In 2010, after two previous unsuccessful attempts at electronic resources management system (ERMS) implementation, Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries set out once again to find an ERMS that would fit its needs. After surveying the field, TAMU Libraries selected the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries-developed, open-source ERMS,…

Academic, government, and corporate librarians organize and leverage internal resources and content through institutional repositories and library catalogs. Getting more value and usage from the content they license is a key goal. However, the ever-growing amount of content and shifting user demands for new materials or features has made the…

Purpose: Presently, searching the internet for learning material relevant to ones own interest continues to be a time-consuming task. Systems that can suggest learning material (learning objects) to a learner would reduce time spent searching for material, and enable the learner to spend more time for actual learning. The purpose of this paper is…

Librarians build collections. To do this they use tools that help them identify, organize, and retrieve items for the collection. Zotero (zoh-TAIR-oh) is such a tool that helps the user build a library of useful books, articles, web sites, blogs, etc., discovered while surfing online. A visit to Zotero's homepage, www.zotero.org, shows a number of…

Auraria Library purchased Innovative Interfaces, Inc.'s Millennium Electronic Resources Management (ERM) to manage data about acquisitions, licensing, troubleshooting, and usage statistics of electronic resources. After 3 days of implementation, the software vendor enabled resources records to display. As a result, the electronic resources team…

Darien Library, where the author serves as head of knowledge and learning services, launched a new website on September 1, 2008. The website is built with Drupal, an open source content management system (CMS). In this article, the author describes how she and her colleagues overhauled the library's website to provide an open source content…

Higher Education institutions in the United States are considering Open Source software applications such as the Moodle and Sakai course management systems and the Kuali financial system to build integrated learning environments that serve both academic and administrative needs. Open Source is presumed to be more flexible and less costly than…

In this article, the author argues the need for transparency with regard to the automation systems used in libraries. As librarians make decisions regarding automation software and services, they should have convenient access to information about the organizations it will potentially acquire technology from and about the collective experiences of…

In this article, the author describes his experience when Kathy Nichols contacted him seeking suggestions, recommendations--really anything he could think of--that might help her seize control of a bewildering and rapidly surging torrent of digital image files. The challenges that Nichols described interested him, and he felt they might be…

Over the past several decades, millions of digital objects of significant scientific, economic, cultural, and historic value have been published and distributed to libraries and archives on removable media. Providing long-term access to these documents, media files, and software executables is an increasingly complex task because of dependencies…

Silverplatter's Electronic Reference Library (ERL) provides wide area network access to its databases using TCP/IP communications and client-server architecture. ERL has two main components: The ERL clients (retrieval interface) and the ERL server (search engines). ERL clients provide patrons with seamless access to multiple databases on multiple…

Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML) is an emerging format that allows for the creation of customized research packages to push to patrons. It is a way to gather collections of Web resources (links, RSS feeds, multimedia files), organize them as outlines, and publish them in a format that others can share and even subscribe to. In this…

Librarians must get the most for their money and look to technology for new solutions. Several respondents think poor budgets mean more reliance on online databases and electronic full texts with less purchase of print. Companies that produce both media are likely to continue as long as there is a market for both, but they are gearing up for the…

Describes a digitization project at the public library in Crawfordsville, Indiana that was designed to preserve their local history collection. Highlights include damage to the collection from fire, termites, use, and age; selecting a scanner and software; creating databases; and making information accessible on the Web. (LRW)

Discusses the availability of full-text periodical archives on the World Wide Web. Highlights include digitized photographs and other images, in addition to text, costs, the use of search engines, and a list of Web sites. (LRW)