Changes

This talk will present a library assessment and software development perspective on the creation and utility of an open source tablet-based tool for collecting and analyzing data about the use of library physical spaces. Building on recent experience developing web-based and native-iPhone library apps, we will discuss complicating implementation-related issues such as platform dependence, intermittent network coverage (data caching), and centralized data synchronization with multiple collectors. HTML5 and co-evolving technologies (specifically, Web SQL client-side storage) can be utilized to balance the various advantages of web-based apps with the performance of native apps, but implementation choices can directly impact both the types of data that can be collected and the cost of adoption of an open source release. Finally, we will use an early prototype of this tool to demonstrate some new assessment possibilities.

* Rafael Sidi, VP Product Management, Elsevier (r.sidi@elsevier.com)

During the last decade, computing developments in information discovery have had a significant impact on the research breakthroughs that enhance our society. In the course of thousands of interviews with researchers, developers and industry influencers, we uncovered trends that are shaping lean research globally – workflow efficiencies, funding pressures, government policies and global competition. We also looked at key trends defining the future of web – openness and interoperability, personalization, and collaboration and trusted views, and saw an opportunity to create an ecosystem that empowers the scientific community to innovate, create and discover applications that leverage scientific literature to improved their search and discovery process.

This session explores this new ecosystem that enables developers, researchers and research institutions to develop applications that leverage public domain and licensed content. We will talk about a platform that enables collaboration with the scientific community- researchers and developers- on solutions that target specific researcher interests and workflows. We will explain how publishers can offer their content through APIs and how publishers and platform providers can present developers with application building tools. This ecosystem will create a channel where developers can collaborate with researchers in developing new applications. These same publishers and platform providers have an opportunity to serve as the host of the new scientific knowledge ecosystem that is evolving. This fresh approach in scientific publishing would set a new paradigm in the way research information is discovered, used, shared and re-used to accelerate science.