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Personalized Library Services

Innovative Web-Based Reference Services:
A Selected List

Local Systems and Services Committee

"A user-driven, customizable information service" that allows the user "to create a portable Web page listing information resources available from" their home library. (Morgan, 1999). Most often this is used to enable users to select databases of specific interest to them so they don’t have to go through a library’s often lengthy lists. For this project, we have also included some readers' advisory sites that get a personal profile of a patron’s reading preferences and informs them of materials that match their criteria.

Morgan, Eric Lease. (1999). MyLibrary: A Model for Implementing a User-centered, Customizable Interface to a Library's Collection of Information Resources. Raleigh, NC: Digital Library Initiatives. Retrieved from: http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/9902/9902003.pdf

Institution: Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY
Title: MyLibrary@Cornell
URL: http://mylibrary.cornell.edu/
( Information about the project and a tutorial at: http://gould.mannlib.cornell.edu/newhelp/res_services/mylib.html)
Guest Access: Yes, guest access is available for two MyLibrary services, MyLinks: http://mylibrary.cornell.edu/guest.html and MyContents: http://mylibrary.cornell.edu:8080/mycontents/guestEnter.do
Contact: Angela Horne, Coordinator of Public Services, Johnson Graduate School of Management Library: akh8@cornell.edu
Description: "MyLibrary is a collection of personal electronic services, developed by the Cornell University Library, that can be customized to reflect your own interests and research needs." MyLibrary currently consists of three services: MyLinks, MyUpdates and MyContents and also provides a link via "MyCatalog" to the Cornell University Library Catalog which is also customizable. "Select MyLinks to collect, organize, and maintain links to electronic resources from the Library Gateway or anything else on the World Wide Web. Select the MyUpdates service to be periodically informed of new books, journals, electronic media, and other resources which meet criteria you specify. Select the MyContents service for delivery of journal table of contents as they become available. Receive the table of contents of your choice via e-mail or over the web in formats you specify (including EndNote and Reference Manager)."
Why it’s innovative: Provides links to an array of personalized services including customized searches of the library catalog.
Reviewed: July 2003

Institution: Institute for Learning and Research Technology
Title: Social Science Information Gateway My Account
URL: http://www.sosig.ac.uk/help/custom.html
Guest Access: Yes, anyone can set up an account and use the full resources of SOSIG.
Contact: Debra Hiom, Co-Director: D.Hiom@bristol.ac.uk
Description: “The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) is a freely available Internet service which aims to provide a trusted source of selected, high quality Internet information for students, academics, researchers and practitioners in the social sciences, business and law.” The “My Account” feature allows users to create a customizable portal to organize resources and receive alerts on new resources and events. My Account also helps like-minded researchers to find each other and share research interests and conference and other event information.
Why it’s innovative: Allows users to share personal information about interests and events.
Reviewed: June 2003

Institution: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, William H. Welch Medical Library
Title: MyWelch
URL: https://mywelch.welch.jhmi.edu/login/index.cfm
Guest Access: Yes, at https://mywelch.welch.jhmi.edu/login/login_local.cfm
Contact: Dongming Zhang, Director, Office of Advanced Technology and Information Systems: zhang@mail.jhmi.edu
Description: MyWelch is a portable, user-customizable interface to the Welch Medical Library and other information resources. MyWelch allows users to expend a minimal amount of effort to create a personal 'home page' that reflects their research needs and personal interests. Among its many features, MyWelch lets users create links to electronic resources and services available from the Welch Medical Library, keeps users abreast of the latest health news, alerts users to new resources acquired by the library, provides the table of contents for five of the top medical journals, offers a selection of resources based on your personal preferences, and tracks the five electronic resources you access the most. In addition, MyWelch allows you to select which features you would like displayed on your home page so that you get only the information you want.
Why it’s innovative: Includes a notepad function, an online forum, alerts to new library resources (including direct links to eBooks and eJournals) and TOCs for "five of the top medical journals."
Reviewed: July 2003

Institution: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Title: MyLibrary @ LANL
URL: http://lib-www.lanl.gov/lww/mylibweb.htm
Guest Access: No. Use of MyLibrary @LANL is restricted to LANL employees.
Contact: Mariella Di Giacomo: mariella@lanl.gov
Description: “MyLibrary @ LANL is a personalized web portal. It is a collection of personal links to electronic journals, databases, and other web resources. It can be customized to reflect specific disciplines and research needs. Version 2.0 of MyLibrary introduced shared libraries. An “owner” can set up a library, determine who has access to this library, and populate the library. This “sharing” of resources will facilitate team projects, interest groups, etc. There will be one place to store resources. Members of the shared library have two levels of “rights.” The owner can assign some members read-only rights. Other members can have “read & write” privileges. Only the owner has the right to delete resources from a shared library. For additional details, see: Di Giacomo, M., Mahoney, D., Bollen, J., Monroy-Hernandez, A., & Meraz, C. M. R. (2001, June 18-20). MyLibrary, A personalization service for digital library environments. Paper presented at the Joint DELOS-NSF Workshop on Personalisation and Recommender Systems in Digital Libraries, Dublin, Ireland.
Why it’s innovative: Shared access, facilitates group work.
Reviewed: June 2003

