Working Papers
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White papers, position papers, and documents representing research, observations, and environment scans supporting the Libraries' work and planning.
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Item Discovery, access and use of information in a “digital ecosystem”(2017-10-06) Ammerman, JackItem SHARE’s Open Dataset of Research Outputs(2016-04-06) Plunket, LindaItem Searching for known items: comparing search results for books in Millennium (III) and Primo at Boston University Libraries(2013-06-19) Ammerman, JackThis study attempts to compare the effectiveness of searching for “known items” in Primo and the Millennium OPAC. Boston University Libraries provided both the Millennium OPAC and Primo for a period of 16 months. During that period bibliographic records were regularly harvested from Millennium to be loaded in Primo. Millennium has since been decommissioned, leaving Primo as the sole discovery interface. The methodology for the study was adapted from a similar study done by Steve R. Thomas from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The results do add weight to Thomas’ conclusions that searching for known items in Primo is as effective as searching in a traditional OPAC like Aleph. In this study, Primo consistently outperformed Millennium. Emerging questions are: what is significantly different about the user experience that results in the perception that known item searching is more difficult in Primo? And, how can the Libraries address the issue?Item Evolutionary Subject Tagging in the Humanities; Supporting Discovery and Examination in Digital Cultural Landscapes(2011-11-30) Ammerman, Jack; Zafrin, Vika; Benedetti, Daniel; Green, Garth W.In this paper, the authors attempt to identify problematic issues for subject tagging in the humanities, particularly those associated with information objects in digital formats. In the third major section, the authors identify a number of assumptions that lie behind the current practice of subject classification that we think should be challenged. We move then to propose features of classification systems that could increase their effectiveness. These emerged as recurrent themes in many of the conversations with scholars, consultants, and colleagues. Finally, we suggest next steps that we believe will help scholars and librarians develop better subject classification systems to support research in the humanities.Item Library Technology Services at Boston University: an un-roadmap(2011-02-06T21:36:47Z) Ammerman, JackThis document attempts to identify user needs and expectations along with trends in scholarship, scholarly communication, and technologies that are the context in which decisions about library technologies are made. It also attempts to develop at least a sense of direction to guide decisions about library technologies at BU.Item Services to support BU Authors with Open Access Issues(2011-01-20T21:59:14Z) Ammerman, JackDiscusses options for Boston University Libraries for supporting faculty authors in their efforts to make their articles available through open access publishing models.Item Collection Development and the Value of the Library(2011-01-20T21:53:38Z) Ammerman, JackDiscusses recent trends in scholarly communication and library collection developmentItem Report on OCLC Web-scale Management Services (WMS)(2010-12-08T20:32:04Z) Ammerman, JackA report on the OCLC/LYRASIS “Moving Library Cooperation to Web Scale” session on Friday, Dec 3, 2010.Item Library as Agent of [Re]Contextualization(Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, 2009-06) Zafrin, Vika; Ammerman, Jack; Green, Garth W.