My User is a Machine: Making Information Accessible to Disabled Users by Structuring for Machine Intermediaries

Abstract

Accessibility to information for disabled human users has increasingly become a legal and ethical concern for public education institutions. The Americans with Disabilities Act guarantees freedom from discrimination for disabled Americans, and recent lawsuits and formal complaints about inaccessible website content have propelled enforcement from an historically reactive stance to one that is proactive. Librarians pride themselves on providing information to all users, and the profession has long understood the need to structure data for other applications. However, many of us fail to use even the simple features built into software packages that can ensure accessible documents and presentations from the point of creation. This failure sets up a paradigm of perpetual effort required to remediate content for accessibility. Effective use of accessibility tools in document creation solves two accessibility problems for two audiences at once: humans and machines.     

Postgraduates' personal digital archiving practices in China: Problems and strategies

This study examined postgraduates' personal digital archiving (PDA) practices in China. Based on a case study of the PDA practices of postgraduates in Wuhan University, many problems in PDA were found; postgraduates have a higher awareness of PDA, but the differences between different grades level and disciplines are obvious. Many postgraduates are technological optimists. Those who realize the importance of PDA lack real action and can only use a single strategy. The protection of personal privacy and information security is still challenging. To solve these problems, efforts from individuals and institutions are proposed, including the suggestion that institutions should implement an advanced intervention in PDA progress to improve postgraduates' PDA awareness, and the suggestion that postgraduates should view archiving technology dialectically and make rational use of archiving tools, using various strategies, regularizing their PDA behavior, and taking multiple measures to protect their personal privacy and information security.     

Stories of impact: the role of narrative in understanding the value and impact of digital collections

Cultural heritage institutions leverage digitization to fulfill their mission to preserve, represent, and provide access to collections under their care. Despite their common interest in documenting the progress of digitization and online access, the library, archives, and museums (LAM) sector lacks a conceptual framework for assessing and demonstrating the impact of digitized ethnographic collections. Reporting the findings of a yearlong interdisciplinary study, this article underscores the importance of storytelling in articulating the value and impact of digitized ethnographic collections held in cultural heritage institutions. We begin with an overview of the literature on the assessment and describe the methods we employed in our study. Next, we identify and discuss the different ways that stories and storytelling are strategically mobilized in conversations about the impact of digitization. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for cultural heritage practice and collection development.     

Design and evaluation of a personal digital assistant- based alerting service for clinicians.

PURPOSE: This study describes the system architecture and user acceptance of a suite of programs that deliver information about newly updated library resources to clinicians' personal digital assistants (PDAs). DESCRIPTION: Participants received headlines delivered to their PDAs alerting them to new books, National Guideline Clearinghouse guidelines, Cochrane Reviews, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Alerts, as well as updated content in UpToDate, Harrison's Online, Scientific American Medicine, and Clinical Evidence. Participants could request additional information for any of the headlines, and the information was delivered via e-mail during their next synchronization. Participants completed a survey at the conclusion of the study to gauge their opinions about the service. RESULTS/OUTCOME: Of the 816 headlines delivered to the 16 study participants' PDAs during the project, Scientific American Medicine generated the highest proportion of headline requests at 35%. Most users of the PDA Alerts software reported that they learned about new medical developments sooner than they otherwise would have, and half reported that they learned about developments that they would not have heard about at all. While some users liked the PDA platform for receiving headlines, it seemed that a Web database that allowed tailored searches and alerts could be configured to satisfy both PDA-oriented and e-mail-oriented users.     

Mathematical text collections: Annotation and application for search tasks

This paper analyzes two models: semantic annotation of mathematical texts and semantic searching for mathematical texts in a marked-up collection. It also presents the results of a series of experiments that were performed with a semantically annotated collection of scientific publications in the field of mathematics.     

Consumer health services and collections for Hispanics: an introduction

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority population in the United States today. Providing health information services to Hispanic patients and their family members can be challenging because of diversity. Library staff should be familiar with the specific health care needs and sociocultural characteristics of Hispanics. This article discusses the movement toward providing culturally competent health care and identifies socioeconomic challenges and barriers to health care faced by Hispanics. Suggestions are offered for communicating with this group in the reference setting, and a selective bibliography of Internet consumer health resources available in both Spanish and English is provided.     

Reflections on light monitoring: Evaluating museum lighting options for modern and contemporary art

Spectrometric handheld light meters that can provide adequate data for evaluation of replacement bulbs for contemporary art objects are now commercially available. This approach was taken to assess potential replacements for the incandescent street lamps in Chris Burden's Urban Light at LACMA, Los Angeles, USA. These meters are also useful tools for monitoring and characterizing museum lighting, which are currently done with illuminance (lux) meters. The new spectral light meters will enable conservators to tailor lighting recommendations for individual artworks, when spectral information from these meters is combined with damage function data on artists’ materials. The latter information can be obtained for some materials by a small modification to the microfade testing procedure, as exemplified by microfading colored samples Henri Matisse created during the design phase for La Gerbe.     

Finding the skills for tomorrow: Information literacy and museum information professionals

This paper presents results from 21 semi-structured interviews with museum information professionals who were asked about their experiences working with information resources, tools, and technologies in museums. The interviews were analyzed to develop an understanding of the information literacy skills of museum information professionals. This paper presents the results of this analysis, and discusses the state of information literacy in museums, and the increasing need for museum information professionals to possess information literacy skills. The results illustrate how information literacy is defined by information professionals in museums, and how perceptions of information literacy and its importance to museums have changed over time.     

