Information Wants To Be Free – Page 45 – A librarian, writer and educator reflecting on the profession and the tools we use to serve our patrons

Firefox and its way cool extensions

Are you using Firefox yet? Well, why not? It is has so many advantages over Mozilla. Newsforge has an article about many of Firefox's features including, improved speed, improved security…

Good news for bad spellers?

Wow! I can hardly keep up with all of Google's betas and latest acquisitions! Google Suggest seems to be their newest beta (though don't quote me on that). It's looks…

Searching in 2005

Here is an interesting article on the year in review for search engines. 2004 saw many major players (Yahoo, Google, and MSN in particular) kick their competition up a notch…

General

If the NY Times says it…

The New York Times has an article on how libraries are reaching out online and about the resurgence of e-books. It's not exactly earth-shattering, but so nice to see the…

job search

Reflections from the job hunt

I've been applying for jobs now, primarily in academic and public libraries, since late September. I had professors and students alike tell me that if I'm geographically flexible and have…

libraries our digital future

Public library computers for me but not for thee?

I remember years ago, when I would travel and wanted to keep in touch with my friends and family, I would just pop into the local library and use the…

our digital future reference search

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…

our digital future

Why we blog

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…

our digital future

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…

General

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…

library school our digital future

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…

random

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…

job search libraries our digital future

On Being a 21st Century Librarian

Yesterday, at my job interview, I was asked to talk about the 21st century library and what I would bring to it. I wish I had read this article by…

intellectual freedom

Kahle vs. Ashcroft

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…

libraries

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…

random

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…

General

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.…

our digital future reference

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…

job search library school

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…

Jury duty

I've got jury duty tomorrow (and hopefully ONLY tomorrow), so I may not have time to post anything. I would really like to be on a jury as I never…