Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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91亚色 had several different presentations at Discovery 2010. Professors , George Zhu, , Costas Armenakis, , Hugh Chesser and Baoxin Hu from the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering had several displays, including an underwater robot, a nanosatellite, computer vision and a Mars rover.

Professor Regina Lee and her students, also from the Department of Earth & Space Science, showed off their Mars rover and the massive trophy they won for placing first in the 2009 University Rover Challenge in Utah (where the land apparently resembles the surface of Mars 鈥� who knew?). The group also placed second in the 2010 competition this month.

Professor kept crowds happy playing his iPhone app, 鈥溾�� which debuted at . 91亚色鈥檚 digital media display also featured the projects funded by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (, led by Professor Nell Tenhaff in the Faculty of Fine Arts) and the Ontario Research Fund (the , led by Professor John Tsotsos in the Faculty of Science & Engineering).

Meanwhile, , a partner in the 91亚色-led 3D FLIC project, drew crowds who didn鈥檛 mind sharing 3D glasses to experience their stunning 3D television footage.

, a Regional Innovation Network for biotechnology in 91亚色 Region for which 91亚色 is a founding partner, was also represented by Janet Leclair and Sana Mulji Dutt.

Among the event鈥檚 highlights were the awards ceremonies, including the , innovation awards and many awards for Ontario鈥檚 best researchers, students and companies.聽 Amongst these was the award for . The winning team, lead by Armen Bakirtzian, included a 91亚色 MBA candidate, Ara Hasserjian.

Discovery 2010 provided an excellent introduction and overview for Sarah Fuller who joined 91亚色 May 17 as associate director, research agreements and intellectual property where she

will lead 91亚色鈥檚 technology commercialization group. If your research involves non-academic partners (such as community, government, industry) or if you are required to transfer research funding, information or materials to another institution, Sarah can be reached at extension 20579 or by e-mail at sfuller@yorku.ca.

So what鈥檚 next for now? 91亚色 is actively supporting industrial collaborations for faculty and students. Through expert services, industry liaison and technology commercialization under the Office of the Voce-President Research & Innovation, 91亚色 will help connect your research to industrial partners. Companies can also explore working with 91亚色 researchers and grad students.

For more information, contact David Phipps, director, Research Services and Knowledge Exchange at 416-736-5813 or dphipps@yorku.ca.

By David Phipps, director, Research Services and Knowledge Exchange.

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Over the past 50 years, the 91亚色 Libraries have grown and changed in lockstep with the University's expansion and聽with innovations聽made possible聽by the Internet.

For students and researchers looking for information, a search of all of 91亚色 Libraries' print and electronic resources often meant looking in a number of different places. Added to this conundrum was the physical location of library holdings in eight different libraries housed in聽different buildings,聽plus departments and research centres聽located on two geographically distinct campuses.

Pulling all of these resources together was becoming more cumbersome by the day for librarians, students and researchers. Now all of that has changed with the introduction on Jan. 4 of what the 91亚色 Libraries聽are calling a 鈥渘ext generation catalogue鈥� or 鈥渄iscovery layer" which offers a comprehensive made-in-91亚色 solution that is proving to be a聽Canadian first.

The libraries鈥� new discovery layer merges all of聽the different catalogues and holdings聽into one seamless interface聽using open source software application. 鈥淚t brings together what were two separate silos: the catalogue, which has print material, CDs, DVDs and a lot of electronic resources, with our electronic resources listings,鈥� says聽William Denton,聽91亚色's Web Librarian. 鈥淚t used to be that to find something, you had to look in both places to be sure nothing had been missed. It was confusing and聽complicated, and it made it harder for people to find what they needed. On top of that, other material, like the 91亚色Space digital repository and the 91亚色 Digital Journals, were somewhere else entirely.鈥�

Denton says the introduction of the libraries'聽new discovery layer聽allows users to search all of the 91亚色 Libraries鈥� holdings, including the digital journals and 91亚色Space, at one time. From traditional printed journals to online eResources, everything is now readily available through a new and聽improved search, which is聽built on the open source system called VuFind. "91亚色 is a leader in this field," says Denton. "A lot of interest has been expressed by other Canadian universities in what we are doing with VuFind."

A plain-text search for "earthquake" yields information and resources from all of 91亚色's libraries and electronic holdings. Included are聽660 references from the Scott Library, 557 from the Steacie Science & Engineering Library, 458 from 91亚色's Sound聽& Moving Image Library and a host of other resources, all ranked by relevancy. A user can聽then drill down to refine the request聽using the same search function. Click to view the results.

The project to develop the discovery layer began last year when a committee was convened to look at ways to聽rejig the libraries' catalogue. Added to the mix the committee had to consider was an important consideration that many of today's students have grown up in a digital age and are programmed and wired聽differently.聽"We wanted to implement a search and discovery interface that was intuitive, robust," says Denton. "It had to be something that encompassed our extensive holdings and had the capacity to grow. The goal was to make searching for information less complicated and closer to what students experience when using search engines and Internet resources."

After an extensive search, the libraries settled on VuFind. "There were many advantages to VuFind," says Denton. "It is free and open source, and this fits with our other beliefs about open access, open data, open doors and open minds. VuFind also has many features and it can grow with us. The search engine is very powerful and is built on the best open source tool available.

"Best yet is that it gives us just one place to search with no more silos of information. Everything in our catalogue, eResources list, 91亚色Space and the 91亚色 Digital Journals is searchable at once," he says.

The old catalogue will remain in place while the new system is tweaked and perfected, says Denton. "We still have work to do to let people construct a complex search, but聽right now the actual search is a basic keyword, and while this makes it easier for students and researchers to find exactly what they need, there is sometimes a need to generate more precise search results and that's where the older catalogue will come in handy," says Denton.

But like a great wine, the new discovery layer聽catalogue will get better as it ages and develops. "This is just the first step in a series of improvements which will continue to be implemented throughout the year,"聽says Denton. "The next version will include the advanced search function and another round of usability testing聽will soon be聽underway.

"We plan to include things from outside of 91亚色, such as the millions of articles in the thousands of journals we subscribe to, but it will be a little while until everything is in place to make that happen," adds Denton. "That's very high on our list of major improvements, though.

"In May and September, more new features will be added, including subject guides for courses," says Denton. "Plans include making it so that when a student logs into the 91亚色 Libraries through Passport 91亚色, we will know what they need. For example, if the student was enrolled in Anthropology 3000, the library would serve up a personalized, customized experience for the student that includes all the resources they need for the course."

The 91亚色 Libraries are encouraging feedback from the community and have a feedback page that can be accessed from the new catalogue interface. For more information on the new system, or to provide feedback, visit the Web site.

Republished courtesy of YFile 鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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