Microsoft Word - December_ITAL_kiscaden_FINAL.docx Creating  a  Current  Awareness  Service   Using  Yahoo!  Pipes  and  LibGuides             Elizabeth  Kiscaden     INFORMATION  TECHNOLOGY  AND  LIBRARIES  |  DECEMBER  2014         51   ABSTRACT   Migration  from  print  to  electronic  journals  brought  an  end  to  traditional  current  awareness  services,   which  primarily  used  print  routing.  The  emergence  of  Real  Simple  Syndication,  or  RSS  feeds,  and  email   alerting  systems  provided  users  with  alternative  services.  To  assist  users  with  adopting  these   technologies,  a  service  utilizing  aggregate  feeds  to  the  library’s  electronic  journal  content  was  created   and  made  available  through  LibGuides.  Libraries  can  reestablish  current  awareness  services  using   existing  technologies  to  increase  awareness  and  usage  of  library-­‐provided  electronic  journal  content.   The  current  awareness  service  presented  is  an  example  of  how  libraries  can  build  basic  current   awareness  services  utilizing  freely  accessible  technologies.     CURRENT  AWARENESS  SERVICES   Library  current  awareness  services,  commonly  referred  to  as  “table  of  contents”  services,  historically   involved  the  dissemination  of  information  in  the  form  of  print  journals  or  photocopied  journal   contents  routed  to  library  users  subscribed  to  the  service.1,2  These  services  have  been  particularly   popular  among  corporate,  law,  and  hospital  libraries,  which  routinely  route  serials  to  primarily   internal  clients.  While  these  paper-­‐based  services  are  still  offered  at  some  libraries,  most  shifted  to   an  electronic  model  of  service  with  the  migration  to  electronic  journals.   As  libraries  adopted  electronic  journals,  many  paper-­‐based  current  awareness  services  transitioned   to  an  electronic  table  of  contents  service  utilizing  email  alerts  or  referred  users  to  RSS  feeds  made   available  by  publishers  and  database  vendors.3  A  common  challenge  to  a  library-­‐managed  electronic   table  of  contents  service  is  the  complexity  of  managing  alerts  for  hundreds  of  electronic  journals  for   multiple  patrons.  More  often,  libraries  make  individual  users  responsible  for  subscribing  to  email   alerts  or  RSS  feeds  on  their  own,  effectively  transferring  the  responsibility  of  subscribing  to,  filtering,   and  managing  incoming  information  to  the  user.   A  drawback  to  this  migration  is  that  library  users  often  don’t  possess  a  clear  understanding  of  what   tools  are  available  to  create  their  own  service.4  Formerly,  journals  may  have  arrived  on  a  user’s  desk   for  perusal,  yet  now  users  are  required  to  seek  out  information  independently.  Additionally,  despite   the  number  of  discovery  tools  available,  library  users  are  often  unaware  of  journals  available  in  an   electronic  format  through  their  library.5  Information  management  tools  have  become  necessary  in   our  current  information  environment;  with  the  abundance  of       Elizabeth  Kiscaden  (elizabeth-­‐kiscaden@uiowa.edu),  former  Library  Director  at  Waldorf  College,  is   Head,  Library  Services,  Hardin  Library  for  the  Health  Sciences,  University  of  Iowa,  Iowa  City.       CREATING  A  CURRENT  AWARENESS  SERVICE  USING  YAHOO!  PIPES  AND  LIBGUIDES  |  KISCADEN   52   information  available,  keeping  up-­‐to-­‐date  with  new  information  in  a  discipline  can  be  overwhelming.   Therein  exists  an  opportunity  for  libraries—academic,  special,  and  public—to  revitalize  current   awareness  services  and  build  information  management  tools  using  aggregate  feeds.     