Open Content Alliance Update

As part of the Boston Library Consortium, in the fall of 2007 the University of New Hampshire Library began participating in the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a mass digitization project intended to make scanned library materials freely accessible to the world. In this session, hear about the ambitious goals of the OCA project and one library’s experience with the massive collaborative effort required to make it successful. The presentation was delivered at the New Hampshire Library Association Spring Conference, Innovate in ‘08: Library Basics and Beyond, May 22, 2008

Good, bad, or biased? Using best practices to improve the quality of your survey questions

Surveys can be an effective tool for gathering information from library users and assessing library services, yet the quality of the survey questions can make all the difference between a survey that is completed and one that is abandoned in indifference or frustration. The increased emphasis on user informed library assessment and the availability of free online survey tools combine to make the use of surveys very popular in libraries, but inexperienced survey writers are not typically aware of best practices in the social sciences for the format and syntax of survey question and response options. These widely used best practices are meant to ensure that survey questions are clear and understandable, produce unbiased responses in appropriate formats, and are ethical with respect to the user. Flawed survey questions may confuse and frustrate users, resulting in survey fatigue and low survey response rates, inaccurate or difficult to interpret results, and wasted time and effort for both the surveyor and surveyed. Learning best practices for writing effective survey questions will help librarians improve their survey outcomes while maintaining the goodwill of users who provide needed survey data. Survey planning and pretesting are addressed as critical components of survey development, and example good and bad questions give presentation attendees the opportunity to immediately apply the concepts discussed. This poster was presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2013 National Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana

Extending the institutional repository to include undergraduate research

While a primary strategy of scholarly communication initiatives has been to encourage faculty participation in institutional repositories (IRs), with some process and workflow customization, IR participation can be successfully extended to undergraduate students, with benefits to both the student and institution. Drawing observations from the University of New Hampshire Library\u27s work collecting undergraduate honors theses and other student research, this article discusses customization strategies for creating an effective workflow for student self-deposit using an iterative, feedback-based approach, and the benefits, challenges,and potential concerns of encouraging undergraduate participation in institutional repositories

Working Together: A Literature Review of Campus Information Technology Partnerships

This article reviews the recent literature about the essential but often uneasy alliances made between content experts (archivists and librarians) and technology experts. Differing professional cultures, misunderstandings of one another, limited abilities to envision change, and lack of support from top-level administrators are the most often cited reasons for the persistent difficulty in working together. Failure to collaborate may result in the marginalization or exclusion of content experts from projects where their professional skills are most needed. In spite of these problems, successful models for working together do exist. True collaborations are mutually beneficial, open opportunities for continuing relationships, and involve complex interpersonal connections. They are based on trust, mutual understanding, and respect for one another’s skill

Comparison of Spider Populations of Ground Stratum in Arkansas Pasture and Adjacent Cultivated Field

Of 64 species of spiders taken from the ground stratum of an Arkansas pasture and adjoining cotton field, only 26 were common to both. Twenty-two were collected only in the cotton field; 16, only in the pasture. Many of the 18 species of lycosids were taken in greater numbers in the cultivated field, especially Pardosa milvina and Lycosa helluo. Eight species of lycosids were found only in the cotton field; two, only in the pasture. Only Schizocosa avida, of the better represented lycosids, appeared to show no preference. Similar relationships are given for dictynids, erigonids, linyphiids, oxyopids, gnaphosids, clubionids, thomisids, and salticids

The PLACE Toolkit: exposing geospatial ready digital collections

PLACE, the Position-based Library Archive Coordinate Explorer, is a University of New Hampshire geospatial data server and search interface that enables discovery of digital collections. Identifying geographic coordinates for “geospatial ready” digitized cultural heritage materials is key to the project. Presented: Open Repositories 2017, Brisbane, Australia. June 27, 201

Personality predictors of levels of forgiveness two and a half years after the transgression

The aim of the present study was to explore whether the domains and facets of the five-factor model of personality predicted motivational states for avoidance and revenge following a transgression at a second temporal point distant from the original transgression. A sample of 438 university students, who reported experiencing a serious transgression against them, completed measures of avoidance and revenge motivations around the transgression and five-factor personality domains and facets at time 1, and measures of avoidance and revenge motivations two and a half years later. The findings suggest that neuroticism, and specifically anger hostility, predicts revenge and avoidance motivation