Libology Blog

Think of Middlespot as a Zotero-like organization tool for web searches.  Perform a search, and you have several ways to explore the search results, as well as saving collections of results in what they call a “Workpad”.

The fastest way to learn what this can do is to view their slideshow tutorial.  If you think it has potential, then don’t forget to check out their tools (including a way to incorporate Google search results into your workpad).

from MetaFilter

Unshelved is having a transcription party, and we all are invited!

Bill and Gene have installed the ohnorobot comic search engine, and all that remains to make every Unshelved comic searchable by character, quote, or topic is for everyone to jump in and transcribe a few strips.

A Useful Amplification of Records That Are Unavoidably Needed Anyway is an essay by Brett Bonfield which, dare I phrase it this way, usefully amplifies several of the major web-based entities which are intertwined with libraries.  These include (but aren’t limited to) OCLC’s WorldCat, Amazon, and LibraryThing.  Brett clearly understands libraries, and does a great job detailing the interrelationships between all involved.

Not directly related to the essay, LibraryThing has posted an expansion of their Common Knowledge fields for Authors and Events.  This is an interesting read, as it addresses in a real-world way the need for authorities and relationships.

About 2 million images from the LIFE Photo Archive have been digitized and are available via Google Image Search.  What is even better is that, over the next few months, the remaining 8 million images from the collection will be added.  Many of these have never been published, so there ought to be some historically interesting and significant gems in this collection.

You can search the collection by using the above link, or add “source:life” (without the quotes) to your image search query.

via the Official Google Blog

The 2008 Presidential Election Search Engine is a Google Custom Search Engine created by the University of Kansas Library.

It is a great resource in that one can find the needles of information in the haystack of campaign rhetoric.

found via “Organizing the 2008 Presidential Election”, from College and Resource Libraries, October 2008, p. 540.

This is one of those resources which you hope will not have to be used, but when it helps someone find the information they need, it can be invaluable:

The Unidentified Decedent Reporting System (Warning:  site is definitely not for the squeamish) is the National Association of Medical Examiners online tool for posting information about unidentified bodies across the U.S.  It is a distinctly depressing web site, with hints of sadness and loss in dozens of lives, and the realization that for many of these people there are families and friends without answers.

Along with the Doe Network, this site can help to bring closure to tragedy.

from ResourceShelf

The Internet Search Environment Number (ISEN) is a fantastic idea.  On-line databases would be assigned their own, unique number, similar to an ISBN or ISSN, which would identify them as a resource.  This would aid tremendously in organizing and ultimately accessing these troves of information that, for the most part, belong to the deep web.

found via Catalogablog

Classify is a new service from OCLC which returns class numbers (Dewey, LC, and National Library of Medicine) assigned to books in WorldCat. This could be a good way to use the “wisdom of the crowd” when you are not 100% sure where to group a particular book.

I noticed that the url had a “2″ at the end, so I removed it to see what would happen. It appears to be an earlier version of the service. I didn’t have any luck with the first few ISBNs I entered, but the example links work well.

Any other changes to the url bounce the user to the DeweyBrowser, which is a lookup service from a couple of years back. Although it also has a “2″ at the end of the url, nothing happens when one changes it. So much for rewarding curiosity

Classify found via Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of is the title of a post on the TeachingTips blog. And yes, there are a lot of interesting and useful links to be found (though I suspect you may recall hearing about a few of them before…)

found via LISNews

Zoomii Books is not library related… yet. It is a virtual bookshelf built around Amazon’s book cover images and inventory. However, the concept would make for an excellent method of “browsing” a library catalog. The company founder has even mentioned that he would love to adapt the software to work with a library catalog.

It reminds me very much of a Firefox add-on called PicLens, which uses a similar interface for viewing a large number of images. If you haven’t tried it, you really should, if only to experience how much it improves image search and browse.

Mentioned on the NCG4lib list by B.G. Sloan

Think of Infochimps.org as not only a wikipedia of data sets, but as potentially the greatest data mash-up tool yet.

Imagine having loads of census, weather, sports, and other statistical data available in one big database.  Then standardize the fields so that you can interconnect the data sets with each other.  From the Infochimps site:

“A central, community-driven repository solves these problems and presents amazing possibilities. Once we interconnect the datasets along concepts they share, instead of 100,000 datasets, there’s just one. Study the physics of baseball by comparing the hourly weather during every single baseball game to game outcomes. Uncover political campaign irregularities by comparing neighborhood per-capita income, historical voter trends, and public campaign finance records. Plan real-estate decisions based on what news-and-other-media keywords rank highly in each area.”

Still don’t see the possibilities?  Browse through the datasets that are already loaded.  Then check out what is coming in the near future.  This will likely be the first place we will want to go for statistical information, as long as it is fast and easy to extract what we need.  I am looking forward to seeing what they (or some other enterprising web designers) come up with to work with data on the web.

(does this sound vaguely familiar?  you might be thinking of Freebase.com, previously discussed here)

found via Open Access News

APML stands for Attention Profiling Markup Language.  Its purpose is to permit a standardized way to gather and transfer your interests from site to site across the web.  It is built using XML, and is definitely a new technology that may or may not catch on.  It could become an important element of using the web, because of the benefits it offers to users.

