Laura M. Bartolo

Border crossing in a research university: An exploratory analysis of a library approval plan profile of Geography

Abstract As researchers continue to probe across disciplinary boundaries in their work, it is essential for research libraries to support their need to consult, learn, and analyze information resources that are far afield. This support is increasingly difficult to provide during fiscally tight periods yet todays stretched economic climate may help libraries facilitate cooperative ventures where they might occur. Our exploratory study reports on a university-wide collection monograph approval profiling project undertaken in a research library and focuses on the results with its Geography Department. Analysis of the approval profile for books to be purchased by Geography for its faculty and students can provide guide-posts to actively nurture interdisciplinary information environments within and across disciplinary boundaries.

Four birds with one stone: collaboration in collection development

AbstractThis paper reports on a collections development project undertaken by the Kent State Libraries and the School of Library & Information Science. The goal of the project was the re-drafting of collection profiles in anticipation of a changeover to a new vendor, Yankee Book Peddler (YBP). Collaboration was actually four-fold involving librarians, MLS students taking the collections course, faculty representatives from most academic units, and representatives of YBP. Participants met on several occasions to review titles purchased and to prepare new profiles. Personnel from YBP provided instruction for librarians and students in use of the company’s online selection management software, and students prepared both instructions for faculty representatives in the use of this software and reports on other aspects of the project. The paper assesses progress made and the overall value of the project to all concerned. It also anticipates potential future collaborative efforts that will serve both work and ed...

Automated ILL analysis and collection development: A hi-tech marriage of convenience

Microcomputers and database management packages reduce the difficulties of collecting and analyzing ILL requests. This article examines earlier ILL/collection development studies to identify important ILL record elements for collection analysis. Further, this article reports on the results of a telephone survey of available ILL database management packages to determine whether the elements considered important in the earlier manual studies are being included in these new software packages. The article concludes that through the use of ILL database management packages, ILL activity analysis can be easily incorporated into ILL workflow and quickly passed along to subject selectors.

Cross-disciplinary molecular science education in introductory science courses: an nsdl matdl collection

This paper discusses a digital library designed to help undergraduate students draw connections across disciplines, beginning with introductory discipline-specific science courses (including chemistry, materials science, and biophysics). The collection serves as the basis for a design experiment for interdisciplinary educational libraries and is discussed in terms of the three models proposed by Sumner and Marlino. As a cognitive tool, the library is organized around recurring patterns in molecular science, with one such pattern being developed for this initial design experiment. As a component repository, the library resources support learning of these patterns and how they appear in different disciplines. As a knowledge network, the library integrates design with use and assessment.

Impact: the last frontier in digital library evaluation

The NSF-funded National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is engaged in an ongoing discourse about digital library evaluation. The Educational Impact and Evaluation Standing Committee (EIESC) has successfully identified desirable features in digital libraries such as usability and usage, but the hardest measure is impact. What is the impact of a DL? Members of the EIESC have engaged in pilots and feasibility studies using bricolage (a blend of qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluation), and these activities are moving NSDL toward a richer understanding of impact

Large introductory science courses & digital libraries

Student self-assessment survey results indicate that a virtual lab experience improved understanding of many key laboratory learning objectives and that the Materials Digital Library (MatDL) has potential value in supporting a virtual lab

Use of MatML with software applications for e-learning

This pilot project investigates facilitating the development of the semantic Web for e-learning through a practical example, using materials property data markup language (MatML) to provide materials property data to a Web-based application program. Property data for 100 materials is marked up with MatML and used as an input format for an application program. Students use the program to generate graphs showing selected properties for different materials. Selected graphs are submitted to the materials digital library (MatDL) so that successive classes may be informed by earlier work to encourage new discoveries.

Bricoleurs: exploring digital library evaluation as participant interactions, research, and processes

The NSF-funded National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is working to develop community-based processes for implementing shared evaluation goals and instruments among its distributed library network to examine library usage, collections growth, and library governance processes. The bricoleur modality of evaluation research is one that integrates scientific methods as well as humanistic values. These activities are helping to provide the foundation for the development of a scientific program of digital library evaluation that crosses disciplinary boundaries.

NSDL MatDL: adding context to bridge materials e-research and e-education

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Materials Digital Library Pathway (MatDL) has implemented an information infrastructure to disseminate government funded research results and to provide content as well as services to support the integration of research and education in materials. This poster describes how we are integrating a digital repository into opensource collaborative tools, such as wikis, to support users in materials research and education as well as interactions between the two areas. A search results plug-in for MediaWiki has been developed to display relevant search results from the MatDL repository in the Soft Matter Wiki established and developed by MatDL and its partners. Collaborative work with the NSDL Core Integration team at Cornell University is also in progress to enable information transfer in the opposite direction, from a wiki to a repository.

NSF NSDL Materials Digital Library & MSE Education

The National Science Foundation created the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) in order to establish a technical, communal, and organizational framework for access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. As part of the NSDL, the Materials Digital Library (MatDL) Pathway focuses specifically on serving the materials science (MS) community with a target audience that includes MS undergraduate and graduate students, educators, and researchers. MatDL is a collaborative effort involving the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Kent State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Iowa State University, and Purdue University. Our network of collaborations also includes a Nanoscience Interdisciplinary Research Team, Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and International Materials Institute. A primary goal of MatDL is to bring materials science research and education closer together. MatDL provides innovative uses of digital libraries and the web as educational media in the MS community with particular emphasis on providing: 1) tools to describe, manage, exchange, archive, and disseminate scientific data 2) workspace for open access development of modeling and simulation tools 3) services and content for virtual labs in large undergraduate introductory science courses, and 4) workspace for collaborative development of core undergraduate MS teaching resources for emerging areas. This paper will provide an overview of the NSDL MatDL Pathway, details about specific aspects of the project, as well as interactions between research and education.