Institution: Mississippi State University Libraries
Title: myLibrary
URL: http://library.msstate.edu/mylibrary/login.asp
Contact:
Guest Access: Yes. User ID = guest, Password = guest.
Description: “The myLibrary service … allows you to create a personalized, customizable web page containing links to the Library information and resources you refer to most often.” In addition to being able to organize library resources and save searches, myLibrary can automatically fill in online forms for library services such as interlibrary loan requests, book recalls, and research consultations requests.
Why it’s innovative: Automatically fills in online forms for library services.
Reviewed: June 2003

Institution: Morton Grove Public Library, Morton Grove, IL
Title: MatchBook
URL: http://www.webrary.org/rs/matchbooksearch.html
Guest Access: Guests can generate lists of recent library purchases in up to three nonfiction, fiction or AV categories.
Contact: Kevin Justie, Assistant Director and Head of Technical and Automated Services: kjustie@webrary.org
Description: "The Morton Grove Public Library's exclusive MatchBook service provides Library users with monthly lists of the Library's new purchases (books and audio-visual materials) customized to each subscriber's specific interests. Now our online visitors have access to the MatchBook database - an entire year's worth of new materials!"
Why it’s innovative: Provides monthly, user-specific lists of new materials.
Reviewed: July 2003

Institution: Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
Title: brarydog
URL: http://www.brarydog.net
Guest Access: Anyone can create an account, but some "premium" resources are only available to library card holders.
Contact: Helene Blowers, Director of Web Services: hblowers@plcmc.org
Description: "Brarydog.net, your homework help and Web companion, is a Web site designed to provide you with easy access to the best premium electronic resources and Web sites found on the net. The brarydog.net site allows you to create a customized Web page with access to dozens of resources (encyclopedias, newspaper & magazine databases, etc.) as well as links to your favorite sites and search tools. With brarydog.net, all your favorite Internet resources and sites come together to create your personal library on the Web." For additional details, see: Bryan, R. (2002). Brarydog.net; a homework assistance portal for students. Public Libraries, 41(2), 101-103.
Why it’s innovative: Specifically designed for use by school children for homework.
Reviewed: July 2003

Institution: Thompson Nicola Regional District Library System Kamloops, B.C., CANADA
Title: The Reader's Robot
URL: http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/rr.html
Guest Access: Yes.
Contact: Kevin Kierans, Director of Libraries: kkierans@tnrdlib.bc.ca.
Description: This is a reader's advisory, or "more like this" service. Users select a genre such as science fiction, romance, mystery, and western. After selecting a genre, the user next indicates like or dislike of several specific titles, the service attempts to provide other titles likely to be of interest based on other individuals' expressed reading interests. Also allows searching by "appeal factors" such as length of book, background detail, pace of book, etc. Also includes sub-genre categories such as SF - space opera, SF - Galactic Empires Romance - Saga, Romance - Regency etc. Searchable by genre/sub-genre, "appeal", and keyword. Covers about 5000 books. (includes 520 titles from the Library Journal "Word of Mouth" column).
Why it’s innovative: Suggests books according to user profile and allows searching by format factors and genre categories.
Reviewed: July 2003

Institution: University of Toronto Libraries
Title: my.library and my.alerts
URL: http://www.library.utoronto.ca/mylibrary
Guest Access: No
Contact: Marc Lalonde, Coordinator, Web Development: marc.lalonde@utoronto.ca
Description: “My.library is [a] personal library web space, where you can collect e-journals, library materials, catalogue searches, web sites, and any other resources you choose. Faculty can also use my.library to create online resource guides for … students. Use my.alerts, a component of my.library, to store search profiles describing your research interests. You will get weekly updates of what’s new in your areas from the research literature, in your choice of formats.”
Why it’s innovative: Facilitates web publishing of research guides for faculty. Integrates table of contents alerting services into one account.
Reviewed: June 2003

Institution: Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, Richmond, VA
Title: My Library
URL: http://www.library.vcu.edu/mylibrary/
Guest Access: Yes, at http://www.library.vcu.edu/mylibrary/test.html
Contact: James Ghaphery, Education and Outreach Services: jsghaphe@vcu.edu, or Dan Ream, Head, Education and Outreach Services: dream@vcu.edu
Description: Users select specific titles from categories such as database subject lists, electronic journals, Web search engines, library services, and bookmarks from an easy-to-use setup screen. "My Library has proven to be a useful teaching tool in that it allows a teaching librarian to quickly assemble a web page tailored to the tools needed by a particular class. For example a Social Work class can have the databases they need (Social Work Abstracts, Psychological Abstracts, etc.) and relevant web pages bookmarked and all students are then given a shared login/password to access the shown tools after the library session has ended. Our log files for My Library show that these class pages are extremely popular. 4% of the My Library accounts drove more than 60% of the activity. More than 50% (54 of 104) of the heavily used accounts that had accessed My Library more than 50 times were from such class accounts." For additional details, see the section labeled "My Library as a Teaching Tool" in Ghaphery, J. (2002). My Library at Virginia Commonwealth University: Third Year Evaluation. D-Lib Magazine, 8(7-8), Retrieved from http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july02/ghaphery/07ghaphery.html.
Why it’s innovative: Use as a teaching tool.
Reviewed: July 2003

Reviewers: Scott Garton, Linda Keiter