For example, Amazon.com tracks what you purchase, what is on your wish list, and even what you view (while logged in).  If you incorporated this into your APML file (which could be stored with an online service, on your computer or flash drive, etc.) your interests could be applied to other APML-compatable websites.

This has the potential, as with much web 2.0 technology, of creating privacy issues and complications.  It also could save users an incredible amount of time and effort, as resources relating to their interests would gain relevance and become much easier to find.  Think of the potential for searching news sites, link services such as Digg, and many other specialized discovery tools.

And yes, as John Fudrow suggests, it has a lot of potential for libraries.  Imagine how our users could benefit from this, especially when you add “suggested by others who liked this” and other social connectivity tools.

Go to WorldCat and type in a search.  The results contain books, video, audio, you name it.  One of the more recent additions is the Digital Images Collections, which can be wonderful to view.  How to find them, though?

Type in your search terms, then add cntnt (”Content” without the vowels) as an additional term (which acts as a limit).  Viola!

Try chicago cubs cntnt

Try airplanes cntnt

Try carnegie libraries cntnt

You get the idea…

found via the WorldCat blog

ILS Basic Discovery Interfaces, a.k.a the Berkeley Accord

In what may turn out to be a historically significant event in the history of library tech, a group called the ILS Discovery Task Force has generated an outline detailing what amounts to an Application Programming Interface (API) for the library OPAC. They are calling this the Berkeley Accord. Not only have they hashed out the basic understanding, but the following companies/organizations have undersigned the document:

1. Talis
2. Ex Libris
3. LibLime
4. BiblioCommons
5. SirsiDynix
6. Polaris Library Systems
7. VTLS
8. California Digital Library
9. OCLC
10. AquaBrowser

What does this mean? This means that sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future, someone can create an online search tool and know that it will work with OPACs from many different ILSs. Much like browsing the web is a similar experience with Internet Explorer 7, or Opera 9, or Firefox 3 (because they use a shared understanding of how to display the html and css found on the web) searching various libraries using the same interface (because they use a shared understanding of how to access the information in the ILS) can make research more effective for everyone.

If this is realized, it will make our jobs easier, our patrons happier, and the institution of the library more powerful and effective. It can be a “win” for everyone who recognizes that the future is dependent on advancing search technology and interoperability.

Of note is the lone abstention: Innovative Interfaces, Inc (III). They indicate that while they agree with the general principles, they cannot offer their support until much greater detail is known about the framework. My initial thought is to question this: if you feel that this is a good foundation, then agree to it and work to build upon it. If there are flaws, express them and work to build support on an improved foundation. What comes to mind is a zen koan:

“When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. Above all, don’t wobble.”

found via a posting on NGC4lib (Next Generation Catalog for Libraries) by Eric Leese Morgan

BookChaser Editions Lookup is an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) lookup service with a twist : it obtains information from the amazingISBN, thingISBN and xISBN services and displays them, all for the purpose of letting the user compare and contrast different editions of the book entered.  Think of it as a meta-ISBN service.

Try it with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

This can be a great way to locate audiobooks, foreign language editions, and other forms of a book that might not easily be found otherwise.

found via ResourceShelf

This is a few days old, but it is still an important bit of news : Google has opened it’s Application Programming Interface (API) to developers. What this means for libraries is that they now have the potential to link their catalogs, via ISBN, OCLC, or LCCN numbers, to items available through the Google Book Search.

As with many of Google’s offerings, there are caveats : there doesn’t seem to be a way to generate any information to indicate full-text availability (the information from Google loads after your OPAC entry), which makes it harder to know just how much it adds to your collection.

As time goes by, however, this could become a powerful tool to leverage our library presence… this is another step in making as much information available to the user as possible, and making it easy to find as well. Libraries should look into making this work for them… everyone stands to benefit.

from Open Access News, LISNews, Official Google Blog

UNdata is a search tool for the many informational databases that the United Nations maintains. It is straightforward, easy to use, and effective in attaining what you need.

If only the UN as a whole worked so well
via OSDir

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:

• Updated to the latest version of WordPress
• Installed a decent blog statistics program
• Upgraded to a more powerful search tool

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:

• Search using wildcards (i.e. librar* to find library, librarian, libraries, etc.)
• Search for phrases (i.e. “web browser”)
• Use Required and Excluded terms in your search (+support -staff to get posts with the word “support” but not the word “staff”)

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.

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

Intelways is an interesting search site.  It isn’t a meta search tool, but it does harness multiple search engines to create an improved experience.

As with many things on the web, the best way to understand it is to try it.  Enter a search term, then select a category above the search bar, or a specific search tool below the search bar.  This tool makes it easy to perform a search one one engine, then switch to another to see a different set of results without having to retype the query or load the search pages.

One note to add, however: this site has been around for a while, but has changed its name a couple of times.  Follow the link below if you are curious about the history of the site.

from ResourceShelf