LibraryLinks Spring 2006
Binghamton Librarians Present at National Conference on Computing & Libraries
By Bern Mulligan
On Wednesday, March 22, 2006, six librarians from the Binghamton University Libraries presented at the conference Computers in Libraries at the Washington Hilton in Washington D.C.
In
the morning, Abigail Bordeaux, Erin Rushton, and
Marcy Strong were members of a panel for a session titled “Wikis
in Action,” which was part of the conference’s “Communities
and Collaboration” track. The three speakers described how the Libraries
have been using wikis internally since early 2005 and discussed the Libraries’ implemention
of a locally hosted wiki (below left). They were joined in the session by
librarians from Stony Brook and Ohio University.
During
the afternoon, Kate Bouman, Alesia McManus, and Dave Vose presented a session
titled “Meet the Grokkers: Implementing a Visual Search
Tool” as part of the conference’s “Information Discovery
and Research” track. Grokker (below right) is a visual search tool
that facilitates information discovery by displaying search results in topically
organized visual maps. Students use the maps with easily discernable visual
cues to explore results more efficiently and with greater understanding.
The speakers discussed the general background of the product, performed a
live demo of Grokker, and discussed the technical issues behind implementing
this exciting new service.
