E-Book Collections are taking off in libraries and private subscriptions, but how to they compare? What follows is a work in progress based on perceptions of the Librarians at Drexel University’s Hagerty Library of the e-book platforms we use. It was created for a presentation to faculty about the growing e-book options available through the Library as part of the Institute on Innovation in Training and Teaching conducted by the Drexel Office of Information Resources and Technology, September 10-11, 2009.  (starting at slide 72)

E-Book Collections	In a Nutshell	Pros	Cons
	141 Medicine & Science Items	Lots of core medical textbooks, good graphics & basic definitions	No downloads, hard to print, must be online to use.
	8,284 Business & InfoTech Items in HTML	Depth of IT books in the “ITPro” collection.	No downloads, hard to print, must be online to use.
	32,000 Items on All topics	Breadth of collection. “PDF-like” hi-fidelity.	No downloads, hard to print, must be online to use.
	???	It’s free.	Some downloads, hard to print, must be online to use. Omits pages.
	1,576 Engineering Items in PDF	Depth of data in the handbooks. True PDF’s are downloadable.
	3,688 Engineering Items in PDF	Depth of data in the handbooks. True PDF’s are downloadable.
	18,643 Business & InfoTech Items in HTML	Breadth of collection . Not much else.	No downloads, hard to print, must be online to use.
	923 InfoTech Items in HTML	Core IT manuals from all main publishers. Code search option.	No downloads, hard to print, must be online to use.

Please help us evaluate Drexel’s electronic book collections and fill in the blanks below. Use the comment feature or email comments to siftar@drexel.edu.

Coming soon! A comparison of features in the following open-source EBook platforms…

ACLS Humanities Ebooks
Alex Catalog of Electronic Texts
Baen Free Library
Bartleby.com
Bibliomania
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Free On-line Library
Health Information for International Travel 2008
Internet Archive Texts
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Internet Public Library On Line Texts
Online Library of Literature
Perseus Digital Library
Project Gutenberg
University of California Press eScholarship Editions
University of Pennsylvania On-Line Books Library
University of Virginia Electronic Text Center

Why would I use an information science & technology encyclopedia? Let’s recall for a minute, why we liked encyclopedias so much back in middle school.  They cover all the big topics, provide all the core concepts, are written in accessible language and, with each entry at just a few pages in length, they are quick to read. Later in high school when you learned about bibliographies, you may have recognized that encyclopedias can be handy in directing you to the central books and articles on a topic through the list of references at the end of each entry. But, you might ask, how does this work for info sci & tech topics? My advice – Try it. You’ll like it! Links follow:

Titles include the following: (each title is linked to full-text)

Encyclopedia of database technologies and applications

Encyclopedia of decision making and decision support technologies

Encyclopedia of developing regional communities with information and communication technology

Encyclopedia of digital government

Encyclopedia of distance learning

Encyclopedia of e-collaboration

Encyclopedia of e-commerce, e-government, and mobile commerce

Encyclopedia of gender and information technology

Encyclopedia of human computer interaction

Encyclopedia of information ethics and security

Encyclopedia of information technology curriculum integration

Encyclopedia of Internet technologies and applications

Encyclopedia of knowledge management

Encyclopedia of mobile computing and commerce

Encyclopedia of networked and virtual organizations

Encyclopedia of portal technologies and applications

Encyclopedia of information communication technology

Encyclopedia of artificial intelligence

Encyclopedia of human resources information systems : challenges in e-HRM

Encyclopedia of healthcare information systems

Encyclopedia of data warehousing and mining

Encyclopedia of multimedia technology and networking 2009

Encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies

These are just the encyclopedias from the newly added collection of over 800 e-books on information systems & technology topics from the publisher IGI Global.  To see a full list of all the books, search the catalog for “igi” and choose the record for InfoSciBooks. Click on the little “i” in the circle for more information – all the new IGI books are linked from that following page.  Enjoy!

