Library

Humanizing your Facebook Pages… revisited

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Salam

To my surprise, through Meltwater news monitoring service, The Tan Sri Dr. Abdullah Sanusi Digital Library has been featured among other libraries in Mr. Lee’s blog post, Humanizing your Facebook Pages. In his post, he explained why some libraries had few FB fans while others had more than thousand fans.

The ground rule is very simple and easy. Make your Facebook Fan page as lively as possible. Post updates everyday and off course interact with every comments. That is the secret, well, it’s no-brainer stuff.

Others should follow too. Facebook is free and setup is super easy.

EBSCO has acquired NetLibrary

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Effective Wednesday, March 17th, EBSCO Publishing and OCLC finalized an agreement whereby EBSCO has acquired NetLibrary, a leading eBook platform and service.  It has been a pleasure working with OCLC, who saw EBSCO as the ideal candidate to continue to serve NetLibrary customers, and take the service to new heights.

EBSCO’s goal is to better serve research by offering the strongest possible collection of materials and the greatest accessibility and usability.  As eBooks become more prominently used and relied upon by libraries, they are an ideal addition to the EBSCO suite of resources.  As EBSCOhost is the single most-used premium research platform in libraries worldwide, and overall usage continues to steadily increase, it follows logically that searching databases and eBooks on a single platform would create a more complete, fruitful one-stop research experience for end users.  Many librarians have requested we move in this direction, and we are pleased to be doing so.

At present, EBSCO will continue to support and enhance the NetLibrary platform, with the goal of enabling EBSCOhost to appropriately incorporate eBook availability in the near future.  In the coming months, we will be conducting focus groups, advisory sessions and usability testing to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of eBook platforms, and investigate the various models for accessibility and purchase.  We will provide updates on our progress as we move forward.  Additionally, we plan to maintain the dark archive of eBooks to ensure accessibility for customers who have purchased and will continue to purchase NetLibrary eBooks.  MARC records for these eBooks will also continue to be provided (at no cost).

Thank you for your patronage and support of EBSCO resources.  We are excited about what the future holds for EBSCOhost users.  If you have any questions regarding your current NetLibrary account, or would like to explore eBooks in subject sets or on a title by title level, please contact your EBSCO representative.

AND & OR adalah kawan baik anda

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Salam Sejahtera dan Selamat Pagi

Pada hari Jumaat ini, eloklah kita bersedekah Ummul Al-Quran kepada semua hambaNya yang telah pergi. Ameen. Semoga yang telah pergi itu, dirahmati Allah dan kita yang masih hidup ini diberikan limpahan rezki yang cukup. Amin.

Mana-mana Universiti, pasti mempunyai sebuah Perpustakaan untuk membantu pelajar-pelajarnya mencari bahan-bahan pengajian mereka. Perpustakaan merupakan gedung ilmu yang kaya dengan pelbagai jenis maklumat. Apa yang diperlukan hanyalah usaha dan kepakaran mencari maklumat, untuk mana2 matapelajaran. Ini adalah kerana, pangkalan data hanyalah sebuah sistem yang bodoh (secara detailnya, sistem ini bodoh kerana tidak tahu apa yang pengguna mahu). Sistem ini memerlukan pengguna untuk diaplikasikan secara penuh.

Seperti yang kita sedia maklum, sebagus mana pun sistem itu, ianya tetap tidak akan dapat meneka apa yang pengguna mahu. Kitalah sebagai pengguna harus memberitahu kepada sistem apa yang kita mahu. Barulah sistem bisa memaparkan maklumat yang kita cari. Untuk itu adalah amat penting, pengguna menggunapakai tips ini:

Kenal pasti kehendak
Sebelum kita mencari maklumat, hendaklah kita mengenalpasti apakah keperluan kita. Sistem tidak tahu kehendak pengguna. Eloklah kiranya kira bentuk soalan2 atau statements berdasarkan kehendak kita. Kita hendaklah kreatif dan innovatif. Sebagai contoh:

Are left-handed people more intelligent?
Education in rural areas
Are drug-users more likely than non-users to commit robbery?

Dan daripada soalan atau statement yang kita buat, kenal pasti katakunci atau konsep yang penting untuk digunapakai didalam carian kita.

Are left-handed people more intelligent?
Education in rural areas
Are drug-users more likely than non-users to commit robbery?

Elok juga dipikirkan perkataan yang hampir maksudnya dengan kata-kunci kita tadi. Seterusnya kita gunakan boolean operators iaitu OR atau AND untuk menggabungkan kata-kunci kita tadi. Kedua AND dan OR ini mempunyai perbezaannya. Ini kita boleh lihat di dalam gambarajah di bawah.

