Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Emerging technology tools offer new ways to interact and connect with users. Applications range from social networking and virtual reality sites to widgets aimed at allowing users to create personalized web spaces. Determining which applications may be useful in achieving your organization's goals can be challenging, however.

Linda Musser, Head
Fletcher L. Byrom Earth and Mineral Sciences Library
Pennsylvania State University

Linda's presentation covered the use of exciting new Web 2.0 tools to engage library users. Web 2.0 tools promote mobility, personalization using an array of multimedia formats.
- Widgets are chunks of code embedded in a web page. The library could have their own widget, which is easy for users to download, making branding more visible and makes library web pages more interesting and interactive. Some popular widgets:
- Google gadgets
- iGoogle to customize your own google experience
- Pageflakes (http://www.pageflakes.com)
- Toolbars

Another tool are wikis. Collaboration builds community and wikis provide collaborative construction. These allow users to comment and review. See: Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com).

Blogs are widely used collaborative tools that encourage conversation and discussion. Example: Library Marketing blog: http://librarymarketing.blogspot.com

RSS and alerts send information directly to the users. Pre-selected content can be pushed out to a variety of media (personal computers, mobile devices).

Podcasts and V-Casts add another dimension to your web site by providing audio and video. V-Casts are useful for training. See: scivee nsf : http://www.scivee.tv/

Text messaging meets the users where they are. Instead of email, use IM to send messages to and from patrons. Example: meebo.com

Go where the users are: a host of social networking sites:
- Myspace
- Facebook
- Second Life

Users want personalization and choice including email, RSS, IM, and even "snail" mail.

Some audience questions:
Q: Students usually start working at 10pm and want access online 24/7.
Stay logged in; users like to know if you’re available.
Q: How long do staff work on their individual pages.
Not much to set up. Staff should have their own ipages thru igoogle.
Q: Second Life seems to take a lot to create a presence.
In one example, a library used Second Life to redesign library space and virtually have people move through the space.
Q: What have you had to give up to do this?
Leverage knowledge of librarians. Give up desk hours to do this. Can't want for people to wander through and ask questions. Be where the users are (online).

Hurricanes have inspired literature and art through the ages and changed the course of history. In this lecture, the science of hurricanes and their role in human history will be discussed, along with the effect of climate change on hurricane activity and the role of hurricanes in regulating climate. Professor Emanuel's book, The Divine Wind, is a winner of the ASLI's Choice Book Award.

Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Emanuel gave a fascinating look at the science of hurricanes, a topic of particular interest since ASLI was being held in New Orleans. His talk covered the history of hurricane research, describing some of the most powerful U.S. land-falling hurricanes since 1900. He also described the latest theories of hurricane formation, such as Hurricane Potential Intensity theory.
For access to Dr. Emanuel's papers and research, see: http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/home.html.
His book "Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes" was an ASLI Choice Book Award Honorable Mention in 2005.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Library, as other Federal libraries, is faced with reductions in staff and hours of operation, purchasing freezes, and budgetary cutbacks. In spite of these pressures, the Goddard Library remains open and continues to provide enhanced services to NASA researchers through expanded access to digital resources.

Gene Major, Program Manager, Library Associates
NASA/GSFC Library

Gene presented a status of the NASA Goddard Library. Despite rumors as to its demise, the Goddard Library remains open and is serving the Goddard community. Although hours and staff have been reduced, the Library continues to provide electronic access to many databases, e-books, and e-journals. Gene showed the use of OpenURL technology that allows Goddard users to access e-journal content directly through search engines such as Google Scholar.

Academic researchers in the atmospheric science field rely on journal articles as sources of information relevant to their work. This study investigated which databases and other tools researchers use to search the literature, and how they actually conduct their searches.

