SFX, Information Needs, the Academic Library, and Its User

Introduction Libraries need an efficient way to manage their diverse electronic resources. At the same time, they need a tool that provides users with easy access to those digital items. Guaranteed simple and reliable access to full text sources (depending on existing subscriptions of course) is one of the main concerns of libraries in the digital age. The tool that supplied the solution to this problem is the OpenURL link resolver. (Ponsford, Stephens & Sewell, 2011). Today, SFX by Ex Libris is the most widely used OpenURL link resolver (Robertson &. Soderdahl, 2004). This article examines whether SFX can be used not only as a link resolver, but also as a tool for assessing user information needs. We shall review SFX\u27s contribution to the assessment of information needs in an academic library and its benefits to the users and to the library. Background Most commonly, link resolvers provide the library patron with the ability to move quickly from a citation in an abstracting and indexing database to the full text itself (Robertson &. Soderdahl, 2004). SFX and other link resolvers seamlessly offer links from one information resource to another. For example, users can jump from a citation in an abstracting and indexing source database to target resources, such as full-text articles, online catalogs, interlibrary loan or other options a library chooses to offer. The whole range of possible options is displayed in one menu, instead of having to perform multiple separate searches to locate what they are looking for. (Wakimoto, Walker & Dabbour, 2006). When integrating SFX software with Google Scholar, which is widely used by academics as one of the main gates to reliable academic sources, it enables users to search the library’s collection for e-journals, and eBooks, all through Google Scholar itself. Clicking on SFX icons in Google Scholar, the user is redirected to the SFX resolver, which displays links to the selected article that is a part of the library\u27s subscriptions elsewhere or displays other services related to the article, such as an interlibrary loan service or other function the library chose to offer. (Xu, 2010; Stowers& Tucker, 2009). SFX was first developed at the University of Ghent by Herbert Van de Sompel and was released as a commercial product by Ex Libris in 2001. SFX is an XML-based product that was not only built on the OpenURL framework, it was the technology for which OpenURL was originally defined and thus was the first OpenURL-based link resolver on the market. (Robertson & Soderdahl, 2004). Since 2001, for ten years now, SFX offers a wealth of features for end users and librarians at over 1800 institutions in more than 50 countries as ExLibris puts it. SFX offers its users four major benefits. First, it allows the retrieval of full text items that are part of the library\u27s subscriptions. Second, it enables users to find full text by its citation details without knowing in which database it is hosted. Third, if there is only a print option of the article available it will direct users to the library catalog for the holding information. In case the library doesn\u27t have the requested item, the interlibrary loan option will be suggested by the software. Last but not least, since 2009, SFX includes a recommender system, bX. By harvesting metadata from the SFX usage log files from all of the subscribing institutions, bX provides recommendations to articles. The bX recommendation service is similar to a commercial web site recommender. When a user searches for a specific article he gets a list of articles other users found interesting. This feature is very useful for users (Ponsford, Stephens, Sewell, 2011; Xu, 2010; Imler, 2011). SFX offers some crucial benefits for libraries, too. It not only helps to manage its electronic resources and provides smooth access to its customers, but also it allows librarians to learn a lot more about user information behavior and needs, using its unique features such as its statistical reports and more. The University of Haifa is located in the northern part of Israel, on Mount Carmel and across the Mediterranean Sea. The university community has about 18,000 students (bacholars, graduates, and PhD students) and over 1,200 faculty members. The Younes & Soraya Nazarian library is a central library which serves the entire university community. Its collection comprises more than 2 million books and electronic resources, among them 45,000 electronic journals. In January 2005, the library integrated the SFX software into its systems. The library experience with SFX and report analysis from the SFX log files will be used to demonstrate the potential advantage of SFX in the area of assessing information needs. How SFX Reveals and Satisfies the Academic User\u27s Information Needs The focus of this article is the contribution of SFX as a tool assisting the library to evaluate user information needs and satisfy some of them. This article will assess information needs by some of the parameters as first suggested by David Nicholas in 2000 and updated to the digital consumer by Nicholas & Herman in 2009 (Nicholas, 2000 ; Nicholas & Herman, 2009). SFX usage & statistical reports, produced at the Younes & Soraya Nazarian library of the University of Haifa, will be the source to the data presented according to these parameters