DESIGN  AND  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  SERVICE   At  Waldorf  College,  the  Luise  V.  Hanson  Library  created  a  current  awareness  service  utilizing  RSS   feeds,  with  the  intent  to  assist  faculty  with  keeping  up-­‐to-­‐date  with  newly  published  content  in  the   library’s  electronic  journal  collection.  The  service,  dubbed  Info  SOS,  was  designed  to  overcome  two   barriers  to  patron  participation  in  feed  services:  the  chore  of  subscribing  to  and  curating  multiple   feeds  and  the  lack  of  awareness  of  feeds  and  feed  reader  technology.  Info  SOS  was  piloted  to  faculty   during  the  spring  of  2014  and  was  accompanied  by  an  informal  questionnaire  to  collect  feedback.   Info  SOS  is  built  on  RSS,  or  “Really  Simple  Syndication”  technology,  one  of  the  most  prevalent  tools  for   keeping  current  with  new  information  published  electronically.  RSS  has  been  available  for  more  than   a  decade,6  and  many  users—both  patrons  and  library  professionals—are  using  this  technology.   However,  while  powerful  and  freely  accessible,  RSS  feeds  have  their  limitations.  Subscribing  to  and   curating  multiple  feeds  can  become  a  burden.     To  eliminate  the  chore  of  managing  multiple  feeds,  Info  SOS  displays  feed  aggregates  created  using   Yahoo!  Pipes  http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/).  Aggregate  feeds,  or  feeds  comprising  multiple  RSS   feeds,  can  be  created  using  many  tools  available  freely  online,  such  as  Feed  Stitch,  Feed  Informer,   Feedburner,  and  more.  Yahoo!  Pipes  was  chosen  for  this  service  primarily  because  it  requires  limited   coding  knowledge,7  yet  the  software  provides  a  number  of  advanced  functions  for  sorting  and   combining  large  groups  of  feeds.  These  advanced  features  became  essential  when  building  aggregate   feeds  for  content  from  journal  aggregators.     Yahoo!  Pipes  requires  a  user  account  (free  of  charge)  before  constructing  pipes.  The  software   combines  and  sorts  information  using  a  visual  editor  that  resembles  virtual  plumbing,  which  is   presumably  why  the  software  is  called  Pipes.  To  construct  the  aggregate  feeds  composing  Info  SOS,   librarians  used  the  Fetch  Feed  operator  to  combine  individual  RSS  feeds  into  a  single  feed.  Once   combined,  the  service  uses  the  Sort  operator,  which  sorts  the  aggregated  content  by  date.  From  the   Sort  operator,  the  content  is  connected  to  the  Pipe  Output,  from  which  a  single  RSS  feed  is  generated.     The  strength  of  Yahoo!  Pipes  lies  in  the  advanced  tools  available  for  manipulating  feed  content.  For   example,  Pipes  sorts  feed  content  from  database  vendors  by  the  date  it  is  published  to  the  feed,  not   the  publication  date  of  the  article.  If  desired,  aggregate  feed  creators  can  use  the  Rename  and  Regex   operators  to  remove  the  article  publication  date  from  the  description  field  and  use  it  to  sort  the  feed   content.  Another  useful  tool  is  the  Union  operator,  which  allows  creators  to  string  together  larger   bundles  of  feeds.       INFORMATION  TECHNOLOGY  AND  LIBRARIES  |  DECEMBER  2014   53     Figure  1.  Fetch  Feed  and  Sort  Operator  in  Yahoo!  Pipes       Figure  2.  Image  of  Yahoo!  Pipe  Using  Advanced  Tools     CREATING  A  CURRENT  AWARENESS  SERVICE  USING  YAHOO!  PIPES  AND  LIBGUIDES  |  KISCADEN   54   Lack  of  awareness  is  a  barrier  to  user  adoption  of  RSS  feeds;  many  users  have  an  unclear   understanding  of  what  a  RSS  feed  is.  