Kari Kozak, Science/Engineering Librarian
Texas A& M University Libraries

Kari presented a survey that was distributed to 200 atmospheric scientists on the when, why and what of online searching. This was an email survey that consisted of 12 open- and close-ended questions. There was an 18.5% return rate. The responders were of varied expertise; most were doctorates and there was an overwhelming use Web of Science.
Other journals and databases accessed:
- AMS journals
- Science Direct (Elsevier)
- MGA
e-journals:
- American Geophysical Union journals
- Journal of Climate
- Monthly Weather Review
- Geophysical Research Letters
Publishers:
- AMS
- AGU
- AAAS
Conclusions: What scientists were looking for:
- Features
- Times cited
- Index of publications
- Journal abbreviations
- More coverage

Research on the impact of large volcanic eruptions on global climate has been a topic of much discussion, particularly with the increased interest in global climate change. Natural curiosity leads us to think about what implications smaller volcano eruptions can have on regional weather. These impacts on local weather will be discussed, as well as how resources on climate-scale research were used for the desired analysis on a smaller scale.

Morgan Brown, Graduate Research Assistant, Atmospheric Sciences- Geophysical Institute
University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Morgan talked about how the library and search tools were used in her research for he dissertation on volcanoes. She showed how large volcanic eruptions impact climate and the need for older archived material, especially older datasets.

Charles Franklin Brooks, the founder of the American Meteorological Society, composed daily public service announcements for the Science Service beginning in May 1923. The NOAA Central Library’s collection of these transcripts starts in May 1923 and continues through April 1941. This presentation will summarize and analyze the weather facts and often humorous proverbs broadcast during this era.

Doria Grimes, Chief, Contracting
NOAA Central Library

Doria's presentation was on Charles Franklin Brooks, the founder of the American Meteorological Society. Brooks composed daily public announcements for the Science Service beginning in May 1923 on weather topics aimed at the public. His work was later taken up by Charles F. Talman, and Alfred H. Thiessen. His column, “Why the Weather?” ran from 1923-1941. The NOAA Central Library has a collection of these transcripts from 1923-1941, although missing 1938-39. The transcripts were imaged at 300 dpi B&W and are available online at the NOAA Central Library: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/whytheweather/whytheweather.html The transcripts are arranged in alphabetic order by Subject, Title and Author. All the documents are downloadable as PDFs. Much of the material contains informative and often humorous weather stories, including weather proverbs, such as "Beware of weather proverbs", and "Thunder does not sour milk!" Go to the link above to view this entertaining collection of unique weather information

The NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center is collaborating with the NASA Agency’s Scientific and Technical Information Program office to link data holdings and technical publications through the use of Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. This pioneering partnership allows users to simultaneously retrieve traditional information from library information systems along with associated data descriptions on Earth-observing satellite data.

Juliet Pao
IT Research Manager Atmospheric Science Data Center
NASA Langley Research Center

Juliet and Nancy presented on the NASA Langley's Atmospheric Science Data Center collaboration with the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program Office to link data holdings and technical publications using the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (PMH). The combination of over 4 million technical reports, conference papers and journal articles with descriptions of NASA Langley atmospheric data set information available in one search provides a powerful tool for researchers. Over 200 data set descriptions were converted from the NASA GCMD's Directory Interchange Format (DIF) to MARC and harvested using OAI-PMH.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Libraries and librarians are playing an increasingly important role in the stewardship and curation of data and in helping their clients discover and access data sets that are publicly available. Panelists address the challenges of this role from the perspectives of academic, research, and government-sponsored libraries

Colleen Nunn (Moderator)
Librarian
National Center for Atmospheric Research

Panelists:
Chris Sherratt (Librarian, Lindgren Library, MIT), Joey Comeaux (Data Support Section, UCAR), Juliet Pao (IT Research Manager, Atmospheric Science Data Center, NASA Langley Research Center), Nancy Ritchey (Head of User & Data Services, Atmospheric Science Data Center, NASA Langley Research Center), and Allaina Wallace (Librarian and Analog Data Archivist, National Snow and Ice Data Center)

Each of the panelists gave a short statement followed by audience discussion. Librarians often do not know where to go to find the data. Chris Sherratt said that requests mostly come from outside of atmospheric science. Where do librarians go to find data, what sources, and what logical progression of portals to visit?
Joey Comeaux said that users are looking for data, and anything librarians can do, will help. For example, NCAR has 603 data sets and it is especially difficult to find older hard copy data.
Juliet Pao asked how we could make things more accessible for search. Perhaps using local access tools or propagate metadata into ScienceDirect and science.gov.
Nancy Ritchey offered that data is really to support data providers or researchers and not general users. Thereby making it difficult to access for librarians or their non-expert patrons.
The session was lively and informative and many science and technical librarians face similar issues of finding, preserving and accessing data.

Many forces are changing the current roles of atmospheric science librarians, including the closing of government libraries, the cessation of the distribution of government-sponsored reports in print, the demands by clients for a larger role in the management of data sets, and the changing library and information science curricula. Attendees are invited to participate in a discussion of the future of the field, drawing from their own experiences and their own unique professional contexts.

Madeleine Needles (Moderator)
Librarian
MIT Haystack Observatory

Madeleine led an open forum discussion on the future of atmospheric science libraries. Many government libraries have closed and the distribution of government reports in print has ceased.
Many libraries face challenges of budgets, staffing and bureaucracy. International libraries are also facing similar issues as Federal libraries. Other perspectives include a trend towards libraries are heading more into archiving then ever before as they head more into electronic resources. Some libraries are working with digital management systems such as DSpace. Other libraries are exploring more social venues such as snack/coffee bars in the library or more study space. Some libraries are focusing on proposal support, citation searching, digitizing older material, copyright support, and editorial support.

Welcome
Keith Seitter, Executive Director
American Meteorological Society (AMS)

Keith graciously welcomed the ASLI to the AMS meeting.

AMS Publishing Update, including Progress on Glossary Changes

The online version of the AMS Glossary of Meteorology is undergoing substantial revision. Over the last two years, scientists and librarians have reviewed existing terms and suggested new terms and definitions related to satellite meteorology. In addition, ASLI Board members have reviewed the functionality of the online glossary and suggested a number of changes to improve its usability. Phillips provides an update on current status of the Glossary.

Ken Heideman, Director of Publications
American Meteorological Society (AMS)

Jean M. Phillips Librarian
Space Science and Engineering Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ken talked about the current state of AMS publications.
In 2007, 24,926 pages were published.  Prior to 2005, AMS publications were all paper, now all are online.

Jean talked about the ongoing revisions to the online AMS glossary:
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary
This has been a great collaboration between ASLI, AMS, and the science community.  Dave Johnson (NCAR) and Wayne Feltz (CIMSS) are updating Geostationary satellite terms:

• GOES
• GMS
• Metosat
• INSAT
• WEFAX

1. Enable searches that "contain a certain word" or "begin with a certain word" and allow truncation of words.
   Status: Under implementation by Allen Press
   
2. Format results so that terms retrieved are part of defined term
   
3. Under implementation by Allen Press
   
4. Under review by Allen Press
   
5. Will address after recommendations 1-3 are implemented

AMS Book Publishing Update
Sarah Jane Shangraw, Book and Monograph Manager American Meteorological Society (AMS)

New AMS books:
Lewis&Clark:  Weather and Climate Data from the Expedition Journals

BAMS Update
Jeff Rosenfeld, Editor
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS)

Ken Heideman filling in for Jeff Rosenfeld
Some highlights:
- Adding extra content to BAMS.
- New journal on policy and societal impacts coming in 2009.
- Open access to content:  5 years and older is free and open.
- Future of print? No paper anywhere, but death of print has not happened.
Electronic plus paper: Online subscriptions and for a little more you can get print.
- 90th anniversary of AMS next year and goal is to get all of BAMS online back to 1920.

Questions from the audience included:
- Increase in production time for e-content
- Quality of imaging for some issues

What is the Future of AMS Conference Proceedings?

Given that preprint literature does not undergo the same scrutiny as peer-reviewed literature, are conference proceedings, and in particular, AMS conference proceedings cited in peer-reviewed literature? What is the value of this type of literature and should it be preserved? Has the nature of conference literature changed? Do different user constituencies view the value of this literature differently? We examined the AMS journals for the period 1991-2006, in five-year intervals, looking at the frequency with which conference and other types of literature are cited. We offer some observations and questions and invite opinion and discussion from ASLI members and their preprint users.

Jean M. Phillips Librarian,
Space Science and Engineering Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jinny Nathans
AMS Librarian

Jean and Jinny led a discussion on AMS conference proceedings.
Are AMS conference proceedings cited in peer-reviewed literature?
A study conducted by Jean and Jinny examined the frequency of conference and other non-peer related citations found in AMS journals for the period 1991-2006 in 5-year intervals.
Conclusions: Conference papers do not have same status as peer review, but they have a different intent and audience.
Recommendations:

• Acknowledge that conference literature is actively used and is an important part of the AMS record.
• Archive all conference literature including those distributed on CD-ROM.
• Archive web-published literature using approved utilities of LOCKSS and Portico.
• Continue to encourage extended conference abstracts.
• Publish results of study in BAMS.
• Include Confex presentations from AMS conferences starting in 2000.

This conference had 1,023 recorded presentations.

11.1 Vendor and Publisher Updates

Proquest (Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts)
Christopher Readinger, Editor, MGA
Michael Miyazaki, ProQuest Marketing Manager

Topics include an update to MGA for 2007 as well as some upcoming developments for 2008. In addition there will be an introduction to some new products available from ProQuest (formerly CSA and ProQuest Information and Learning) and a discussion of the merger between CSA and ProQuest.

Chris gave an overview of several ProQuest products (CSA bought out ProQuest):
- MGA database has over 366,000 records with over 41,000 new records added this year. Over 600 serials titles including 159 core source titles and some Astronomy & Astrophysics especially foreign titles. In 2008, the focus will be on retrospective indexing and expanded global coverage of grey literature.
- CSA Illumina:
New MyResearch feature to create search alerts. Other features include:
- Edit/run saved searches
- Personalize interface options
- Personalize databases
- Personal login
- Discovery guides
AMS titles are now included in CSA Illustrata

Michael Miyazaki, ProQuest also talked about MGA and CSA Illustrata: Natural Sciences:
- Deep indexing of graphs and charts
- Captions captured
- 1708 titles, 1,645,866 indexed objects
- Publishers include AMS and Springer-Verlag
- Copyright module - permissions to use objects

Other ProQuest resources:
- 450 newspapers; 77 countries, 37 languages, full color, full page format.
- 60 or 90 day rolling back file.
- Critical Mention: database of TV and radio news broadcasts from U.S. and international sources. With this resource you can find video clips online.
- Digital National Security Archive, DNSA.
- Military Collection - 69000 declassified docs since 1945, 530 titles cover topics across all government and military branches.

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Karen Blaufuss, Group Manager
Marketing and Membership, American Geophysical Union (AGU)
AGU Products and Services: News and Updates

AGU has introduced new services in 2007 such as dynamic tables of contents and a new option to view accepted articles while they are still “in-press”. The biggest new product is the new AGU Digital Library launched in early 2008. This product makes available over 100,000 articles from as far back as 1896.

Karine talked about new AGU products and services:
- Papers-in-Press: Articles available within days of acceptance; available to all subscribers including institutional subscribers.
- Space Weather: impact factor of 1.610
- e-commerce site to buy books
- AGU digital library
- Books older than 5 years will be added
- Reviews of Geophysics 1963-2002
- Earth Interactions (with AMS) (1997-2003)

Web of Science, Thomson Scientific
Paul Torpey, Global Sales Support Manager
Thomson Scientific

Topics will include a discussion of recent enhancements to both Web of Science and Web of Knowledge. These include improvements to the user interface and the new All Databases search in Web of Knowledge.

