From Nick Baker, the guy who brought us March of the Librarians (and some help from his cohorts at Williams College Library) comes a documentary examining the life of a golf pencil.
(I challenge you to not burst out laughing at 1:36)
thanks to HangingTogether.org
In a long interview on the state of the semantic web, Tim Berners-Lee (if you don’t recognize the name, you should really read this) briefly discussed DataPortability, the ability to move information freely and easily from one site to another:
“So, first of all, are they going to let people use the data? I think, the push now, as we’ve seen during the last year, has been unbearable pressure from users to say, ‘Look, I have told you who my friends are. You are the third site I’ve told who my friends are. Now, I’m going to a travel site and now I’m going to a photo site and now I’m going to a t-shirt site. Hello? You guys should all know who my friends are.’ Or, ‘You should all know who my colleagues are. I shouldn’t have to tell you again.’”
“So, the users are saying, ‘Give me my data back. That’s my data.’ That was one of the cries originally behind XML, it was a desktop application. Don’t store it in a format which I can’t reuse. So, now it’s, ‘Give it to me using the idea of standards. If you do that, then I can do things with it.’” (around 42 minutes into the interview)
Libraries are still playing catch-up in the social data area. We are starting to implement tagging and book recommendations, but we are not all that far along with implementing things. What this quote reminds me is that we should also be keeping an eye towards making it easy to export data out of our systems. Easy to use formats (like xml) and open standards and interfaces should become the norm for libraries.
This isn’t suggesting that we open all our data… it is not our place to provide patron reading or personal information. We shouldn’t make it difficult for patrons to do that themselves, if they so choose (although I feel we should make an effort to let them know the potential negative effects of placing information on the web).
We should, however, be using that data to generate social links between books (people who checked out “A” also tended to check out “B”, with A and B being books, authors, videos, etc.) and make it easy to access the patterns that result from any informational web site use.
Just something to keep in mind when we select our online tools and software…
interview found via TechCrunch
None of this is new, but I encountered a reminder of how quickly online software is becoming more and more useful:
Zoho Writer (part of the Zoho collection of online tools) has been updated, and now supports saving in the new .docx format (nothing about opening, however), as well as a thesaurus, and improved support for end/footnotes.
Don’t forget about Google Docs, which also has an impressive collection of tools available.
Also, there is Zamzar, which converts many, many file formats into many, many others.
These tools, taken as a combined whole, could very well mean that we are close to only needing a broadband connection in order to have an office suite at our fingertips.
reminded by TechCrunch
Last September I wrote about Libguides, an online service that creates web 2.0-style offerings for library web sites. I was impressed with the quality of their offerings, but had misgivings about the cost, especially when one considers that a library can do many of the same things with a bit of time and effort. Interestingly enough, that post is still high in my statistics, so people are interested in the idea and/or the company.
In a way, this is a sequel to that post, though not directly:
Interactive Course Assignment Pages (ICAP) is a site set up by Oregon State University (the “other” OSU to those of us who reside in Ohio) as an aid to creating Web/Library 2.0 home pages for college courses.
Blogs, Wikis and New Media is a site set up on WordPress.com, using WordPress software (same as this blog), that contains what was once held in the Utah State University’s courseware system.
These examples (and I am sure there are many more out there) show just how much can be done with time and effort, and minimal expense. We (meaning libraryland folk) oftentimes find it more satisfying to fit ourselves into someone else’s paradigm of how we should present ourselves on the web.
This is found in libraries that are locked into their institution’s web site, with perhaps the opac itself being the only area found outside the template.
This is found in libraries that are locked into their vendor’s offerings, perhaps customizing colors and wording, but otherwise sticking to yet another template.
This can be found in libraries that haven’t actively pursued their web presence at all, possibly because they feel they need to spend a lot of money or hire a web developer in order to do anything online.
This is also found, ironically, in libraries that throw Web 2.0 goodies onto their site without due consideration of how to effectively incorporate them into their services. Even though I strongly urge experimentation with new technology, too much of something can be more harmful than not enough.
