December 2006

This Week in LibraryBlogLand
Week ending December 17, 2006

……….
Note (corrected): TWiL will return on January 8.

lib-web-cats (a directory of libraries throughout the world) now has a powerful search engine. About.

meebo feels the librarian love. (via)

Rikhei (Nevertheless…) has no love for QuestionPoint; Caleb (L-net staff information blog) points out the problem with it; while Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) loves the service, not the software.

Suzi (CFLC Currents) posted a list of websites and mailing lists useful for reference work. Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) posted the list of links that should’ve gone with his article about “Firefox at the Reference Desk.”

Jon-Lenois Savage (L3NOIS) explains RSS in ASL (American Sign Language) (via)

OPL Plus points to an article about taking passwords to the grave. Speaking of passwords: MySpace passwords aren’t so dumb (via).

Annoyed Librarian muses on tenure, publishing, and scholarship.

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) writes about blogs v. journals as learning/discovery/recommendation systems. Comment from washtublibrarian.

Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) lists the techie blogs he reads. From Dave Pattern, an up-to-date biblioblogosphere tag cloud.

Judith A. Siess (OPL Plus) points to Avinash Kaushik’s list of Top Ten Blogging Tips/Insights and Steve Matthews (Vancouver Law Librarian Blog) points to Kevin O’Keefe’s 9 keys to networking via blogs for introverts.

About Casey Bisson’s WordPress-based open-source OPAC: Tim (Thing-ology); Dan Chudnov (One Big Library); washtublibrarian; Library 2.0 Gang discussion podcast.

Tim (Thing-ology) proposes bringing back Cutter Classification “as the first free, open and socially assisted classification system.”

Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) reports that the NGC4Lib mailing list have decided to create an open database of book cover images.

The Annoyed Librarian is annoyed about ALA’s Ambassador program.

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) writes about the accessibility of resources in digital repositories.

Laura Cohen (Library 2.0) has many thoughts about transforming academic library websites. StevenB (ACRLog) asks, is the itinerant academic librarian in our future?

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) sees “a ton of downside” for publishers in Google’s offer to digitize journal backruns for free.

Laura Cohen (Library 2.0) asks, should library administrators have hands-on technical skills?

Laura Solomon (Library Geek Woes) says, how realistic is libraries’ goal to become the virtual center of the community?

T. Scott has comments re hospital librarians, open access, and myths and truths about library services.

Richard Akerman (Science Library Pad) comments on a Globe and Mail article about library online media loans.

Scau on library_grrls (Livejournal) asks how to convince people that librarians “do more than just putting books away.” The libraries Livejournal community has job prospect advice for a jittery new-librarian-to-be.

LISTS

John Hubbard (Library Link of the Day) posted on LISNews the Ten Stories That Shaped 2006.

Read/Write Web has an article about 2006 Web Technology Trends (via)

THE LIGHTER SIDE

Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) has found the difference between librarians and web programmers.

T-shirts: CarlsonJJ’s Library Gear.

Cartoon: Web 3.0.

CONFERENCE META

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) has some hints for making slides with Apple Keynote.

StevenB (ACRLog) wonders whether the Internet is leading to higher expectations for presentations.

CONFERENCE NOTES AND PRESENTATIONS

– Libraries, IT and Everything (December 15, 2006).

………………..
This Week in LibraryBlogLand (TWiL) appears on lisnews.org every Monday. [Feeds]

This Week in LibraryBlogLand
Week ending December 17, 2006

……….
Note (corrected): TWiL will return on January 8.

lib-web-cats (a directory of libraries throughout the world) now has a powerful search engine. About.

meebo feels the librarian love. (via)

Rikhei (Nevertheless…) has no love for QuestionPoint; Caleb (L-net staff information blog) points out the problem with it; while Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) loves the service, not the software.

Suzi (CFLC Currents) posted a list of websites and mailing lists useful for reference work. Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) posted the list of links that should’ve gone with his article about “Firefox at the Reference Desk.”

Jon-Lenois Savage (L3NOIS) explains RSS in ASL (American Sign Language) (via)

OPL Plus points to an article about taking passwords to the grave. Speaking of passwords: MySpace passwords aren’t so dumb (via).

Annoyed Librarian muses on tenure, publishing, and scholarship.

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) writes about blogs v. journals as learning/discovery/recommendation systems. Comment from washtublibrarian.

Stephen Francoeur (Digital Reference) lists the techie blogs he reads. From Dave Pattern, an up-to-date biblioblogosphere tag cloud.

Judith A. Siess (OPL Plus) points to Avinash Kaushik’s list of Top Ten Blogging Tips/Insights and Steve Matthews (Vancouver Law Librarian Blog) points to Kevin O’Keefe’s 9 keys to networking via blogs for introverts.

