Internet Public Library

IPL's 15 Things goes cinematic this week with Thing #7: video! http://www.ipl.org/15things

The Internet Public Library was featured in a variety of contexts at ASIST 2009, including both posters and session presentations.

Dr. Jeffrey Pomerantz, Chirag Shah and Sanghee Oh of UNC-Chapel Hill, presented on research which compared question-answering at the Internet Public Library and at Yahoo!Answers. http://bit.ly/1hsZbe Among their findings:

* IPL has a longer 'shelf life' for URLs used in answers than Yahoo!Answers.
* Comparing the top 5 URLs used in answers, the top 5 urls for Internet Public Library were: 1.IPL 2.Google 3.Yahoo! 4.loc.gov 5.ALA.org as compared to Yahoo!Answers top 5 urls: 1.wikipedia 2.Yahoo!Answers 3.blogspot 4.Amazon 5.Google
* IPL gave more URLs per answer than Yahoo!Answers. IPL gave 4.53 URLs per answer as compared to 2.44 URLs per answer for Yahoo!Answers

Two posters by Drexel researchers at ASIST also described research at the Internet Public Library:

Crossing Borders: The Internet Public Library as a Global Information Service, Lily Rozaklis, Craig M. MacDonald and Eileen G. Abels, Drexel University
http://bit.ly/1nPWgZ

The User Centered Design of a Non-Specialist Metadata Tool and Interface for the Internet Public Library, Michael Khoo, Jung-ran Park and Xia Lin, Drexel University
http://bit.ly/2C6FJk

Congratulations to all of the ASIST '09 researchers!

Did you know that the IPL has its own Teen Space? Among other activities, Teen Space offers our teenagers the chance to share their opinion on the Thing of the Week. Come check what they have to say at http://ipl.org/div/procrast/poststhingoftheweek.html