Why is “the first video-journal to ever be accepted for publication in PubMed” a big deal?    The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is an open-access journal that publishes videos of experiments and protocols in the biological and life sciences and offers its video-articles to science bloggers to illustrate their posts.  The journal managers say that PubMed’s decision is an “official acceptance” of the scientific community of new forms of communication.

And while you’re considering this turn of events, check out the Research Guide of Video and Images where our Library highlights options for enriching your teaching or course work. Note the growing list of Lab Science Video Sites such as:

LabAction –   Focuses on sharing biological techniques.
DnaTube –   Encourages scientists to upload videos of their studies, lectures and seminars
SciVee – A reputable virtual place where researchers can trade techniques without the potpourri of topics found on general video-sharing sites.

For non-lab researchers, see ResearchChannel.org -  Freely available, full length lectures and presentations from a consortium of major research universities.

Dust off your video camera!

TS

Video is the brave new world of web content. Who handles it well? Well let me ask you – how satisfied are you with the results of your YouTube search? Do you think it searches every word spoken in the video? I don’t think so. But imagine some day not too far in the future, you’ll be able to search every word spoken in every home-made YouTube video, along with every Hollywood blockbuster, every recorded faculty lecture and every newscast or radio program. Then just >click< and watch the video clips. It's inevitable...but we're not yet there.

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Some of you may have noticed how I’ve added a browser-based Meebo widget to my IST Research Guide pages recently. I really enjoy being able to offer quick, informal assistance this way. Users type in the bottom area and then the dialog appears up above. No IM client is required on your part – it happens all in the browser! One downside though, is that it’s not obvious to patrons when I step away from the monitor. And if I’m not here when you IM me … so much for the instantaneous aspect! So what are your options for getting a quick answer?

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So it might obvious from the dates on my recent posts that this blog has been undernourished lately. Considering all that’s going on at Hagerty Library this year, I’m lucky to do one posting per month! (Changes here will be the subject of another blog posting coming soon.) On the bright side, the benefit to you is I can batch the news and choose my words and instructions a bit more carefully.

My previous post was on new services. This one will focus on products. I’ll get up the outline first and then come backfill with more detailed instructions later. What I really enjoy sharing are anecdotes supplied by users who go ahead and experiment with the new toys. Feel free to email me any comments along those lines. The “comment” feature on this blog gets hit with so much robo-spam that real replies can get lost in the shuffle. But if you email, I’ll include them in an update. So… on with the show!

NEW PRODUCTS

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Re-posting from a listserv: Subject: [DIG_REF] “Cultural Image of Librarians”

This speaks for itself!

http://www.tk421.net/essays/nwyt.pdf

“This document provides both a discussion of images of librarians and a multitudes of examples of those images.”
[thanks to: Dr. John Jaeger Doctoral Research and Reference Librarian, Dallas Baptist University]

Wouldn’t want you to miss this! Several of the Librarians here collaborated on creating a poster that maps the range of tactics Drexel Libraries’ is pursuing to connect with the Millennials – or college student born after 1979. Science Librarian Peggy Dominy, Engineering Librarian Jay Bhatt, Assistant Librarian Josh Roberts and myself put this high level map together to illustrate how much we’ve changed in the last few years with a look at “library services then and now.” Wanted to mention that the design element of giving an attractive visualization to an otherwise loosely related list of initiatives was all Josh’s handiwork. Thanks Josh!

See the full poster in our digital repository HERE. I’ll post the abstract on the subsequent blog page just for fun. Enjoy!

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The Drexel student chapter of SLA aka “DUSLA” really made a mark at the last SLA Philly Board meeting! The Board convened to a full agenda May 9th, at the bucolic Radnor Township “Willows” historic mansion, just prior to the Spring Banquet.

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We always knew they were special. Now the rest of the university gets to hear about it as well!
(—from an internal faculty announcement—)

Faculty Recognition Dinner
Provost Stephen W. Director cordially invites you to attend the 2007 Faculty Recognition Dinner.
We are pleased to announce the following retirees and award winners who will be recognized at the event:

Retirees:
College of Information Science and Technology
Jackie Mancall

Award Winners 2007
Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence
Recipients: Denise Agosto – CIST

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