Positively Perplexing E-Books: Digital Natives’ Perceptions of Electronic Information Resources

Anecdotal evidence from user surveys and the experiences of information professionals portray a picture that today’s students (i.e., “digital natives”) do not differentiate between the variety of information resources online. The issue of container only becomes problematic to these students when they have to produce a scholarly work and cite their information sources. Then the question becomes, “What is it?” This paper will present preliminary data from a survey of university students on how they recognize and label electronic information resources. The authors will explore such questions as: Do users recognize an e-book as a book? If not, how do they categorize it? Does the amount and placement of labeling from the publisher make a difference in their recognition? Do they differentiate between an academic database and a search engine? Are a newspaper article and a peer-reviewed journal article considered synonymous

Managing, Marketing, and Measuring Open Resources

Academic libraries face many opportunities and challenges in managing, marketing, and measuring open resources (OR). Many questions arise when incorporating OR into an academic library collection. How do libraries select quality OR for inclusion in the collection? What tools and practices are used to manage electronic access? How can libraries better market OR to faculty? How can libraries measure the use and usefulness of OR? This paper outlines a project launched to improve the management of OR at the University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries; as well as incorporating feedback garnered at the Charleston Conference discussion forum on the topic, particularly on how academic and special libraries are handling OR offered to users

How Users’ Perceptions of E‐Books Have Changed—Or Not: Comparing Parallel Survey Responses

This project focuses on comparing the results of two surveys conducted on e‐book usability at college and university libraries across the state of Florida. The first survey was carried out by librarians from the University of Florida in 2009 and provided benchmark responses for similar questions asked in a follow‐up survey completed in 2014. Results of the two surveys conducted five years apart are an enlightening snapshot of user feedback on e‐book usability, while providing insight on key issues and trends in e‐book use. In addition to measuring side‐by‐side results of the two Florida surveys, the paper frames this comparison in a broader context by drawing upon data taken from other surveys published on e‐book use in academic libraries

Sudden Collections Coordinators: When You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

As new librarians enter the profession with varying levels of education and experience concerning library collection management, they may find themselves suddenly assigned the responsibility of coordinating collection activities within a subject area or for their entire library. From understanding terminology to working with acquisitions departments and from communicating with vendors to assessing resources, there is much to be learned in a short period of time. This paper will provide perspectives from five librarians at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida (UF): the senior associate dean responsible for collections, the chair of the Acquisitions & Collections Services Department, an experienced collection coordinator, and two relatively new subject librarians who were recently asked to coordinate collection decisions for their respective areas (Humanities and Health Sciences). As one of the new collection coordinators came to subject librarianship from a specialized academic background and the other from a degree in library science, both newly promoted collection coordinators will present the unique difficulties faced in coming to collection coordination from their different educational backgrounds. This paper will address the large learning curve required when suddenly promoted to collection coordinator, including the steps of building a strong connection with acquisitions, developing vendor relations, and tracking collection development at the department level, while making suggestions for learning more along the way

Mechanical design of the optical modules intended for IceCube-Gen2

IceCube-Gen2 is an expansion of the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole that aims to increase the sensitivity to high-energy neutrinos by an order of magnitude. To this end, about 10,000 new optical modules will be installed, instrumenting a fiducial volume of about 8 km3. Two newly developed optical module types increase IceCube’s current sensitivity per module by a factor of three by integrating 16 and 18 newly developed four-inch PMTs in specially designed 12.5-inch diameter pressure vessels. Both designs use conical silicone gel pads to optically couple the PMTs to the pressure vessel to increase photon collection efficiency. The outside portion of gel pads are pre-cast onto each PMT prior to integration, while the interiors are filled and cast after the PMT assemblies are installed in the pressure vessel via a pushing mechanism. This paper presents both the mechanical design, as well as the performance of prototype modules at high pressure (70 MPa) and low temperature (−40∘C), characteristic of the environment inside the South Pole ice

The next generation neutrino telescope: IceCube-Gen2

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic-kilometer-scale neutrino detector at the geographic South Pole, has reached a number of milestones in the field of neutrino astrophysics: the discovery of a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux, the temporal and directional correlation of neutrinos with a flaring blazar, and a steady emission of neutrinos from the direction of an active galaxy of a Seyfert II type and the Milky Way. The next generation neutrino telescope, IceCube-Gen2, currently under development, will consist of three essential components: an array of about 10,000 optical sensors, embedded within approximately 8 cubic kilometers of ice, for detecting neutrinos with energies of TeV and above, with a sensitivity five times greater than that of IceCube; a surface array with scintillation panels and radio antennas targeting air showers; and buried radio antennas distributed over an area of more than 400 square kilometers to significantly enhance the sensitivity of detecting neutrino sources beyond EeV. This contribution describes the design and status of IceCube-Gen2 and discusses the expected sensitivity from the simulations of the optical, surface, and radio components

Sensitivity of IceCube-Gen2 to measure flavor composition of Astrophysical neutrinos

The observation of an astrophysical neutrino flux in IceCube and its detection capability to separate between the different neutrino flavors has led IceCube to constraint the flavor content of this flux. IceCube-Gen2 is the planned extension of the current IceCube detector, which will be about 8 times larger than the current instrumented volume. In this work, we study the sensitivity of IceCube-Gen2 to the astrophysical neutrino flavor composition and investigate its tau neutrino identification capabilities. We apply the IceCube analysis on a simulated IceCube-Gen2 dataset that mimics the High Energy Starting Event (HESE) classification. Reconstructions are performed using sensors that have 3 times higher quantum efficiency and isotropic angular acceptance compared to the current IceCube optical modules. We present the projected sensitivity for 10 years of data on constraining the flavor ratio of the astrophysical neutrino flux at Earth by IceCube-Gen2

Direction reconstruction performance for IceCube-Gen2 Radio

The IceCube-Gen2 facility will extend the energy range of IceCube to ultra-high energies. The key component to detect neutrinos with energies above 10 PeV is a large array of in-ice radio detectors. In previous work, direction reconstruction algorithms using the forward-folding technique have been developed for both shallow (≲20 m) and deep in-ice detectors, and have also been successfully used to reconstruct cosmic rays with ARIANNA. Here, we focus on the reconstruction algorithm for the deep in-ice detector, which was recently introduced in the context of the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G)

Estimating the coincidence rate between the optical and radio array of IceCube-Gen2

The IceCube-Gen2 Neutrino Observatory is proposed to extend the all-flavour energy range of IceCube beyond PeV energies. It will comprise two key components: I) An enlarged 8km3 in-ice optical Cherenkov array to measure the continuation of the IceCube astrophysical neutrino flux and improve IceCube\u27s point source sensitivity above ∼100TeV; and II) A very large in-ice radio array with a surface area of about 500km2. Radio waves propagate through ice with a kilometer-long attenuation length, hence a sparse radio array allows us to instrument a huge volume of ice to achieve a sufficient sensitivity to detect neutrinos with energies above tens of PeV. The different signal topologies for neutrino-induced events measured by the optical and in-ice radio detector - the radio detector is mostly sensitive to the cascades produced in the neutrino interaction, while the optical detector can detect long-ranging muon and tau leptons with high accuracy - yield highly complementary information. When detected in coincidence, these signals will allow us to reconstruct the neutrino energy and arrival direction with high fidelity. Furthermore, if events are detected in coincidence with a sufficient rate, they resemble the unique opportunity to study systematic uncertainties and to cross-calibrate both detector components