Best Practices for Research Analytics & Business Intelligence within the Research Domain

While an increased number of industries with business operations have been shaping their use of data analytics, the use of such tools and methods within the higher education research domain, specifically research administration, is still in its infancy. This mixed-methods study collected data to identify best practices in how universities and other research organizations use data analytics to drive their strategic agendas, create efficiency in operations, and promote complex research proposals throughout their institutions. Research methods included a survey to collect data on how research offices are using analytics and business intelligence tools, Rasch analysis (Rasch, 1993) to examine survey instrument quality and provide insights into the use of analytics and business intelligence tools in research offices, and interviews with research administrators and stakeholders to identify best practices in using data tools to impact their decisions, processes, and programming. Results from the Rasch analysis showed that except for two recommendations for individual scales, all survey scales exhibited satisfactory reliabilities and rating scale performance. Findings from interviews revealed best practices such as clear ownership and definitions of the data entry process, identified stewards of each of the high-level areas of data, and confirmed understanding of terms after data requests

CPA\u27s guide to the Internet

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1967/thumbnail.jp

CPA\u27s guide to the Internet

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1966/thumbnail.jp

Mapping the process of product innovation: Contextualising the 'black box' of computer and video games design

The academic literature hitherto has mainly addressed the 'effects' of video games and not their creation. The thesis seeks to gain an understanding of the motivations behind the design choices in creating home computer and video games software in light of this 'gap'. The research sought to understand the process of constructing games by examining: (i) the individual designer's aims and how these were mediated by the contexts of. - (ii) the development team and organisation; (iii) the needs of the audience and their presence in the innovation process and (iv) the impact of the hardware manufacturer's quality assessment upon the game's design. These aims were met by outlining the industry structure operating in the video games' market from the period between the early 1980s to mid-1990s. This was performed with reference to the rise of Sega and Nintendo's hardware and software strategy, covering their diffusion from Japan to the US and UK. This highlighted the context surrounding the creation of three computer games from initial concept to actual commodity that served as the subject of case study analysis. The discussion seeks to explore the implications of the choices made in designing the games and widens the debate to the creation of other games. It is argued that the design of games mirrors aspects similar to the creation of other entertainment media but possess certain problems associated with aesthetic conventions, labour, industry and technical issues unique to this medium. Consequently the thesis outlines certain dimensions that impinge'upon the process of product innovation in entertainment software. From a theoretical perspective the application of a social constructivist approach to the emergence of a leisure technology is a novel one and demonstrates the contingent nature of game design

Competing realities, diverse needs : an inter-disciplinary approach to religious engagement with HIV prevention and care

The World Health Organisation/ UNAIDS and the UK's HIV-related public health policies are premised on universal access to information, treatment and care. With a focus on wider determinants of health, such rights-based approaches and their associated commitment to consistent HIV prevention messages and effective care include also a requirement to be respectful of and sensitive to religio-cultural beliefs and practices. There is evidence that access to HIV information and care can be restricted by the moral codes, beliefs and teachings which determine some religious responses to HIV, those, for example, which address issues of sexuality and gender, identity and belonging, authority and power. With a particular interest in a UK context of religio-cultural diversity, this study asks whether existing strategic public health responses to HIV prevention and care are adequate to the multiplicity of psychosocial realities and needs of a diverse community. The study follows comparative interpretative approaches and draws on a range of theoretical perspectives, primarily those of sociology, anthropology and psychology. It identifies the potential for dialogical compatabilities between public health practice and practical theology. Gathering and analysing data and discourse this interdisciplinary, qualitative investigation examines religion-informed responses to HIV prevention and care. With a small-scale localised study positioning the content and authority of religious belief on responses to HIV prevention and care in a UK Midlands city of high religio- cultural diversity, the primary and secondary data are 'grounded' in the experience of a local community. In its tracing of the multiple realities of HIV in contexts of global and local religio - cultural diversity, the study finds that global dimensions of HIV touch the local in unavoidable and diverse ways Religion-defined identity and belonging are valued by people affected by HIV and the communities of which they are part, but the stigmatizing impact of HIV, often reinforced by religious beliefs and teachings, generates anxieties about the disclosure of a diagnosis, the initiation of open discussion and access to HIV information and care. Constraints on the access of sexual minorities, young people and women can raise particular concern. In situations of diverse need and contested reality quests for coherent meaning, identity and belonging confront a public health preference for consistent HIV health messages and for accessible and effective programmes of HIV information, support and care. The study evidences diverse and often competing perspectives on HIV and highlights the need for health and social care services and religious groups to have greater awareness of the extensive complexities which the realities of diversity bring to HIV prevention policy design and service delivery. Complexity theory and practical theology inform a new and integrative model for theological, epidemiological and public health partnering through which the inadequacies in both religion-informed responses to HIV and public health HIV prevention and care policy and service delivery can be addressed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Paradigm shift : how the evolution of two generations of home consoles, arcades, and computers influenced American culture, 1985-1995.

