[Web4lib] Code4Lib Journal Issue 8 Available

[Andrew Darby]

[Sorry for cross-posting.]

The new issue of the Code4Lib Journal is now available.  Issue 8's
contents are as follows:

Openness [Editorial Introduction]
by Andrew Darby
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2282

On openness and the Code4Lib Journal.

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Infomaki: An Open Source, Lightweight Usability Testing Tool
by Michael Lascarides
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2099

Infomaki is an open source “lightweight” usability testing tool
developed by the New York Public Library to evaluate new designs for
the NYPL.org web site and uncover insights about our patrons. Designed
from the ground up to be as respectful of the respondents time as
possible, it presents respondents with a single question at a time
from a pool of active questions. In just over seven months of use, it
has fielded over 100,000 responses from over 10,000 respondents.

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library/mobile: Tips on Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites
by Kim Griggs, Laurie M. Bridge and, Hannah Gascho Rempel
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2055

Mobile applications can support learning by making library resources
more ubiquitous, by bringing new users to the library through
increased accessibility to the resources libraries offer, and by
creating a new way to enhance connections between patrons and
libraries. This increased use of mobile phones provides an untapped
resource for delivering library resources to patrons. The mobile Web
is the next step for libraries in providing universal access to
resources and information. This article will share Oregon State
University (OSU) Libraries’ experience creating a mobile Web presence
and will provide key design and development strategies for building
mobile Web sites.

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Automated Metadata Formatting for Cornell’s Print-on-Demand Books
By Dianne Dietrich
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2138

Cornell University Library has made Print-On Demand (POD) books
available for many of its digitized out-of-copyright books. The
printer must be supplied with metadata from the MARC bibliographic
record in order to produce book covers. Although the names of authors
are present in MARC records, they are given in an inverted order
suitable for alphabetical filing rather than the natural order that is
desirable for book covers. This article discusses a process for
parsing and manipulating the MARC author strings to identify their
various component parts and to create natural order strings. In
particular, the article focuses on processing non-name information in
author strings, such as titles that were commonly used in older works,
e.g., baron or earl, and suffixes appended to names, e.g., “of
Bolsena.” Relevant patterns are identified and a Python script is used
to manipulate the author name strings.

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Ead McTaggart: Using VBA to Automate EAD Container List Tagging
by Randall Miles
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2025

Faced with the prospect of converting 200-page container lists to
Encoded Archival Description (EAD), the author programmed a Microsoft
Access database using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to
automatically insert the necessary EAD tags and their attributes. Some
work is still required to ensure that the container list is properly
formatted before importing into the database. Once formatted, the
database, named Ead McTaggart, will convert a 7,000 line Microsoft
Excel container list, where each line represents a series, sub-series,
or folder title, into a properly tagged EAD container list in about
five minutes. As written, Ead McTaggart will handle up to six
component levels, but can be modified to handle more. Although many
institutions use Archivists’ Toolkit or Archon for this functionality,
many libraries and archives who have not implemented those tools will
find that EAD McTaggert minimizes the work of converting existing
container lists to EAD finding aids with a low time investment for
implementation.

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Automatic Preparation of ETD Material from the Internet Archive for
the DSpace Repository Platform
by Tim Ribaric
http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2152

A big challenge associated with getting an institutional repository
off the ground is getting content into it. This article will look at
how to use digitization services at the Internet Archive alongside
software utilities that the author developed to automate the
harvesting of scanned dissertations and associated Dublin Core XML
files to create an ETD Portal using the DSpace platform. The end
result is a metadata-rich, full-text collection of theses that can be
constructed for little out of pocket cost.