BookTour is a new web site devoted to author readings, signings, etc.  It is very flexible, allowing you to search by author, area, and book.  It allows you to browse by genre, and even provides a link on the authors page to initiate a request for a visit from that author.

The site also allows you to post your own events, which can add to the visibility of an author event at your library.

found on Catalogablog

Resignation is a very thought provoking, albeit somewhat depressing, post by Alexander Johannesen on the Shelter It blog.  I have been also reading posts by him, very well presented, on the Next Generation Catalog for Libraries (NGC4Lib) listserv (where I found the link for this topic).

In the post, he discusses how the library world isn’t doing enough with what we have, and what we are doing isn’t being applied in the right way.  His points are well made, and worth passing along, but I don’t feel that he is hitting the nail quite on the head.

There is a lot we can be doing better.  We are not in enough control of our future, and it is costing us time, money, and people.  We cannot afford much within any of these categories.

However, we have gone through a great deal of change in the past 30 years (just look at the effect of computers alone), much more than could have been predicted.  Change is stressful; we are a stressed profession.  Change is necessary, though, and we must focus on changing our world to gain control, independence, and flexibility.

The next 30 years will not be forgiving ones, and I would hate to think of us becoming even less relevant in a world that is increasingly becoming enamored of the Google-type keyword search as being the end-all in retrieving knowledge.  This is a real possibility.

Read his essay; take it to heart.  Don’t resign yourself, though.  Become determined to direct change to everyone’s benefit and to make libraries better.

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as much over the past few weeks.  This is likely to continue, for a couple of reasons:

• I am becoming more interested in posting less often, perhaps two or three times weekly, and putting more of my own thoughts and ideas into those posts.  I have occasionally joked to people that this blog is my online-interactive-annotated-shared-bookmarks list, and while it does serve that purpose, I have always wanted to see it do more than be a place to share links.
• In the past couple of weeks, I have begun a new project.  Simply put:  I am writing a book.  I will announce it in more detail in a future post, but I will say that it’s a book in which there is 1) a select, but definite audience for, 2) there isn’t another book that fulfills that particular need, and 3) it fits the subject matter of this blog very well.  I have one chapter written, another three fully outlined, and only another three or so after that.  If all goes well, it will be the first book of several that I will publish over the next couple of years.

So please bear with me over the next few weeks or so while I focus on the book project.  I will continue to post, just not as often, and likely not in as much detail as will happen once I can stop “putting my brain around” the book’s topic.  I promise that both the book, and this blog, will be better for this experience.

AltLaw.org, according to the site, “is a joint project of Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Program at the University of Colorado Law School.”  The site’s purpose:  to allow the user to search case law for the U.S. Supreme Court and Circuit Appeals Courts.

It is easy to use, and lets you choose to display the court rulings either in plain text, or you can see the nicely formatted Pdf version.

discovered via Open Access News

Two random bits of humor injected into libraryland this week:

• Disco Dancing for Peace in the Biblioblogosphere is a JibJab “Starring You” video created by Michael Porter, a.k.a. Libraryman, featuring himself and Michael Gorman.
• This week’s Unshelved is merging two of my favorite cultures:  the Mallville Public Library crew and an obscure, yet wonderfully funny reference to the Firefly/Serenity universe.

thanks to The Shifted Librarian and The Unshelved Blog

ILS Assessment : A Background Document (Pdf) is an excellent overview of the Integrated Library System issues facing libraries today. Created by the Leddy Library at the University of Windsor (Canada), it is their first step towards “evaluating the current environment with respect to Integrated Library Systems (ILS).”

Drawing from blogs, journals and presentations, this paper should be read by anyone recognizing that the current state of the ILS is lacking, and that libraries are in danger of falling further behind if we don’t educate ourselves and take action.

Of additional interest to me was that this paper is written from an academic library perspective, and that they are currently using Voyager, the system I worked with until last October. Neither of these perspectives diminishes the usefulness of this document for those who work in non-academic libraries and/or with non-Voyager ILSs, however.

found in American Libraries, August 2007, p. 36.

Texty is an online editor for creating and editing html.  Type (or cut/paste) your content, and Texty generates the html for you.  It is a simple, straightforward tool that does one thing very well.  Sometimes that is exactly what one needs.

found on TechCrunch

Digitized Book of the Week is a blog from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign library.  Each post has a link, along with sample images and descriptions, to books recently digitized within their collection.

This week’s book : The Steel Tubular Car Company by J.W. Post (1887)

found on MetaFilter

BASE Lab is a search site/tool from the Bielenfeld University Library in Germany that has a couple of very interesting features.

One feature is that it can translate your search terms into different languages using the Eurovoc thesaurus, and retrieve articles from a variety of different foreign-language journals.  This can greatly enhance the scope and number of results.  Only speak English?  Run the search with Eurovoc enabled, then limit your results to English language only.  You still benefit greatly from the translated search terms.

The other feature is that you can browse across three hierarchies of the Dewey Decimal Classification.  This will only retrieve articles with the necessary metadata, so at the moment it is a fairly limited feature.  This could be very promising, an example of a web-based tool leveraging the metadata libraries have been developing for decades.

found via the Web4Lib listserv

Aquabrowser will now utilize LibraryThing’s tagging.

In case that sentence makes you go “huh?”, follow these links:

• Aquabrowser
• Aquabrowser in action
• LibraryThing
• LibraryThing in action
• LibraryThing entry with tags

found on ResourceShelf (with some well-phrased questions at the end of the post)

The Right Way to Fix Inaccurate Wikipedia Articles is the title of a Search Engine Land post by Durova, a Wikipedia administrator.

Not only is it an intersting read, it allows one to see how those who help manage Wikipedia view their responsibilities.

Yesterday I wrote a memo that included some thougths about communication in the workplace.  One paragraph strikes me as something worth sharing here, with a couple of modifications to let it apply to committees, clubs, etc.

“I would work to create a ‘flat’ communication structure, finding ways to encourage a free flow of discussion on all topics of interest to the group.  This should not be confused with the decision making structure; someone needs to be in charge, and also to keep the discussions focused and fair.  This just addresses the flow of ideas and suggestions.  When everyone feels free to share ideas, brainstorm, suggest, critique, etc., the amount of information increases for those making particular dicisions and/or working on projects.

This can also lead to greater understanding and acceptance of decisions/projects.  I have heard ideas from people during their initial participation in a group that have saved time, money, and effort for all involved.  Communicating and listening well is the key to all of this.”

The University of Michigan Library has posted a five-page handout (pdf) detailing how to effectively use Google Book Search.

found on Open Access News

Deceptive Copyright Notices is a post by Karen Coyle post about those notices that restrict the reader’s/viewer’s rights beyond what is allowable under copyright, and an interesting complaint filed with the FTC.

Also included is a neat reversal of the FBI notice that we all see on videotapes and dvds:

WARNING. Federal law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyright motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without authorization of the copyright holder. This infringement of copyright is called “Fair use” and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching, and parody.

In a way, it makes more sense to emphasize what people can do, as opposed to what they shouldn’t, don’t you think?