need a mobile phone for everything?
A survey of internet folk certainly thinks so. They disagree on whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives. The report, Future of the Internet III, reflects the views of 580 leading internet activists plus 620 stakeholders. What are their predictions? The oracles speak on
this page.
LeapFish. What kind of a name is that?
If you think it’s about sharks and salmon. Wrong. That it bears some resemblance to what it does. Wrong again. But then, who’d have known that Google does what it does just by hearing its name? In this case Google and LeapFish share the same vision: searching the web. LeapFish, we’re told, is a multidimensional search engine, click free, that delivers results as you type. Hmm. That certainly is different. Jump to
this page for more.
And another odd name
Except this one, esoteric as it is, really fits the bill. At first hearing you might think of little people, fairies and leprechauns. Or photography and visual arts. We’re sure too that Singapore’s President who launched SMU’s digital library, grabbed his dictionary or searched LeapFish. He certainly would have approved of the definition. As will you when you turn to this page.
Chinese science in the public domain
China is the world’s second largest publisher of scientific papers, much of it new to researchers and underused. That is about to change now that Deep Web Technologies has enabled the addition of Chinese publications to WorldWideScience.org. With the addition of a subset of massive databases held by ISTIC, users can search more than 6,000 journals. The outcome will be greater visibility for Chinese research, increased citation rates and better understanding of Chinese research. this page has more.
Information literacy debated at University of Malaya
Contributed by Charlotte Gill and Rajen Munoo
The International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society, ICoLIS 2008, 17-20 November, Kuala Lumpur, celebrating Information Literacy (IL) and now in its second year, is an annual event organised by the Library and Information Science Unit, Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya and the University of Malaya Library. The theme for ICoLIS 2008 was Towards an Information Literate Society. Access the programme information here.
A series of pre-conference workshops precluded the main conference opening discussions by the keynote speaker, Dr Christine Bruce [Insert Picture 1 here] who spoke about IL and the lifelong learning imperative for educators which includes library and information workers.
Most of the papers presented were work-in progress research by Ph.D. students at the University of Malaya focussing on IL thematic areas such as measuring outcomes, assessments, the use of technologies and professional development. With a predominantly Asian representation (including papers from Iran and Saudi Arabia), ICoLIS 08 was beneficial as it brought to the fore regional research in IL. Thus, if one is looking for Asian IL content, then the University of Malaya’s Library and Information Science Unit is a useful contact point. Visit the website here.
Ms Charlotte Gill, Research Librarian, Law at the Li Ka Shing Library, a first time participant, found the keynote paper delivered on the second day, by Y.Bhg. Dato’ Dr Zaiton Osman, Library Consultant, Asia e-university & Principal Consultant, Paradigms Systems inspiring and practical. The speaker related how the University of Malaya’s model of a compulsory IL programme was integrated into the undergraduate curriculum and her experience of starting an online distance-learning based IL programme at the Open University in Malaysia.
The amount of resources required in conducting such a programme can be imagined from the photograph of their training room. [Insert Picture here Picture 2]. Ms Gill, herself realised the trials and tribulations of integrating a similar programme for her law students at the Li Ka Shing Library, taking back key learning points such as the need to create a blended IL model that makes use of technology as this helps reduce trainer fatigue.
Ms Rashmi Lad, Head, Instructional Services & Assistant Director, Humanities Librarian (English Literature) at Lee Wee Nam Library, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, shared NTU’s experience of integrating IL programmes into the undergraduate curriculum using an instructional matrix. There are four levels and they target different aspects: 1. Awareness – focus on library resources, 2. Subject Specific – scholarly communication, databases specific, 3. Research Tools – research methodology, 4. Tools – Internet, Google, etc. By using a structured approach, tailoring subject specific programmes and making users realise the relevance of IL training through clever marketing, the NTU team have enjoyed a good measure of success getting faculty on board and students into the classroom. One of the positive challenges that has arisen is meeting the overwhelming demand for IL courses.
Training Room at the University of Malaya.
Left to right: Rajen Munoo, Research Librarian, Li Ka Shing Library, Singapore; Ranaweera Prasanna, Senior Lecturer, National Institute of Library & Information Sciences; Bobbie Newman, Digital Services Librarian, Missouri River Regional Library, USA.
Conference participants: Prof. Christine Bruce 2nd left, Prof Diljit Singh, 1st left.
Emerging technologies such as Web 2.0 applications were also covered during the conference by Bobbie Newman, Digital Services Librarian, Missouri River Regional Library, USA. The co-author of this article also presented a paper on New Media Literacy developments in Singapore. Both presenters highlighted the need to take note of and embrace new media applications such as blogs, wikis, rss, and pod-and vodcasting. The underlying message was the need to evaluate the information in these applications which are merely ‘containers’ and conduits.
Participants who attended the two post conference workshops benefitted hands-on from Bobbie Newman’s workshop on applying Web 2.0 applications by creating a blog. The other workshop, First Steps in Becoming a Super Searcher, conducted by Ruth Pagell, University Librarian and Rajen Munoo from the Li Ka Shing Library, equipped participants with information search skills which are critical for information literacy.
The welcome announcement of the establishment of the Centre for Information Literacy at the Library and Information Science Unit, bears testimony to the dedication by the unit at the University of Malaya to foster research, scholarship and communication in Information Literacy together with the continued annual ICoLIS conference.
“There were a number of good presentations and I left feeling motivated that there were others who were facing similar challenges and yet remain undeterred and passionate about getting the IL message across. I believe we have important roles to play in education and in developing future independent, informed, lifelong learners as Dr Christine Bruce described at the beginning of the conference,” noted Ms Gill, first time participant at the conference.
Contributed by Charlotte Gill, Research Librarian, Law, Rajen Munoo, Research Librarian, Training, Li Ka Shing Library, Singapore Management University.
Add ‘pedia’ to clone
Doctors, nurses and medical researchers now have a new place to play on the web. Here they can spill the beans about what they know, receive status-enhancing international recognition (without throwing a tantrum at Hong Kong airport), post their research papers, and help create an online medical encyclopaedia. It’s an exclusive kind of club because you have to have a Ph.D. to edit the knowledge base. It’s called Medpedia. And it’s 
