LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Over 1500 RSS librarian sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest headlines from journals and sites in the Open Source interest group. http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianqueries.php Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:08:42 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://kairosnews.org/survey-of-open-source-adoption-and-usage Greetings. We are conducting a preliminary online survey aimed at assessing the role of open source software in the scholarly and pedagogical practices of the Rhetoric & Composition and English Studies community. As a scholar and teacher of Rhetoric & Composition and/or of English Studies, you are being invited to participate in this survey. Please take a few moments to respond to this very brief ten-question survey on the subject at the link provided below.read more (Source: Kairosnews - A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy) Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:11:52 +0100 674632 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/netbib/DFxV/~3/458546730/ do.it.online weist auf eine Studie hin, nach der sich freie Inhalte, seien es open source oder open access, durchaus mit Geschäftsmodellen der “klassischen” Medienindustrie verbinden lassen. (Source: netbib weblog) Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:20:43 +0100 674529 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/NetbibWeblog/~3/458563310/ do.it.online weist auf eine Studie hin, nach der sich freie Inhalte, seien es open source oder open access, durchaus mit Geschäftsmodellen der “klassischen” Medienindustrie verbinden lassen. (Source: netbib weblog) Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:20:43 +0100 674508 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/457368317/ Magnatune is a music site dedicated to independent musicians. It has some of the best music on the web. Here is Magnatune’s mission statement: We work directly with independent musicians world-wide to give you downloads of MP3s and perfect-quality WAV files. We never work with major labels, and our musicians always get 50%. You can listen to every album in its entirety before buying or becoming a member. Now get this, Magnatune is giving the music away and just asking for donations, and it is working. Here’s an excerpt from buckman’s magnatune blog: From today on, you are no longer required to commit to a 3 month minimum: you can have as short a membership as one month. Also, since the majority of people pay for memberships using Paypal (vs credit cards), we now support Paypal’s recurring payments feature, so that you can choose to auto-renew, yet retain total control over billing by being able to cancel from within your Paypal account. I’ve been working with Leah Belsky (from open-source-philosopher-guru Yochai Benkler’s group), to phase in each change at Magnatune in a controlled-experiment kind of way, so that both Magnatune (me) and the academics (Benkler’s group) can get data that is meaningful, quasi-scientific and which hopefully leads to insight. The final step in this transition happened today. Memberships to Magnatune are now: 1) no commitment: one month at a time, whereas previously the minimum was 3 months 2) pay what you want: you fill in the amount you want to pay (no drop down box), though there is a $5/month stream membership minimum, and $10/month download membership minimum. ... Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:56:39 +0100 674098 http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/2008/11/koha-user-group-meeting.html On April 16-17th there will be a Koha innovations and sharing group in Plano Texas (suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth). The 2 day workshop would have lab access and presentation space. There would be a charge to cover lunch both days and other expenses. Any leftover money would be given to the KUDOS users group as seed money. Anticipated cost $100. (Source: Catalogablog) Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:09:00 +0100 673914 http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/itbloggingsection/2008/11/risk-management.html Jonathan Rochkind has written an awesome article for Library Journal about risk management when it comes to open source software. Jonathan walks librarians through all of the levels of risk you might be taking choosing open source software - most of which are the same as the risks you take with any software (for home, office or library).  He also defines the different levels of open source software you’ll find out in the wild: Homegrown products are used and developed by only one or very few libraries. They are usually written to meet very local requirements without much effort to generalize and are supported by the same local staff who wrote them. A risk of homegrown software is managing the transition when that original staff leaves. Community support products have a thriving network of users and developers across a variety of institutions. A community of users and developers is, of course, not contractually bound to provide help, but many open source products have strong groups willing to spend time helping you for the greater good of the project. Vendor support products are backed by paid commercial contracts available from companies in the business of supporting open source products. Even though these vendors don’t own the software, they provide technical help for the software via contract, very much like a support contract for proprietary software. In the general market, a well-established and successful example is Red Hat Enterprise Linux, a variant of the open source Linux OS, for which the Red Hat company offers support contracts. He then breaks down the different risks associated with the different types of open source software, reminding librarians that: An open source evangelist (and I include myself in that category) would be doing a disservice to the library community and to the success of open source if they were to dismiss the existence of risk in open source and ignore the different natures of those risks. ... Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:37:55 +0100 674146 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.education.web4lib/13253 Hey WebLib: We are looking for a few additional librarians to join our conversation, Open Everything: A Conversation on Openness, Access and Transparency in Madison, Wisconsin, on Saturday, 6 December 2008 from 10am to 5pm. I think Open Everything is an idea worth spreading. And, I'm hoping that some members of the WebLib group who live in the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago-Minneapolis areas agree. If you are interested in the diversity of ideas and information behind the Open Everything movement, especially as it spreads from open access issues of libraries to open source software, to open government, and creative commons for renewing public domain and providing better legal support for being more open to even how intellectual property law is responding to 'open' and Obama's more transparent and accountable government calls (now hopefully mandates). There's a global conversation about art, science, public domain, and spirit of 'open'. Some come join it. Open Everything: Madison is a roundtable discussion on th (Source: gmane.education.web4lib) Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 673901 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/456499880/ The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Emory University Libraries have announced the formation of a Zotero software development partnership. Here's an excerpt from the press release: A team of librarians, information technologists and faculty members led by Connie Moon Sehat, Emory Libraries' new director of digital scholarship initiatives, will extend research capabilities of the software in collaboration with Zotero's main development team. Sehat is a former co-director of Zotero and CHNM. For Dan Cohen, who is associate professor of history at George Mason University and director of CHNM, a relationship with Emory exemplifies the powerful opportunities for institutional cooperation offered by digital media. "The Center for History and New Media and the Zotero Project are lucky to now have the resources and experience of Emory on their side," says Cohen, "and the continued insight and direction of Connie Sehat. We look forward to what will undoubtedly be a tremendously productive collaboration." Cohen oversees Zotero with Sean Takats, assistant professor of history at George Mason and CHNM's acting director of research projects. This relationship marks a significant step forward for the future of the Zotero project. "Partnering on the development of open source software with CHNM, an established center of excellence in the digital humanities, allows the Emory Libraries to create value for the research community while sharing the risks in developing innovative software," says Rick Luce, Emory University vice provost and director of libraries. Already a powerful research tool, Zotero allows users to gather, organize and analyze sources such as citations, full texts, web pages, images and other objects. It meshes the functionality of older reference manager applications with modern software and web applications, such as del.icio. ... Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:45:41 +0100 673986 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/17/chnm-and-emory-university-libraries-establish-zotero-software-development-partnership/ The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Emory University Libraries have announced the formation of a Zotero software development partnership. Here's an excerpt from the press release: A team of librarians, information technologists and faculty members led by Connie Moon Sehat, Emory Libraries' new director of digital scholarship initiatives, will extend research capabilities of the software in collaboration with Zotero's main development team. Sehat is a former co-director of Zotero and CHNM. For Dan Cohen, who is associate professor of history at George Mason University and director of CHNM, a relationship with Emory exemplifies the powerful opportunities for institutional cooperation offered by digital media. "The Center for History and New Media and the Zotero Project are lucky to now have the resources and experience of Emory on their side," says Cohen, "and the continued insight and direction of Connie Sehat. We look forward to what will undoubtedly be a tremendously productive collaboration." Cohen oversees Zotero with Sean Takats, assistant professor of history at George Mason and CHNM's acting director of research projects. This relationship marks a significant step forward for the future of the Zotero project. "Partnering on the development of open source software with CHNM, an established center of excellence in the digital humanities, allows the Emory Libraries to create value for the research community while sharing the risks in developing innovative software," says Rick Luce, Emory University vice provost and director of libraries. Already a powerful research tool, Zotero allows users to gather, organize and analyze sources such as citations, full texts, web pages, images and other objects. It meshes the functionality of older reference manager applications with modern software and web applications, such as del.icio. ... Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:40:22 +0100 673943 http://www.libology.com/blog/2008/11/17/rational-and-well-thought-out-oclc-response.html Over the past few days, I have been gathering my thoughts together in order to post an essay-style overview of the issues surrounding the OCLC records policy changes.  As of now, I am going to put those thoughts aside, as Stefano Mazzocchi has posted an excellently rational and well thought-out essay on the topic. I feel glad that I have injected some of the points he mentions into my own posts.  OCLC is a tiger (my own reference) defending its territory; this means they feel threatened.  Stefano described how OCLC can become the lady, opening up their process and becoming a hero to librarians, bibliophiles, and geeks worldwide. Can they take a cue from the Open Source movement and adjust their business model to better fit their actual position in the biblioverse?  Stefano is hesitant about their chances; I have a lot of respect for many of the people and projects at OCLC, and feel that they can achieve nearly anything the set their collective minds towards (except to maintain a monopoly on the course they seem to have chosen). found via Librarian.net (Source: LibrarySupportStaff.Org) Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:37:01 +0100 674314 http://bibliotheque20.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/opacmetamoteur-en-open-source/ Vu chez pintini XC Catalog est un projet Open Source visant à proposer une interface unique permettant d’interroger simultanément diverses bases de données. Il est conçu par et pour les bibliothèques. Il est censé s’interfacer à tout type de standard bibliothéconomique : MARC, OAI, FRBR, DC… La deuxième phase vient d’être lancée. Sortie prévue : mi2009… Si certains se sentent les reins assez solides pour rejoindre l’équipe…        (Source: Des Bibliothèques 2.0) Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:57:53 +0100 674237 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ouseful/~3/456002988/ One of the things I’ve noticed about Twitter is that if you post a link there to a recent blog post, the post can start to get read very quickly. I’ve done a couple of experiments by tweeting links to old posts and comment threads to see if it can give them a little burst of renewed life, and I can anecdotally report that it does seem to work, if you get your twittertext right… And it’s potentially also a way of using a subset of readers as a sounding board for whether or not to post more widely, to a larger set of readers. So for example, on Friday I replied to a comment on an earlier post (Printing Out Online Course Materials With Embedded Movie Links) with a rather <ranty> comment of my own… and got the following tweet back from @jukesie: So here goes - I’ve blockquoted it, but it’s not strictly a quote - I have made a few minor changes - so if you want to read the comment in it’s original form, and in the original context, you can find it here. The context was whether there was any value in adding a QR code visual link to a Youtube movie in the print stylesheet of a piece of online learning material that included an embedded video. I picked up a catch phrase earlier today, about what UK HE needs: Flexibility, Innovation, Imagination. So here’s my problem. The future lies around us, and some of us paddle in it. Innovation in the OU is hard to achieve - the feeling is whatever we give to our students, it has to scale and it has to be equally accessible to everyone. We often go for lowest common denominator plays, particularly with respect to assumptions about the availability of technology. The Innovator’s Dilemma rules… Time out: When I play with mashups - when I play with ideas - I’m balancing logic rocks. Sometimes they fall over, but that’s okay; if I wanted to build something a little longer lasting, I’d use concrete. ... Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:31:35 +0100 674116 http://www.betabib.org/?p=255 På IGeLU i Madrid frågade Ex Libris om det fanns ett intresse att komma till Jerusalem för att träffa deras utvecklare och diskutera deras Open Platform Strategy. Mötet i Madrid var positivt till ett sådant och i förra veckan var jag i Jerusalem. 14 personer från Europa och USA var på plats. Alla med bakgrund i att utveckla eller kraftigt anpassa Ex Libris produkter efter sina behov. Jag måste erkänna att jag mest tänkt på Ex Libris Open Platform Strategy som marknadsföring. Dessa tankar har dock fått träda tillbaka. Det verkar finnas ett ärligt uppsåt och intresse från Ex Libris när det gäller hur bibliotek och andra skall kunna bygga tillämpningar på deras produkter. I allt som de designar för framtiden så ingår öppenhet som en given del. Men det handlar inte bara om hur systemen designas. Här på mötet så fick vi möjlighet att prata direkt med utvecklarna utan “managers” eller användargruppsbyråkrater. De var nyfikna på vår verklighet och i princip svältfödda på information och kontakt. Ett utmärkt tillfälle att delge dem lite av sina tankar och funderingar. Det skall bli intressant att se hur den här typen av möten med utvecklarna kommer förhålla sig till den traditionella och hårt uppstyrda “enhancement” processen. På sätt och vis handlar det här om andra saker, men det är oundvikligt att man hamnar i en del detaljer kring arbetsflöden. Mötet var upplagt på två dagar. Dag 1 ägnades i princip åt introduktioner och att ge mötet en kontext - Open platform strategy och förverkligandet av Open platform program. Princip-diskussioner kring SOA, REST/SOAP och El Commons. Man visade lite av kommande Primo funktionalitet. En sak som alltid varit på tapeten har varit möjligheten att “säkert” kunna inkludera script i t ex OPAC. I Primo har man ett koncept som man kallar för Tiles. ... Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:41:31 +0100 674235 http://www.outilsfroids.net/news/le-logiciel-de-mind-mapping-xmind-devient-gratuit-et-open-source OutilsMindMappingLa société Xmind, qui développe le logiciel de mind mapping du même nom, vient d'annoncer qu'il devenait dorénavant gratuit (il coûtait tout de même la modique somme de 299 $) et open source.Il offre des fonctionnalités telles que : gestion de projet différents types de représentations graphiques (dont Ishikawa) export sur un site de partage de cartes export vers pdf, .doc, .ppt import de cartes créées sous Mind Manager et Freemind. gestion des tâches et beaucoup d'autresQuelques possibilités : Voir aussi ce qu'en dit Chuck Frey sur Innovation Tools.Vu chez Heuristiquement. (Source: Outils Froids) Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:20 +0100 673404 http://www.betabib.org/?p=253 I slutet av oktober hade användarföreningen för Samsök sitt första ordinarie möte. Bland det första man hittade på var ett namn. Så nu heter gruppen SAMSA vilket står för Sammanslutning av metalib/sfx användare. Temat för det första mötet var att orientera oss i övriga svenska MetaLib/SFX konsortier. Så inbjudna gäster från Bibliotek 24 och EIRA presenterade sitt arbete. LIBRIS och nytillträdde Anna Lundén presenterade sina framtidsplaner. Kristian Wallin från Fujitsu pratade om kommande uppdateringar. Det som är mest intressant är väl att MetaLib inte kommer utvecklas vidare utan Ex Libris kommer att designa om hela paketet. En ny motor för meta-sökning skall till och framsidan av systemet kommer att vara Primo-likt. För nuvarande MetaLib användare betyder det att vi kommer uppgraderas utan kostnad till den nya versionen, när nu denna kommer. Men vi kan alltså inte räkna med någon större utveckling av existerande version av MetaLib. Eftermiddagen ägnades i stor utsträckning åt X-server och olika tillämpningar. Riksdagsbiblioteket och Linköping UB berättade om sitt arbete och testande av Xerxes. För den som vill testa Xerxes har Theodor gjort iordning ett XAMPP-paket, mycket fiffigt. Det känns verkligen som att intresset för X-server ökat i Sverige. Förhoppningsvis kommer vi se fler tillämpningar framöver. Användargruppen har nu en webbplats som förhoppningsvis kommer fyllas på med tiden. Nästa möte blir på KTHB den 3 februari 2009. (Source: betabib) Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:39:34 +0100 674236 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/smwm/~3/454618695/digicmb Drawing in the Dirt » Research 2.0 The OpenScience Project » Cool finds at the NCCB2008 workshop * OpenWetWare * The international genetically engineered machines competition (IGEM) * Registry of Standard Biological Parts * Nature Precedings * Proteopedia * The Open Protein Structure Annotation Network (TOPSAN) * SciVee.tv * FriendFeed Nature Precedings Open research - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Open Source Drug Discovery [OSDD] Network | Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India Science Commons » The Neurocommons (Source: DigiCMB) Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:10:02 +0100 673324 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pandia/vfbc/~3/454938257/974-top-20-web-design-and-development-resources.html The latest issue of Website Magazine presents a top 50 list of websites that are popular among web designers and developers. Anyone working withing the fields of online information dissemination and Internet marketing need to know something about the arts of setting up and designing web sites, so these resources may also be of interest to the readers of Pandia. The list is partly based on web statistics gathered by Ranking.com. Here are the top 20: about.com (All round information site. The reason it has been included here is most likely the Web Design subsite) w3.org (World Wide Web Consortium, info for web site coders) mashable.com (Web 2.0 blog) Webdeveloper.com (Articles, resources and discussions on web coding, programming and graphics) apache.org (The Apache Software Foundation - web server software) oswd.org (Open Source Web Design, for free web design templates) oreillynet.org (Publisher covering web software and tools) devshed.com (Open source web developer tutorials) netmechanic.com (HTML, SEO and web design tools and help) webreference.com (Help and reviews for web designers and developers) tamingthebeast.com (They are probably referring to tamingthebeast.net, a site covering internet marketing, web development, affiliate programs and ecommerce) webmonkey.com (Web developer tutorials, references, blogs and code libraries) web-source.net (Guide to web site design and development) weberdev.com (Guides to PHP, MySQL and more) devx.com (Web programming resource) pageresource.com (Web development tutorial and information site) irt.org (Articles, FAQs, software etc on web coding and design) webdesign.org (Popular guide to web design) killersites.com (Web site design how to guides, also for beginners) smartwebby.com (Commercial web design tools) To see them all, sign up for the free Website Magazine and look at the November issue. Manage PPC Better - Just $199/mo. (Source: Pandia Search Engine News) Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:30:20 +0100 673446 http://pintini.