Bringing LexisNexis to the masses: LexisNexis Ala Carteour digital future, reference, search

by Meredith Farkas on 12/8/2004 with Comments Off on Bringing LexisNexis to the masses: LexisNexis Ala Carte

LexisNexis is now offering its articles ala carte, which allows regular folks who are not affiliated with an institution of higher learning to search LexisNexis and buy the full-text if they so choose. You have to register to search (though the search itself is free), and then any article you wish to read costs only …

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Why we blogour digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 12/8/2004 with 1 comment

Steven Cohen has written a concise explanation of why he blogs, which perfectly describes what I hope to get out of blogging: When people ask me why I put so much effort into my weblog, I mention that I want to be well-informed about the technology that has an effect on my profession, and by …

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Making digitization easierour digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 12/8/2004 with Comments Off on Making digitization easier

Wow! File this under amazingly cool tools for digitization. Some computer science folks from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have come up with a took that can search handwritten manuscripts without requiring human intervention (rekeying). Here is an article about how it works. You can even try it out. This is a promising step …

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Holiday gifts for geeks (like me)General

by Meredith Farkas on 12/6/2004 with Comments Off on Holiday gifts for geeks (like me)

Can’t think of what to get for the geek on your list? Take a look at some of the holiday product guides and 2004 best of guides from Wired, Ars Technica, PC Mag, Forever Geek, Extreme Tech, and Think Geek. And if those weren’t enough, Gizmodo has a huge list of holiday gift guides for …

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Library education in the 21st centurylibrary school, our digital future

by Meredith Farkas on 12/6/2004 with Comments Off on Library education in the 21st century

I think our ALA president-elect, Michael Gorman, has the right idea on what the ALA should be focusing on. Education. According to the Library Journal, in a meeting entitled “The Future of Library Information Education”, Gorman expressed serious concerns about the state of library education and accreditation. Although I’ve only gone through one MLIS program, …

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The Librarianrandom

by Meredith Farkas on 12/6/2004 with Comments Off on The Librarian

Wow, that was a bad movie. Every cheesy action movie and librarian cliche were stunningly in evidence, and I really feel that I should strongly caution Noah Wylie not to quit his day job at ER after this season (BIG mistake) . Cheesy can oftentimes be funny, but, in my opinion, this really wasn’t funny. …

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Kahle vs. Ashcroftintellectual freedom

by Meredith Farkas on 12/4/2004 with 1 comment

I don’t have anything to say about the case that hasn’t been said before, but I am really saddened by the fact that this case, challenging the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, has been dismissed. To me, this is a clear sign (among many) that our government has moved completely away from any consideration …

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Librarians asking for morelibraries

by Meredith Farkas on 12/4/2004 with Comments Off on Librarians asking for more

Rory Litwin has an excellent editorial in Library Juice this month. Undone by Flattery is about what librarians give up because we are so susceptible to flattery. After suffering daily with ungrateful and difficult patrons, we often feel like no one appreciates the service we offer to society. We love to hear people talk about …

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First holiday as a married couplerandom

by Meredith Farkas on 12/4/2004 with Comments Off on First holiday as a married couple

This year, my husband and I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time and it was a rousing success. Here is a picture of the table before the guests arrived. And here’s me (or part of me) setting the table. My mother-in-law is quite the gourmet, and my father is quite picky, so any praise from …

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Hope for those with Linux-compatibility issuesGeneral

by Meredith Farkas on 12/3/2004 with Comments Off on Hope for those with Linux-compatibility issues

I’m surprised I hadn’t heard more about this news before I found this encouraging CNET article via Librarian’s Happen. Apparently, Adobe is moving into open source software development and marketing. They won’t specify exactly what their plans are, but the fact that they are hiring a Director of Linux Market Development and a computer scientist …

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Libraries and RSSour digital future, reference

by Meredith Farkas on 12/2/2004 with Comments Off on Libraries and RSS

Tame the Web this week has a great little guide on Teaching RSS to Reference Librarians. He’s got great links to other resources that will educate and inspire librarians to get excited about RSS. The Kansas City Public Library System and the Minneapolis Public Library are good examples of public libraries that have embraced RSS, …

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What are libraries looking for?job search, library school

by Meredith Farkas on 12/2/2004 with Comments Off on What are libraries looking for?

I’m back from my wacky wild trip into our legal system. I’ll just say that I hope I’m never on the other side of the law, because it was nerve-wracking enough just being in the jury pool! And I don’t know if this is typical, but the courtroom was the coldest room I’ve been in. …

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