News

Three Cities Face Off for President Obama's Library

Submitted by birdie on June 16, 2014 - 1:25pm

From the Guardian:

There is sometimes a wistful note in Barack Obama's voice when he speaks in public these days. The US president makes regular references to his "remaining time in office" and notes that there are just two and a half years to finish the work that will define his legacy. That legacy will find a physical home in his presidential library, the museum-archives America's leaders build after leaving office to stand as a testament to their time as the world's most powerful man.

Mr Obama's library is still years from completion but every step in its planning process serves as another reminder that his presidency is reaching the beginning of its end. Monday is the deadline for cities to submit their proposals to be a host site for what will one day be known as the Barack Obama Presidential Library.

Topic: 
News
Presidential Libraries
Libraries

Cites & Insights 14:6 (June 2014) available

Submitted by Bibliofuture on May 28, 2014 - 11:39pm

Cites & Insights 14:6 (June 2014) is now available for downloading at http://citesandinsights.info/civ14i6.pdf

Topic: 
News

EBSCO to Share (Some) Metadata

Submitted by John on April 18, 2014 - 10:00am

After a long-standing feud over allowing their metadata to be accessed by subscribers via other discovery services, EBSCO has announced a metadata sharing policy wherein they "will be making available all metadata (and full text when contractually allowed)" . . . except for when they don't want to: "The only EBSCO research databases that are not yet included in the above policy are those resources that are built upon and subscribed to primarily for their subject indexing."

Topic: 
News
Technology

Thousands Of Artifacts Seized At 91-Year-Old Indiana Man's Home

Submitted by Bibliofuture on April 3, 2014 - 12:01pm

Federal agents, art experts and museum curators descended on the home of a 91-year-old man in central Indiana on Wednesday to take control of a huge collection of artifacts from Native American, Russian, Chinese and other cultures.

Story at NPR

Topic: 
News

Another Q&A App Launches. U Jelly?

Submitted by John on January 8, 2014 - 11:59am

Jelly is a new app that lets you share pictures of objects you cannot identify. People you know are then asked to identify the objects for you. Is this an inefficient, narcissism-enabling way of obtaining information, or yet another revolutionary killer app? At what point should your library get on board?

Topic: 
News
Search Engines
Social Networking

Another Top Ten Library Stories of 2013

Submitted by birdie on January 3, 2014 - 5:01pm

Via Publishers Weekly.

Topic: 
News
LISNews
Journals & Magazines

Peter Scott, Creator of Hytel-net and Publishers Catalogs, Dead at 66

Submitted by birdie on December 31, 2013 - 1:47pm

According to a posting by family members on Peter's facebook page, Peter died calmly in his sleep at St. Paul's Hospital, Palliative Care Unit in Saskatoon on December 30.

He was an important figure in information and library science, beloved by many.

Here are some biographical bits:

Peter Scott was born February 14, 1947, in Walthamstow UK and moved to Canada in 1976. He was the Internet Projects Manager in the University of Saskatchewan Library in Saskatoon. Along with another Saskatoon librarian, Darlene Fichter he served as the editor and content developer for many online directories.

He was the creator of HYTELNET (1991), the first electronic browser for Internet resources, developed from 1990. In his 1991 video, Peter demonstrates a later version of HyTelnet, while an archive lists the resources available through the service. Peter wrote a blog, Peter Scott's Library Blog for Credo Reference. Other web creations are: Twitter Compendium, RSS Compendium, Weblogs Compendium, allrecordlabels.com, Blogging The Blues, Peter Scott's Library Blog, Libdex - (Sold in 2005) and Publishers' Catalogues . This reporter (birdie) first met Peter (via internet) when I asked him to add my company to the listing thirteen years ago. In the interim, we remained good virtual friends.

He was also also a blues singer and harmonica player, and had the distinction of winning a Juno Award for having his song "TV Preacher" on the album "Saturday Night Blues" which won "Best Roots and Traditional Music Album" in 1992.

Topic: 
News
People N Patrons
Librarians
Internet
Information Science

Ten Stories That Shaped 2013

Submitted by John on December 13, 2013 - 11:37am

Once more we look back at the notable library happenings of the past year.

Memorable Stories

10. Timbuktu Library Rescue

In January, Islamic militants torched an archive that had contained many ancient manuscripts. Fortunately, prior to this, people had removed the materials from the city.

9. The Hudson Falls Free Library Reading Contest

Tabloids loved the story of a library director who tried to take the perennial winner of a children's reading contest out of the running. Two librarians lost their jobs over the scandal.

8. Fairfax County Library's Dumpster

Libraries discard and destroy titles from their collections all the time, but when it's done sloppily and in plain sight, outrage ensues.

Hip Trends

7. MOOCs! Video Games! Makerspaces! 3D Printing!

Are these nifty new avenues to reach patrons, or a feature creep beyond a library's mission?

6. Little Free 'Libraries'

Although perhaps better named "community bookshelves," the growth of the Little Free Library movement continued this year. How many are in your neighborhood?

5. The New Librarian Stereotype

Commenting about the latest calendar models in the profession, a LISNews poster noted, "the bun wearing shushing librarian stereotype is long dead. Now the stereotype is hipster tattooed librarians."

Big Issues

4. Open Access versus Publisher Profits

In a case of "If you have haters then you must be doing something right" (similar to the harassment of Jeffrey Beall over his list of predatory publishers), Science published a flawed hit piece on Open Access journals.

3. Metadata Wants To Be Free

As more libraries move to web-scale discovery systems, the issue of interoperable metadata will become important. A vendor dispute highlights how libraries can be caught between competing economic interests.

2. Kindle MatchBook &c.

Topic: 
News
Must Read Stories
LISNews Features

Cites & Insights 13:12 (December 2013) available

Submitted by Bibliofuture on November 1, 2013 - 1:33pm

Walt Crawford is at in again. In a 140 character world he is busting out 34 pages of analysis and commentary.

Cites & Insights 13:12 (December 2013) available

The issue contains one essay:
Words: The Ebook Marketplace, Part 2 pp. 1-34

More on the last few years in the ebook marketplace, this time focusing on ebook pricing, ebook and ereader sales, software, the past and future, (intentional) humor, rights--not so much DRM as ebook readers' rights, and a few miscellaneous pieces.

If you're waiting for "ebooks and pbooks" (note and, not versus)...that's coming in January 2014.

Topic: 
News

JSTOR Introduces Individual Subscriptions

Submitted by John on September 23, 2013 - 10:20am

JSTOR recently launched a direct subscription service called JPASS. Researchers wanting more content than their library provides can pay for access. Is this the future of aggregator publishing?

Topic: 
News
Academic Libraries
Publishing

Pages

Subscribe to News