Supporting the Next-Generation ILS: The Changing Roles of Systems Librarians

This paper compares current responsibilities of systems librarians supporting the traditional ILS with anticipated responsibilities associated with supporting the next-generation ILS and examines how the roles of systems librarians will change in migrating to the next generation ILS from the traditional ILS. The method used for this study is content analysis. The content sources are online job banks for keeping an archive of past listings over the past five years. The analysis results demonstrate a shift is happening where the primary roles and responsibilities of systems librarians supporting the next-generation ILS are becoming more human/organizations related, while those positions supporting the traditional ILS show that top roles are concentrated on information technology. Overall, this suggests that systems librarians are expected to manage much less in terms of tasks directly related to information technology. Consequently, systems librarians should re-engineer themselves accordingly so that they will be able to support more critical issues in the library

The Highlights of the IFLA WLIC Preconference Satellite Meeting - Information Technology Section - Robots in Libraries: Challenge or Opportunity

On August 21 & 22, 2019, I attended the IFLA WLIC Pre-conference Satellite Meeting - Robots in Libraries: Challenge or Opportunity at Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau, Berlin, Germany. Here is my notes for the pre-conference. The full text is written both in English and Chinese

What I Learned from ELUNA 2019

ELUNA 2019 was focused on Ex Libris products as well as other related current professional issues relevant to libraries today. I had a unique opportunity to meet with Ex Libris experts to learn more about product roadmaps, discover new product features, and uncover other insider information. It allowed me to bring our sticky issues to the Ex Libris Support Center to work with support staff in person and meet Ex Libris management in person to advocate for our institutional needs. In addition, networking with other users in the ELUNA community was a great way for me to gain fresh ideas and learn about the cutting edge features that others have developed for their Ex Libris products. The ELUNA user community has a long history of helping one another; I had opportunities to establish new professional contacts as well as put faces to names I’ve collaborated with on listservs. The conference helped me explore issues of diversity in brooks Library and how they affect the ethnic communities who use our services and will improve ability to improve our systems to ensure support diversity on campus

Retrospective Analysis and Prediction: Artificial Intelligence and Its Applications in Libraries

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought significant innovation to fundamental science and research in recent years. This paper briefly reviews and analyzes the findings of research and development of AI technologies such as expert systems, natural language processing, pattern recognition, robotics and machine learning in the fields of library such as information retrieval, reference service, cataloging, classification, acquisitions, circulation and automation. By reviewing and analyzing research papers published on respected academic journals, studying the examples and practical cases of the latest AI applications in industry, this study finds that current AI applications in the field of library are still in the narrow AI or weak AI called machine learning phase. However, the emerging technologies such as Biometrics Identification, Robotics, Deep Learning and Neural Networks have been used by libraries and library automation. In particular, this paper looks into the possibilities of the application of general AI or strong AI into the field of Information Retrieval

Doppler effect of gamma-ray bursts in the fireball framework

The influence of the Doppler effect in the fireball framework on the spectrum of gamma-ray bursts is investigated. The study shows that the shape of the expected spectrum of an expanding fireball remains almost the same as that of the corresponding rest frame spectrum for constant radiations of the bremsstrahlung, Comptonized, and synchrotron mechanisms as well as for that of the GRB model. The peak flux spectrum and the peak frequency are obviously correlated. When the value of the Lorentz factor becomes 10 times larger, the flux of fireballs would be several orders of magnitude larger. The expansion speed of fireballs is a fundamental factor of the enhancement of the flux of gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure