Web 2.0 Applications in Top Chinese University Libraries

Web 2.0 Applications in Top Chinese University Libraries

Author(s):

Dr. Zhiping Han, Dr. YAN QUAN LIU

Journal:

Library Hi Tech

Abstract:

Purpose - Purpose – This survey study explores the status and construction pattern of Web 2.0 technologies employed in top Chinese university libraries, their functionalities and features.

Design/methodology/approach - A combination of online survey and content analysis methodology was applied to a sample of 38 top Chinese university libraries’ websites. The Web 2.0 tools were categorized by generally accepted standards with some adjustment for library practices. Data was collected by accessing these university library websites on two separate occasions during the period of February10 to 20, 2009 by utilizing a checklist of 52 questions.

Findings - Findings – More than two-thirds of the 38 top Chinese university libraries apply one or more kinds of Web 2.0 tools through the basic functions of their websites. Among six types of tools, Catalog 2.0 and RSS are the most common, while IM, Blog, SNS and Wiki are less frequent.

Research limitations/implications - Research limitations –Internal applications that are not publicly accessible contain hidden information that may not be gathered through content analysis since these links usually cannot be found on library websites. It is difficult to get exact information as to the applications of Web 2.0 in these libraries without an interview method in combination to observation.

Originality/value - Originality/value – This study provides an overall picture of Web 2.0 tools developed in top Chinese university libraries, allowing for future evaluation and planning. The implementation of Web 2.0 applications and their constructing pattern is not only indicative of the development of the Chinese digital libraries, but also to their development of digital libraries in the world at large.

Job Posting - Diversity Resident Librarian

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is a progressive library. Take a look at the following new opening for the position of diversity librarian.

Diversity Resident Librarian
The University Libraries, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

The University Libraries have established a two-year Post MLS Diversity Residency program to further increase the diversity of our professional staff while fostering the growth and development of a new librarian. The purpose of the Residency is to attract a recent graduate to the challenging and rewarding career of academic librarianship. The University Libraries has a Diversity Committee and also participates in the University?s diversity initiatives:
http://library.uncg.edu/divres/

Residents will provide service and gain valuable experience in multiple facets of academic librarianship through this process by spending their first year in three different functional areas and their second year focused in one primary service area. The Resident will serve on library committees as appropriate including the Diversity Committee and search committees as well as be assigned other activities such as liaison responsibilities. Professional development is a strong component of the Residency program, which includes conference attendance, interaction and participation in the University Libraries Mentoring Program, and collaboration with UNCG Library and Information Studies Department.

Human information behaviour and Human-Computer Interaction are areas of study, particularly in Library and Information Science. Drawing from supporting knowledge from disparate disciplines as computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages, communication theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, and cognitive psychology, IB and HCI are powerful concepts which continue to shape LIS.

However, the LIS cognitive schools of thought assume universal concepts, and are often devoid of ethnological methodology or cultural comparisons. Unfortunately, this resonates to the library and information professions as users are often painted with the same generalist brush. Multicultural librarianship is often limited to market segmentation and specialized reading lists. What about cultural user behaviours? Cultural information retrieval studies? LIS often does not cross into the realm of cultural studies, despite the fact that there is much to examine.

Larissa Hjorth's The Game of Being Mobile: One Media History of Gaming and Mobile Technologies in Asia-Pacific is an interesting microanalysis of social media behaviourial differences between Korea and Japan. It offers much food for thought for LIS professionals, particularly for those who overgeneralize their user groups and standardize one-size-fits-all attitudes in designing information systems. Hjorth highlights some interesting points:

(1) Asia-Pacific Region - Marked by diverse penetration rates of gaming, mobile and broadband technologies, which are subject to local cultural and socio-economic nuances. One of the dominant modes of socializing the consumption of new technologies is through the role of cute culture (also known as kawaii).

(2) Rise in mobile media - Marked by the rise in particular modes of gaming in these regions. South Korea and Japan represent two opposing directions for gaming - Korea emphasizes MMOGs played on stationary PCs in social spaces while Japan pioneers the mobile (privatized) convergent platforms and devices such as the handhelf PSP2 and Nintendo DS.

(3) Public and Private Spaces - Previous domestic technologies such as TV and radio reconfigures public and private spaces. 19th and 20th century technologies therefore have always been part of the way in which space is redefined.

(4) Imagined Communities - Through mobile media and media communities such as gaming, we are seeing emerging unofficial imaging communities that will impact on official imagined and transnational synergies.

(5) Remediating Technology - Customizing invites uers to conceive of technology as remediated. Through cute customization of mobile media and games in the region, new technologies are linked into earlier cultural histories and media archaeologies that are distinctive from European or American models.

(6) Cute Technology - Cute is fundamentally linked to the adaptation of new technologies, such as mobile media and SNS. This phenomenon distinctively differs from Western modes of user customization modes and demonstrates that technologies are much socio-cultural as they are industrial.

(7) SNS in Asia - Unlike Western or European social networking systems (SNS) that are consumed by children and teenagers, in Korea's Cyworld both young and old engage in the politics of cute representation online as a reflection of offline identity. Because of such localized features of not only the SNS, but its specific geographical and cultural audience, its success outside of Korea (and the Korean diaspora) is far from assured.

Archives and Culture

The information profession often lacks a cultural approach in its methodological inquiries. Victorial Lemieux is perhaps an exception. A new and rising star scholar, Lemieux has won several awards for her scholarly and professional work, including the 2001 W. Kaye Lamb Prize (awarded to the author of the article that most advances archival thinking and scholarship in Canada) for “Let the Ghosts Speak: An Empirical Exploration of the ‘Nature’ of the Record.”

Using empirical data from a case study of record-keeping practices in indigenous Jamaican commercial banks that collapsed to explore the “nature” of the record, Lemieux continues a thread of debate appearing in previous issues of Archivaria which questions the definition of a record, whether the meaning of a record is fixed at the point of creation or evolves over time, and who authors the record. In the end, Lemieux argues that there is no single valid conceptualization of the record; instead, there are many valid conceptualizations arising from particular social contexts, and, further, the meaning in records is engendered over time by all those involved in the processes of incription, transmission, and contextualization, including record-keepers.

Community Historical Recognition Program as 'Digital Storytelling'

Digital Storytelling is unique exchange taking place between active learning and content creation of history. The Community Historical Recognition Program at the University of British Columbia helps match elderly Chinese Canadians unfamiliar with the use of digital resources and the use of computer technology with young students often have little idea of the rich lives and historical experiences of elders in their communities. In conducting interviews and putting together a collage of historical anecdotes, the CHRP hopes to bring together young students, who can tap the enormous potential of digital age technology, with elderly members of the community whose unique memories and stories are in danger of being lost as they pass on.

The CHRP is a three-year program of workshops, community learning forums, and family history research projects that will create new materials and preserve them for posterity. The workshop and projects are all built upon the core concept of putting together young students with older generations of Chinese Canadians and having them work together in an engaged manner that maximizes what each can bring to a collaborative process.

Gayatri Spivak Talk at U of California

I ::heart:: Gayatri Spivak. She is the dame of postcolonial subaltern studies. What an energetic, enigmatic talk. It complements my readings of Spivak's works. She is marvellous. It makes my work as an academic librarian that much more enjoyable.