The September 2020 issue
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/issue/view/1119> of Information
Technology and Libraries (ITAL) was published on September 21. LITA
President Evviva Weinraub Lajoie writes about the change from LITA to Core
in her LITA President’s Message, In the Middle of Difficulty Lies
Opportunity <https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12687>.
Our September “Editorial Board Thoughts” column, What More Can We Do to
Address  Broadband Inequity and Digital Poverty?
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12319>, by editorial
board member Lori Ayre, reflects on ways that libraries of all kinds can
help improve network connectivity for our communities.

We have two columns in our “Public Libraries Leading the Way” section: Mary
Howard of the St. Clair (Michigan) Public Library writes about Harnessing
the Power of OrCam
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12637> to provide
assistive technology for reading. Laura Denton of the Denton (Texas) Public
Library and Ana Krahmer (University of North Texas Libraries) write about a
public-academic partnership to seek grant funding and digitize the city
newspaper’s backfile in A Collaborative Approach to Newspaper Preservation
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12593>.
Peer-reviewed Content

Applying Gamification to the Library Orientation: A Study of Interactive
User Experience and Engagement Preferences
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12209>

Karen Nourse Reed and A. Miller

By providing an overview of library services as well as the building
layout, the library orientation can help newcomers make optimal use of the
library. The benefits of this outreach can be curtailed, however, by the
significant staffing required to offer in-person tours. One academic
library overcame this issue by turning to user experience research and
gamification to provide an individualized online library orientation for
four specific user groups: undergraduate students, graduate students,
faculty, and community members. The library surveyed 167 users to
investigate preferences regarding orientation format, as well as likelihood
of future library use as a result of the gamified orientation format.
Results demonstrated a preference for the gamified experience among
undergraduate students as compared to other surveyed groups.


Evaluating the Impact of the Long-S upon 18th-Century Encyclopedia
Britannica Automatic Subject Metadata Generation Results
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12235> (this paper
was the winner 2020 LITA/Ex Libris Student Writing Award)

Sam Grabus

This research compares automatic subject metadata generation when the
pre-1800s Long-S character is corrected to a standard < s >. The test
environment includes entries from the third edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, and the HIVE automatic subject indexing tool. A comparative
study of metadata generated before and after correction of the Long-S
demonstrated an average of 26.51 percent potentially relevant terms per
entry omitted from results if the Long-S is not corrected. Results confirm
that correcting the Long-S increases the availability of terms that can be
used for creating quality metadata records. A relationship is also
demonstrated between shorter entries and an increase in omitted terms when
the Long-S is not corrected.


Making Disciplinary Research Audible: The Academic Library as Podcaster
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12191>

Drew Smith, Meghan L. Cook, and Matt Torrence

Academic libraries have long consulted with faculty and graduate students
on ways to measure the impact of their published research, which now
include altmetrics. Podcasting is becoming a more viable method of
publicizing academic research to a broad audience. Because individual
academic departments may lack the ability to produce podcasts, the library
can serve as the most appropriate academic unit to undertake podcast
production on behalf of researchers. The article identifies what library
staff and equipment are required, describes the process needed to produce
and market the published episodes, and offers preliminary assessments of
the podcast impact.

Likes, Comments, Views: A Content Analysis of Academic Library Instagram
Posts <https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12211>

Jylisa Doney, Olivia Wikle, and Jessica Martinez

This article presents a content analysis of academic library Instagram
accounts at eleven land-grant universities. Previous research has examined
personal, corporate, and university use of Instagram, but fewer studies
have used this methodology to examine how academic libraries share content
on this platform and the engagement generated by different categories of
posts. Findings indicate that showcasing posts (highlighting library or
campus resources) accounted for more than 50 percent of posts shared, while
a much smaller percentage of posts reflected humanizing content
(emphasizing warmth or humor) or crowdsourcing content (encouraging user
feedback). Crowdsourcing posts generated the most likes on average,
followed closely by orienting posts (situating the library within the
campus community), while a larger proportion of crowdsourcing posts,
compared to other post categories, included comments. The results of this
study indicate that libraries should seek to create Instagram posts that
include various types of content while also ensuring that the content
shared reflects their unique campus contexts. By sharing a framework for
analyzing library Instagram content, this article will provide libraries
with the tools they need to more effectively identify the types of content
their users respond to and enjoy as well as make their social media
marketing on Instagram more impactful.

