RUSA has come out with its 2004 list of Best Free Reference Websites. They cover a variety of subjects and come from academia, government, industry, non-profits, the media, libraries and librarians. One of my personal faves is The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams, definitely one of the coolest reference librarians in the universe. If you’re …
I just spent much of the day redesigning my site. The first time I designed my site, I was in school and my time was at a premium. I know it still needs work, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out — definitely better than before. Let me know what you think.
Since I may be moving to a very tiny apartment in Chicago soon, I thought it best to trade in my old desktop for a swanky new laptop (the CPU is just a bit to heavy to put on my lap). I haven’t been in the market for a laptop since 1998, so I’ve been …
Barbara Quint has put together a list of questions and answers about the Google Library Project that have been pondered by various people in the library and search worlds. Some questions remain unanswered. Others, like what the Google Library Project means for brick and mortar libraries, involves answers ranging from unconcern to grudging acceptance to …
Last night, when I got home from my New Year’s Eve revelry (which consisted of baking cookies with a five-year-old, playing Chutes and Ladders, and drinking sparkling cider), I found a comment on my blog from someone considering entering a library science program: Hello, I do not know if Iam grateful or scared to have …
The New York Times featured another study furthering the notion that Internet use is socially isolating and takes people away from other activities. I’m perfectly willing to grant them the fact that if you’re doing more of one activity, you’ll obviously be doing less of another (kind of an obvious observation guys), but these gloom …
Sorry I didn’t have time to post anything today (been working on cover letters ALL day) but I wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe New Year. I’m just spending New Year’s with family tonight. With all that’s happened in the world over the past week, I’d rather just be around loved ones than …
I guess this is the day to post intros! Peter Suber, at Open Access News, has published a very concise introduction to the concept of open access. A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access is a shorter version of his Open Acecss Overview. Both are great documents, though the former is certainly easier to digest …
From Resource Shelf, I have found An Introduction to Feeds, which does an excellent job of describing what RSS is and how to use aggregators. I will definitely send this on to my dad, who I recently got set-up with Firefox, Bloglines, and del.icio.us. What is Christmas for if not to work on family members’ …
Today, Dorothea at Caveat Lector wrote about Them jobhuntin’ blues. Oh yes, I do feel your pain. After applying for jobs since late September, I really think I could get hired as a usability expert for human resource departments and universities. If it takes me more then three minutes on a university or library’s website …
Earlier this month, I had reported on a new way to search handwritten manuscripts that was developed by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Today, the New York Times has written about this exciting development, along with the fact that the head of the project is going to brief Google on it next month. So …
I don’t know what I could say that hasn’t already been said about the disaster in southeast Asia on Sunday. It is a tragedy beyond my comprehension — easily the worst thing that has ever happened in my lifetime. So many tens of thousands of people of all ages and from all walks of life… …
The New York Times today has a story about the closing of the Salinas Public Library. What a sad situation. In a community comprised of many migrant and blue collar workers, losing the library may have a tremendous impact on community life (especially for children, immigrants, and the elderly). They may not realize it now, …
Hi! The newest issue (Jan ’05) of Cites and Insights is out with some commentary on conference blogging, blogging ethics, and a bit on Google Print. Walt Crawford brings up the blog ethics debate started by Karen at Free Range Librarian: Karen paints herself in the awkward middle — people who want to do the …
This will be my last post before Christmas. My posts may be a bit sporadic until Tuesday as my adorable niece and nephew are coming down for a visit with my sister-in-law. YAY! Here are pics of my niece and nephew at our wedding last August: Are they insanely cute or what? I hope everyone …
D-Lib has an article about a new grant-funded partnership between the library and information studies departments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Indiana University at Bloomington to develop a program in digital libraries. They will offer it as part of the masters curriculum and as a post-masters program: The project directors envision two …
The Librarian in Black pointed the way to a fabulous tutorial on digital preservation. Anyone interested in the subject should take a look at Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-term Strategies for Long-term Problems. Here are some other interesting works on digitization: Selecting Research Collections for Digitization by Dan Hazen, Jeffrey Horrell, Jan Merrill-Oldham. Washington State …
Wow! In an age of shrinking budgets and shrinking staffs, the Phoenix Public Libraries has secured $175,000 to hire one full time professional librarian and three paraprofessionals to police their no-porn policies. The professional, this “Internet Resource Specialist”, would monitor people’s use of the Internet and deal with people’s requests to turn off the filters …
Here is a disappointing story about the licensing and intellectual property rights . The award-winning documentary, Eyes on the Prize, about the civil rights movement, can no longer be aired on TV or sold on DVD (or new VHS’s) because the filmmakers could only afford to pay for a few years of rights to the …