Paul talked about the new updates to Web of Science and Web of Knowledge: ISI Web of Knowledge serves 20 million individual users; 150,000 users every day. Web of Science formatting change beginning February.
See: newisiknowledge.com

ASLI Business Meeting

Chair Report
Jean Phillips, Past Chair
Jean reviewed the current ASLI activities:
- Glossary of Meteorology updates.
- Advocacy issues: library closures, letters sent and published.
- Article in BAMS (2 articles published).
- Conference planning guide.

Treasurer's Report
Doria Grimes reported for Brian Voss, Treasurer
- ASLI web site moved to the NOAA Seattle servers and then to GoDaddy.
-  Looking for a new host, as there are features ASLI needs that GoDaddy does not support.
- Member access needs to be updated.
- ASLI lost CSA as a corporate sponsor, but indications are that ProQuest will join.
- 2 new members joined as of this meeting
- 27 people Pre-registered: 32 were in room on Wednesday and 54 attended Dr. Emmanuel's talk.
- 18 attended Business Meeting.
- The Treasurer’s Report was circulated to the members.

Membership Report
Evelyn Poole-Kober, Membership Chair
- ASLI has 3 corporate sponsors
- ASLI has 51 total members
- 126 are on listserv from 17 countries

ASLI Choice Report
Maria Latyszewskyj
- Added a new category for Social Science.
- Many nominations came in near the end of the year.
- Received letter of thanks from Al Gore for the IPCC nomination, which was circulated among the business meeting attendees.
- Will send digital copy of citation to 123 of the IPCC authors.
- Will send digital copies of award to Cambridge Publishing and will be on web page.
- Jinny Nathans: Perhaps have a signing of ASLI choice book?  Perhaps in future have an award for e-resource?

AMS Liaison
Jinny Nathans
- Assessment of how Publishers Row went: some publishers were in the main Exhibit Hall at their choice.
- ASLI booth costs are increasing. Cost next year will be $1200.00.  Breakfasts cost $350/day.
- ASLI is gaining in presence and credibility at the AMS.
- Theme for next AMS: Urban Weather and Climate: Now and in the Future, to be held Phoenix, AZ.
- 2010 is AMS's 90th anniversary.
- Suggest that ASLI Treasury pay for drinks at the ASLI dinner.

ASLI Booth
Maria Latyszewskyj
- Good traffic and location.
- Continue to have AMS pay for internet connection.
- Booth is an important presence for ASLI and authors.
- Table space could have been bigger, so maybe next year put in for a bigger table.

MGA Advisory Board
- ASLI needs to be involved in the student conference prior to AMS meeting (Sat-Sunday). About 515 students attended the student conference. ASLI could be part of reception in the career fair area on Saturday evening. The students have a very tight schedule and there is no time in the regular schedule to have ASLI workshops, etc.
- MGA will have a table - ASLI should be there.

Suggestion: Do an Atmospheric Science 101 like what is done in GSIS.

2008 Chair Initiatives
Anita Colby, Chair
1. Write an article on future of atmospheric science librarianship.
2. Elsevier award to sponsor libraries from outside the country.
- Apply for grant
- WMO: could ask them for help
- Ask European Union
Amy Butros: IAMSLIC has international group pricing: $50 for developed and $25 for developing: 70% kicked back to fund travel and projects.
3. Data workshop and training
- ASLI might not be welcome at the student conference - there is no spare time for a workshop.
- Jinny: suggests writing a proposal
- Judie: University could sponsor? DeVry University is in Phoenix
4. Raise price of conference?
Agreed to leave dues as is and then re-evaluate next year. Booth costs increase from $850 to $1200.
Jinny: Could ask more funds from vendors.

2008 ASLI Executive Board and Officers

- Chair: Anita Colby, Science and Engineering Library, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
- Chair-elect: Linda Musser, Fletcher L. Byrom Earth and Mineral Sciences Library Penn State University, State College, PA
 - Past Chair: Jean Phillips, Space Science and Engineering Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
- Secretary: Amy Butros, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library, La Jolla, CA
- Treasurer: Brian Voss, NOAA Seattle Regional Library, Seattle, WA

Friday, January 25, 2008