If  unfamiliar  with  RSS  feeds,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  users  are   unfamiliar  with  RSS  reader  technology  as  well.  At  Waldorf  College,  this  was  confirmed  by  the   questionnaire  distributed  during  the  pilot  of  this  service.  Of  the  twenty-­‐eight  faculty  respondents,   more  than  70  percent  had  never  used  an  RSS  feed  before  using  Info  SOS.  It  is  safe  to  assume  that   these  faculty  would  not  have  a  subscription  to  a  feed  reader.   Recognizing  the  need  for  an  interface  to  deliver  content,  librarians  used  the  LibGuides  software  to   display  content  from  these  aggregate  feeds.  The  software  contains  a  tool  for  adding  feed  content,  and   allows  for  the  application  of  an  institution’s  proxy  prefix  to  the  URL,  creating  seamless  access  on  and   off  campus.  The  Info  SOS  resource  contains  tabbed  pages  designated  for  individual  fields  (biology,   psychology,  library  sciences,  etc.)  displaying  aggregate  feeds  for  journals  in  each  subject  area.  For   example,  the  physics  page  contains  aggregate  feeds  for  new  articles  published  in  the  library’s  full-­‐ text  physics  journals,  as  displayed  in  the  figure  below.       Figure  3.  Aggregate  Physics  Feeds  in  LibGuides   USER  FEEDBACK   Info  SOS  remains  a  relatively  new  service  to  library  users  at  the  Luise  V.  Hanson  Library,  but   preliminary  feedback  has  been  positive.  The  service  was  advertised  to  faculty  via  email  and     INFORMATION  TECHNOLOGY  AND  LIBRARIES  |  DECEMBER  2014   55   accompanied  by  a  feedback  survey  created  using  Google  Forms.  As  stated  previously,  librarians   received  twenty-­‐eight  responses  to  the  survey,  a  relatively  strong  response  considering  the  limited   number  of  faculty  at  the  college.   Of  the  respondents,  more  than  70  percent  had  never  used  an  RSS  feed  previously,  instead  using  a   variety  of  other  tools  to  stay  current  with  their  field.  Of  those  other  tools,  18  percent  of  faculty   subscribed  to  table  of  contents  alerts,  27  percent  browsed  new  issues  of  print  journals,  25  percent   visited  association  websites,  and  23  percent  conducted  periodic  searches  for  information  in  the   library  databases.  It  was  of  some  concern  that  of  these  tools,  only  faculty  using  databases  and   subscribing  to  table  of  contents  alerts  would  be  connecting  with  the  library’s  electronic  journal   collection.   When  presented  with  Info  SOS  and  asked  whether  faculty  would  find  this  tool  useful,  more  than  70   percent  responded  that  they  would.  Faculty  were  solicited  for  suggestions  for  improving  the   resource,  and  librarians  received  many  suggestions  for  expanding  the  content.  This  feedback  was   valuable  in  that  it  provided  justification  for  continuing  the  service  beyond  the  pilot  and  a  list  of   potential  subject  areas  to  begin  expanding  the  service.  The  intended  outcome  of  the  service  is  to   assist  faculty  in  keeping  current  with  literature  in  their  field  and  utilizing  the  library’s  resources  in   the  process.   LIMITATIONS  AND  CHALLENGES   Generating  feeds  from  popular  library  databases,  such  as  EBSCOhost  and  ProQuest,  is  limited  in  that   the  publication  dates  for  articles  are  contained  in  the  description  field.  This  can  make  the  Sort   operator  in  Yahoo!  Pipes  somewhat  inaccurate  because  it  would  be  sorting  by  the  date  they  were   published  to  the  feed,  not  by  actual  publication  date  of  the  journal  article.  If  necessary,  this  issue  can   be  corrected  using  the  Rename  and  Regex  operators  by  copying  the  item  description  as  the   publication  date.     