Mon 10 Nov 2008
The Tech Static is, as stated on the site, “Your collection development resource for technology titles”.
They are using a blog to house reviews of technology books and resources, and are planning to publish monthly. It looks as though they will become an excellent resource not only for collection development, but for personal selections as well. I am looking forward to their reviews!
from Librarian.net
Mon 2 Jun 2008
The work cycle of Library Technical Services as told by the Arlington Heights Memorial Library (in the style of ER).
Bonus creative points for the idea of using a packing tape dispenser in the style of CPR as a defibrillator!
thanks to Cindy for passing this along
Thu 21 Feb 2008
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.
Sun 10 Feb 2008
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
Sat 9 Feb 2008
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
Wed 6 Feb 2008
Confessions of a Rogue Library Book Buyer is an article by a former university administrator. What he did, with the aid of a complicit librarian, would make an interesting exercise for an Ethics class.
While I don’t feel that they approached the situation in the correct manner, I can certainly understand their motives (and appreciate that they focused on improving the collection). It is amazing how often faculty and departments don’t realize just what they could do for their library, majors and institutions by paying closer attention to their library allocations.
I suspect that most universities & colleges have procedures in place to deal with unused allocations, rather than letting them build up. Thought experiment : what areas of your library’s collection would most benefit from a burst of extra purchasing?
found via LISNews
Wed 23 Jan 2008
Foreign Book Dealers Directory is just as described : a database of book dealers around the world that lets you search for book dealers by company, region, and country. It is hosted by ALCTS, and seems extremely useful for those challenging acquisitions.
posted to ACQNET by Angie Cope of the American Geographical Society Library
