Closed stacks - improved workflow

ELAG 2014
Going digital in the closed stacks – Library logistics with a smart phone
Eva Dahlbäck and Theodor Tolstoy, Stockholm University Library

(see description of the talk)

Approx. 300 orders a day. Up until recently, orders would have been printed on paper. Orders from closed stacks, interlibrary loans and missing books. Before: digital -> paper -> digital (email sent to user to let them know item available).

The workflow is essentially the same, even if the orders come in differently and come out differently. So now a new digital workflow: All the orders are collected together in a list managed by the Viola programme, in which they are sorted. The librarian makes downloads the list, goes to the stacks and comes back with items. It's managed by a portable phone.

The list can be ordered by location. It is downloaded in the mobile phone. Each book has a separate entry and includes the shelfmark info. The librarians has also a small printer for slips. The phone scans the barcode and a slip is printed and goes in the book. Once a book has been scanned, it receives a green star (they can be various colours for various situations).

Benefits are fewer manual steps and a unique workflow. It's faster and easier to follow the order steps. It requires less people. Viola is also connected to the invoice-system (what does this imply?...). However collection is only twice a day...

A close collaboration between developpers and librarians was necessary. They worked with "user stories" to help in the collaborative work, to prioritise tasks and break them into smaller steps and to follow progress. The user stories included staff, such as the book fetcher (what does he/she need?) Intention is to release this as open source!

The technology used was ASP.NET MVC, the database is a SQL server (replaceable thanks to the ORM PetaPoco) and Android APP (Xmarin Monodroid). Most of these are open source.

Identifying and identifiers

ELAG 2014
Integrating ORCiD – A two way conversation
Tom Demeranville, software engineer specialising in digital identifiers and identities at the British Library

(see description of the talk)

ODIN (DataCite Interoperability Network) is concerned with linking authors with research output and is a 2-year project. It's also looking at datasets, grey literature, etc. What do we mean by identifying authors? The answer varies. One person can have lots of identifiers and profiles, including institutional profile, an ISNI, a ScopusID etc. or an ORCiD.

So the first distinction is between an identifier and a profile. We usually think of identifiers as unique ID but a profile can be much more. Another important point is that no one wants to type the same thing twice. Profiles can be automated or manual. Then there is the difference of identifiers as Institutions or Users, with conflicting notions of control but we all want disambiguation...

So what we need... One identifier and many profiles that solve different use cases.

ORCiD is meant to be a more open identifying system, managed for people with many different use cases. Relevant to publishers, unis, funders and libraries. It would help systems to talk to each other.

Ethos is e-Thesis Online Import. See demo at http://ethos-orcid.appspot.com

The ODIN project is working to integrate ORCiD and DataCite.