Session 3 – Great Room A: “Service Innovations Across the Spectrum”

Moderator: Dr. Renate Chancellor, Clinical Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America

Reading Promotion for Children and Young Adults: How Web 2.0 Tools Influence a New Generation of Readers
Jessica Zeiler, Amidon-Bowen Elementary School; Sung Un Kim, Catholic University of America

The rapid advancement of media technology has had a great impact on the way people communicate and network as daily activities. The purpose of this study is to examine people’s interactions through social media for reading promotion. In this paper, social media is defined as “an aspect of the internet which allows individuals and groups to create and publish online content, share the content, and interact about it” (Lusk, 2010), including social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook and MySpace, blogs, microblogs, such as Twitter, wikis, tools for sharing photos and videos, such as Flickr and YouTube, online gaming, and virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

Reading promotion for children and young adults involves largely three distinct groups; (1) the creators, including authors and publishers, (2) intermediaries, including teachers, librarians and parents, and (3) the intended audience of children and young adult readers. Social media allows these three groups to generate reading-related materials by themselves and facilitates their dynamic interactions not only between the groups but within each one.

This paper aims to examine how these different types of group interact with each other using social media for reading promotion. Their interactions will be analyzed with specific examples of social media programs. In addition, the benefits and concerns of using social media for children and young adults’ reading promotion and its potential improvements will be discussed with suggested guidelines.

Adaptive Services in Libraries
James Timony, Rose Asuquo, District of Columbia Public Library

What can libraries do to ensure that patrons with disabilities are provided with equitable library services? Some of the ways that this is done at the Adaptive Services Division of the DC Public Library are to provide technologies, provide training on available technologies, and encourage peer-to-peer networking in the community. This presentation draws on the Adaptive Services Division’s experience in making Library services accessible to residents of the District of Columbia; and shows how the Division has transformed from a library space into a community by bringing people together to encourage innovations geared towards accessibility.  Emphasis will be placed on the Adaptive technologies, trainings and events programming as a model for expanded library services to people with disabilities. The presentation will also highlight what we have achieved, the lessons learned and our future plans at the Adaptive Services Division with the hope of increasing interest in the field of library services for the disabled.

Documenting Research Output: Innovative Services for Scholars
Alvin Hutchinson, Smithsonian Institution

Increasingly, scholars are able to access research publications with minimal assistance from librarians. Institutional repositories, online booksellers, single-article purchase as well as a network of scholars who maintain and freely share their digital reprints means that the provision of research publications has become largely self-service. In response, librarians are beginning to develop new services or face the prospect of becoming obsolete. One philosophy is to embed the librarian in the scholarly workflow outside of simply purchasing or otherwise obtaining publications. This presentation/poster/paper will describe a service whereby the research output of a scholarly institution (Smithsonian) is documented and re-used in several ways and for several audiences. These include research assessment for Institutional administration, creating custom publication lists dynamically for individual or departmental web pages, and generating metadata for an institutional repository to enable mediated deposit on behalf of authors. This is one example of an expansion of library services beyond traditional publication acquisition, storage and access.

Session 4– Great Room C: “Information Systems Innovation Across the Spectrum”

Moderator: Dr. Bill Kules, Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America

Digital Archival Representation: A Typological Study
Jane Zhang, Dayne Mauney, Catholic University of America

Archival materials are traditionally arranged and described based on the principle of provenance and original order. The principle is embodied in a multi-level hierarchical representation system which has been formalized in Encoded Archival Description (EAD), an encoding standard for creating online searchable archival finding aids. With more and more archival and special collection materials being digitized and presented online, how well does the traditional hierarchical system accommodate the representation and discovery needs of digital archival records and special collection materials? Are there any new information representation systems that emerge from digital archival practices? How would the new and the old systems get along? What are the theoretical underpinnings of the newly-emerged digital archival representation systems, if any?

Supported by a CUA Grant-in-Aid research fund, the authors of this study conducted a systematic search and analysis of online digital collections in Summer 2011 in an attempt to address these questions. The study has been conducted in two steps. The first step focuses on digital collections put online by archives and special collections; and the second step focuses on digital archival collections selected from the sample pool identified in the first step. The research has identified various digital representation trends that have emerged from digital library and archival practices. In this proposed co-presentation, Dayne Mauney will discuss patterns emerging in the use of open source and non-open source software systems for digital object management in archives and special collections; and Jane Zhang will discuss emerging typologies of digital archival representation systems and their theoretical and practical implications.

Information Architecture: An Investigation of the History & Evolution of Two Communities of Professional Practice
Liane Cooper, Catholic University of America

Popular publications and some textbooks today simplify the definition and scope of Information Architecture (IA) – limiting their focus on methods, activities and concepts to the generation and maintenance of websites. Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld and others recognize that some information architecture practitioners today may have grown into IA from other diverse but mature disciplines such as Graphic Design, Information Design, Library & Information Science, Journalism, Usability Engineering, Marketing, Computer Science, Technical Writing, Architecture, and Product Management. They have indicated that there may be "dozens of established fields from which we can learn." (Morville & Rosenfeld, 2007) In 2011, we know that IA practitioners have driven the discipline beyond creative, innovative and informative websites to enterprise-wide information structuring via frameworks of information and access systems encompassing data, applications, technology (including communications) and the web. With this more expansive role across large and complex organizations, Information Architects are now actively leading management and stakeholders in strategic planning, systems implementation and program governance.

The purpose of this study and survey was to better understand the evolving tools, techniques, principles, and methods used in this evolving professional discipline. We will present and discuss the findings of our survey of 42 IA professionals, which examined:

• How do current practitioners see their role in the field of Information Architecture?
• To what extent do they play a role at the enterprise or organizational level?
• What characteristics and backgrounds are common to practitioners (education, training, mentoring)?
• What do practitioners consider to be important skills, tools and methods in their day-to-day practice?
• Where do these practitioners practice – what sectors; government, public, private, or small business?
• What skills or attributes do these practitioners view as keys to their success?

QR Codes in Libraries: Bridging the Gap Between Print and Electronic
Jacob Berg, Trinity Washington University

QR, or Quick Response, codes appear on products, advertisements, and labels, among other places. Scanning a QR code with a QR reader, commonly found on smartphones and in their app stores, takes a user to a website, an email address, or text with additional information about what was scanned. QR codes are free, costing only time, and are integral to creating a modern library that is comfortable with smartphones and other technologies. This briefing will focus on how libraries can engage patrons and bridge the gap between print and electronic materials via QR codes, using case studies from multiple libraries to show conference attendees what becomes possible by using QR codes. Having QR codes in a library makes it possible to link print and electronic serials, stacks to subject guides, and create interactive scavenger hunts, among other possibilities.