Emerging Technologies Team

About Emerging Technologies Team

The Emerging Technologies Team (ETT) is a group of Stanford University Libraries (SUL) technology and library staff who regularly work with new and emerging technologies. Our goal is to identify, test, and assess new and emerging technologies within the academic library environment and disseminate that information to our colleagues... more


ETT Blog

Oalla iPad App

Do you have an older iPad that is just sitting around idle? Why not use it for something productive such as interactive front desk signage?

The Stanford Engineering Library continues to partner with Oalla, a student-run interactive digital signage project, in the planning and development of signage apps that are relevant to libraries.   A new Oalla app has been designed specifically for use with iPads that allows instant patron feedback.  We are using the app to gain feedback on what services and equipment are important to our library users.  Other uses may include displaying events, advertising products or services, or way finding.  Oalla is free, easy to use and can put your previous generation iPads to good use.  An iPad stand such as the Ipevo Perch can be used to prevent your iPad from walking away.

Send an email to signup@oalla.com for a free account and set-up instructions.  Contact Michael Nack (mnack@stanford.edu) if you have further questions.

Chrome icon

Are Stanford students living in the clouds?  Our recent Chromebook lending pilot at the Terman Engineering Library pointed out some interesting trends that involve the adoption of Google Apps and cloud computing/storage in general.  

iPad at Engineering Library

Oalla digital signage continues to innovate within the Stanford University Libraries.  Since Ronnie Fields of the Stanford Green Library last posted on the topic, the Stanford Terman Engineering Library has been testing new Oalla apps created specifically for use with iPads, Android tablets and large touch screen monitors. 

We've set up trial access for a new database called VoxGov (http://voxgov.com). Please take a moment to put the database through its paces and send any feedback you have to me at jrjacobs AT stanford DOT edu by April 8, 2014.

VoxGov has a powerful search and pulls together a large swath of US federal public domain government information with social media data and displays it in a visually understandable way. VoxGov also allows for bulk data access to faculty and graduate students who may need to do deeper data analysis. Bulk data access is via separate individual license and has some restrictions on use and reproduction.

Voxgov collects, organizes and archives primary sourced U.S. Federal Government information from government sites like fdsys.gov, federalregister.gov, congress.gov, and some executive agencies as well as major NGO sites like openCRS and FAS Project on Government Secrecy and combines that public domain information with 4,000 official federal government social media accounts from twitter and facebook, as well as speeches, press releases and content from over 10,000 Federal government web locations.

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