Alexa,Siri, Cortana,and More: An Introduction to Voice Assistants     

Matthew B. Hoy 《Medical reference services quarterly》2018,37(1):81-88

Voice assistants are software agents that can interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices. Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant are the most popular voice assistants and are embedded in smartphones or dedicated home speakers. Users can ask their assistants questions, control home automation devices and media playback via voice, and manage other basic tasks such as email, to-do lists, and calendars with verbal commands. This column will explore the basic workings and common features of today’s voice assistants. It will also discuss some of the privacy and security issues inherent to voice assistants and some potential future uses for these devices. As voice assistants become more widely used, librarians will want to be familiar with their operation and perhaps consider them as a means to deliver library services and materials.  相似文献   

我国公共文化场馆免费开放政策检视与反思     

陈庚  白昊卉 《中国图书馆学报》2018,44(3):52-65

以公共图书馆为例,运用文化权利、政策过程理论对我国公共文化场馆免费开放展开政策检视和反思。研究发现,免费开放政策取得重要成效,但亦存在问题:恒定的经费补贴量难以满足免费开放后文化供给量和服务量的增长;经费分担机制未完全落实;按行政层级设计的补贴标准难以关照到不同规模的公共图书馆需要;监督管理和考核评价机制缺失,政策激励约束不足。这主要是因为动态的政策调整和优化未能及时跟进,中央地方事权与支出责任划分不明确、支出责任与财力不匹配以及政策成本高于收益。因此,建议完善分类资助标准,设计多重综合标准;建立完善经费保障的动态调整机制,创新财政保障方式;建立绩效评价体系,形成激励约束机制。表2。参考文献27。  相似文献   

Retention Matters: Academic Libraries Leading the Way     

Silas M. Oliveira 《New Review of Academic Librarianship》2018,24(1):35-47

Academic libraries have always strived to be purposively involved in the university's mission attainment efforts. Today, the increase of retention levels is paramount, and, in many cases, it is at the center of higher education institution's strategic plans. For Andrews University, for example, the goal is to reach 80% in the next five years. In the United States, student retention efforts become even more critical due, in part, to declining enrollment numbers set off by soaring higher education costs. Academic librarians are aware of the library's role in the university's overall efforts to increase persistence rates and curtail attrition. Through a literature review, this article highlights how academic libraries are participating in this process. This study focuses on how academic libraries can be leaders in their Institutions by adopting a user-centered philosophy and services that will promote life-long learning, enhance students’ academic experience, and promote engagement, leading to retention.  相似文献   

Strength in Numbers: Encouraging Every Staff Member to Work to Capacity     

Cathy Oxley 《International Information and Library Review》2018,50(1):69-75

Libraries play a critical role in enhancing the learning landscape of the schools they support. In order for any library to become a powerhouse and a community meeting place, all library team members need to align with the library's vision, own it and begin to add their own strengths and talents purposefully. This article explores practical strategies for developing a visionary team, including supportive leadership, daily stand-up meetings, weekly staff meetings, special-focus teams, rostering and the “five conversations” approach. These effective strategies can be implemented across a broad range of library workforce contexts in order to ensure the most effective workforce teams are built.  相似文献   

On the same page: Improving the connection between public services units in academic libraries     

Elizabeth Marcus  Malti Turnbull 《College & Undergraduate Libraries》2018,25(2):101-109

Communication quality between public service units in academic libraries can make the difference between mediocre and exceptional service. If units do not communicate well, patrons may receive inaccurate information and experience short-term frustration, leading to long-term damage to the library's reputation. Poor communication creates adverse effects on employees through decreased productivity, negative work culture, and low morale. This article explores the importance of quality communication through a review of the literature and a case study at one academic library. The authors share practical communication improvement strategies for libraries of every size and fiscal ability.  相似文献   

Spatial Discovery of Linked Research Datasets and Documents at a Spatially Enabled Research Library     

