Thu 9 Oct 2008
If you don’t have it already, install the Sophie Reader on your computer and take a look at this version of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
It features five drafts of the famous speech, displayed so that you can compare and contrast the different versions and gain an insight into Lincoln’s approach to speechwriting.
Oh, and it also has an audio layer: Johnny Cash reading the speech.
from if:book
Thu 25 Sep 2008
Stories Behind 10 Dr. Seuss Stories is a post at the Mental Floss blog with information about the inspirations (and representations) behind several of the great books by Theodor Seuss Giesel.
via LISNews
Tue 23 Sep 2008
The Annenberg Media website at learner.org is a resource that offers on-demand streaming video for “schools, colleges, libraries, public broadcasting stations, public access channels, and other community agencies”.
These are top-notch programs, several which I recognize as having been used in college-level learning. I stumbled upon this site while attempting to locate a replacement copy of one of the videos offered on the site. They do require registration (free) in order to view the video streams.
Subject areas include:
Two additional subject area not listed on the site’s menu are:
I am not sure why these aren’t listed, but here they are in case you find them helpful. Chalk this up to my always being curious about how web menus are set up (thanks RFS!)
The quality of the video stream is as good as any I have encountered. The only suggestion I have to the viewer is if you are using Firefox, you should install the MediaPlayerConnect add-on. You will find this to be a great addition to the browser and saves you from all the WMP (Windows Media Player) plugin mess.
Thu 11 Sep 2008
Footnote is an interesting social network: it contains entries and social linking for dead people.
The concept seems morbid at first thought; however, it does provide a structured place to remember the dead, as well as provide links to others they were connected with.
Areas of the site worth noting are the Pearl Harbor Muster Rolls and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There are also a variety of Revolutionary and Civil War lists.
To gain an appreciation of the social aspect of this site, check out the Recent Connections page.
Keep this site in mind for the potential geneological information.
found via TechCrunch
Mon 1 Sep 2008
Lorcan Demsey has a post on metadata that does a great job of illustrating two types of data collections by describing them as lakes and rivers. The idea did not originate with him; rather he encountered it via OCLC’s Eric Hellman.
This is a fantastic way to frame the ongoing transition that libraries face. We are transforming ourselves (being forced to transform? some combination of the two?) from a lake-based information service to a river-based information service. We are having to learn as we go to navigage ever-changing waterways, dodging sandbars and debris in a boat that was designed over a century ago for lake use.
Keep this analogy in mind… it lends itself well.
* Wikipedia offers the following quote listed within their page on Heraclitus: “We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.” This quote is simultaneously much more illustrative of the complexity of our situation, and much more confusing.
Wed 27 Aug 2008
In an example of how much open access may change scholarship, it was announced the Dead Sea Scrolls will be scanned in high resolution and made available online and open access.
As more primary sources are made available for study, scholarship will become more democratic. This will have both positive and negative aspects, but as with the greater availability of scientific studies, the primary result will be beneficial.
found via Open Access News
Wed 20 Aug 2008
The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2012 has been posted! A couple of samples:
What library-related items can be added to this list? The absence of Card Catalogs? Computers being available for patron use?
Also: What brand-new addition, change, or development in our culture will become the norm for the class of 2030 (being born as this is written)?
from ResourceShelf
Wed 30 Jul 2008
Disclaimer: I have been an avid user of Scrabulous for several month (Stats: 70 wins and 3 losses, best bingo at 158 points), and am sad to see it go. I am not posting because of this, however, but because of how the the article illustrates the problems with current copyright law.
Scrabulous Highlights the Failure of American Copyright Law is an excellent article in the Inquisitr. They examine the copyright history of a game that started off with the name Lexiko, and compare it to the current patent laws as they apply to prescription drugs.
The intent of copyright is to encourage creativity by granting a period of exclusivity, but not at the exclusion of others with time. Copyright law as it stands today limits the creation of new works by denying the rights of others to create derivative works after a reasonable time. Copyright law today works against the greater good.
from LISnews
Wed 7 May 2008
Most of us have been in a restaurant when someone is celebrating a birthday. In many chain restaurants, the wait staff will gather around the table and sing a song to the celebrant. It usually isn’t “Happy Birthday to You” however, as the lyrics are still protected under copyright.
The George Washington University Law School has a page with links to an exhaustive amount of information on the background of the song’s copyright history.
The history of the lyrics, the music that goes with them, and the copyright is a confusing mesh of publishing, litigation, and royalties. You have been warned.
The history of all this is also fascinating, and a good example of how complex it can be to determine copyright issues for even the worlds most popular song (according to the Guinness Book of World Records, according to Wikipedia with a “citation needed” note).
Wed 5 Mar 2008
I have liked, and used, the phrase “May you live in interesting times” for many years. I had always thought it to be a Chinese saying. It appears that it is unlikely to be Chinese in origin, and part of the argument comes from the Google Book project.
The story is on the blog TeleRead.
found via LISNews
Wed 5 Mar 2008
I have liked, and used, the phrase “May you live in interesting times” for many years. I had always thought it to be a Chinese saying. It appears that it is unlikely to be Chinese in origin, and part of the argument comes from the Google Book project.
The story is on the blog TeleRead.
found via LISNews
Mon 25 Feb 2008
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
Mon 8 Oct 2007
For many years I thought that the latin-esque text known as “Lorem Ipsum”, commonly used as a placeholder when designing web sites, brochures, etc., was simply meaningless syllables that looked and sounded like latin. It turns out there is more to these words than many realize…
Lorem Ipsum web site (and try out their Generator).
stumbled upon here…
Wed 29 Aug 2007
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.
Tue 28 Aug 2007
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
Wed 8 Aug 2007
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
Mon 23 Jul 2007
Forever Minus a Day? Some Theory and Empirics of Optimal Copyright (Pdf), a presentation by Rufus Pollock, examines the history of copyright terms and determines that the optimal term length is about 14 years (half of what the original copyright term was in both England and the U.S.).
His full paper can be found here (Pdf).
found on The Patry Copyright Blog
Wed 18 Jul 2007
A post on the Freakonomics blog titled “If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?” contains some interesting parallels to some of today’s copyright/publishing concerns.
from Librarian.net
Sat 14 Jul 2007
Footnote describes itself as “History for the People”, and it’s collection of online historical resources is very good. The free section of the site makes it worth the visit (and this blog focuses on resources that are free and relatively open), especially if you are interested in topics they feature.
They are also looking for historical collections to add to their site - check out their “Affiliates” link if you think they might make a good partner for a historical collection.
found on ResourceShelf
