Trey Gordner, Analyzing Linked Data from an SEO Perspective

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/c9us6/

One of the chief promises of linked data for libraries is search engine visibility. Few studies, however, have attempted a quantitative analysis of linked data's impact on search engine rankings. Sophisticated tools have been developed to test search visibility in the related field of search engine optimization, including rank trackers, link analyzers, site auditors, and web crawlers. The author studied a linked data project from a search engine optimization perspective, applying these tools to quantify the impact of linked data and to identify best practices for implementation.

Charlie Harper, Amanda Koziura, What Makes a Librarian Digital?

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/wx74v/

This poster reflects an ongoing project to study the nature of the “digital librarian.” In this poster, we analyze 2017 postings from Code4Lib’s job board with job titles that include the words “digital” and “librarian” in any combination. We use NVivo and text-mining tools to look for patterns (or lack thereof) in the responsibilities, skills, and educational requirements for these positions. This work is a timely update on the evolving nature of digital librarians, and it offers a fresh and well-needed scholarly perspective on larger changes to library employment practices. As a former archaeologist and a former actress, we now find ourselves working as Digital Learning and Scholarship Librarians. A growing number of individuals are, likewise, following similarly non-traditional pathways to the library, and rightly so. The job market for new graduates across fields is perilous and many of the digital needs of libraries are going unmet. A deeper understanding of the prevailing skills that one must cultivate to become employable as a digital librarian is needed.

Bohyun Kim, Interdisciplinary Learning on Artificial Intelligence through Libraries

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/yszxp/

In the Spring of 2016, the University of Rhode Island (URI) ran a contest for admitted students to write about the issues that they wanted to study in college. Artificial Intelligence (AI) was at the top of the list. To foster and develop these growing interests in AI further, the URI Libraries proposed the creation of the Artificial Intelligence Lab. The proposal was recently awarded with the grant funding from the Champlin Foundation. (https://today.uri.edu/news/uri-to-launch-artificial-intelligence-lab/) The AI lab at the URI Libraries is planned to open in the fall of 2018. The goal of the AI lab is two-fold. One is to enable students to explore projects on robotics, natural language processing, smart cities, smart homes, the Internet of Things and big data, through tutorials at beginner through advanced levels; the other to provide a place for faculty, students, and the community to explore the social, ethical, economic and even artistic implications of AI. The lab is expected to promote interdisciplinary learning and the cross-pollination of ideas on campus. The AI Lab project team includes the faculty from the URI Libraries as well as in computer science, philosophy, and electrical, computer and biomedical engineering. As the first of its kind, the AI Lab at the URI Libraries is an exciting and interesting project. At the same time, its implementation is a challenge because there aren't many precedents or well-established models for an AI Lab. In this poster, I will share the project plan, which we are currently in the middle of translating into implementation details, and discuss some of the challenges that we have been discovering along the way.

David Kinzer, Setting up QA Environments on GitHub PRs On the Cheap

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/xh5nz/

I will demonstrate how I leveraged JenkinsCI, Traefik, and Roper to set up QA sites for GitHub PRs against our Blacklight Instance in order. We added this feature to our project in order to facilitate quicker turnaround on feature iterations.

Justin Littman, Acquiring Twitter data for academic research

Slides to PDF: https://osf.io/rcq5j/

Based on the widely circulated blog post "Where to get Twitter data for academic research" (https://gwu-libraries.github.io/sfm-ui/posts/2017-09-14-twitter-data), this poster will discuss various approaches for acquiring Twitter datasets for academic research. These approaches will include collecting yourself, locating and reusing an existing dataset, purchasing a dataset, or using a Twitter service provider. In addition, the poster will highlight some of the key tools and services in acquiring Twitter datasets such as Twarc, Social Feed Manager, TweetSets, Gnip, and DiscoverText.

Sheila Morrissey, Vinay Cheruku, Head in the cloud, or feet on the ground? Making preservation

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/6enzv/

A two-year project to develop the next-generation architecture for the Portico archive of e-journals, e-books, and other electronic scholarly content was the occasion for Portico staff to step back and consider, not just what that architecture should be, but also where it should be. Should we continue to host all of our ingest, archiving, management, and access systems in our current data centers, or should we leverage the elasticity of established cloud infrastructures, with easy hardware scalability (both vertical and horizontal) as well as well-developed DevOps and other software tools? Come walk through the process Portico undertook to develop the criteria for making this choice, the decisions we reached, and why.

Nathan Ryckman, Jim Hahn, HOOT + ELF + FOLIO = Awesome Borrowing Experience for Consumer Electronics

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/t6s5k/

This presentation is a report of developer experiences building new apps on the FOLIO platform. A development grant from the EBSCO FOLIO Innovation Challenge (https://www.ebsco.com/folio-innovation-challenge ) made it possible for a software prototyping team to allocate sustained time integrating custom technology loan apps into the platform. The custom circulation software includes the HOOT app: https://youtu.be/INuzXyv6O1A and the Equipment Loan Form--ELF: https://goo.gl/US5TfA . The overall design approach for this project is to support extensibility of meta-services.

Ian Walls, My Library Account and the Curricular Support Materials Web Service

Poster PDF: https://osf.io/wgk85/

An overview of the architecture, interface and implementation plan of UMass Amherst Libraries' My Library Account feature, which brings together information from the ILS (Aleph), interlibrary loan system (ILLiad), and Curricular Support Service platforms (Ares, Aleph and LibGuides), giving patrons a unified view of everything they currently have, are waiting for, and that instructors are providing via the libraries for their currently enrolled courses. In an effort to better meet students where they are, the Curricular Support Materials web service is served via LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) v1.1, which allows for the content to be easily embedded in Learning Management Systems such as Moodle, Blackboard or Sakai. Includes overview of future additions to the My Library Account service, should it prove useful to students.