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/11/16/extensible-catalog-project-phase-2.html Des nouvelles du projet eXtensible Catalog:"The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation–funded eXtensible Catalog (XC) project from the University of Rochester, NY, a new metadata manager and interface tool for bibliographic information, has received a major upgrade to its web presence in an outward sign of a larger behind-the-scenes effort. In transitioning from a WordPress blog to a Drupal site featuring significantly more background and framework info, the project's second phase of coding and software design has ramped up, helping XC make the move from a planning architecture to a workable and distributable set of open source (OS) software components.The XC, geared toward academic libraries and scheduled to be released in summer 2009, will serve as a means for managing many different kinds of library metadata, including MARC, Dublin Core, and FRBRized records. On the new site, project managers add that they hope to initiate “a next phase of development to integrate the benefits of the RDA metadata standard once it is released.” In addition, XC “will enable library content to be revealed through other services that libraries may already be using, such as content management systems and learning management systems.” [...]"Via Library Journal (Source: pintiniblog) Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:04:22 +0100 673175 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/453718204/2339 Planning Reference ExtractReference Extract is envisioned as a web search engine, like Google, Yahoo and MSN. However, unlike other search engines, Reference Extracts will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe. aDORe djatoka - Overviewdjatoka is a Java-based open source image server with an attractive basic feature set and extensibility under control of the community of implementers. Off-the-shelf, djatoka provides compression and region extraction of JPEG 2000 images, URI-addressability of regions, and support for a rich set of input/output image formats (e.g., BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, PNM, TIF, JPEG 2000). More of my links (Source: What I Learned Today...) Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:02:02 +0100 672979 http://infoblog.infopeople.org/2008/11/infopeople_at_cla_minidemos_an.php If good things really do come in small packages, attendees at the California Library Association 2008 Conference and Exhibition in San Jose are going to find plenty of treasures through the Infopeople Mini-Demo sessions which begin this evening and continue through Sunday afternoon (November 16, 2008). While many of us extol the virtues of learning sessions which include preparatory time and extensive follow-up, we also find a great deal of charm and useful information in these brief sessions which bring trainers and learners together for 10-minute tip-laden teasers that cover a variety of topics. It’s an enticing format for trainers and learners alike, and gives all of us food for thought in how we approach our own training-teaching-learning experiences. With more than four dozen time slots filled with mini-demos and more than two dozen presenters scheduled, there is something for nearly everyone working in libraries. Trainers will see plenty of examples of how to break their material into concise and effective sessions from Infopeople presenters including Linda Demmers, Beth Gallaway; Cheryl Gould; George Needham and Joan Frye Williams; and Mary Ross as well as State Librarian Susan Hildreth and Deputy State Librarian Stacey Aldrich. Learners, at the same time, will be able to pick and choose from a variety of topics including spontaneous programming; planning book clubs; using library mashups; what open source software can offer libraries; bringing creativity to the workplace; creating exciting and memorable user experiences with minimal expenditures; and strategic positions for libraries in today’s changing environment. Those of us used to much more in-depth presentations stand to learn a lot from these sessions, and the sessions promise to be fun as well. All events will be held in Infopeople’s space with the Exhibitors’ Area (Booths 410, 411, and 511). (Source: Infoblog) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:59:59 +0100 672619 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/453034934/2337 Make sure you mark your calendars, invite your colleagues, and share info about this event with all of your library friends: Date: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 Time: 2:00 PM EST Duration: 1 hour Host(s): Brenda Hough Why are some libraries making the decision to use free and open-source software? Popular reasons include: it’s free! It’s customizable. You are vendor-independent. Security and reliability are also cited as benefits by users. Is open-source software right for your library? How can you get started? Join this FREE webinar to learn more. (Source: What I Learned Today...) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:33:26 +0100 672775 http://blogs.ala.org/nrmig.php?title=call_for_proposals_for_nrmig_program_at_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 ALCTS NRMIG (Networked Resources and Metadata Interest Group) invites your proposal to participate in a program on workflow tools for digital libraries, to take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, July 9-15, 2009. Please note that the deadline to submit a proposal has been extended to Friday November 21st. With the increasing volume of digital content that libraries are creating and maintaining, long-term data curation is emerging as a key consideration for the profession. In order to support data preservation and re-use on a local level, as well as facilitate resource sharing, library professionals need practical tools to help them efficiently manage large volumes of data over time. What types of tools and techniques do you utilize to automate the creation and maintenance of metadata? Presentations should focus on current practices and new technologies, and include concrete demonstrations and/or examples of automated workflow tools and techniques employed at a local level or in collaborative endeavors. Specific implementations may cover a wide range of topics, including but not limited to: -Digital preservation of assets and collections -Data production, or validation of metadata, to comply with a particular schema or protocol -Data migration / interoperability across systems or applications -Interoperability, data harvesting, e.g., for resource sharing -Data production in distributed environments -Open source or proprietary software tools -Tips or techniques for working with particular standards and protocols The program forum will be a panel, in which each participant has from 20-30 minutes to present, followed by a Q & A period at the end of the program. To submit a proposal for presentation, please email a brief description of your proposed topic to Joanna Burgess at burgessj@reed.edu by November 21, 2008. (Source: ALA Weblog Service) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:24:06 +0100 672468 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2008/11/cfp-nrmig-ala-annual-09-program-on.html CFP: NRMIG ALA Annual 09 Program on Workflow Tools for Automating Metadata Creation and MaintenanceALCTS NRMIG (Networked Resources and Metadata Interest Group) invites your proposal to participate in a program on workflow tools for digital libraries, to take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, July 9-15, 2009.With the increasing volume of digital content that libraries are creating and maintaining, long-term data curation is emerging as a key consideration for the profession. In order to support data preservation and re-use on a local level, as well as facilitate resource sharing, library professionals need practical tools to help them efficiently manage large volumes of data over time. What types of tools and techniques do you utilize to automate the creation and maintenance of metadata?Presentations should focus on current practices and new technologies, and include concrete demonstrations and/or examples of automated workflow tools and techniques employed at a local level or in collaborative endeavors. Specific implementations may cover a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:-Digital preservation of assets and collections-Data production, or validation of metadata, to comply with a particular schema or protocol-Data migration / interoperability across systems or applications-Interoperability, data harvesting, e.g., for resource sharing-Data production in distributed environments-Open source or proprietary software tools-Tips or techniques for working with particular standards and protocolsThe program forum will be a panel, in which each participant has from 20-30 minutes to present, followed by a Q & A period at the end of the program. To submit a proposal for presentation, please email a brief description of your proposed topic to Joanna Burgess at burgessj@reed.edu by November 21, 2008. ... Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:02:00 +0100 672473 http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2008/11/14/technologies-and-education-virtual-worlds/ More of these videos that I’ve been exploring. Virtual Social Worlds and the Future of Learning –9:43 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2jY4UkPbAc Talks about 7 Sensibilities The Sense of Self The Death of Distance The Power of Presence The Sense of Space The Capability to Co-Create The Pervasiveness of Practice The Enrichment of Experience Edusim 3D in your class: 3:16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFsxev-2sk Mashing up interactive whiteboards and virtual worlds (Edusim3d), an open source [...] (Source: Education.au Blog) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:38:05 +0100 672259 http://liszen.com/trends/story.php?title=Traverse_Area_Mich-_District_Library_Goes_Live_With_Evergreen_--- District Library has gone live with Evergreen, the consortial-quality open-source library automation software. Traverse Area District Library follows (Source: pligg - all) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:00:16 +0100 672365 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/453407377/more-recommendations-on-openness-for.html Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda: Recommendations to President-elect Obama and Congress, report, November 2008. The report is endorsed by a number of groups and individuals, who were convened by OMB Watch and OpenTheGovernment.org. The [Chief Technology Officer] should ensure that agencies create websites that use open source software and distribute data in open formats that are accessible to all search engines. [The Office of Management and Budget] should direct agencies to actively make all their online resources searchable by major public search engines and available in open formats. ... The president should direct agencies to minimize the use of copyright claims on government-sponsored materials and include a statement on websites establishing that in the absence of expressed copyright agency-produced materials are copyright free. While there is no legal obligation for a government agency to provide a notice that no legal copyright exists on its materials, such a statement would help clarify the ability of the public to freely share and reuse government provided information. ... Contractors, grantees, and other government consultants are not considered government employees for purposes of copyright. ... When a copyrighted work is transferred to the U.S. government, the government becomes the copyright owner, and the work retains its copyright protection. The government should minimize the copyright claims it allows for materials produced under contract with federal agencies. ... The next administration should create incentives to convert government documents to no-fee, electronic, publicly available documents. Currently, private companies enter into non-competed agreements with agencies – often Memoranda of Understanding that are not public – and create subscription/charge-based access to public records that they have digitized at “no cost” to the government. ... Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 672599 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/453465661/libraries-and-oer.html Nan L. Singh, The Librarian As Essential Key to Connecting Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy in the Academic World, essay for a class at San Jose State University, self-archived November 12, 2008. Abstract: The librarian today, caught up in the growing sea of information, is challenged to rise up and give meaningful direction to the information seeker. The digital divide question goes deeper than the simple description of the problem that pits those who have access to technology against those who don’t. The parameters of the divide must be explored in depth in order to begin to close the divide. The librarian holds key possibilities for helping to close this divide and bridge the gap. This paper will focus on the contributions that Open Educational Resources movement can make towards the development of information literacy from yet another angle, the contribution of the librarian. New opportunities for more effective collaboration between librarians, students and instructors can promote greater engagement of the student, resulting in mastery of the literacy challenges presented by the changing world of technology. The educational climate is experiencing a paradigm shift that is familiar territory to the librarian. The librarian as a key initiator in connecting patrons with resources is in a unique position to give leadership to the Open movement, which includes Open Educational Resources, Open Access and Open Source. This paper will explore the contribution the librarian brings to OER and the Open movement. (Source: Open Access News) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 672593 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/13/archivists-toolkit-version-15-released/ The Archivists' Toolkit version 1.5 has been released. See "New Features for AT Release 1.5" for details. Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes the software: The Archivists' Toolkit™, or the AT, is the first open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives. It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories. The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments, promote data standardization, promote efficiency, and lower training costs. Currently, the application supports accessioning and describing archival materials; establishing names and subjects associated with archival materials, including the names of donors; managing locations for the materials; and exporting EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and METS, MODS and Dublin Core records. Future functionality will be built to support repository user/resource use information, appraisal for archival materials, expressing and managing rights information, and interoperability with user authentication systems. (Source: DigitalKoans) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 672466 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/452333472/ The Archivists' Toolkit version 1.5 has been released. See "New Features for AT Release 1.5" for details. Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes the software: The Archivists' Toolkit™, or the AT, is the first open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives. It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories. The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments, promote data standardization, promote efficiency, and lower training costs. Currently, the application supports accessioning and describing archival materials; establishing names and subjects associated with archival materials, including the names of donors; managing locations for the materials; and exporting EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and METS, MODS and Dublin Core records. Future functionality will be built to support repository user/resource use information, appraisal for archival materials, expressing and managing rights information, and interoperability with user authentication systems. (Source: DigitalKoans) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:07:34 +0100 672400 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/13/archivists-toolkit-version-15-released/ The Archivists' Toolkit version 1.5 has been released. See "New Features for AT Release 1.5" for details. Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes the software: The Archivists' Toolkit™, or the AT, is the first open source archival data management system to provide broad, integrated support for the management of archives. It is intended for a wide range of archival repositories. The main goals of the AT are to support archival processing and production of access instruments, promote data standardization, promote efficiency, and lower training costs. Currently, the application supports accessioning and describing archival materials; establishing names and subjects associated with archival materials, including the names of donors; managing locations for the materials; and exporting EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and METS, MODS and Dublin Core records. Future functionality will be built to support repository user/resource use information, appraisal for archival materials, expressing and managing rights information, and interoperability with user authentication systems. (Source: DigitalKoans) Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:07:28 +0100 672417 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBsCXUOUZZc SuperTux This is the commercial that Julia, Ashley and I made for Julia’s first grade advertising project.  She made the poster that is at the beggining and end of the video.  She is also going to give a presentation tomorrow.  I asked Julia why she liked SuperTux, and she told me “It’s just like Super Mario Bros, but it is free.”  So, SuperTux is Fun and it’s free. What more needs to be said? (Source: Fiddling Librarian 3.0) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:27:09 +0100 672956 http://www.lisnews.org/greenstone_2_81_released David Bainbridge from the Greenstone team posted a release noting that a new version of the package was released. Greenstone originates from New Zealand at the University of Waikato. Relative to the changes in the new release, Bainbridge wrote: The main focus has been on multilingual support. Improvements include handling filenames that include non-ASCII characters, accent folding switched on by default for Lucene, and character based segmentation for CJK languages. This release also features our new installer, which is 100% open source. Previously we had relied on a commercial program for this, which incurred a significant cost in keeping up to date; consequently we decided to develop our own installer, based on the excellent open source installer toolkits already available. There are many other significant additions in this release, such as the Fedora Librarian Interface (analogous to GLI, but working with a Fedora repository). See the release notes for the complete details. The post gives details on downloading the release as well as daily builds. (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:26:22 +0100 672372 http://lisnews.org/greenstone_2_81_released David Bainbridge from the Greenstone team posted a release noting that a new version of the package was released. Greenstone originates from New Zealand at the University of Waikato. Relative to the changes in the new release, Bainbridge wrote: The main focus has been on multilingual support. Improvements include handling filenames that include non-ASCII characters, accent folding switched on by default for Lucene, and character based segmentation for CJK languages. This release also features our new installer, which is 100% open source. Previously we had relied on a commercial program for this, which incurred a significant cost in keeping up to date; consequently we decided to develop our own installer, based on the excellent open source installer toolkits already available. There are many other significant additions in this release, such as the Fedora Librarian Interface (analogous to GLI, but working with a Fedora repository). See the release notes for the complete details. The post gives details on downloading the release as well as daily builds. (Source: LISNews.org) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:26:22 +0100 672112 http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00015087/ Jose, Sanjo and Jayakanth, Francis (2008) Aigaion: a Web-based Open Source Software for Managing the Bibliographic References. Journal of Information Science and Technology 1(1). (Source: E-LIS) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:15:02 +0100 672074 