An  additional  challenge  regarding  vendor-­‐created  feeds  relates  to  the  issue  of  expiring  feeds  created   from  library  databases.  A  library  profile  was  required  for  each  database,  such  as  EBSCOhost  or   ProQuest,  to  create  and  save  feeds.  This  allows  for  the  renewal  of  expiring  feeds;  the  email  account   attached  to  the  profile  receives  an  invitation  to  renew  expiring  feeds.  Most  vendors  allow  for  feeds  to   be  created  at  the  database  without  a  profile,  but  those  feeds  will  automatically  expire  if  not  used   within  a  period  of  time.  The  potential  of  feeds  expiring  may  add  an  element  of  maintenance  to  the   current  awareness  service.       FUTURE  DEVELOPMENTS   Yahoo!  Pipes  offers  the  unique  ability  to  publish  pipes  that  others  may  share  and  “clone.”  For   libraries  interested  in  creating  aggregate  feeds  for  popular  EBSCOhost  journals,  the  pipes  created  for   Info  SOS  are  available  to  clone  at  http://pipes.yahoo.com/infosos.  A  search  of  published  pipes   available  in  Yahoo!  Pipes  reveals  pipes  created  by  many  public  and  academic  libraries,  all  of  which   are  available  to  clone  and  edit.  The  ability  to  share  pipes  with  other  institutions  introduces  the   possibility  of  current  awareness  services  shared  between  library  consortia  or  associations.     CREATING  A  CURRENT  AWARENESS  SERVICE  USING  YAHOO!  PIPES  AND  LIBGUIDES  |  KISCADEN   56   As  information  becomes  more  abundant,  tools  and  services  to  manage  incoming  information  will   continue  to  be  a  corresponding  need.  Creating  and  sharing  services  that  utilize  technology  common   to  libraries  presents  us  with  the  opportunity  to  collaborate  with  one  another  and  revitalize  library-­‐ engineered  current  awareness  services.  These  services  offer  a  value  that  is  twofold:  library  users   benefit  from  the  ability  to  stay  current  with  publications  in  their  field,  and  libraries  have  the   potential  of  increased  usage  of  their  purchased  content.  With  no  financial  investment,  an  aggregate   feed-­‐based  service  is  a  value  that  a  variety  of  libraries  can  implement  with  the  investment  of  only   limited  personnel  time.   REFERENCES     1.    G.  Mahesh  and  Dinesh  Kumar  Gupta,  “Changing  Paradigm  in  Journals  Based  Current  Awareness   Services  in  Libraries,”  Information  Services  &  Use  28,  no.  1  (2008):  59–65,   http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/ISU-­‐2008-­‐0555.       2.    Stephen  M.  Johnson,  Andrew  Osmond,  and  Rebecca  J.  Holz,  “Developing  a  Current  Awareness   Service  Using  Really  Simple  Syndication  (RSS),”  Journal  of  the  Medical  Library  Association  97,  no.  1   (2009):  51–53,  http://dx.doi.org/10:3163/1536-­‐5050.97.1.011.   3.    Mahesh  and  Gupta,  “Changing  Paradigm  in  Journals  Based  Current  Awareness  Services  in   Libraries.”   4.    M.  Kathleen  Kern  and  Cuiying  Mu,  “The  Impact  of  New  Technologies  on  Current  Awareness  Tools   in  Academic  Libraries,”  Reference  &  User  Services  Quarterly  51,  no.  2  (2011):  92–97.     5.    Sandra  J.  Weingart  and  Janet  A.  Anderson,  “When  Questions  Are  Answers:  Using  a  Survey  to   Achieve  Faculty  Awareness  of  the  Library’s  Electronic  Resources,”  College  &  Research  Libraries  61,   no.  2  (2000):  127–34,  http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/crl.61.2.127.   6.    Jim  Doree,  “RSS:  A  Brief  Introduction,”  Journal  of  Manual  &  Manipulative  Therapy  15,  no.  1  (2007):   57–58.     7.    Bill  Dyszel,  “Create  No-­‐Code  Mashups  with  Yahoo!  Pipes,”  PC  Magazine  26,  no.  21/22  (2007):  103– 5.