AND

  • Akan memapakarkan maklumat yang hanya mempunyai kata-kunci kita
  • Digunakan untuk menggabungkan kata-kunci di dalam satu konsep

Jika kita lihat. Bahagian yang Kelabu itu adalah carian kita. Kesimpulannya, AND digunakan untuk membuang mana-mana carian yang tidak relevan dengan kemahuan kita.

OR

  • Akan memaparkan mana2 maklumat yang mengandungi kata-kunci kita kesemuanya
  • Selalunya digunakan untuk mencari persamaan dan mengembangkan carian kita

Perhatikan bulatan2 ini. Kesemuanya adalah kelabu. Ini menunjukkan OR akan memaparkan kesemua carian yang mempunyai kata-kunci kita.

Secara terperincinya carian jazz OR blues akan mencari mana-mana artikel yang membincangkan sama ada Jazz atau Blues. Berbeza pula carian jazz AND blues yang mana hasil daripada carian ini akan memaparkan artikel2 yang membincangkan kedua2 Jazz dan Blues.

Selamat Mencuba

That dreaded IE6… [#2]

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Throm-ka

Yesterday I made a post regarding that fakap IE6. Which is Web-Developers worst nightmares on earth. My nightmare. IE6 is the dying old man which refuses to retire. So I wrote a little script to force users to upgrade whenever they view the library portal.

However, after looking at the log files and google anal. report, I soon realize that forcing users to upgrade their browser is mean. So mean, to the extend that some users still stump upon the upgrade warning. (lol. they still asked me what to do). I do so believe the warning is so direct. Why some users still don’t get it.

Some users may not upgrade to the latest IE due to unlicensed copy of Windows (stop using pirated windows ler). Some users may not install alternative browsers due to Company Restrictions (what company is that… so evil). Due to this I will have to lift the force upgrade script.

So… once again hacks and workaround will do the trick. All this started with CSS compatibility issues. Some elements may not appear in IE6 and some element will break the page in IE6. Sometimes I will have to forget the beautiful effect and design since in IE6 the page will break. What a nuisance.

After searching for solutions how to these pages at least viewable in IE6 I come across the conditional codes. Hmm. Created by Microsoft for Internet Explorers.

One of the most common operations performed in a Web page is to detect the browser type and version. Browser detection is performed to ensure that the content presented to the browser is compatible and renders correctly. The browser type can be detected using many different techniques. Most methods of browser detection make use of script on the server or client.

This article introduces conditional comments, which offer certain advantages over scripted browser detection techniques. Conditional comments make it easy for developers to take advantage of the enhanced features offered by Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and later versions, while writing pages that downgrade gracefully in less-capable browsers or display correctly in browsers other than Windows Internet Explorer. Conditional comments are the preferred means of differentiating Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) rules intended for specific versions of Internet Explorer.

Source : msdn.microsoft.com

After some reading I use these stupid IE codes 

 <!--[if lte IE 6 ]><div id="bodoh"><![endif]-->
 <!--[if gte IE 7 ]><div id="panes"><![endif]-->
 <!--[if !IE]>--><div id="panes"><!--<![endif]-->

These codes will load specific line based on users’ browsers as explained in the links. I hate IE.

Susahke nak silent kan hanpon??

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Salam Sejahetera dan Selamat Maju Jaya

Perilaku manusia mmg pelik. Namun sikap manusia ini kadang-kala tidak mencerminkan umurnya. Susah kita nak teka bagaimana seseorang itu hanya dengan melihat perangainya. Orang-orang tua cukup percaya dengan kaedah ini. Mereka percaya seseorang itu boleh dinilai hanya dengan melihat kelakuannya. Ini sebenarnya tidaklah betol, kerana orang-orang tua bukannya betol 100%.

Tak elok anak dara nyanyi semasa masak kerana khuatir akan dapat laki tua. Celah mana? Bongok sungguh orang-orang tua zaman itu. Kenapa perlu berlapik2? Kan ke mudah dan cepat serta tepat kalau guna kata-kata yang terus. “Oi Minah! Ko jangan la nyanyi, bukan sedap pon sore ko! Hangit nasi karang!!!”. Itu adalah contoh. Ada juga yang berperangai seperti orang giler tapi tidak giler. Saya ada seorang kawan yang giler, tapi dia tidaklah giler. Bererangai seperti seorang saiko.. tapi tidaklah saiko. Muka macam samseng pemandu lori tapi hati dia kecik. Merajuk numero uno. Haha

Okeylah kita berbalik pada tajuk utama iaitu… silent mode HP.

Apekah susah nak tekan butang itu? Apekah payah nak setkan fungsi bergegar? Susah benarke nak disable kan bunyi telepon. Faham2 jelah apabila melangkah masuk kedalam Library, pengguna harus tanam didalam otak bahawa sebarang bunyi yang bisa mengganggu pengguna lain haruslah dielakkan.

