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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

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Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Choosing A Repository Platform: Open Source Vs. Hosted Solutions, Hillary Corbett, Jimmy Ghaphery, Lauren Work, Sam Byrd Jan 2016

Choosing A Repository Platform: Open Source Vs. Hosted Solutions, Hillary Corbett, Jimmy Ghaphery, Lauren Work, Sam Byrd

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Discusses selection of a locally hosted, open-source system (DSpace/Fedora) versus a cloud-hosted, proprietary system (Digital Commons), it is important to note that these examples are merely illustrative. Libraries have a range of choices for repository software that includes open source and proprietary in any number of support environments, and exemplary repositories are flourishing on a variety of systems, both open source and proprietary. This chapter focuses on the differences between proprietary and open-source solutions, but also demonstrates how and why libraries choose a repository system. In writing about this process, we realized that it was important to acknowledge that there …

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Decrease In Free Computer Science Papers Found Through Google Scholar, Lee A. Pedersen, Julie Arendt Jan 2014

Decrease In Free Computer Science Papers Found Through Google Scholar, Lee A. Pedersen, Julie Arendt

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Purpose - Google Scholar was used to locate free full-text versions of computer science research papers to determine what proportion could be freely accessed.
Design/methodology/approach - A sample of 1967 conference papers and periodical articles from 2003-2010, indexed in the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, was searched for manually in Google Scholar, using the paper or article title and the first author’s surname and supplementary searches as needed.
Findings - Free full-text versions were found for 52% of the conference papers and 55% of the periodical articles. Documents with older publication dates were more likely to be freely accessible than …

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Profiles In Science: John Bennett Fenn, Kimberly Brady, Roy Brown, Emily Johnson, Shannon D. Jones, Margaret Henderson, Dana Ladd, Irene Lubker, Jennifer A. Mcdaniel Jan 2012

Profiles In Science: John Bennett Fenn, Kimberly Brady, Roy Brown, Emily Johnson, Shannon D. Jones, Margaret Henderson, Dana Ladd, Irene Lubker, Jennifer A. Mcdaniel

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

“Don’t ever try to be a scientist or engineer!” Had John Bennett Fenn listened to this advice given by his ninth grade teacher, he might not have gone on to pursue a career in analytical chemistry which would culminate in the attainment of the Nobel Prize in 2002. Gathered from interviews, publication analyses, glowing tributes, and his reminiscences, this paper outlines the academic and professional life of John Fenn from childhood through the end of his career in 2010.

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Beyond Description: Converting Web Site Usage Statistics Into Concrete Site Improvement Ideas, Julie Arendt, Cassie Wagner Jan 2010

Beyond Description: Converting Web Site Usage Statistics Into Concrete Site Improvement Ideas, Julie Arendt, Cassie Wagner

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Web site usage statistics are a widely used tool for Web site development, but libraries are still learning how to use them successfully. This case study summarizes how Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale implemented Google Analytics on its Web site and used the reports to inform a site redesign. As the main campus library at a research university with about 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the library included resources from multiple library departments on a single site. In planning the redesign, Morris Library's Virtual Library Group combined usage reports with information from other sources, such as usability tests …

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Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces For Academic Library Websites, Susan Teague Rector, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2008

Designing Search: Effective Search Interfaces For Academic Library Websites, Susan Teague Rector, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Academic libraries customize, support and provide access to myriad information systems, each with complex graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The number of possible information entry points on an academic library Web site is both daunting to the end user and consistently challenging to library Web site designers. Faced with the challenges inherent in designing online search interfaces and the ever-growing amount of resources available online, VCU Libraries sought to explore how to build effective search interfaces that, at the same time, support a wide variety of computer users and provide comprehensive access to assorted collections of electronic resources. Over a 9 …

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Too Quick? Log Analysis Of Quick Links From An Academic Library Website, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2005

Too Quick? Log Analysis Of Quick Links From An Academic Library Website, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Since the summer of 2001, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries has offered a “Quick Links” menu in the top right-hand side of many of its pages. Transaction log files have been run in order to analyze the use of the Quick Links, and several changes have been made based on those logs. This article will discuss those findings and offer contextual ideas for the use of Quick Links in comparison to the rest of the library website.

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My Library At Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation, Jimmy Ghaphery Jan 2002

My Library At Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation, Jimmy Ghaphery

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

My Library is a personalization tool that allows the library user to consolidate frequently used library resources and services. Since 1998, My Library has been available as a web page to users of the Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. An evaluation of My Library use at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was completed and published in 2000. This article reports on a follow up study that took place between March 2000 and December 2001. The article also discusses the value of My Library as a teaching tool at VCU.

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Vcu's My Library: Librarians Love It. . . . Users? Well, Maybe, Jimmy Ghaphery, Dan Ream Jan 2000

Vcu's My Library: Librarians Love It. . . . Users? Well, Maybe, Jimmy Ghaphery, Dan Ream

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Virginia Commonwealth University's My Library project (circa 1998-1999) has chosen "ease of use" as its primary design criteria. The development of this tool using Perl scripting is described, and reports derived from usage logs are analyzed here. My Library tends to appeal a great deal to a small number of users as a personal tool. Librarians have found it popular as a class teaching tool, with pages designed for specific classes in library instruction receiving the heaviest use.

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