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/452072742/ Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who famously decided the Napster case seven years ago, gave a speech at her alma mater proposing a sweeping reform of existing copyright law. The reform seemed focused on music in particular, which is understandable given the nature of the case Patel decided. At the heart, the reform proposes establishing a copyright commission made up of people from every group that has a stake in copyright, including the public. Under this commission, all current compulsory licenses would be abolished and a blanket licensing system adopted instead. The commission would administer royalty payments under that system and adjucate royalty disputes. Not everyone agrees that this level of bureaucracy would be a good idea, but the last point in Patel’s proposal is one that some find especially troubling: the commission would also have veto power over any new device or application capable of recording, distributing, or copying music. This would have the effect of stifling innovation, particularly in the open source/free software movement. Thomas Sydnor of the IPCentral.info blog thinks that Patel is barking up the wrong tree altogether. Sydnor thinks that the reason America has evolved such a burgeoning market of expressive works over the last century is the relatively hands-off position the government has taken: In short, the critical difference for the U.S. may be that we have tended to encourage the production of expression through mechanisms that more strongly tend to encourage creators to please private, rather than governmental, tastes—be they those of wealthy private patrons or private markets. For now, the discussion is largely academic, as Patel does not have any backing for her proposal. But copyright system reform is a subject on the minds of many in these days of rampant illicit peer-to-peer activity, and sooner or later someone’s proposal may be put into effect. With that in mind, any proposal merits consideration. ... Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:46:41 +0100 672184 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Blogjunction/~3/452036148/ WebJunction.org/hot has been refreshed with the latest Hot Topics from across the site. Some of the top items this month include: a new course—Influence: Even When You Don’t Have Power or Authority a hot new resource—Open Source Library Website Initiatives a discussion to get your input on the upcoming Town Hall: Libraries in Tough Economic Times an Internet Librarian Presentation: Ubiquitous Computing and Libraries and the on-demand archive of a fresh new webinar: Branding Libraries and Their Services. Your new resources and discussions keep popping up all over WebJunction. Make a note to regularly check webjunction.org/hot so you can keep up with—and share—the freshest and hottest in the WJ community. (Source: BlogJunction) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:50:39 +0100 672394 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/451904484/ Version 2.81 of the Greenstone digital library software has been released. Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes Greenstone: Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. See the Greenstone Fact Sheet for a more detailed description of the system. (Source: DigitalKoans) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:48:33 +0100 672402 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/13/digital-library-software-greenstone-version-281-released/ Version 2.81 of the Greenstone digital library software has been released. Here's an excerpt from the home page that describes Greenstone: Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. See the Greenstone Fact Sheet for a more detailed description of the system. (Source: DigitalKoans) Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:46:01 +0100 672419 http://freegovinfo.info/node/2134 I've been so busy lately (research time of the term, helping to organize the first ever Stanford Open Source (un)conference...) that I've neglected to comment on the Google Book Search Copyright Settlement. The library blogosphere is abuzz, so I won't add anything else, just point to some people I trust who've tracked on the Deal much closer than me (like Peter Brantley, Karen Coyle, John Wilkins, and James Grimmelmann; Siva Vaidhyanathan has links to them all plus some of his own commentary!) But I DID want to show the tag cloud of the agreement. ... Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:36:44 +0100 671891 http://pintini.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/11/12/depots-institutionnels-12-11-08.html - Harvard repository and FAQs(source: OAN, 31/10/08)DASH: DI de l'université de Harvard[lire à ce propos sur Caveat Lector: Re-assessing Harvard in light of its FAQs]- Reasons researchers really rate repositories(source: OptimalScholarship, 02/11/08)- Small institutions and repositories(source: Caveat Lector, 03/11/08)- Mandating and the scholarly journal article: attracting interest on deposits?(source: UKSG / via OAN, 03/11/08)Présentations de cette conférence organisée fin octobre à Londres- Visualising Repository Contents(source: RepositoryMan, 04/11/08)- DPC What's new in digital preservation(source: Digital Preservation Coalition, mars-août 08)- INFORMAL Comparison of Some Institutional Repository Solutions(source: Metalogger, 19/10/08)- Some (more) thoughts on repositories(source: eFoundations, 07/11/08)A propos d'une réunion du JISC Repositories and Preservation Advisory Group (RPAG)- Repositories Making Life Easier For Faculty?(source: RepositoryMan, 07/11/08)- DORAS (DCU Online Research Access Service)(source: OAN, 06/11/08)Le DI de la Dublin City University- A content integrity service for digital repositories(source: HP Labs Technical Reports / via OAN, 05/11/08)- A content integrity service for digital repositories (source: HP Labs / via ResourceShelf, 04/11/08)- JHOVE2"The open source JHOVE characterization tool has proven to be an important component of many digital repository and preservation workflows. However, its widespread use over the past four years has revealed a number of limitations imposed by idiosyncrasies of design and implementation. The California Digital Library (CDL), Portico, and Stanford University have received funding from the Library of Congress, under its National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program (NDIIPP) initiative, to collaborate on a two-year project to develop a next-generation JHOVE2 architecture for format-aware characterization." (Source: pintiniblog) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:26:14 +0100 672022 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2008/11/Kirschner-Madden Tuesday, November 11, 12:30 pmBerkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floorRSVP required (rsvp@cyber.law.harvard.edu)This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET.Bryan Kirschner is the Director of Open Source Strategy for Microsoft, and Mario Madden is the Open Source Licensing Counsel. Join us to discuss Microsoft and open source today—and what you can expect from Microsoft and open source in the future.read more (Source: Berkman Blog) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:10:18 +0100 671054 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/450804934/ The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has released Omeka 0.10b. Here's an excerpt from the announcement: Omeka 0.10b incorporates many of the changes you asked for: an unqualified Dublin Core metadata schema and fully extensible element sets to accommodate interoperability with digital repository software and collections management systems; elegant reworkings of our theme API and plugin API to make add-on development more intuitive and more powerful; a new, even more user friendly look for the administrative interface; and a new and improved Exhibit Builder. While the changes are extensive and represent a next-to-last step forward toward a 1.0 release in early 2009, existing users of Omeka should have little trouble switching to 0.10b. New users should have even less trouble getting started. Meanwhile, visitors to Omeka.org will find a new look, a more intuitive information architecture, easily browsable themes and plugins directories, improved documentation and user support, and new ways to get involved in the Omeka community. (Source: DigitalKoans) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:36:31 +0100 672405 http://pintini.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/11/12/duraspace.html La fondation Andrew W. Mellon va financer le projet DuraSpace: projet commun de la fondation DSpace et de Fedora Commons: voir communiqué de presse"Over the next six months funding from the planning grant will allow the organizations to jointly specify and design "DuraSpace," a new web-based service that will allow institutions to easily distribute content to multiple storage providers, both "cloud-based" and institution-based. The idea behind DuraSpace is to provide a trusted, value-added service layer to augment the capabilities of generic storage providers by making stored digital content more durable, manageable, accessible and sharable.Michele Kimpton, Executive Director of the DSpace Foundation, said, "Together we can leverage our expertise and open source value proposition to continue to provide integrated open solutions that support the scholarly mission of universities."Sandy Payette, Executive Director of Fedora Commons, observes, "There is an important role for high-tech non-profit organizations in adding value to emerging cloud solutions. DuraSpace is designed with an eye towards enabling universities, libraries, and other types of organizations to take advantage of cloud storage while also addressing special requirements unique to areas such as digital archiving and scholarly communication."Via DigitalKoans (Source: pintiniblog) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:50:38 +0100 672027 http://infobib.de/blog/2008/11/12/kochbucher-fur-bibliotheks-it/ Das MaintainIT Project bietet E-Books mit IT- und Bibliotheksfokus frei zum Download an. Darunter unter anderem Free and Open-Source Software in Libraries. [via Open Sesame] Share This (Source: Infobib) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:21:35 +0100 671379 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Superpatron/~3/451002611/barcode-scanner---book-text-search-tool-on-google-android.html New software for the new Google Android phones connects books in the bookstore (or in the library) to Google Book Search - more useful for doing "search inside" than for reading on the fly.  