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As libraries, archives, and museums make unique digital collections openly available via digital library platforms, they expose these resources to users who may wish to cite them. Often several URLs are available for a single digital object, depending on which route a user took to find it, but the chosen citation URL should be the one most likely to persist over time. Catalyzed by recent digital collections migration initiatives at Indiana University Libraries, this study investigates the prevalence of persistent URLs for digital objects at peer institutions and examines the ways their platforms instruct users to cite them. This study reviewed institutional websites from the Digital Library Federation's (DLF) published list of 195 members and identified representative digital objects from unique digital collections navigable from each institution's main web page in order to determine persistent URL formats and citation options. Findings indicate an equal split between offering and not offering discernible persistent URLs with four major methods used: Handle, DOI, ARK, and PURL. Significant variation in labeling persistent URLs and inclusion in item-specific citations uncovered areas where the user experience could be improved for more reliable citation of these unique resources., INTRODUCTION Libraries, archives, and museums often make their unique digital collections openly available in digital library services and in different contexts, such as digital library aggregators like the Digital Public [...]

This paper investigates the potential of the Gamified Metaverse as a platform for promoting library services. The study compares the effectiveness of a traditional library program with a Metaversebased library program in terms of knowledge acquisition and library anxiety. The research also examines students' perceptions of implementing gamification within the context of the Gamified Metaverse platform. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, including pre- and post-test analysis, statistical analysis, and qualitative data collection. The results indicate that both the traditional and Metaverse-based library programs effectively increased the participants' knowledge, with no significant difference between the two approaches. However, the Metaverse-based program was found to be less effective in facilitating interaction with librarians and reducing library anxiety. Additionally, students expressed positive perceptions of implementing gamification in the Gamified Metaverse platform, finding it engaging and motivating. These findings contribute to the understanding of the effect of the Metaverse as a tool for promoting library services and enhancing knowledge acquisition. However, it is not as effective in reducing library anxiety, particularly in terms of interaction with librarians and staff. It should be noted that the platform may have limitations such as high costs and potential side effects of virtual reality, making it more suitable as an additional tool for promoting library services, taking into account its feasibility and potential benefits for specific student populations and larger libraries., INTRODUCTION Chiang Mai University, established in 1964, is the first higher education college and the first provincial college located in Thailand, covering a vast area of over 3,500 acres. The [...]

Technology in libraries has played an essential role in serving today's communities. This study provides an overview of the integrated library systems/software (ILSs) used in libraries in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It aims to highlight the strengths and possibilities of ILSs and briefly explain their advantages and disadvantages along with the cost of implementation. The data was gathered from questionnaires sent via an online survey and from direct interviews with certain academic libraries over the period of 2019 to 2020. Fifty-three of 67 libraries that fulfilled the study have implemented an ILS. To deeply understand the application, a direct interview with some libraries was conducted to learn the advantages and disadvantages. The result of the study showed that the most used ILSs are SLiMS and INLISlite and other programs like Apollo, Athenium Light, Simpus, Spektra, Jibas, KOHA, and Openlibrary. The budget spent is an average of 300 USD. While the ILSs have helped these libraries improve services, IT expertise and adequate resources are needed, especially when the systems present problems. An easy-to-use system that costs less will potentially be used in this area of research. This study will be particularly helpful for any library in Indonesia. These findings may also be generalized to libraries in other countries facing economic and technological similarities., INTRODUCTION Historically, the daily operations carried out by any library across the world have focused on organizing knowledge, known as knowledge management. Such processes include acquisitions, preservation, processing library resources, [...]

An intriguing new opportunity for research into the nineteenth-century history of print culture, libraries, and local communities is performing full-text analyses on the corpus of books held by a specific library or group of libraries. Creating corpora using books that are known to have been owned by a given library at a given point in time is potentially feasible because digitized records of the books in several hundred nineteenth-century library collections are available in the form of scanned book catalogs: a book or pamphlet listing all of the books available in a particular library. However, there are two potential problems with using those book catalogs to create corpora. First, it is not clear whether most or all of the books that were in these collections have been digitized. Second, the prospect of identifying the digital representations of the books listed in the catalogs is daunting, given the diversity of cataloging practices at the time. This article will report on progress towards developing an automated method to match entries in early nineteenth-century book catalogs with digitized versions of those books, and will also provide estimates of the fractions of the library holdings that have been digitized and made available in the Google Books/HathiTrust corpus., INTRODUCTION Digital libraries such as Google Books and HathiTrust have created tantalizing opportunities for research into the history of American culture: automated analyses of the entire corpus of books published [...]

In public libraries, especially those in rural settings, it is important that every dime of library funding is leveraged effectively into serving the community. As part of a year-long project beginning in January 2023, we are evaluating item-level cost-effectiveness for each circulating item housed at the public library in Lakeville, Indiana. Through the use of big(ish) data, some custom Python scripting, and machine learning algorithms we hope to answer: How much money is saved by library patrons through their use of the public library's physical collection? How much money is saved by the community through the operation of a public library based on the use of the circulating collection? And are there any non-obvious traits which make an item or title a more or less cost-effective circulating asset? In this column, I will describe the scripts, share initial findings, discuss challenges, and investigate next steps., INTRODUCTION There is so much to be said about the value public libraries bring to the communities they serve. This column is not going to investigate the worth of programs [...]