Cambridge Journals Online Releases API

For the programmers out there…

A couple of weeks ago, Cambridge Journals Online announced that they were releasing an API: “Releasing an API allows other pieces of software to communicate directly with the CJO application. It can power mobile apps, desktop widgets, and a whole host of new applications. With it we open some of our data up to the creativity and ingenuity of 3rd party developers, and hopefully find surprising new contexts for our content.”

It will be interesting to see what kind of new programs and ways of interacting with the journal literature are created through this initiative.

For those interested in following the progress, Red Deer College Library subscribes to several Cambridge Journals, including Aging and Society, The Canadian Journal of Political Science, and The Journal of Economic History.

What kinds of apps would you like to see developed for journal archives like Cambridge Journals Online?

Digital Public Library of America

If you’re looking to take a quick studying or marking break as final exams wind down, consider wandering over to the shiny, new Digital Public Library of America.  The site opened yesterday (a ceremony marking the event that was to be held at the Boston Public Library, the very first public library that opened in the US, was unfortunately postponed due to the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath) and is a remarkable partnership that is attempting to provide digital access to the collections of libraries, archives, and museums throughout the United States.

You can search the site by topic, or explore based on date, place, or exhibition.  There are also a number of apps already available, and they’re encouraging the development of more.

Have fun, but be warned – you could lose hours exploring this site!

What Device do You Prefer When Surfing the Web?

This week I came across this Adobe Digital Index report, which reports that “After ana­lyz­ing more than 100 bil­lion vis­its to 1000+ web­sites world-wide, Adobe Dig­i­tal Index has dis­cov­ered that global web­sites are now get­ting more traf­fic from tablets than smart­phones, 8% and 7% of monthly page views respec­tively.”

Reading the report got me wondering – what device do you prefer to use to access the Web (and especially the Library’s website)?

Let us know in the comments.

A Different Take on Wikipedia

A little while ago, Salon.com posted a very interesting article on some of the recent issues surrounding Wikipedia, including the shrinking number of volunteer editors and the rising trend of people who are getting paid to write and edit Wikipedia articles.

The article provides a very different take on the ongoing argument about the credibility of Wikipedia articles as sources.   Give it a read, and then let us know what you think.  Does this change how you think about Wikipedia?

Film History Online

Catching up on my email over the weekend, I came across a press release for a fantastic new online resource.

The Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been working for the last couple of years to make part of their enormous archive available online.  The digital collections currently include Alfred Hitchcock Papers, Cecil B. DeMille Photographs, Movie Star Ephemera, and a Sheet Music Collection.

If you have a few minutes, take a quick browse.  There’s some very cool stuff for both cinematic scholars and casual movie lovers!

Crowd-sourced Cataloguing at the Bodleian Library

Have you always wanted to be a cataloguer? I know, who doesn’t? Here’s your chance to leave a mark on one of the world’s foremost libraries. The Bodleian Library at Oxford University has developed a project to have regular folks describe a collection of 4300 Victorian music scores for piano. They hope that this project will open the door to having other collections catalogued by the public.

Don’t panic if you’re not sure how to describe a musical score – there’s an extensive Guidelines section to help.

Want to participate? Check it out at http://www.whats-the-score.org.

The project is hosted by Zooniverse.org – another cool spot to participate in world-wide, crowd-sourced projects. You could help researchers understand how whales communicate, search the Milky Way for data on how stars form, or study the lives of Ancient Greeks. Perfect rainy day summer projects!

If you’re wondering where Wikipedia is on Wednesday…

…they’re planning to take part in an online blackout campaign intended to protest two pieces of proposed legislation in the United States: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

According to BBC News, the Globe and Mail, and Silicon Republic, the bills have been quite controversial.  Proponents of the legislation argue it will stop the widespread theft of intellectual property on the Internet.  Those against the legislation suggest it threatens free speech and worry that it will hurt investment in online business.

You can check out Wikipedia during the blackout for more information: the plan is to leave articles on the legislation and the controversy available for reading.

Looking for background information on another topic but can’t get it from Wikipedia?  Check out the Background Information tab on any of the Library’s subject guides.

Playing with Google Books’ Ngram Viewer

I just came across a link to a fascinating new Ted Talk via Library Link of the Day.  What we learned from 5 million books is a 15-minute video of researchers Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel talking about what they’re learning about culture by charting the frequency of words over time in the books so far digitized as part of the Google Books digitization project.

They call the study “culturomics,” which they define as “the application of massive-scale data collection analysis to the study of human culture.”  What it lets them do is chart things like how frequently the words “God” or “aargh” appear in books over time.  They argue that this allows them to get a clear picture of what people are talking about at any particular point in time, and also trace the importance of a concept over time.  Jump down to the comments posted below the talk and you’ll see that a lot of people feel this is flawed theory because it ignores word context.  I’m not sure yet what I think, but I know I’m intrigued.

The cool thing is that Google liked the tool Michel and Lieberman Aiden have been using for data analysis so much, they made a version that’s available to all of us.  So now you can go in and do your own analysis, for any word that you like.  And you can see a sample of the books the word appears in.

Try it out, and see what you think.  Just “nerdy fun” or a useful tool for looking at how culture develops and changes?

Just as a side note, it’s possible Michel’s graphs for “awesome vs. practical” are the best graphs I’ve ever seen, and the quickest visual summary of how realistic an idea is.

 

March Resource of the Month

Researching?  Having trouble keeping track of your books, articles, & websites?  Try RefWorks!

What IS RefWorks?

A web-based tool that can help you gather and manage your research.

Once your information/citations are in RefWorks, create bibliographies of your sources, in any style, in seconds!

Where IS RefWorks?

In the LibGuides:

• APA/MLA/Chicago citation tab

From the Library’s Website:

• Find Articles main page

How do I get started?

• Create a free account.  You may want to check out a RefWorks tutorial

Now what?

As you find useful sources in our Databases (articles), or using WorldCat (books), export your citations to RefWorks.

• You can also install RefGrab-It on your computer and send web page information straight to RefWorks.

For more information on RefWorks call us at 403.342.3152, email us at rdclibrary@gmail.com, or visit the Library Information Desk.

Using Classroom Assessment Techniques

While  I didn’t attend the EDUCAUSE  conference this year, I often crawl the website, and recently found something especially interesting.  While teaching, I find the single issue I struggle with most is assessing what the students are learning as they are learning it. This post on classroom assessment, provides some great ways to assess students, as well as  tips to implement your own “CATS”.  Happy Reading!