About Casey Bisson’s WordPress-based open-source OPAC: Tim (Thing-ology); Dan Chudnov (One Big Library); washtublibrarian; Library 2.0 Gang discussion podcast.

Tim (Thing-ology) proposes bringing back Cutter Classification “as the first free, open and socially assisted classification system.”

Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) reports that the NGC4Lib mailing list have decided to create an open database of book cover images.

The Annoyed Librarian is annoyed about ALA’s Ambassador program.

Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) writes about the accessibility of resources in digital repositories.

Laura Cohen (Library 2.0) has many thoughts about transforming academic library websites. StevenB (ACRLog) asks, is the itinerant academic librarian in our future?

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) sees “a ton of downside” for publishers in Google’s offer to digitize journal backruns for free.

Laura Cohen (Library 2.0) asks, should library administrators have hands-on technical skills?

Laura Solomon (Library Geek Woes) says, how realistic is libraries’ goal to become the virtual center of the community?

T. Scott has comments re hospital librarians, open access, and myths and truths about library services.

Richard Akerman (Science Library Pad) comments on a Globe and Mail article about library online media loans.

Scau on library_grrls (Livejournal) asks how to convince people that librarians “do more than just putting books away.” The libraries Livejournal community has job prospect advice for a jittery new-librarian-to-be.

LISTS

John Hubbard (Library Link of the Day) posted on LISNews the Ten Stories That Shaped 2006.

Read/Write Web has an article about 2006 Web Technology Trends (via)

THE LIGHTER SIDE

Iris Jastram (Pegasus Librarian) has found the difference between librarians and web programmers.

T-shirts: CarlsonJJ’s Library Gear.

Cartoon: Web 3.0.

CONFERENCE META

Dorothea Salo (Caveat Lector) has some hints for making slides with Apple Keynote.

StevenB (ACRLog) wonders whether the Internet is leading to higher expectations for presentations.

CONFERENCE NOTES AND PRESENTATIONS

– Libraries, IT and Everything (December 15, 2006).

………………..
This Week in LibraryBlogLand (TWiL) appears on lisnews.org every Monday. [Feeds]

I’m humbled to discover this morning that I (and you too) were just named person of the year by Time:

Look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

In 1982 it was the computer, Adolf Hitler in 1938. So you’re in assorted company.

Nice profile of eighty-five year old librarian Marybelle Mason Singer from the Worcester Telegram.

MR has sent out a post by MLDB at Daily Kos that provides a link to “The George W. Bush Library:Asset or Albatross for SMU?”

Professors William K. McElvaney and Suzanne Johnson write in the United Methodist NeXus:

What does it mean ethically for SMU to say a war violating international law makes no difference? That a pre-emptive war based on false premises, misleading the American public, and destined to cost more American lives in Iraq than the 9-11 terrorist attack, makes no difference? That the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis by our “shock and awe” bombing in the name of democracy, verified by international organizations and Iraqi doctors, is of no consequence?

These realities are not about partisan politics. Rather we are concerned with deep ethical issues that transcend politics. Do we want SMU to benefit financially from a legacy of massive violence, destruction and death brought about by the Bush presidency in dismissal of broad international opinion?

Librarians have been used as cover by the Bushes and some have protested.

Mrs. Bush has had grants named for her that existed before her husband became president. Some librarians have noted this. Some of us have been so angry at being used by the Bush family that we have made personal protests.

For those of you who can’t get enough of the O.J./Judith Regan story, here’s the imagined sequel from James Pinkerton of the Huffington Post.

Slashdot pointed the way to Very Short Release from the Business Wire on search engines. According to the pundits, search is searching for new meaning and relevancy. According to Dr. Riza C. Berkan, CEO of hakia, the web’s new meaning-based search engine and a nuclear scientist by training with a specialization in artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic, here are the seven evolutionary changes coming for ’07.

Here from Slate, suggestions on how to promote conservation of our environment and recycle O.J.’s “dirty book.”

GregS* writes “AP Story — “News Out Of Philly — A group that helps the homeless find housing, employment and health care is posting formerly homeless people in the restrooms of a downtown library to help manage those who flock there looking for shelter or a makeshift bath. “”

http://www.google.com/googlepatents/about.html
http://www.google.com/patents

As part of Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, we’re constantly working to expand the diversity of content we make available to our users. With Google Patent Search, you can now search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus and find patents that interest you. You can view images of original patents online, or save and print them for offline use.

Judith Regan, the firebrand editor who stirred up decade-old passions last month with her plans for a book and television interview with O.J. Simpson, was fired on Friday by HarperCollins, the publishing company that oversaw her book business.

Read the whole story at the New York Times website.