用户体验——信息服务研究的新视角

从服务经济迈向体验经济,各行各业都关注用户体验,基于信息化发展和面向国家创新的信息服务也不例外。文章在分析体验经济的特征及体验经济时代用户行为特点的基础上,探讨了信息服务中的用户体验特征与要求、内容及价值。基于用户体验设计的应用,个性化服务和交互式信息服务中的用户体验得到极大提高,从而推动了基于网络平台信息服务的发展。     

Information resources for competitive intelligence: An approach to the information available on the European Union's websites

Companies need to use information from multiple sources to improve their competitiveness. Since its beginnings in the 1950s, the European Union has developed a number of instruments for this purpose. This article gives an overview of the information resources that are most important for businesses and that originate from institutions and other bodies of the European Union. It is divided into five parts: European agencies; resources of the Directorate-General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and SMEs; resources provided by other European Commission DGs & services; Points of Single Contact (PSCs) of the EUGO Network; and other support networks.     

A simple survey kit for chloride detection on cuneiform tablets and other collections

This technical note describes the construction and use of a portable silver nitrate test kit designed to be safely usable in the storeroom during collection condition surveys. It provides the surveying conservator with supplementary test data to better predict the level of hazard presented by soluble salts in collections.     

视野,创造与境界--关于传播学学科建设的一些个人感悟

我们正在进入一个空前的社会大变革时代 ,网络传播正在与各个社会生活领域相融合 ,一个由此而诞生的新的生活环境正在形成。于是 ,未来的传播学发展将进一步走向传播与社会各领域分门别类相整合的细化研究 ,同时这种细化研究又将进入广泛整合的研究。研究方法在学术研究中具有前提意义。后现代主义中的极端相对主义虽然消解了包括学术研究的一切 ,但是却把虚无主义当成了惟一的存在 ,这本身就是自相矛盾的。学术的相对主义可以给我们“提醒例外”和对于其他可能性发出“警告” ,但是这些“例外”和“警告”应当有一个普遍化倾向作为前提。方法与规范可以分为两类 ,一类是技术性的 ,一类是哲学性的。技术性方法表现为通常的学术规范 ,哲学性方法是学者心灵深处散发的、整合性的直觉灵性 ,它是“生命之舞” ,生命的幻化 ,创造往往由此而出。在当代社会大转型时代里 ,需要而且可能涌现一批新的思想家 ,他们可能不再受制于已有的公认的方法限制去获取重大的创造。     

Quality of web-based medical information on stable COPD: comparison of non-commercial and commercial websites

The Internet provides an easy and accessible way to deliver medical information about the management of various diseases, both to practitioners and to their patients. As there is no control over who posts information on the Web, there is a risk that the interests of the web producer may bias the quality of information. The quality of medical information on the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on the Internet was evaluated, comparing non-commercial and commercial websites. An internet search was conducted to locate relevant websites using a metasearch engine. The quality of websites was scored on a scale of 0-10, based on three items about the credibility of the site and seven items about the accuracy of the information provided by the site. Quality differences between commercial and non-commercial websites were explored. The search revealed 23 relevant websites (12 noncommercial and 11 commercial). The overall quality of non-commercial websites was better than that of commercial websites (median score 7 vs. 4, P = 0.01). Compared to commercial sites, non-commercial websites more often provided information about cessation of smoking (100% vs. 64%, P = 0.03), preventative influenza vaccinations (42% vs. 9%, P = 0.07) and use of long-term oxygen therapy (92% vs. 45%, P = 0.02). Among websites providing information on COPD, commercial sites were much more likely to be of poorer quality compared to sites of non-commercial organizations. In particular, commercial sites do not provide information about simple preventative treatments. There is a need to be vigilant about the quality of health information about COPD on the Internet.     

A study on Africana collections in UK libraries: present state and future scenarios

A questionnaire survey combined with interviews involving 70 libraries and two suppliers of Africana materials in the UK was conducted in order to understand the acquisition situation with respect to the demand, acquisition policies, extent and adequacy of Africana acquisitions, sources and factors limiting acquisition of such materials. The study revealed that 41% of the surveyed academic libraries were actively acquiring Africana. It was found that limited use of relevant bibliographical tools, budgetary constraints, delays and non-response to orders, relative smallness in demand, inaccessibility to sources of the publications and the unsatisfactory state of national bibliographies for most of the African countries south of the Sahara were among the factors that limited Africana acquisitions. The cooperative venture by some of the African-based publishers in publicizing their publications abroad was considered a useful step in building Africana collections in the UK. It is suggested that wide utilization of electronic media for sources of information for such materials could be a further improvement on this matter.     

From policy implementation to business process management: Principles for creating flexibility and agility

Organizations are required to comply with changes in legislation and policy. Yet the implementation of new legislation is often expensive, can have long lead times and is prone to failure. The existing situation significantly constrains policy-making. To improve this, policy makers and policy executors are searching for ways to achieve higher levels of flexibility and agility in their business process management systems. Flexibility is the ability to react to changes and agility is the speed in responding to variety and change. Both flexibility and agility are multi-dimensional concepts.This paper presents principles for creating flexibility and agility when implementing new or revised policies into business processes. These principles include: 1) defining and using business services, 2) integrating and orchestrating business services through the use of events, 3) separating process, knowledge and resources and 4) implementing policy in an integrated manner. Business services are components encapsulating business functions and having clear responsibilities and accountabilities. The case study shows that these forms of flexibility and agility can help to implement policies more quickly and cost effectively. An organization's resources and level of flexibility and agility determines what laws can be implemented within a certain time. The improvement of flexibility and agility requires innovations on all levels: infrastructure, business process and organization. The level of flexibility and agility should always be measured by a combination of measures. We make plea for instruments assessing the impact of policies on organizations prior to implementation.