Don’t you hate it when you miss someone’s birthday? OpenOffice.org had its birthday last Friday, October 13th, and I completely forgot about it.
I guess it is ok, though, as OO.org likes to give birthday gifts instead of receiving them: Version 2.0.4 was released, with some good additions!
from OSDir.com
The University of Missouri – Columbia is hosting a plethora of webcasts of interest to library-type people under the banner of LiS Radio.
These range from interviews to classes, from conversations to meetings. Browse their site and see what there is to hear (but use the MP3 versions for now… they are having trouble with their QuickTime streams!)
from Resource Shelf
Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Copywrongs and The Anarchist in the Library, has an essay in the current Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), titled Copyright Jungle.
You should read it. I don’t think things are quite as bleak as he portrays (I personally think that Fair Use will be affirmed in a significant legal decision, and help to partially offset the lengthening of copyright protection) but he does present a fantastic overview of where we stand in the copyright wars.
from ResourceShelf
(100 days, 133 posts!)
The Joint Information Systems Committee, an organization based in England, has launched a tool to help libraries and researchers compare and contrast different online databases.
The Academic Database Assessment Tool (ADAT) lets you quickly see the similarities and differences among different databases (at least a couple of them are British, so they may not be as useful comparisons for us across the Atlantic), as well as between different platforms (think EbscoHost, ProQuest, FirstSearch, among others).
There is a basic User Guide available, as well as an accompanying report that details the methodology.
The software is fast, the screen output is clean and well organized, and the site has a Creative Commons British Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This could change the way you choose your databases!
from ResourceShelf
It seems to be a Google day: Google has put some of their offerings together as an educational platform for K-12 teachers to use for their classes. Google for Educators has nothing that isn’t being offered elsewhere, but it presents it in a way that shows the potential of their software and services when used as a teaching aid.
For those teachers who really want to spice up their resume, there is the Google Teacher Academy, a “one-day experience” which is free to those who are accepted, but you must live in Northern California for now – they do plan to expand the program in the future.
from the Official Google Blog
Google and the University of Wisconsin – Madison announced today that they will be partners in the Google Books project.
This is getting kind of local… less than 200 miles!
from Search Engine Watch
At first glance, this seems like it ought to be tagged “Humor“, but take a few minutes to check this against your own catalog, and you won’t be laughing at all:
Typo of the Day has a mission… they will feature a common library catalog typographical error each day with the purpose being that we all test our catalogs and fix the entries containing the errors.
Today is the first day, and the typo is “Adminstration”. I checked our catalog, and it appears in three records (which are now fixed). If this turns out to be an average (and who knows?), in one year we could clean up 1,000 errors in our database.
So check your database… search for “Adminstration” and see what you find. Fix the errors. Make it part of your daily routine. We will all have cleaner catalogs for the effort.
from Catalogablog
In the news today: Eudora, the e-mail client that has been around since the late 1980’s, will soon be based on the Mozilla Thunderbird source and released as an open-source project.
The reason behind this is that Qualcomm, the owner of Eudora, has been maintaining the software in spite of its being a wireless technology company. It wants to keep the program alive, but maintaining it takes more resources than it wants to devote.
Ten years ago, companies seemed to let software projects die, leaving users to use stagnant code, or switch to other programs. Now they are released to to wild, so to speak, where they have the opportunity to be revitalized and flourish. Not a bad way to go!
from Mozilla Dot Org
This isn’t a new discovery, but I found myself recommending the Gentium typeface to someone this morning, and thought it made sense to post it as well.
Gentium is easy to read, especially when printed out. It can sometimes look a bit funky on-screen, but it has always held up for the final product. It looks a bit old-fashioned, but with modern touches. Best of all, it is open-source, so it can be freely installed on as many computers as needed.
If you have this desire to know what is being spent, and by whom, in this year’s political races, then Opensecrets.org is the site for you.
from ResourceShelf
Need to convert a file? Whether it be word processing, image, audio, or video, Media Convert handles most of the file formats you know, and many you probably have never heard of!