As of 2016, unlike many popular media forms found here in the United States, video games possess a unique influence, one that gained its own a large widespread appeal, but also its own distinct cultural identity created by millions of fans both here stateside and across the planet. Yet, despite its significant contributions, outside of the gaming's arcade golden age of the early 1980s, the history of gaming post Atari shock goes rather unrepresented as many historians simply refuse to discuss the topic for trivial reasons thus leaving a rather noticeable gap within the overall history. One such important aspect not covered by the majority of the scholarship and the primary focus of thesis argues that the history of early modern video games in the North American market did not originate during the age of Atari in the 1970s and early 1980s. Instead, the real genesis of today's market and popular gaming culture began with the creation and establishment of the third and fourth generation of video games, which firmly solidified gaming as both a multi-billion dollar industry and as an accepted form of entertainment in the United States. This project focuses on the ten-year resurrection of the US video game industry from 1985 to 1995. Written as a case study, the project looks into the three main popular hardware mediums of the late 1980s and 1990s through a pseudo-business, cultural, and technological standpoint that ran parallel with the current events at the time. Through this evaluation of the home consoles, personal computers, and the coin operated arcade machines, gaming in America transformed itself from a perceived fad into a serious multi-billion dollar industry while at the same time, slowly gained popular acceptance. Furthermore, this study will examine the country's love-hate relationship with gaming by looking into reactions towards a Japanese-dominated market, the coming of popular computer gaming, the influence of the bit-wars, and the issue of violence that aided in the establishment of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). In order to undertake such a massive endeavor, the project utilizes various sources that include newspapers, magazine articles, US government documents, scholarly articles, video game manuals, commercials, and popular websites to complete the work. Furthermore, another vital source came from firsthand experience playing several of these popular video games from across the decades in question, which include such consoles as the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Genesis, home computer, and several notable arcade titles. The project's goal and its four main chapters serves as a historical viewpoint of towards neglected video game industry during the third and fourth generation of gaming and the influence it possess in the United States... 'Paradigm Shift...' examines the often-overlooked early modern history of video games from 1985-1995 and how they would go on to become a larger part of American culture. Each chapter attempts to explain the growing influence gaming has had via home console, computer, and arcades in the US market, and in turn show the origins of today's modern gaming market... The significance of 'Paradigm Shift...' comes down to one word, acceptance. Despite the controversy it generated before and during the ten critical years of its rebirth, what the gaming industry did right was breaking the notion that video games were simply a popular craze. Unlike the second generation that only fed this belief, the third and fourth generation of gaming proved this assumption wrong. With countless successful launches of influential games across the decade, video games slowly gained the acceptance of both gamers and non-gamers alike allowing gaming to ingrain itself within the American culture. By 1995, the foundation of both the modern gaming industry and culture came into existence, and it would only become greater as the years progressed thanks to the efforts of Nintendo, Sega, and countless other developers and licensees that kept video games from falling to the wayside during this period of growth and uncertainty