December 2013

A School Librarian Found The First Ransom Note in American History

The Story Behind the First Ransom Note in American History

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2013/12/the-story-behind-the-first-ransom-note-in-american-history/

One day last March, Bridget Flynn, a school librarian who lives in Philadelphia, was searching for an old family drawing to print on the invitations to her daughter Rebecca’s bridal shower. As she and Rebecca rummaged through the several generations of family artifacts—letters, photographs, an envelope of hair cuttings—she keeps in plastic bins in her basement, they found a stack of small envelopes tied together with a black shoelace.

“Oh, honey, these are love letters,” Flynn said…

December 12, 2013 by Librarians Libraries School Libraries

Koha trademark case won by NZ developers

You can Listen or read a good summary Here.
“If the trademark had been given, then potentially Liblime could have restricted the use of who used it so, the utter worst case was perhaps we would have had to rename the software in New Zealand which would have caused massive confusion.”

[Via the great and powerful Gary Price]

December 12, 2013 by Uncategorized

Caltech Announces Open Access Policy

Caltech Announces Open Access Policy
http://www.caltech.edu/content/caltech-announces-open-access-policy
On January 1, 2014, a new open-access policy for faculty’s scholarly writings will take effect at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). According to this policy, approved by the faculty at their June 10 meeting, all faculty members will automatically grant nonexclusive rights to the Institute to disseminate their scholarly papers, making wider distribution of their work possible and eliminating confusion about copyright when posting research results on Caltech’s websites.

December 12, 2013 by Uncategorized

Caught Up By Circumstances

Due to spending 11 hours visiting an excellent facility outside Ashtabula County operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and hideous winter weather increasing travel time in terms of additional hours, there is no episode for release on Wednesday. The Air Staff of Erie Looking Productions apologizes for this inconvenience. The second episode originally slated for Wednesday release will in fact be released later this week.

In the meantime, we suggest enjoying an episode or two of the 2013 reboot of The Tomorrow People that is available online.

December 12, 2013 by Internet

Norway is digitizing its whole library

The National Library of Norway is planning to digitize all the books by the mid 2020s.

Yes. All. The. Books. In Norwegian, at least. Hundreds of thousands of them. Every book in the library’s holdings.

By law, “all published content, in all media, [must] be deposited with the National Library of Norway,” so when the library is finished scanning, the entire record of a people’s language and literature will be machine-readable and sitting in whatever we call the cloud in 15 years.

The whole story is at The Atlantic.

December 11, 2013 by Legal Issues Librarians Libraries

OCLC and Yelp increase visibility of libraries on the Web

OCLC and Yelp increase visibility of libraries on the Web
http://www.liswire.com/content/oclc-and-yelp-increase-visibility-libraries-web
OCLC, the nonprofit computer library service and research organization, is working with Yelp, the leading website and mobile app that connects consumers with great local businesses, to increase public access to local library information.

Yelp is integrating information from the database of library listings maintained through the OCLC Library Spotlight program to supplement existing library listings on Yelp.com. Information provided through OCLC has already been added to over 1,400 library listings on Yelp.com, ensuring that accurate addresses, phone numbers, hours and other information will be available in addition to information already listed on Yelp.

The OCLC Library Spotlight program offers a free, easy-to-use service with which any library can add, edit and update its own profile that will then appear on online listing sites. Yelp is the first to work with OCLC, which will incorporate more partners in the future to give libraries greater visibility on the Web. Libraries can already claim their free account and use a suite of business tools on Yelp. The Library Spotlight program improves access to online library information by providing a convenient way for Internet services to update multiple library listings at once, at scale.

“Once a library’s profile is established in the Library Spotlight program, the data can be shared with strategic partners like Yelp, driving traffic and interest to the local library,” said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. “The program enables participating libraries to benefit from OCLC’s extensive network of partnerships. It’s fast, easy and free to participate in the program. And it has the potential to literally put every library on the map.”

December 11, 2013 by Internet Libraries

Pew: How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities

How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/12/11/libraries-in-communities/
Americans strongly value the role of public libraries in their communities, both for providing access to materials and resources and for promoting literacy and improving the overall quality of life. Most Americans say they have only had positive experiences at public libraries, and value a range of library resources and services.

December 11, 2013 by Internet Libraries

Nobel winner declares boycott of top science journals

Leading academic journals are distorting the scientific process and represent a “tyranny” that must be broken, according to a Nobel prize winner who has declared a boycott on the publications.

Randy Schekman, a US biologist who won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine this year and receives his prize in Stockholm on Tuesday, said his lab would no longer send research papers to the top-tier journals, Nature, Cell and Science.

Schekman said pressure to publish in “luxury” journals encouraged researchers to cut corners and pursue trendy fields of science instead of doing more important work. The problem was exacerbated, he said, by editors who were not active scientists but professionals who favoured studies that were likely to make a splash.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals?CMP=twt_fd

December 10, 2013 by Uncategorized

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