From EReads: http://www.ereads.com/2008/11/dont-forget-to-take-your-android-to.html Google has announced a book-text search tool called the Barcode Scanner that works with an Android-powered cellphone. According to Google Book Search engineer Jeff Breidenbach, when you download the software into your Android and point your phone camera at a book's barcode, "it will automatically zoom, focus and scan the ISBN - without you even needing to click the shutter...You'll then have the option to search the full text of the book on Google Book Search right away"No particular reason that this same application design couldn't work with any existing book or barcode scanner - this is totally the sort of thing that could live inside the library, since all of the book checkout scanners are already there.  (Indeed, you could use the RFID inside the book to do this so no need to have a camera.)It looks like some of the underlying barcode software is from a project called Zebra Crossing which is open source decoder software - ZXing (pronounced "zebra crossing") is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library implemented in Java. Our focus is on using the built-in camera on mobile phones to photograph and decode barcodes on the device, without communicating with a server. The Inside Google Book Search blog has more,  (Source: Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net) Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 671750 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/449729584/ The DSpace Foundation and Fedora Commons have received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support planning for DuraSpace. Here's an excerpt from the press release: Over the next six months funding from the planning grant will allow the organizations to jointly specify and design "DuraSpace," a new web-based service that will allow institutions to easily distribute content to multiple storage providers, both "cloud-based" and institution-based. The idea behind DuraSpace is to provide a trusted, value-added service layer to augment the capabilities of generic storage providers by making stored digital content more durable, manageable, accessible and sharable. Michele Kimpton, Executive Director of the DSpace Foundation, said, "Together we can leverage our expertise and open source value proposition to continue to provide integrated open solutions that support the scholarly mission of universities." Sandy Payette, Executive Director of Fedora Commons, observes, "There is an important role for high-tech non-profit organizations in adding value to emerging cloud solutions. DuraSpace is designed with an eye towards enabling universities, libraries, and other types of organizations to take advantage of cloud storage while also addressing special requirements unique to areas such as digital archiving and scholarly communication." The grant from the Mellon Foundation will support a needs analysis, focus groups, technical design sessions, and meetings with potential commercial partners. A working web-based demonstration will be completed during the six-month grant period to help validate the technical and business assumptions behind DuraSpace. (Source: DigitalKoans) Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:03:49 +0100 671638 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/449621074/ Laptop screens are often set up for the landscape mode—they’re wider than tall. This might be good for watching videos but not for reading e-books. Some software such as yBook or Mobipocket can actually let you take advantage of landscape and display two "pages" on the screen at once. But what if you simply want to see one page and have the screen go up and down, in the portrait mode? The EeeRotate solution One solution might be a program called EeeRotate, discussed in an article from ActuaLitté. It runs under Windows XP. EeeRotate is designed for the ASUS Eee machines. bu tyou can run it on others, including the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. A download link and a few more details are here. Many thanks to Nicolas Gary at ActuaLitté. Original French-language information: EeeRotate write-up and Lenovo-related article. Other possible rotation solutions But how about other solutions? Doesn’t Ficbot use an Eee-class machine? I’d welcome her thoughts and others’ on the rotation issue. Are there other solutions for people wanting to use the portrait mode? And on at least some Eee machines, is some equivalent software already bundled in? Whatever the case, EeeRotate could be useful for other notebooks without the rotation capability. FBReader, in particular  If you don’t need to read DRMed files and want to read E in the portrait mode, then one solution in particular might be FBReader. This free open source program runs under XP and Linux and can display ePub, ASCII, HTML and many other formats in both portrait and landscape modes on a variety of machines, including Eee PCs. More information here. Technorati Tags: Eee PC,Asus,EeeRotate,Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:04:43 +0100 671206 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/449525837/2335 Up next in the open source presentation at the Pennsylvania Library Association conference was Joe Lucia. Earlier this year I got to hear Joe talk at VALE and he had much more time then to get his points across - so check out that summary. Joe started his talk by saying that he was going to change his focus from nuts and bolts to deeper view of open source. He said that open source is not about saving money - while that can often be the case, that’s not the argument for it in the long run. His first claim is that to understand open source you have to understand the concept of the commons - which is a legal concept that goes back to English common law. He pointed us to the writings of Lawrence Lessig who he thinks is a good thinker about what’s happening with ideas and intellectual property in the digital age. In addition to Lessig’s writing, he recommended that we look at The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler and The Success of Open Source by Steve Weber (which I’m reading right now). Joe says that we need to take our infrastructure and move it to open source because of what libraries stand for; participatory culture, free flow of information and creation of knowledge. Joe asks us what open source is - in the most naked sense. It’s software where you can get access to the code and use it and change it (the license says so). But in a cultural sense, I take a piece of code you wrote and then I add to it and then I put it back into the software - you get a community built set of tools that does what that community needs done. The focus in the open source world is on the process used to develop it - not the product. Innovations in process are often much more profound and compelling than the product that comes out of the process (Weber, p.56). In open source the primary focus is on making things better for users - as opposed to making something so that I can own it and you can buy it. ... Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:19:33 +0100 671352 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/449520846/2333 Today I participated in a series of open source talks at the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) conference. After I gave my talk, John Houser from PALINET stepped up. You can view his slides on his blog. John started with a very important point - you don’t have to install an open source operating system to use open source software - can run on it on Linux, Windows and Mac (depending on the software package). I always tell people in my open source talks that when they go back to their computers (at home and work) they should switch to Firefox. John backed me up and told everyone to use Firefox because it’s not only better in all ways but more standards compliant than IE. He also advised that once you get Firefox you want to install plugins to get the most out of it. He feels that the best plugin to install is a delicious tool or a furl tool - that way you can bookmark your resources on the web. I’d add to that that you should add Adblock Plus. John pointed out that we’re seeing public libraries replacing Windows and MS Office with Linux and OpenOffice - saving money in licensing. These libraries are saying that they’re providing better services than they could with proprietary software. He mentioned two library systems in particular, Crawford and Howard. One of the common myths that I hear a lot is that open source is too hard for libraries to adopt, John points out that open source apps do not necessarily require more skills than proprietary software - some are even easier - like Firefox (over IE). Even Linux is getting much easier to install and comes with a whole set of applications you can use right out of the box. Why not try to install Ubuntu (the easiest to use of the Linux desktop distributions) on an old PC to create a place to play and learn. The other big myth is that open source isn’t secure. ... Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:16:38 +0100 671353 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/449204579/2332 Notes from Open Source Discovery Portal Camp - Code4LibOn 6 November 2008, there was a meeting at the Palinet offices in Philadelphia to discuss the future of open source discovery portals. The VuFind and Blacklight projects had already started cooperating by sharing indexing code in the form of SolrMarc, and as a community we wanted to explore whether there were other ways we could be cooperating, and what our development priorities should be. More of my links (Source: What I Learned Today...) Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:02:02 +0100 671055 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Superpatron/~3/449686425/aadl-planning-sopac-2-release-in-early-2009.html One reason that you should send in comments through the library comment form: you get heads up on new development.  From Eli Neiburger in mail:Hey, Ed, thanks for passing this along. The III catalog does not handle unicode very well as you can see; this should be resolved with SOPAC 2 which we plan to roll out in early 2009. We won't be using III's catalog results anymore; results will come from a Sphinx search of harvested bib records. Stay tuned!Eli notes that there is a working version of the new catalog (very rough) available for preview, but the way the network address for it is routed it's only available in the building.  That is an effective way to show what's going on - and I'll post again next week on Tuesday to show what I've found out since then.  Some background reading for you and for me until then:John Blyberg, SOPAC 2.0: What to Expect, August 2008. On September 1st, Darien Library will go live with a new web site. We will also be going live with SOPAC version 2.0. In case you’ve been wondering why I don’t blog anymore, it’s because of 2.0. It’s been a massive project.John Blyberg, SOPAC 2 Released, September 2008So, I may have been a little ambitious when I thought I could get SOPAC2, Locum, and Insurge released within a week of launching the new darienlibrary.org.  