Tabbloid #4: 15 Oct 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More lmsmash

One blogpost of note which just missed being included in the round up of news from last week was #YOCALCAT's final report blogpost which Helen Westmancoat valiantly managed to finish before heading off for a well-earned break. It will of course be included in next week's Tabbloid but here's a link just in case you can't wait: http://yocalcat.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/yocalcat-final-progress-post/

There are some really useful reccomendations and conclusions for other institutions who might go down the WorldCat Local route in the future. Some of those lessons will be equally useful for any project which involves change that impacts on the library e.g. "Ensure that all staff are involved with the processes whether on the acquisitions and cataloguing side or are involved in preparing material for induction."

Being relatively diminutive in terms of their size has clearly been a major challenge for York St John so it will be interesting to see how other larger libraries get on with adopting WorldCat Local in the future.

Tabbloid #3: 8 Oct 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More lmsmash

Last week's round up of JISC LMS blogposts was slim in terms of pages but weighty in terms of content. The stand out points for me were:

- The #VUFINDKEVEN team at Kent had to deal with an overloaded server which was caused by a "carelessly placed tome of Blackstone’s Statutes" which had been left on the OPAC terminal keyboard. Their tale of woe has inspired me to invent the 'Blackstone Principle' which is a sister of Murphy's Law and states that not everything that will go wrong can be anticipated or tested for.

- The #CULWIDGETS team proved once again that a picture can say a thousand words ... their Google Analytics graph shows that usage of their widget has taken off in a most pleasing manner now that the students are back on campus. They're hoping to get 2,000 unique users a month by Xmas so it will be interesting to see how the graph alters as each month passes.

- The #AQUABROWSERUX blog delivered another admirably thorough post - the focus of this one was on interview-based tasks vs pre-defined scavanger hunt tasks, the article argues that the interview-based task gives more valid results but that you sacrifice the opportunity for quantitative results ... in the past I've worked on projects which have successfully blended both approaches within a test session so I'd be interested in hearing other people's experience too.

- Both the #JANGLEFB and the #VUFINDKEVEN blogs gave their reflections on the Programme meeting which was held in Glasgow last month. It is encouraging that they both found the two day event useful for the realisation that other projects are facing the same challenges that they're facing. Hopefully this blog and the forthcoming thematic events will continue to provide that useful function.