Ruruk Greenall (@brinxmat) talking about work done at NTNU library (a technical university)

Starting off with information gathered from various surveys – found high use of articles, and that books were not so interesting to the library users – especially not when not available in electronic format.

Found from statistics that 35% of library purchases not borrowed at all. Worked out it would be cheaper to get students to buy each book they needed and get the library to pay for it, than to go to the expense of purchasing, cataloguing and shelving the book.

So – decided to look at how the library subscribed resources appeared in Google – looked at over 300 services and found that out of 333 services, only 6 had content that was not discoverable via Google. So in general can use Google, rather than relying on these subscribed services (for search – not necessarily content). One student comment on the library blog was;

What is the use of teaching students to use databases that are closed to them when they finish their studies

So – rather than try to replicate Google, rather look at the gaps between Google and the library and just look to fill these gaps. For example they created a Linked Data version of MetaLib information and created browser toolbar. Also created a Linked Data representation of SFX (and created a display that includes Sherpa/Romeo status – great idea)