Publishers Weekly is reporting that not only are they up for sale by their publisher, Reed Business Information, but that Library Journal and School Library Journal are available as well.

Without knowing the cost/profit information for each of these, I do wonder how  they are affected by the various pressures in the publishing world as well as the shifting of library information to the web (including social media such as blogging and Twitter).

found via LISNews

Mozilla’s Open Web Tools Directory is a site designed to quickly connect the user with a variety of online tools for a variety of projects.  The categories include Design tools, Coding tools, Debuggers, and more.  Many of the projects listed are new to me, so I expect to find at least one or two new tools for my own projects.

found via TechCrunch

Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English is a collection of presentations, all striving to describe the next phase of web activity and development.  If all you look at is the single slide that sums up the differences between the three web generations, you will likely have a better grasp of what is coming than before.

found via Stephen’s Lighthouse

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has issued a new report titled Strategic Thinking Guide for Academic Librarians in the New Economy (pdf).

It joins the growing chorus of reports that indicate that we are in for a financially tight stretch in the near future.  As I mentioned earlier, everyone in libraries needs to think about what we do and how we do it, and find ways to be more efficient.

The greatest opportunities for most of us lies in the area of Open Source and Web 2.0.  By taking the time now to move from proprietary services and software to low- or no-cost self-hosted solutions, libraries can not only save money, but add functionality and features.

The critical aspect is to think incrementally… tackling a too-large project all at once invites stress and failure; adding or changing some specific functionality each month can mean that in one year you may have ten solid new applications which were implemented in a very cost-effective manner.

Read the report, and add their suggestions to your pool of ideas.

found via ResourceShelf

Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person (an exaggerated tale) is a video designed to be a provocative look at the arguments for opening library/museum data to web 2.0 social uses

The video isn’t so much exaggerated as much as it packs many of the arguments one hears against social uses of data into a short time span.  It was created by Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution.

found via Stephen’s Lighthouse

LucidChart is a free (with a premium option), web-based flowchart creation tool.  It appears to be quite easy to use, yet very professional.

If you are looking for software to install on your PC, remember that OpenOffice (or Go-Oo) offer Draw, a versitile and powerful drawing program (that doesn’t have a counterpart in Microsoft Office, either) which can be used for flowcharts, as well.

found via LibrarianInBlack

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

There is now a READ Mini Poster creation tool on the American Library Association web site which lets you upload a photo into one of four templates.  This is a neat offering, with a couple of caveats:

1. The positioning tool for the picture is very limited.  I was only able to use my facebook profile picture in two of the templates, and each still didn’t look quite right.  I have been spoiled by Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook’s Pieces of Flair (note that there is a piece of Libology flair, if you are feeling desperate for library-related buttons) and expect such niceties as mouse-controlled positioning.
2. In addition, there are no terms of use listed for these creations.  Knowing that ALA limits the use of other versions of the Read posters, I assume that they would make a specific statement regarding this on the creation page.  I wasn’t even able to load their copyright statement page, so I feel forced to go with default copyright.

These reasons are why I don’t have my newly-minted READ Mini Poster shown here.  This is a great promotional idea, if they can work out how to let us use it effectively.

thanks to Karen R. Schneiderman for posting a link to the Lex Scripta blog on Facebook!

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Update: Jenny Levine, Internet Development Specialist & Strategy Guide for the ALA (and also known as The Shifted Librarian) wrote an e-mail assuring me that “these images can be used by the person generating them for use on personal or library blogs, personal profiles, or other social networking sites.”  When the ALA updates their site next week, this will be clearly spelled out, she says.

I suspect that criticism can easily sound snarky in this medium, so I will re-iterate the dominant point from above:  this is a great promotional idea for the ALA, libraries, social media, and readers.  Check it out!

After more than a year, there has been a bit of activity at the Google Librarian Central site, though not what was hoped for when I heard that they were preparing an update.

What they announced in a post titled “Endless Summer” was that they were closing down the Librarian Central Blog and communicating via their newsletter. Comments and suggestions will be handled by a web form submission.

Ouch! Double-Ouch!! This is better than the dead silence of the past year, but just barely. We have been moved back in time, relegated to Web 1.0.

They could have kept the blog alive by posting the individual newsletter items one-by-one. They could have used the blog for items posted or discussed elsewhere, but posted there because of their interest to libraries. They could have opened things up a bit and asked for volunteers to coordinate topics and ideas for better incorporating Google into libraries. Any of these would have been about the same amount of work, and would have preserved or improved the dynamic and social aspects of the site. They backed away instead.

We are left to wonder why.