Library News for MCT

Having used quite a range of computers in both my working and personal life, (including those using punched cards, magnetic strips or paper tape and my ZX Spectrum still in the loft) I assumed examples would always be kept somwhere.  Not so, according to an article in New Scientist.  (See picture 11 in their gallery of vintage computers if you want to see what Google started with.)  Lack of funding and the pace of technological change are cited as a couple of factors in this neglect of computing history. 

Library Services has the following online tutorials for OU students and staff for October: 

Introduction to Library Services: 3rd October, 10am; 10th October, 10am; 12th October, 12:30pm
How to find an ebook: 27th October, 12pm 
How to find an ejournal: 7th October, 10am
How to set up ejournal alerts: 3rd October, 10am; 20th October, 1pm
Introduction to bibliographic management: 30th October, 11:30am
Masters in Education: literature searching: 9th October, 11am
Finding information in Business & Management: 19th October, 12pm
Finding information in Psychology: 23rd October, 3pm 

Please register for these online sessions by going to the Library Information Literacy Area of the VLE.  On this website you will also find the learning outcomes for these sessions, a link to training on the interface and you will be able to check if you have the right software to access Elluminate.

During a briefing from three members of the library staff who attended the ALT-C 2009 conference in Manchester recently, I was intrigued to learn of a new distinction between users of technology to the usual ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants.  It may be more useful to view users as ‘Residents’ or ‘Visitors’.   For a Resident, the technology is embedded in their life and facilitates their relationships in the online environment,  whereas Visitors view the technologies more as tools to achieve a specific goal.   Which one are you?  Are you a Resident in one area and just Visit another?  Another interesting issue was that of your personal identity.  It was suggested that it is better to take control of the information that can be found about you online by putting it there yourself  rather than being at the mercy of what others write.  Blogging is a good way to do this or Tweeting (but with the usual caution over the content of the message.)    Have you checked what is online about you recently?                   

An archive of video clips from the Tomorrow’s World series of programmes, which ran from 1965, is now available from the BBC.  A clip from 1967 describes Europe’s first ‘home computer terminal’  and asks ”Can we expect a computer like this in every home in the future? Time will tell.”  Two years later schoolchildren are using a computer called Nellie which can solve equations and ‘even play music’.  But they also learn computer maintenance for the inevitable crashes.

The 2009 Royal Society Science book award was won on 15th September by The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes.  The book describes the work of scientists in the eighteenth century such as Joseph Banks.  Other contenders for the award included Your Inner Fish which, amongst other things, explains why we hiccup (to do with gills) and Decoding the Heavens which is about the world’s first computer (possibly) – the 2000 year old Antikythera mechanism found in a shipwreck off Greece.

If you are a Google user did you notice the bigger search box and change in font size last week?  According to the Google blog this is so you can see your search terms better.  Any suggestions under the results are also in a larger font size.  The uncluttered Google home page  has hardly changed at all over the years except for the logo when it features different artwork.  Google also received a patent in the U.S. last week for its homepage design but this won’t apply in the U.K. as there is no actual technical innovation to patent.

The Library has a subscription to download ASTM Standards in full text for staff and full-time research students.  Please search ASTM.org to locate the standard you are interested in.  You can also browse by area of interest.  Click the title of the standard to see a short description and its scope to help you decide if you have located the standard you require.  Make a note of the exact Standard number, and then email the Library Helpdesk or Fiona Bowtell.  This is a limited subscription, and a Librarian needs to download the standard.

If you like to have a few books at your fingertips then the new Sony book readers (Reader Touch and Reader Pocket) should suit you.  Although the Pocket Edition can only store 350 books the Touch can hold up to 13,000.  You can highlight and annotate text and look up words.  Both readers and books are available through Waterstone’s in September.   The Kindle book reader from Amazon is due in the UK soon as well which may rival Apple’s iPod Touch which also has a book reader function. 

Have you searched Google Books? Do you use Google Books for research or to check book information?  Google Books: a Metadata Train Wreck is a long post on the Language Log blog but well worth reading.  Some of the ‘errors’ (millions according to Google itself) which have been made are amusing (Sigmund Freud’s book on the Mosaic internet browser anyone?)  but there is a serious underlying message about the trust users put in Google.  The post raises the question of just how much the Google engineers should be trusted with all the decisions about metadata given the lack of commercial incentives and contracts.  The errors are being corrected but it is a story to make a cataloguer weep.

The new home page went live today (1st September).  The page is designed to be clearer and easier to navigate following feedback from students and staff and website usage information.  You can quickly link to popular pages from the Recommended Links section on the right.  There is also a search facility on the home page itself.  There are separate tabs to choose a Catalogue or website search instead.  If you have any comments on the new design and navigation do leave a comment on the library blog.