Analytics and Privacy: Using Matomo in EBSCO’s Discovery Service
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12219>

Denise FitzGerald Quintel and Robert Wilson

When selecting a web analytics tool, academic libraries have traditionally
turned to Google Analytics for data collection to gain insights into the
usage of their web properties. As the valuable field of data analytics
continues to grow, concerns about user privacy rise as well, especially
when discussing a technology giant like Google. In this article, the
authors explore the feasibility of using Matomo, a free and open-source
software application, for web analytics in their library’s discovery layer.
Matomo is a web analytics platform designed around user-privacy assurances.
This article details the installation process, makes comparisons between
Matomo and Google Analytics, and describes how an open-source analytics
platform works within a library-specific application, EBSCO’s Discovery
Service.

Integrated Technologies of Blockchain and Biometrics Based on Wireless
Sensor Network for Library Management
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11883>

Meng-Hsuan Fu

The Internet of Things (IoT) is built on a strong internet infrastructure
and many wireless sensor devices. Presently, Radio Frequency Identification
embedded (RFID-embedded) smart cards are ubiquitous, used for many things
including student ID cards, transportation cards, bank cards, prepaid
cards, and citizenship cards. One example of places that require smart
cards is libraries. Each library, such as a university library, city
library, local library, or community library, has its own card and the user
must bring the appropriate card to enter a library and borrow material.
However, it is inconvenient to bring various cards to access different
libraries. Wireless infrastructure has been well developed and IoT devices
are connected through this infrastructure. Moreover, the development of
biometric identification technologies has continued to advance. Blockchain
methodologies have been successfully adopted in various fields. This paper
proposes the BlockMetrics library based on integrated technologies using
blockchain and finger-vein biometrics, which are adopted into a library
collection management and access control system. The library collection is
managed by image recognition, RFID, and wireless sensor technologies. In
addition, a biometric system is connected to a library collection control
system, enabling the borrowing procedure to consist of only two steps.
First, the user adopts a biometric recognition device for user
authentication and then performs a collection scan with the RFID devices.
All the records are recorded in a personal borrowing blockchain, which is a
peer-to-peer transfer system and permanent data storage. In addition, the
user can check the status of his collection across various libraries in his
personal borrowing blockchain. The BlockMetrics library is based on an
integration of technologies that include blockchain, biometrics, and
wireless sensor technologies to improve the smart library.

Using the Harvesting Method to Submit ETDs into ProQuest: A Case Study of a
Lesser-Known Approach
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11883>

Marielle Veve

The following case study describes an academic library’s recent experience
implementing the harvesting method to submit electronic theses and
dissertations (ETDs) into the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
database (PQDT). In this lesser-known approach, ETDs are deposited first in
the institutional repository (IR), where they get processed, to be later
harvested for free by ProQuest through the IR’s Open Archives Initiative
(OAI) feed. The method provides a series of advantages over some of the
alternative methods, including students’ choice to opt-in or out from
ProQuest, better control over the embargo restrictions, and more
customization power without having to rely on overly complicated workflows.
Institutions interested in adopting a simple, automated, post-IR method to
submit ETDs into ProQuest, while keeping the local workflow, should benefit
from this method.


--
Ken Varnum
Senior Program Manager for Discovery, Delivery, and Library Analytics
Library Information Technology | University of Michigan Library
[log in to unmask] | *he, him, his*
https://www.lib.umich.edu/users/varnum

*Want to improve transparency in library discovery? Submit your Open
Discovery Initiative (ODI) conformance statement
<https://groups.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/23872/NISO_RP-19-2020_ODI_Open_Discovery_Initiative.pdf>
and
be part of the solution.*