Sara Lafia  Werner Kuhn 《Journal of Map & Geography Libraries》2018,14(1):21-39

Current publishing practices in academia tend to result in datasets that are difficult to discover. This is because datasets are not well-integrated across academic domains and they are often not linked to the documents that reference them. For these reasons, discovering datasets across domains can be challenging; for example, discovering archeological observations and biological specimens using the same search is not widely supported, even if both datasets share a similar spatial extent, like Mesoamerica. It is also challenging to retrieve relevant documents that reference datasets; for example, retrieving a series of field reports that reference archeological observations is typically not supported. Our work develops an extensible method for: (1) geographically integrating collections across disciplinary repositories and (2) connecting datasets to related documents. We describe a collection of spatially-referenced researcher datasets, capturing their metadata elements and encoding them as linked open data. We then leverage existing library services to formalize links from datasets to documents. The system described in this work has been deployed, resulting in an experimental open data site for the UCSB campus. Results indicate that this system can be scaled-up with support from an institutional repository in the near future.  相似文献   

The IR Has Two Faces: Positioning Institutional Repositories for Success     

John Novak  Annette Day 《New Review of Academic Librarianship》2018,24(2):157-174

This article describes the ongoing efforts at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries to evolve the role of the institutional repository (IR) and to effectively position it within the context of the Libraries’ collections, research support, and scholarly communication services. A major component of this process is re-examining the fundamental aims of the IR and aligning it to the Libraries and the campus strategic goals. The authors situate UNLV Libraries’ experience within the context of the current literature to provide background and reasoning for our decision to pursue two, at times conflicting, aims for the IR: one for scholarly communication and another for research administration.  相似文献   

Overhyped Fad or Missed Opportunity? A History of Academic Libraries and the Social Web     

Joseph Deodato 《Journal of Web Librarianship》2018,12(1):1-27

The emergence of social media has radically transformed the way we create and consume information. These changes have in turn given rise to new models of librarianship centered on principles of participation, interaction, and collaboration. Over the last decade, academic libraries have eagerly adopted social media as a means of enhancing services and connecting with a new generation of users. But how exactly has this technology changed libraries? In what ways has the social web transformed library services or our relationships with users? This article attempts to assess the impact of social media on academic libraries in the United States through a review of the literature published since 2005. In particular, it looks at how academic libraries have used social media to improve or develop new services. By comparing published case studies with the theoretical literature, this article seeks to separate theory from practice and determine the extent to which the social web has transformed library practice. The author concludes that, despite several noteworthy examples, the majority of social library applications ultimately fail to live up to the transformative potential promised within the literature and that this failure may have more to do with philosophical rather than technical limitations.  相似文献   

Correlates of staff motivation,satisfaction, and job performance of library staff in selected Nigerian University libraries     

Adeyinka Tella  Olamide Abigail Ibinaiye 《International Information and Library Review》2020,52(1):32-49

Abstract

This study examined staff motivation, satisfaction, and job performance among the librarians and library staff in six selected university libraries in Nigeria. The target population for the study includes the professionals and nonprofessional library staff. A total enumeration sampling technique was used to select 180 respondents, which represent the sample for the study. Data was collected using a self-designed questionnaire titled “Staff Motivation, Satisfaction and Job Performance Questionnaire” (SMSJPQ). Six research questions were developed and answered by the study. The results indicate that librarian and library staff are highly motivated with regular pay while the least motivational factor is frequent interaction with their friends. Library staff are primarily satisfied with their jobs when they are in constant link with their friends. Professional library staff significantly experience better work motivation than their nonprofessional counterparts. Significant correlation exists between staff motivation and job performance and between job satisfaction and job performance. In addition, the two factors (motivation and satisfaction) exert significant contribution to the determinant of librarians and library staff job performance. Based on the findings, the study recommended improvement in the level of motivation of nonprofessionals so that the significant difference with the professional counterpart would not be so much pronounced.  相似文献   

Mixed Reality Lab at Mississippi State University Libraries     

Derek H. Marshall  Joy DuBose  Pattye Archer 《Public Services Quarterly》2019,15(1):51-58

Virtual and Augmented Realities are advancing technologies that are becoming more popular in gaming and programming communities. However, virtual reality has been in development for decades. As libraries are often at the forefront of offering new and advancing technologies to their communities, virtual and augmented reality programs have become new additions to library services. While gaming is the prominent use of these technologies, virtual and augmented reality affords many educational opportunities. Mississippi State University Libraries have recently added a virtual/augmented reality lab as part of its library program.  相似文献