Again, I urge libraries to look at your resources (servers you have access to, your employee’s skill sets, your budget) and figure out what you can do, and what you can expand into with a bit of learning and effort. Even if your resources are near to nothing, you can get a free blog on WordPress, and have someone learn the ins and outs in a relatively short time frame. For a small amount of money, you can get web hosting that will let you do most anything in the web 2.0 arena. The exception to this are those few tools which require a dedicated server, which gets more expensive and involved.
With just a couple of hours of work, I could set up web hosting, install a blog, e-mail lists, message boards, and a wiki. Customizing these (colors, options, etc.) would add some more time, but the net cost would be under $100 per year for a great many useful tools. Add to the mix: you get online storage for library promotions, information, and resources.
Hiring someone to do this setup wouldn’t add too much to your cost, perhaps even some form of trade (fine forgiveness, perhaps?). Imagine what your library might be able to do with something like this… and ask yourself what any or all of these tools would be worth. Not so much in money, but in time and effort.
Blogs, Wikis and New Media found via Weblog Tools Collections
TimesMachine is a complete, easy to use browser for all New York Times editions between September 18, 1851 (their first date of publication) through December 31, 1922 (the day before copyright still exists).
from Metafilter
Free Online Courses from Great Universities is a collection of lecture podcasts organized by topic; organized by Open Culture.
found via Open Access News
This is one of those stories that just makes one feel sick to your stomach… the Detroit Public Schools simply abandoned a book depository sometime in the mid 1980s. Twenty years, several fires, and a great deal of weather exposure has reduced the warehouse of books, flashcards and other school resources to mold, mushrooms, and some sad but fascinating pictures:
found via LISNews
Evergreen has announced their progress on their Acquisitions portion of the open-source ils. They are on target to have a functional acquisitions/serials capability by summer!
Take a look at their progress, noting that their vanilla interface is only in place to test functionality. Besides, vanilla is a great flavor.
Columbus is an exciting town when you are interested in libraries. This was driven home by the Code4lib Conference Proposal : Columbus, OH page of Roy Tennant’s website. Take a look, and see if you agree.
The Code4Lib Conference has been something which I have really wanted to attend, but haven’t been able to travel to do so. 2009 may be my year!
Bibliographic Formats and Standards is an OCLC resource that provides information about Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) records. It is geared towards WorldCat records, but should be a great reference for anyone with MARC questions.
from Kristen on the SERIALST list
LCCN Permalink is a service provided by the Library of Congress that allows one to generate links to items in the LC collection by the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). The format is:
This is similar to the following examples of direct links used in other online catalogs such as ISBN Linking in WorldCat and ISSN linking in my own workplace’s catalog. These can be used to create stable, static links to items in catalogs, and are therefore very helpful for citing items online.
found via Web4lib
Today’s horrific news, the campus shootings at Northern Illinois University, has struck fairly close to home for me.
Before moving to Columbus, my current residence, I lived in DeKalb for 18 years. I have attended NIU; my former wife was a graduate student in the Geology department. I suspect that I have even been in the lecture hall where the shootings occurred (I have definitely been in a lecture hall with a stage in that building).
I likely know emergency responders who were on-site, and medical personnel at Kishwaukee Hospital’s ER. I know professors, staff, and students at NIU.
I won’t know until names are released if I know any of the dead or injured. Chances are good that I have met one or more of them through my work at Kishwaukee College, the community college located a few miles away from NIU. I am bracing myself for the possibility that someone I knew as an acquaintance, or perhaps even a friend, will be among the dead or injured.
If you have seen the news coverage, you will likely have seen the campus library building. It is just across a small parking lot from Cole Hall, and I know several people who work there. They are understandably very shaken tonight; friends, co-workers and fellow students have died today. Without knowing the motives of the gunman, it is just as easy to visualize this happening in the library.
Why do I bring this up? Simply to say that events like these always happen on a local scale. Most of the time we view it with a wider lens: Columbine, Nickel Mines, Virginia Tech… and now NIU. Where next? And if it happens to be your locality, what should you do to prepare?
I feel the most important thing is to recognize that everything is local to the people who are there. Accept this shared humanity, balance the wide-lens view with the local view, and strive to avoid being afraid. Fear of the negative possibilities serves only to rob us of our ability to live fully and to give our strength to those who need it.
