Cortez writes “After 53.4 million dollars, the Baker Library at Harvard is back: says Harvard Magazine:
“Planners wished to enhance the library’s ability to serve as the intellectual hub of the campus. Much was done to foster interaction and informal meetings among faculty members, and to gather close the staff who support faculty research, teaching, and course development.””
October 2005
Golden Age of Dead Media
I highly recommend that all librarians read the book The Clock of the Long Now. The book is about thinking long term. Really long term, as in ten thousand years into the future. The book looks at many areas that should be looked at in much larger units of time. Information technology is one of the areas. Our current time is referred to as “The Golden Age of Dead Media” in the book. The book also discusses ending the digital dark age. The solution is not necessarily books but analog over digital formats may be a better choice.
The Guardian Asks: Can you trust Wikipedia?
The Guardian Technology Section asked a few “experts” to rate some Wikipedia entries.
Mike Barnes on the Steve Reich entry, Overall mark: 7/10
Alexandra Shulman on the Haute couture entry, Overall mark: 0/10
Mark Kurlansky on the Basque people entry, Overall mark: 7/10
Anthony Julius on the TS Eliot entry, Overall mark: 6/10
Claire Tomalin on the Samuel Pepys entry, Overall mark: 6/10
Derek Barker on the Bob Dylan entry, Overall mark: 8/10
Robert McHenry on the Encyclopedia entry, Overall mark: 5/10
Rosa Parks 1913-2005
kmccook writes “Rosa Parks has died…it’s the 50th anniversary year of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
http://montgomery.troy.edu/museum/“
National Consumers League Piles On Google
From A Press Release: In a letter to the chairmen of the
House and Senate Judiciary subcommittees overseeing intellectual property
issues, the nation’s oldest consumer advocacy group raised concerns about a
forthcoming ambitious effort to catalogue the entire collections of four major
American libraries. The letter, signed by National Consumers League President
Linda Golodner, acknowledges the tremendous potential value in Google Inc.’s
bold vision for the new initiative, in which the complete collection of works
at the university libraries of Stanford, Michigan, and Harvard, and of the New
York Public Library, would be scanned and made available electronically to the
public. The Washington-based advocacy group warned, however, that the project,
which will resume scanning on November 1, 2005 poses dramatic threats to the
principle of copyrights; fairness to authors; and cultural selectivity,
exclusion, and censorship.
The Google Print Controversy: A Bibliography
baileycw writes “This bibliography presents selected electronic works about Google Print that are freely available on the Internet. It has a special focus on the legal issues associated with this project. Page numbers for print/electronic publications are not included unless they are mentioned in the electronic version.”
As costs rise, another library cuts journals
Found this one over on The Kept-Up Academic Librarian. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports Penn. has cut 2,255 journal subscriptions from its 2004-05 holdings, as journal prices have increased faster than the library’s budget.
In 1993, journals accounted for 64 percent of the materials budget. This number has increased to almost 70 percent in the 2005 materials budget.
Budget cuts put libraries in a bind
Another day, another Story about budget cuts. This one, however, is a bit different, it’s from Asahi Shimbun – Tokyo,Japan. Slimmer budgets have taken a toll on prefectural and municipal libraries, which are already struggling to upgrade equipment and meet the diversifying demands of users.
The total budget of the three prefectural libraries for fiscal 2005 was about 150 million yen, a 3.6-percent decline from the previous year.
Stuck with tight budget, the libraries, located in Urawa, Kumagaya and Kuki, can spend only about 82 million yen on new books, down 5 percent from the previous year.
In fiscal 2004, the three libraries could buy only about 18,000 new books in total, a big drop from the roughly 100,000 bought in 1980, when there were four prefectural libraries.
Florida library jobs website down due to Wilma
mdoneil writes “SEFLIN – the South East Florida Library Information Network (or something like that) is down thus bringing down the Floridalibraryjobs.org website.
I’m sure that all of the $75K/yr jobs were going to be listed today! Oh well, the state library and the Florida Library Association will soon let us know what we can do to help them out in South Florida.
Server redundancy might be a good start
Art, Antiques & Collectibles Pricing Tool Now Available for Libraries
Anonymous Patron writes “GoAntiques announced the availability of a custom edition of its PriceMiner research tool for libraries. Public, private and special libraries can offer their customers access to a research database of more than 16 million records going back eight years and covering 5,200 categories and subcategories in art, antiques and collectibles. The pricing data comes from eBay, GoAntiques.com and TIAS.com.
“Libraries told us that their members regularly ask for help in identifying and pricing art, antiques and collectibles,” said Jim Kamnikar, president and chief executive officer of GoAntiques.com. “We tailored a version of our PriceMiner research tool to the specific needs of library users. Identification is always the first step in pricing an antique, and our eight million images provide an unprecedented resource to users.”
PriceMiner for Libraries is tailored for easy use by library members. They can conduct research by simply typing keywords into a search box and/or by using categories. PriceMiner then searches its huge database of information from eBay and online malls GoAntiques.com and TIAS.com. Library members can have results returned by lowest to highest price, highest to lowest price or limit results to items with images. PriceMiner also reports information for same or similar items.
PriceMiner for Libraries be used on computers at the library and may also be accessed from current cardholders’ home computers. The annual cost to libraries is based on the number of cardholders and visitors the library serves.”
Recent Comments