Presented at the 14th Annual Digital Libraries Symposium at ALA Midwinter on January 21, 2012.

1. In Context: Case Studies in
Integrated Physical and Virtual
Library Service Design
Jason Casden
North Carolina State University Libraries
Elsevier - 14th Annual Digital Libraries Symposium
January 21, 2012

2. Outline
• Overview
• Three projects at NCSU Libraries
– Library Course Tools
– WolfWalk
– Suma
• What’s around the corner?

3. "Discovery happens elsewhere"
Lorcan Dempsey's argument applies to
physical spaces just as it does to the web.
h"p://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001430.html

4. Integration
1. Excellent in-person services
2. Excellent online services
3. It’s time for better integration
• between in-person and online services
• into new contexts of use
• with improved data-informed design

5. Library Course Tools

6. What is Library Course Tools?
A distillation of the most student-centric stuff
the library has to offer.

7. Our environment
• Large institution (30,000+ students)
• Many courses (6,000+ courses)
• Approx. 100 librarians, 260+ total staff FTE
• Moodle Learning Management System

8. “Improve your coursework”
• Services should reflect patron priorities
• Library websites can be overwhelming for
students
• “Subject guides” may be too broad

9. Library course pages
• Hand-authored
course guides
• Assignment focused
• Limited reach

10. Problem: limited reach
Published course pages
NCSU courses without course pages

11. A course view for every course
1. Offer content for ALL courses
2. Customize components as needed

12. Scalable reach
Customized Library Tools pages
All courses with Library Tools page

13. Scalable reach
Customized Library Tools pages
All courses with Library Tools page

14. Scalable reach
Customized Library Tools pages
All courses with Library Tools page

20. Course
customization

21. Curriculum
customization

22. Discipline
customization

23. Generic
content

24. Library Course Tools
Moodle Block for Moodle Block for
Registration & Records Course Playspace or off-model courses

25. Usage by semester

26. Usage by curriculum

27. Usage by widget

28. Collaboration is key
• Subject specialist librarians
• Software developers
• User experience specialists
• Campus partners
• Students
• Faculty

29. Lessons learned
• Support different levels of customization
• Leverage existing data sources
• Design for reuse
• Build outside of Learning Management
Systems and integrate

30. WolfWalk

31. WolfWalk
Make it easy for the NC State
campus community to learn
about the history of campus
while on campus.

32. Todd Kosmerick and Adam Berenbak, NCSU Libraries

34. WolfWalk
• Launched 2010
• Major update June 2011
• 3 flavors
– Web App
– iPhone/iPod Touch
– iPad
• 1000+ images

45. Usage

46. Suma

47. Suma
Replace and dramatically improve
the entire workflow for collecting
and analyzing data about the use
of physical spaces.

48. Illustration by Joyce Chapman

49. Staff as sensors
Joyce Chapman: librarian, project team member, slide contributor, wireframer, data analyst, illustrator.

50. What is the system?

51. What is the system?

52. What is the system?

53. What is the system?

54. What is the data?

57. What are we trying to replace?
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Dipesh Soneji. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dipeshsoneji/4734289230/

64. …and it’s Open Source.

65. …in summary

66. Blending
Designing tighter integration between virtual
and physical services is obviously a good idea.

67. Blending
...but we should be prepared for
an increase in project complexity.

68. Some complicating factors
• Hidden costs of broader collaboration
• Competing priorities
• Working with legacy systems
• Making smart use of emerging technology

69. What's coming?
• James B. Hunt, Jr. Library
• Roving reference
• More uniform data collection and analysis
• Targeted and experimental space and service
design

70. Wireframe created by Adam Rogers, NCSU Libraries.

71. Library Course Tools Credits
• The project team
– Kim Duckett
– Jason Casden
– Tito Sierra
– Andreas Orphanides
– Joseph Ryan

72. WolfWalk Credits
• The project team
– Tito Sierra
– Jason Casden
– Cory Lown
– Steven Morris
– Markus Wust
– Brian Dietz
– Todd Kosmerick
– Joseph Ryan

73. Suma Credits
• The project team
– Jason Casden
– Rob Rucker
– Joyce Chapman
– Eric McEachern
– Rusty Earl

74. Project links
• Library Course Tools
www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/courseviews
• WolfWalk
m.lib.ncsu.edu/wolfwalk
• Suma
www.lib.ncsu.edu/dli/projects/spaceassesstool

75. Thanks!
Jason Casden
jason_casden@ncsu.edu
Slides: http://go.ncsu.edu/dls2012