The next most important thing is to review your library’s and/or institution’s disaster policies. Make sure that your plans are general enough to be easily applied in whatever disaster you may experience, but specific enough to allow for clear action. It is tough to find this balance, just as it is tough to balance our view of news stories such as these, but the effort will be worth it.
There is a post on LISNews today about “Suitcase Libraries” in South Africa. These are basically small book collections in suitcases which are distributed to preschools to help encourage reading in areas with low literacy. The original article is here.
Viewing this caused me to think of two things:
Just a thought!
The Librarian Song (YouTube video) is, well, a song… about librarians… specifically about how librarians train users (Show it to them, do it with them, and then the user can do it themself).
And above all… it is really funny (as well as slightly risque).
found via Extensible Librarian
Recipes for a 5-Star Library is the latest “cookbook” from the MaintainIT project. The cookbooks are pdf files that are free to use
The project focuses on public computers in libraries, and their Library Spotlight articles are drawn from real-world examples. The resources they provide are top-notch and collaboration at their best.
If you work with your library’s public workstations, check out what they have to offer. Tips and solutions from dozens of libraries await you!
found via Free Range Librarian
Remember how, about 10 years ago, the concept of a “paperless office” began to seem like a weird joke? The proliferation of the desktop computer and the ascent of the internet introduced the potential of foregoing paper documents, relying instead on electronic versions. The source of the joke was that instead of reducing our paper use, having access to all these e-mails, websites and electronic documents increased our print output.
An article titled Pushing Paper Out the Door in today’s New York Times documents that paper use has plateaued, and is currently in decline. The actual cause? People saving money on ink, toner and paper. This matches what I have seen in various libraries: people tend to be more conservative when their own resources are being used.
As far as printing from public workstations and labs is concerned, I like the idea of having a certain number of pages printed being included in one’s account, then paying for any additional printing. This seems to strike a balance that allows for modest printing without being overly commercial about it.
link passed to the Web4lib list by Bernie Sloan
The Public Domain Archive and Reprints Service is something that I have thought would make an interesting business model: take public domain materials and publish them using a print-on-demand service.
With the various scanning projects, there are more and more public domain works available electronically each day, and the benefits are many. Whether out-of-print, rare, fragile or some combination of all three, many books won’t work in a circulating collection. This can put many books back into library circulation.
This could also be a potential model for rare book and archival collections : scan everything and make the newly published version available for your public users — without risking the originals.
from LISNews
SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding is an attempt by libraries and publishers alike to break out of the licensing process that many in both camps find problematic.
Simply put, it is a straightforward agreement that a particular library subscribes to a given resource, and that the “shared expectations” of each side will be respected. All this with no licensing contract. An invoice and payment, and their presence on a registry maintained by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), serves as the legal basis for the transaction.
This reminds me of those business deals where you know that the person you are dealing with is thinking long-term, and that a handshake means more than a legal contract would with someone else. It will be interesting to see how well this works in practice… it would be great to streamline access to information in a way that benefits everyone involved.
found via the SERIALST list
This will be the eighth post today, possibly a record. Not that I was trying… there were just too many interesting bloggable items, and for once there was enough time to post them all.
In addition, and the purpose of this post, I did some work on the back end of the blog:
The last is something that might directly benefit you, the reader. The small search box is now more than simply a keyword search tool. You can:
As this blog approaches its 500th post, finding information in past entries becomes more important, as well as more challenging. Tags are decent for rough groupings, but a good search tool becomes critical. Hopefully this upgrade makes LibrarySupportStaff.org a bit more useful.
A couple of years ago I encountered some type of advertisement for a particular book. I don’t recall what the exact title was, but it was something along the lines of “The 2004 Outlook for Thingamajiggers in the United States.” I also don’t recall the price, but it was some incredible amount of money, like $500 or so. I remember being intrigued, as well as a little put off, by the ad, and was never quite able to wrap my brain around it.
I think I just found out a great deal about where that book came from. Speed Writing is an article in the Guardian newspaper that details the writing and publishing of one particular author: Philip M. Parker. Take a look at the following numbers:
The article doesn’t go into any detail about the machine; it is saving that for a follow-up article next week. As the article was published last Tuesday, I expect it will be five more days before we learn more.
found on if:book
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.libology.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
Powered by FireStats