Hesburgh Libraries > Departments > DAIAD

Musings

This is an incomplete list of professional essays -- musings -- written for various purposes and presented here in reverse chronological order:

  • Embedding Primo into a Google Search Appliance - A presentation to GLUGM describing how to exploit the Ex Libris Primo X-Service API (2009-10-21)

  • "Web-scale" indexes and "next generation" library catalogs - This is the essay for a webinar sponsored by Library Journal and Serials Solutions on the topic of Web-scale discover services. (2009-08-13)

    "Mass digitization and opportunities for librarianship in 15 minutes - This was a presentation from a "mini-symposiium" on the topic of mass digitization, sponsored by the Hesburgh Libraries Professional Development Committee. (2009-05-21)

  • "Next Generation" Library Catalogs in 15 Minutes - A "next generation" library catalog starts with the idea of traditional library catalog and expands it meet the changing expectations of library patrons -- a presentation at the Notre Dame/Ex Libris "birthday" party. (2007-11-13)

  • XC and the Future of Library Search - "Collections without services are useless, and services without collections are empty. The future of library search lies between these two statements. It is about making search smarter and putting search within the context of the user" -- a presentation at the Charleston Conference. (2007-10-29)

  • MyLibrary 3.x and a “Next Generation” Library Catalogue - This, the tiniest of essays, first outlines the fundamental structure of MyLibrary 3.x. It then describes how a database like MyLibrary could be used as a part of a “next generation” library catalogue, maybe. (2006-10-11)

  • A "Next generation" library catalog - This text outlines an idea for a "next generation" library catalog. In two sentences, this catalog is not really an catalog at all but more like a tool designed to make it easier for students to learn, teachers to instruct, and scholars to do research. It provides its intended audience with a more effective means for finding and using data and information. (2006-06-02)

  • Introduction to Web Services - This essay outlines what Web Services are and why you, as a librarian, should care. (2005-06-23)

  • Implementing SRU in Perl - As a part of a sponsored National Science Foundation (NSF) grant called Ockham, the University Libraries of Notre Dame implemented a set of SRU modules and scripts written in Perl. This text describes this process in more detail. (2005-06-14)

  • So you want a new website - This text outlines the process the University Libraries of Notre Dame used to redesign its website. It includes a presentation of the various assessment activities utilized (surveys, focus group interviews, usability studies). It also includes a description of how the libraries articulated a vision for the website and a strategic plan. Finally, the text describes some of the retrospective conversion processes we had to implement in order to make things usable and consistent. (2005-03-28)

  • Open access publishing - This essay outlines the history and development of open access publishing from the author's perspective, and it advocates librarians take a more active role in making open access publishing a norm for facilitating scholarly communication as opposed to an exception. (2004-10-20)

  • Redesigning the Libraries Website - Great work has been done by the people in the Libraries to facilitate the provision of Web-based library collections and services. As more and more of the Libraries' collections and services are made available via Web browser, we must ask ourselves, "What can we, the Libraries, do to improve our Web presence? Is it time to do a website redesign, and if so, then how can we build on great work that has been done so far?" (2003-05-28)

  • What is information architecture? - This is a combined book review of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville as well Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web by Christina Wodtke. In a sentence, these two books define and describe information architecture and explain how to put its principles into practice. (2003-04-29)

  • Building your library's portal - This text proposes a definition Web portal, describes how information architecture plays a critical role in the development of a library's website, and briefly describes one database-driven website application designed for libraries, MyLibrary. (2003-03-25)

  • Usability in less than 60 minutes - This fifty minute class is an introduction to usability and user-centered design. Answers to the following questions will be outlined: 1) what is usability, 2) what is user-centered design, and 3) what is usability testing? (2003-03-25)

  • Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites That Work - a book review - This is a book review of Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites That Work by Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, and Scott D. Wood (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 2002). The book is a how-to guide. It describes methods and techniques for designing websites with the assumption that the principles of usability are pervasive throughout. This book is not about HTML. It is a book about the concepts and principles surrounding the organization, creation, and design of interfaces to data and information presented via a Web browser. (2003-02-06)

  • Implementing "Light-weight Reference Models" - This text describes how a particular portal application -- MyLibrary -- is implementing a few "light-weight reference models" as described by OCKHAM. MyLibrary is primarily intended to provide a customizable interface to library collections of Internet resources, but it also provides the means to export its data via various formats and protocols including dynamically created HTML, static HTML, OAI, RDF, ODBC, and SQL. Using these various formats and protocols the MyLibrary application/system enables other applications to use the MyLibrary data for other library-related purposes such as the creation of path-finders, interlibrary-loan requests, statistics gathering, etc. This presentation illustrates how some of this is being implemented and solicits input from the audience on how the process can be improved as well as what steps should be taken next. (2002-09-10)

  • Open Source Software in Libraries - This guide is an introduction to open source software in libraries, with descriptions of a variety of software packages and successful library projects. But before we get to the software itself, I want to describe the principles and techniques of open source software (OSS) and explain why I advocate the adoption of OSS in the implementation of library services and collections. (2002-04-25)

  • What is the Open Archives Initiative? - In a sentence, the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) is a protocol built on top of HTTP designed to distribute, gather, and federate meta data. The protocol is expressed in XML. This article describes the problems the OAI is trying to address and outlines how the OAI system is intended to work. By the end of the article you will be more educated about the OAI and hopefully become inspired to implement your own OAI repository or even become a service provider. (2002-02-25)

Consider also reading some of my travel logs -- descriptions of what I have seen and learned at various conferences and professional development opportunities.

Date created: March 10, 2007
Date updated: October 21, 2009
URL: http://www.library.nd.edu/daiad/morgan/musings/