Helping to Justify Academic Library Budgets Since 2004

An Amazing NEW Research Tool

...too effective to be limited to university libraries

This feature is made possible by recent technological developments, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and thousands of DLSG digitization systems in nearly 1,000 academic libraries

For Academic Libraries

For research it’s the fastest way to find gaps & inconsistencies in our knowledge clues, patterns & supporting research.

For Public Libraries

It’s the 21st century and everyone should have easy access to the best research tools and the highest quality information & knowledge possible

content-to-publishers

Academic Libraries

Imagine your university’s researchers visiting the library more frequently than ever, even more often than pre-digital age. This amazing new research tool complements WorldCat and has capabilities lacking in Google Scholar. To use it, researchers gather articles found on WorldCat combined possibly with content from your print collections and perhaps with some of their own work, and input all content (print and digital) into KIC. KIC can then output the combined content in a form that can be ‘HotLinked’ to a billion of pages of scholarly content, including open access journal articles, open access monographs, pre- and ex-copyrighted content, and OER. Then, as researchers review the content on a tablet, phone or PC, with a simple swipe or mouse click, they are presented instantly with ‘HotLinked’ content that is highly correlated with their content, not just by a single keyword. And, in compliance with Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 108, even copyrighted monographs in library print collections that have been digitized can be ‘HotLinked’ and instantly accessed in the same way, while the researcher is within the confines of the library.

5 reasons this research tool is so valuable:
  • Virtually all monographs in academic libraries can be instantly accessible while the researcher is in the library. More>Digital Millennium Copyright Act (©-Law) allows four digital copies of every copyrighted monograph and journal in a library’s collection to be kept on-site, one copy for local patrons and three copies for interlibrary lending. Using a new capability of the thousands of existing KIC high-speed digitization systems that are already in academic libraries, ©-Law Content Servers, a global project coordinating system and about 1,000 student worker hours per year, a few hundred large academic libraries can digitize a million books a year, with complete structural metadata, and share the content with each other’s patrons, in compliance with ©-Law.Less<
  • A researcher can rapidly review dozens, even hundreds of different scholarly documents, book excerpts and journal articles, several times more rapidly than with Google Scholar. More>Access is instant, typically with no perceptible time delay to access the next relevant monograph, article, etc. This is especially valuable when a researcher is ‘in the zone’ and his or her mind is entirely focused on finding clues, explanations, gaps and/or inconsistencies in the world’s current understanding of a topic.Less<
  • Many pages of context, not just one or a few keywords are used to find the most correlated and relevant materials. More>KIC and the HotLinks system analyzes the entire set of input documents and compares all of the input data against pre-analyzed data for each piece of content that is in the system, in about a second, typically before the user wishes to access the content.Less<
  • Searching is not limited to the citation or bibliographic record. More>The research system’s speed, effectiveness and lack of limitations allow researchers scan and read each potential source of information, instead of relying on one person’s summary of an article or monograph (citation/bibliographic record).Less<
  • Researchers can ‘get lucky’ and find valuable clues, explanations, gaps and/or inconsistencies that they weren’t looking for. More>The combination of instant access to virtually unlimited relevant content and correlation using many pages of input information yields results that would otherwise never be found because current research methods are too slow and tedious, and depend too much on direct, cognizant thinking by the researcher.Less<

Public Libraries

The most important mission of public libraries has always been to provide egalitarian access to information and knowledge. However, the people of today are more sophisticated than ever before, and the Web provides access to vast amounts of information (and misinformation). To fulfill this most important mission, public libraries must go far beyond what they have ever done before, and there two ways to do that: 1) provide access to high quality content that is not available on the Web; and 2) use technology to make research faster, easier and more effective.

Imagine seeing many new faces each day visiting your libraries to use a new research tool that provides such easy access to vast amounts of content from reputable sources such as the National Institute of Health, The Smithsonian, OpenStacks, open access books and journals, and possibly very soon, academic library collections.

As long as citizens do not have an easy alternative to getting all of their information from the Web, misinformation will continue to be a major problem. This research tool provides a fast, effective and easy to use alternative that is affordable enough to be made available even in communities of less than 1,000 citizens. While many scholarly monographs and perhaps most journal

3 reasons to make this research tool available in your public library:
  • to fulfill common needs of citizens for information that is not available on the Web or is too intermingled with misinformation;
  • to serve citizens who no longer have access to academic library resources, though they may have attended college and are adept at using academic library resources;
  • to give all resource-limited potential leaders, problem-solvers, scientists, engineers, doctors, etc. an opportunity to reach their full potential.

A library was serving the 3rd reason above when, in the mid-1800s, seventeen year old Andrew Carnegie learned enough at a local library to put him on a path to create the US steel industry, one of the key industries that made it possible for the US to have the best economy and best living conditions in the world. Also, by constructing 1,687 public library buildings, Mr. Carnegie fostered the belief that every community in America and eventually, around the world should offer public library services to its citizens.

checklist
RESEARCH TOOL REQUIREMENTS:

©-Law-108 Servers ($2,999) + optional journal
KIC Self-service Scan Kiosk (starting at $3,499, up to $17,499)