This service is web-based, so it is available whenever you have an internet connection. Keep this in mind when you need to open a file, but don’t have the software to do it.
from Monkey Bites
One: This Day in Music History is a great way of gaining information about particular days and the significant musical events that occurred… except that it only works for the current date, and 15 days before. So much for checking out your date of birth, unless you time it right.
Two: Music Video search lets you search and view over 6,000 music videos, which is great, except that you can only do it using Internet Explorer (or download the Active X plugin, which allows your Mozilla-based browser to gain many of the insecurities of our favorite Microsoft security risk), and there doesn’t seem to be any videos from before 1990.
from ResourceShelf
One of the frustrations in life is needing to find the spelling of a word when it is the beginning of the word that you aren’t sure of. How does one find “phonetic” in the dictionary if you aren’t thinking of the possibility of the word beginning with “ph”? (well, I guess Google’s “Did you mean…” feature is also quite good for those types of questions!)
This dilemma, amongst others, is solved by Unscramble.net, a site meant to assist people playing word games (crossword puzzles, scrambles, jumbles, etc.). Turns out that it can be a pretty good site for many other types of word questions.
Now about those annoying flashing ads….
from BiblioTech Web
It has been announced that a group consisting of publishers and course software makers have created a standard format for online classes called Common Cartridge, which promises to allow electronic resources to be used interchangeably within different learning management software.
This presumes, of course, that the standard is accepted and implemented in the various software programs. The thought that several large publishers, including Pearson and McGraw-Hill, have taken part in creating the standard suggests that this may take hold. It is to the publisher’s benefit to only have to create course material once.
This will also benefit the open source course software makers, as they won’t have to compete based on file formats, but on performance, features, and interface (as it should be).
from Open Access News
In September, OCLC will be trying out a Wiki component to their WorldCat database. This is based on their WikiD project that they have been working on for a while.
Those of us familiar with Amazon know the depth that user reviews can add to the standard information available when one is considering purchasing a book; I would expect that similar information within WorldCat will be extremely helpful from a research perspective, as well. This could make WorldCat a better first step for book searches than most library catalogs.
Something to watch…
(note: I somehow glazed over this entry… it was already October, and I somehow registered November as the starting month for the WikiD component. They are already accepting user reviews. It is still something to watch, however!)
A partnership between Google, LitCam, and UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning, The Literacy Project gathers together a bundle of resources that can be used by teachers or anyone else working with literacy and education.
This is nifty: give this page the url for an image, and it will give you the best colors to design a web page that goes well with the image.
from Monkey Bites
The state of Indiana has it right: they have a state-wide collection of online databases that they not only make available to all libraries in the state, but to every resident.
The Inspire Database contains a lot of fantastic resources, including a large portion of EbscoHost, ERIC, LISTA, and WorldCat. Everyone in the state can access it simply by registering with an in-state address; the password will be sent in the mail.
For those of us in other states, remember to check with your local public libraries, as well as your community college libraries, to see what databases you can access. You might be surprised at the wealth of information you have through your computer, even if it isn’t as directly delivered as it is in Indiana.
from BiblioTech
The state of Indiana has it right: they have a state-wide collection of online databases that they not only make available to all libraries in the state, but to every resident.
The Inspire Database contains a lot of fantastic resources, including a large portion of EbscoHost, ERIC, LISTA, and WorldCat. Everyone in the state can access it simply by registering with an in-state address; the password will be sent in the mail.
For those of us in other states, remember to check with your local public libraries, as well as your community college libraries, to see what databases you can access. You might be surprised at the wealth of information you have through your computer, even if it isn’t as directly delivered as it is in Indiana.
from BiblioTech
You name it, if it relates to genealogy, it is probably listed on this site.
from the Web4Lib Listserv
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