Payah ke nak paham Library = Diam = Toksah ganggu orang lain – perangai bangsat + hormat pengguna lain dan dapatlah jumpah besar iaitu pengguna library yang bijak. Kalau tidak mahu hormat undeng2 library… kurang-kurang hormatlah diri sendiri!!

Ramai tidak suka kalau saya panggil mereka berperanagi seperti bangsat tapi kalau dah serupa bangsat.. nak uat macam mana? Kalau kanak2 tadika masuk library buat bising tak apa la. Kita tahu sebab dia kanak2. Bodoh lagi dan masih belum bijak untuk berfikir. Ini dah besar, badan berbulu dah boleh jadi bapa atau ibu.. tapi masih lagi dungu.

Sila-sila lah pahamkam diri anda… apabila masuk kedalam library anda haruslah perlahankan handphone anda. Tidak ada orang yang akan kagum dgn hanpon anda!!! Jadi letakkan phone anda ke silent mode.

Paham?!?!

OUM Digital Library has new look too…

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Good Evening,

Another 45 minutes to go before I will start chasing all the students out from this library. /lol. Of course, will never do that. It will reflect me as a person and what not, as a Happy Librarian. This is Munawar the Happy Librarian. The one that will always try to help no matter what.

For the past few months, I have made some changes to the iPortal’s look and feel. However, it is not available to the general public. You have to log in to our system in order to view. The time has come however, to replace the old look of Public iPortal. Remove some useless codes and putting away non-public directive and add-up some CSS 2.1. The new iPortal is now available.

This server is lacking some important packages, no PHP and mySQL. Nothing much that I can do. Installing won’t help either, I will need to recompile APACHE which I dare not to do. Let it be, let it be. Do not have the guts to face the fiasco should it arise.


Sabah Ahoy!

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Salam Sejahtera dan Good Morning serta Assalamualaikum.

It has been a while since my last post. Oh. Not that long, only 3 days without post. Well, what can I say, am a very busy man. Very busy with my life, my social life (do I have one? lol) and of course, the life that I enjoy the most, The World of Warcraft.

Tomorrow I will be going to Sabah to conduct ISW (Woes to you that do not understand this acronym, ISW stands for Information Skills Workshop) class for the new students. Well basically, we have to provide current awareness to these students. The art of searching information and The art of developing Keywords. Searching through google is not the way. Information from google are not valid for research paper. It may ruin your paper.

There is nothing wrong with google actually, but the information from it. The authoritativeness, accuracy, timeliness and reliability are the most common disputes for them. To Sabah I will go, to Sandakan and KK, teach them all I know. May the spirits guide me.

Take Care

Ad-Hoc Reporting vs InfoStation

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Good Evening and Salam Sejahtera

When ever it comes to produce monthly reports or statistical data. I always prefer to use the ad-hoc version rather than VTLS own Reporting Tool, the InfoStation. One of the reasons is speed and mobility. Speed as in time needed to generate report. Mobility deals with the ability to be export into various format, be it CSV, Excel or simple Text file. However, to use Ad-Hoc reporting tool, one must have broad understanding of Virtua VTLS Database Structure and SQL. It will be difficult to produce simple report without any of these two.

InfoStation ain’t that bad after all. However, it requires patience and good Apache configuration. Some of the reports will go into Network Time-out due to Apache’s Time-out Configuration. Since I do not have ROOT access to Virtua Server to restart HTTP service and is feeling lazy to configure Apache Configuration (odd huh? I can configure Apache, but cannot restart System Service), Ad-Hoc Reporting is my friend. With it, I can generate any reports I want. Circulation Status, Transaction Logs, Checked-Out Status and many more.

Use InfoStation if you do not want any hassles. As for me, I prefer Ad-Hoc Reporting Access. How to use Ad-Hoc Reporting? The easiest way is to call your regional VTLS support and ask for guidance. They will be happy to help yo. Am not going to explain those complicated stuff here. Maybe in the future I would.

I would be happy if VTLS Malaysia could conduct a session to use Ad-Hoc Reporting Tools. Some Administrators are not aware of such function. Or perhaps just too lazy to configure the system for it. It is a little bit complicated but once done, the magic will start pouring in.

The basic Idea is to use any Database Program (Microsoft Access or Open Office Base) and link it with Virtua Database. Use the Database Program to generate report based upon your queries. Perhaps in the future I will explain the Queries I use to generate my report.

Okay. It has been 10 hours now. I must go home and do some DPS in WoW. Or slice the demon in Devil May Cry. Just can’t wait for my Ninja Gaiden 2.

Take Care All