Here is some information on the salaries of non-MLS positions within libraries:
Salaries of Staff Working in Archives (pdf)
Non-MLS Salaries in Public Libraries (pdf)
Note that the second link focuses on how the non-MLS salaries are catching up to the MLS salaries.
from ResourceShelf
Kind of an interesting news story that, in the end, leads to a library-related conclusion. James Randi, the well-known challenger of psychics, has an item placed in a locker, and has offered a million dollars to the person who can state what the item is.
To establish what is in the locker, he posted a code in his newsletter that would identify it:
0679
4388
66/27
5 -14
I didn’t see anything in the code that gave me any clues, but once I read the solution, I realized that many of us who work in libraries should be able to figure this out. If you feel like it, look it over for a while before clicking any of the following links.
Matt Blaze’s blog entry (the person who figured it out, using non-psychic ability).
The first step of the solution; here, as well.
(update: I showed this to Mary Ann, the Acquisitions Librarian at MPOW, and she identified the code in less than two minutes. Good work!)
from 27B Stroke 6
Copyright Resources on the Web is an excellent and very comprehensive collection of links to, whaddayaknow, copyright resources on the web.
from ResourceShelf
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has declined to revisit the question of church services in library meeting rooms (see my earlier post here), and the case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Will it actually go before the high court? Depends on whether the justices feel that there are issues in this case that they need to review. This could turn into a defining case for the limits and freedoms of religious expression in government facilities; or they can let the ruling stand as is.
You can find the full text of the ruling here (in Pdf format). The library’s meeting room policy can be found here (also in Pdf).
from ResourceShelf
When the draft version of this video was posted 6 weeks ago, it didn’t quite seem “library” enough at the time. Live and learn… the more I think about it, the more relevant it seems.
The final version of Web 2.0… The Machine is Us/ing Us has been posted by Michael Wesch. It is worth watching at least twice, and note his intentions in posting the draft vs. what actually happened. It helps to prove his point, I think.
This video, a conversation I had at work, several postings to blogs and listservs that I follow, and my own brain making connections between disparate ideas has led to some really interesting thoughts which I will post soon.
Freebase is (or will be, if you are like me and waiting for an invite) an online behemoth of a database. Imagine taking Wikipedia and having users create links to related information, so that you can tap into the information and relationships as you would within a database; you would have the start of what Freebase can be.
This has the potential to be incredible. There is a tightrope that the creators have to walk, however, as they try to find the balance between keeping things controlled, and allowing users to add/change the environment. Too much of one or the other, and this expanded knowledge base becomes trivialized or restricted.
See this New York Times article for a great description.
from TechCrunch
Podiobooks.com offers quite a few free, downloadable audiobooks, most with cc licenses.
Add this to your list of free audiobook sites.
from MetaFilter
I am not a big fan of the term, but What is Web 2.0? (pdf) details the ideas and technologies that I do support for libraries and many individuals.
I especially like their six “Big Ideas behind Web 2.0”:
These are already becoming “duh” concepts in many areas, but it wasn’t all that long ago that these were considered almost radical. Many applications for these ideas are still in the radical zones, or even undiscovered. Things are changing….
from ResourceShelf
The Library of Congress has formed the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, and will be having their first public meeting tomorrow, March 8th, at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.
The truly interesting thing is that anyone can attend, no prior registration needed. I would love to be able to drop in at Google tomorrow and delve into the topic of Users and Uses of Bibliographic Data, but it isn’t going to happen for me without a tornado, puppy and ruby slippers. Andrew Pace and Karen Markey are among the speakers; it ought to be an excellent day.
Karen Schneider was inspired to dash off an open letter to the Library of Congress on ALA TechSource. Karen Coyle is planning to attend (as per a post to the NGC4Lib listserv) and will likely post info on her blog about the meeting.
I am entertaining the idea of wandering over to Chicago for their May 9th meeting on “Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data”, which I think I would find almost as fascinating as the user focus of this meeting. Several things would need to fall into place to allow that to happen, including the LOC keeping the meetings open to all without invitation, and I think I shall see what the feedback from tomorrow is before pursuing it.
The Google Book Search Library Partners page is a fairly interesting list of those (currently 13) libraries working with Google on the book scanning project. Follow the links for informational pages at each of the libraries, including some actual contracts.
from ©ollectanea
Scribd is a new website that is attempting to be like YouTube, but for documents. As in: Word, Pdf, Txt, Html, and so on.
Do you have documents that people would find useful or interesting? This could be a means to post them to a public site without needing webspace.
from TechCrunch
Just updated WordPress, not only because of security issues with the previous version, but in anticipation of a software update on my web hosting service that could have created a problem.
And so I decided to try installing a packaged theme, as well. I customized it a bit (my own picture at the top, and I changed the link colors to the standard blue/purple), but otherwise I cannot take credit for the new look and feel.
The picture is of of the Seabreeze United Church in Daytona Beach, Florida. I took the picture last August, while on vacation.
The theme is called “Connections“.
LoutLit.org is a site with a collection of downloadable, CreativeCommons licensed audiobooks from the Gutenberg Project.
Don’t forget these other sites as well!
from MetaFilter
It is only set up for Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, but Google Translate has developed a nice, social web solution to the problem of awkward translations.
from the Official Google Blog
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University has a couple of pages containing downloadable classical music.
Peabody Symphony Orchestra; Peabody Concert Orchestra.
from MetaFilter
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has information on their site about HR 1201, a.k.a. The Fair Use Act, currently working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives, that would strengthen the fair use concepts that have been in existence for decades for videocassette recordings, and apply them to other media.
The primary benefit would be that makers of electronic equipment able to store digital information (computers, flash drives, mp3 players, etc.) would enjoy the same understandings as vcr manufacturers when it comes to the use of their products: the user is responsible for making sure they respect copyright law.
When a device can be used in a legal manner, it is not fair to punish those who create it when others use it in an illegal manner.
from ©ollectanea
On the surface, Nines is a searchable database for nineteenth-century studies (their name stands for “a networked infrastructure for nineteenth-century electronic scholarship”). When you go beneath the surface, however, there is a great deal of potential to be explored.
The software behind Nines is the open-source Collex, which allows you to collect objects found within searches, organize them, compare them, and in other ways develop new approaches to your scholarship. Imagine this type of tool for a topic you are researching in depth.
Research is changing, and the rate of change is increasing.
PubReMiner is an interesting tool that lets you see the metadata behind your PubMed search, and lets you narrow your search with quite a bit more understanding of the ways in which you can do so.
This was included as part of a list on Journalology
LibLime, the U.S. based support company for the Koha open-source integrated library system (ILS), has acquired Katipo Communication’s Koha division.
This is interesting news: not only will LibLime be in a much better position to offer support (it now employs many of the developers who maintain the software), it puts them in a good position to offer support in New Zealand and Australia.
I think we are seeing the early stirrings of the future of library automation: multiple companies will offer support for a few different open-source ILS platforms. What the library will be purchasing is the service, not the product. They can switch support providers without having to change products. The companies can focus on the support, and share the effort towards software development.
To see a LibLime supported Koha installation, visit the Nelsonville Public Library’s website.
from oss4lib
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
