Each month we tackle some small changes to the library website. Following are some updates of note from March.
When you link to a library blog post on social media, the image from the blog post will now display in your share. For example, you can see below how this blog post about Kurt Cobain shows up on Facebook when shared.
by Stu Snydman & Gary Geisler
The Stanford University Libraries (SUL) have a rich and diverse collection of digital content. Users can discover collections and content from the Stanford Digital Repository through the library website, library catalog (SearchWorks), and persistent citation (PURL) pages. SUL also develops robust, custom-built websites for selected collections (see Parker on the Web and the French Revolution Digital Archive) that provide a rich discovery environment and a range of features that enable users to more effectively work with the collection items. But these sites require significant investment in time and development resources to produce and maintain, limiting the number and variety SUL can support.
Using a feed reader is a highly efficient and effective way of staying current on topics of interest, and easily sharing items with colleagues and friends.
RSS (Rich Site Summary, or Real Simple Syndication) is a mechanism by which a digital information source sends out links to newly added content. A feed reader lets me gather, organize, and edit these various streams of new content links in a single, user-friendly interface (I use Feedly). When I subscribe to a feed, new content is automatically sent to my feed reader as soon as it is made available, 24/7. Oh, and it’s free!
During the fall of 2013, Stanford University Libraries (SUL) convened a working group to investigate the current state of access to audio and moving image materials held within its various collections, notably rare materials within its different special collections departments, along with those held at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
Following many weeks of investigation, the Media Access Working Group (MAWG) produced a report in December 2013 outlining its findings, along with various recommendations to help tackle the issues discovered. The group considered issues relating to use cases, copyright status, available technologies - including media streaming, and content usage.
Our data management services web site is all new and improved, and we invite you to check it out, have a browse, learn something new, and tell us what you think!
We have expanded the existing content, added tons of new and useful information, and reorganized everything to make it all easier for you to find and use.
A bunch of federal websites will shut down with the government, By Andrea Peterson, Washington Post, Published: September 30 at 5:28 pm. Also: The Government Printing Office (GPO) reports:
"GPO will not be updating gpo.gov, FDLP.gov, the Catalog of Government Publications, Ben’s Guide, or be responding to askGPO questions until funding is restored. The Laurel warehouse will be closed so there will be no shipments to depository libraries. Congressional materials will continue to be processed and posted to FDsys. Federal Register services on FDsys will be limited to documents that protect life and property. The remaining collections on FDsys will not be updated and will resume after funding is restored."
Sites that are down include NASA, Library of Congress, Department of Education's ERIC database, Census and USDA. Arstechnica checked 56 .gov sites and found 10 that went dark. See "Shutdown of US government websites appears bafflingly arbitrary." (Originally posted on Free Government Information blog.)
The library website continues to grow, and with growth comes change. We are happy to announce that early next week some high priority changes to the site's architecture will go live.
Early in our user research process for the new library website, faculty and students asked us to present easy to find and consistent information about Stanford's 25 branch, auxiliary, and coordinate libraries. With such a large and complex system of locations, it was important to users, they told us, that hours, location information and basic policies were presented to them in a consistent and highly accessible format.
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