Sabina Pagotto

(This is not about AI. I mean, I think my bottom line does still apply to AI, although sideways from the examples discussed in this post. But we’re at a point where any time I talk about technology I feel like I need to clarify.) So here’s a thing that feels obvious to me but…

As a sidequest from the research project I’m currently collaborating on (and where would this blog be were it not for sidequests from research projects?), I started to get interested in how people describe the library discovery layer/thing you search to students. I.e.: do people use the branded name or call it the library catalogue…

Today is the last day of OCUL’s VDX license. OCUL first talked about procuring VDX in 1999, named its installation RACER in 2002, and went live with the first cohort in June 2003. Now, 21 years later, RACER is coming to an end, and since I’m the current service lead at Scholars Portal, it sort…

I recently attended the Canadian Library Assessment Workshop, hosted this year at Western University. This was my fourth CLAW (I still get emails from the hotel in Victoria from CLAW 2017, anyone else??) and I always come away inspired and motivated to up my assessment game (and then I get dragged down by the daily…

Ugh, “problematizing.” What is this, grad school?? Anyhow. I have been thinking a lot lately about user friendliness, and specifically the question: Is it possible to be *too* user-friendly? But that question is provocative, and not exactly what I’m trying to get at. I guess to be more specific, or more accurate, I meant to…

Ah, ISBNs. Those international (technically) standard (lol) book (I suppose) numbers. The truth is, there isn’t a lot of standardization in how publishers apply and use ISBNs. You’re supposed to have a different ISBN for different editions and formats of each title–paperback, hardcover, ebook, etc.–but what constitutes a “different” “edition” can vary. Recently a book…

After all these years, I figure now is the right time to create my own website. Will I actually use this blog? Who knows. Stay tuned.