But I can now finally say that SOPAC2 is officially released and a new project website launched. You can visit the new site and download the software at TheSocialOPAC.net.The Social OPACThesocialopac.net is the official website of the Social OPAC application suite--an open source social discovery platform for bibliographic data. The purpose of this site is to build a cohesive community of users and developers around the SOPAC project suite.YourLibrarySite to Offer SOPAC IntegrationSome very good news from Eugene, Oregon! Drupal web design firm Craftyspace is going to integrate SOPAC into their YourLibrarySite product suite. ... Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 671212 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/11/grant-awarded-dspace-foundation-and-fedora-commons-for-duraspace-planning/ The DSpace Foundation and Fedora Commons have received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support planning for DuraSpace. Here's an excerpt from the press release: Over the next six months funding from the planning grant will allow the organizations to jointly specify and design "DuraSpace," a new web-based service that will allow institutions to easily distribute content to multiple storage providers, both "cloud-based" and institution-based. The idea behind DuraSpace is to provide a trusted, value-added service layer to augment the capabilities of generic storage providers by making stored digital content more durable, manageable, accessible and sharable. Michele Kimpton, Executive Director of the DSpace Foundation, said, "Together we can leverage our expertise and open source value proposition to continue to provide integrated open solutions that support the scholarly mission of universities." Sandy Payette, Executive Director of Fedora Commons, observes, "There is an important role for high-tech non-profit organizations in adding value to emerging cloud solutions. DuraSpace is designed with an eye towards enabling universities, libraries, and other types of organizations to take advantage of cloud storage while also addressing special requirements unique to areas such as digital archiving and scholarly communication." The grant from the Mellon Foundation will support a needs analysis, focus groups, technical design sessions, and meetings with potential commercial partners. A working web-based demonstration will be completed during the six-month grant period to help validate the technical and business assumptions behind DuraSpace. (Source: DigitalKoans) Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 671083 http://sanchezkisser.com/blog/2008/11/10/ngo-name-bleg/ Novel #3 is in the development stages. This one is science fiction. Specifically, eco-espionage, with secret societies fighting over who controls the Earth’s dwindling resources. I need a name for our heroine’s group, a NGO dedicated to helping find sustainable, creative answers to social, environmental and resource problems in developing and developed nations. Sort of an umbrella name that handles a wide range of innovative technology ideas like One Laptop Per Child, Open Web access, building solar and wind farms, setting up micro businesses and generally spreading Do It Yourselfism around the world. The members are mostly Open Source advocates, technophiles and other happy mutants. Sort of a JLA made up, not of aliens and supermen, but geeks with a shared vision of saving the world through cooperation and creativity. What I’m going for is Cory Doctorow, in his red cape and goggles, bloging from his balloon. Action girl scientists using samurai swords to find a cure for cancer. Like Doctors Without Boarders or the Red Cross, only more bad ass and with much cooler gadgets. Any ideas for what I should call this group? Full credit will be given of course, plus a signed copy of my current novel! (Source: The Invisible Library) Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:12:06 +0100 671260 http://infobib.de/blog/2008/11/10/finanzkrise-und-bibliothekwesen/ Auch Mark Buzinkay macht sich Gedanken über die Finanzkrise und die Folgen für das Bibliothekswesen. Dabei ist vieles, das auf der Stelle einleuchtet. Eingehen werde ich hier jedoch auf ein paar der weniger offensichtlichen Punkte: 3. Das Finanzmanagement wird nun endgültig professionalisiert. Veranlagung von Geldern, oft nicht mit dem heutigen Risiko-Bewußtsein durchgeführt, ist Schnee von gestern. Das bedeutet aber auch, dass die Betriebswirtschaft in Bibliothekskreisen weiter an Bedeutung zunehmen wird, zumindest auf der Führungsebene. Das wird auch Auswirkung auf die Profile künftiger BibliotheksleiterInnen haben. Kann ich mir nicht vorstellen, halte ich auch nur begrenzt für sinnvoll. Welchen Einfluß hat denn die Führungsebene einer Bibliothek tatsächlich auf ihr Budget? Mit ein bißchen Lobbyarbeit beim Träger kann man es ein wenig hochschrauben. Es geht aber doch hauptsächlich um die Verwaltung eines relativ festen Budgets. Um dabei nach innovativen und effektiven Wegen zu suchen, ist meines Erachtens kein BWL-Schwerpunkt im Studium notwendig. Die Führungsebene zumindest von wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken sollte erst einmal bibliothekatische Kernkompetenzen abdecken. Wenn dann noch Luft bleibt für BWL: gerne. 5. Könnte also die Krise eine Chance für Open Access sein, endgültig den Durchbruch zu schaffen? Das scheint mir nicht abwegig, zumindest bei jenen Zeitschriften, die über eine gute Qualität verfügen. Für die Bibliothek würde das bedeuten, zumindest einige gute Quellen als Alternative zu nicht mehr leistbaren Zeitschriften unentgeltlich anbieten zu können. In einigen wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken ist das bereits Realität. Das dürfte sich noch weiter verstärken. Im Prinzip ja, aber… leider bestehen etliche Wissenschaftler darauf, genau diese und jene Information haben zu wollen. Für Haus- und andere Studienarbeiten trifft die Vermutung sicherlich zu, für die Forschung nur sehr begrenzt. ... Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:36:45 +0100 671381 http://www.techsource.ala.org/sln/november-2008.html In Smart Libraries Newsletter: "Koha in Delhi, India"Marshall Breeding reports on the Delhi Public Library's choice to implement open-source software, Koha, for its automated services."In tune with the worldwide trend toward open-source software, the Delhi Public Library has embarked on a project to shift...to Koha," notes Breeding in the November issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter."This initial deployment of Koha for the Delhi Public Library represents a a fairly modest endeavor [as compared to] the demands of a large municipal public library in the U.S....But this examination of the Delhi Public Library's adoption of Koha provides an excellent snapshot of library automation in the developing world."Also by Breeding This Month... "ISIS Moves into the Open-Source Arena"And in SLN in November by Tom Peters"Go Directly to GoWeb3D" — "What if you could experience three-dimensional virtual environments right in a standard Web browser, without having to download and install special software?" Peters asks in the November issue of SLN. "A small start-up company, 'GoWeb3D,' is trying to figure out how users will be able to do just that.""Project Tests ProQuest Databases in Virtual Worlds" — "This fall, a group of educators, librarians and ProQuest representatives began a project to make the process of accessing Web-based information databases much easier and more integral to the overall virtual world experience," reports Peters. "A Preview of Things to Come" — Peters provides the latest on Google's Book Search project and how new enhancements will advance the project and impact the library world."It's a Twing Thing" — The new search engine "Twing," reports Peters, "focuses solely on online communities and the communication and information exchanges that occur in them." (Source: ALA Techsource) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:49:41 +0100 671575 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/448677310/ The National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program has funded the two-year JHOVE2 project, which will " develop a next-generation JHOVE2 architecture for format-aware characterization." Project particpants are the California Digital Library, Portico, and Stanford University. Here's an excerpt from the Digipres announcement: Among the enhancements planned for JHOVE2 are: Support for four specific aspects of characterization: signature-based identification, feature extraction, validation, and rules-based assessment A more sophisticated data model supporting complex multi-file objects and arbitrarily-nested container objects Streamlined APIs to facilitate the integration of JHOVE2 technology in systems, services, and workflows Increased performance Standardized error handling A generic plug-in mechanism supporting stateful multi-module processing Availability under the BSD open source license To help focus project activities we have recruited a distinguished advisory board to represent the interests of the larger stakeholder community. The board includes participants from the following international memory institutions, projects, and vendors: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) Ex Libris Fedora Commons Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) Harvard University / GDFR Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) MIT/DSpace National Archives (TNA) National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Library of Australia (NLA) National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ) Planets project The project partners are currently engaged in a public needs assessment and requirements gathering phase. A provisional set of use cases and functional requirements has already been reviewed by the JHOVE2 advisory board. . . . The functional requirements, along with other project information, is available on the JHOVE2 project wiki. Feedback on project goals and deliverables can be submitted through the JHOVE2 public mailing lists. ... Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:30:21 +0100 671021 http://careercenter.sla.org/jobdetail.cfm?job=3026252 1. Experience working with Open Source projects 2. Fluent with Perl 3. Comfortable with Linux 4. Knowleable with other software languages and technologies 5. Experience with design (OO, struc (Source: SLA Career Center Search Results []) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:45:00 +0100 670606 http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6613093.html?rssid=191 The Palos Verde Library District is the first to get help integrating the open source social catalog interface. (Source: Book News) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0100 671538 http://www.escholarlypub.com/digitalkoans/2008/11/10/digital-preservation-two-year-jhove2-project-funded/ The National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program has funded the two-year JHOVE2 project, which will " develop a next-generation JHOVE2 architecture for format-aware characterization." Project particpants are the California Digital Library, Portico, and Stanford University. Here's an excerpt from the Digipres announcement: Among the enhancements planned for JHOVE2 are: Support for four specific aspects of characterization: signature-based identification, feature extraction, validation, and rules-based assessment A more sophisticated data model supporting complex multi-file objects and arbitrarily-nested container objects Streamlined APIs to facilitate the integration of JHOVE2 technology in systems, services, and workflows Increased performance Standardized error handling A generic plug-in mechanism supporting stateful multi-module processing Availability under the BSD open source license To help focus project activities we have recruited a distinguished advisory board to represent the interests of the larger stakeholder community. The board includes participants from the following international memory institutions, projects, and vendors: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB) Ex Libris Fedora Commons Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) Harvard University / GDFR Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) MIT/DSpace National Archives (TNA) National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) National Library of Australia (NLA) National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ) Planets project The project partners are currently engaged in a public needs assessment and requirements gathering phase. A provisional set of use cases and functional requirements has already been reviewed by the JHOVE2 advisory board. . . . The functional requirements, along with other project information, is available on the JHOVE2 project wiki. Feedback on project goals and deliverables can be submitted through the JHOVE2 public mailing lists. ... Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 671084 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/448866555/overview-of-free-culture-movement.html David W. Moody, Free Culture and the Factors that Led to its Move to Regain the Commons, self-archived on November 9, 2008. A preprint. Abstract: A brief explanation of what the free culture movement is and the various factors that led to its fighting to preserve the commons, including corporations and special interests trying to restrict the commons to protect their interests, the development of the open source community, technological developments, such as the Internet and digital copying of media, the development of web 2.0 and its philosophies, current state of copyright law and youth culture. (Source: Open Access News) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670783 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/448900047/comparison-of-ir-software.html Neil Godfrey, INFORMAL comparison of some institutional repository solutions, Metalogger, October 19, 2008. (Thanks to Roy Tennant.) Over the last few years I have worked closely with a number of different institutional repository solutions, both open-source and enterprise products. There are several I have not had personal experience with, but I have taken opportunities to speak with a wide number of users of these products, too, as well as with representatives and producers of those solutions. ... The purpose of this comparison is to give an intro level guideline for institutions interested in “what (else) is out there”. ... (Source: Open Access News) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670779 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/448938470/report-on-indian-oa-conference.html ‘No Action, But Rhetoric’, The Morung Express, November 8, 2008. Nagaland University in association with the Information and Library Networking Centre of Ahmedabad, held two-day convention on November 6 and the 7th in Dimapur. The convention, inaugurated by Nagaland University Vice Chancellor Prof. K Kannan, was attended by more than 160 participants from different parts of India. The convention, named ‘PLANNER-2008’ (Promotion of Library Automation and Networking in North East Region) was held at the School of Engineering Technology and School of Management, Dimapur campus, under the theme "open access, open source and open libraries”. ... In the first technical session, a paper was presented by Dr Jagdish Arora, director of INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad. The paper emphasized on the different models of scholarly publishing. The graphical representation showing the trend of books and journal expenses and journals added an extra impact on his presentation and threw light on the economics of E-Publishing, expenditure, advantage and disadvantages of OAP. ... Another paper "Building an institutional repository with Dspace" by Juli Thakuria dealt with the salient features of Dspace Pen Source Software which is one of the best softwares in institutional repositories. The author also highlighted the planning and implementation of IR. A paper on “Open Courseware: A unique opportunity for India” by Dr.Swapan Deoghuria, Satyabrata Roy mainly threw light on open courseware initiatives which benefit students, teachers and other users more. “Open Access Journals: A Study”, authored by four different professionals R Pandian, M Arul Dhanakar, Dr K Nithyanadam and V Rajasekar was also presented. The papers highlighted open access journals and their benefits, advantages, identification of links, steps in publishing an OAJ and its coverage areas. It also listed the important OAJ published all over the world. ... Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670774 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/448952417/project-to-develop-comprehensive-oers.html Rice-African partnership is open-education blockbuster, press release, November 10, 2008. (Thanks to itnewsafrica.com.) Houston-based Rice University and Cape Town, South Africa-based Shuttleworth Foundation today announced plans to jointly develop one of the world's largest, most comprehensive sets of free online teaching materials for primary and secondary school children. Using their open-education projects -- Rice's Connexions and the Shuttleworth's Siyavula -- the organizations will work to transform South African primary and secondary education with a bold initiative based on open-source software, online educator communities and open copyright licenses. Ultimately, the group hopes to offer a complete suite of the highest caliber K12 materials online for free. This comprehensive repository of educational resources includes everything from online textbooks to classroom activities, experiments and training materials. Connexions and Siyavula will work together to create the repository, and Siyavula will create an online community of educators in South Africa that will expand, update and use the lessons. The newly created content will reside in the Connexions repository, one of the largest open-education resources (OER) repositories. ... Siyavula Project Manager Mark Horner said the Rice-Shuttleworth team will create the software that South African educators need to develop and maintain a comprehensive set of educational resources that cover the entire South African school curriculum. ... See also our past post on Siyavula or our past posts on Connexions. (Source: Open Access News) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670773 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LibrariansMatter/~3/447997339/ This afternoon I will be standing in for Alyson Kosina from VALA to welcome attendees at the VALA-CAVAL 30 year anniversary event .Very, very happy to be doing this. Here is a description of the event: Lizanne Payne: The Future of Library Collections: Access and Stewardship in a Networked World Over the past 25 years, the library collections landscape has been totally reshaped by digital information and global networks. As this seismic shift continues, libraries are being challenged to balance the costs and benefits of maintaining print collections at the local level, and are moving increasingly toward shared management of print materials among neighboring institutions. We are on the cusp of a great opportunity: libraries could provide lasting benefits to scholarship and economies to their institutions by proactively developing a distributed print repository network on a regional, national or global scale. Karen Schneider: The Nature of Open: How Open Source and Web 2.0 Bring Us Back to the Roots of Librarianship. Karen will demonstrate how the trends toward open source and Web 2.0 go full circle to some of the more extraordinary events in the history of librarianship. These include involvement in the Social Work movement of the early 20th century, libraries’ roles in the rise of popular reading, early library automation projects and the librarian-led innovation that came out of these efforts, and then on to Web 2.0 and open source. I hope to use my wireless modem and CoverITLive. We shall see if it works. (Source: Librarians matter) Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:56:15 +0100 670693 http://scribblersdelight.blogspot.com/2008/11/nearly-remembrance-day.html listening to this beautiful album by an algerian singer who naturally also sings in french.i have a decent microphone, am playing my guitar again...forget the rsi...i can manage an hour a day. there are about 1500 chords and i am going to learn all of them. so there.having fun playing with open source video editors and annoying the fellas at allans music in the hi tech section (not really...they are happy to answer questions) (Source: scribble scribble scribble) Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:07:00 +0100 670638 http://www.slis.indiana.edu/careers/view_job_specific.php?job_id=4782 State: Tennessee The University of Tennessee has re-opened a search for a Programmer to support our Digital Library Initiatives. The position listing below represents revised requirements. Position: IT Administrator II Appointment Rank: Exempt Salary: $40,000 minimum Available: January 1, 2009 The University of Tennessee Library seeks an innovative individual to join Digital Library Initiatives to develop open-source and proprietary library information systems in support of digital collections and services. This is an exciting opportunity to join a rapidly developing program of the University of Tennessee Libraries. The position will report to the Project Leader of Digital Library Initiatives (DLI), working closely with other DLI staff, the Catalog and Metadata Librarian, the Library Technology Services staff, and the Special Collections Library staff. The IT Administrator II will interact with a wide variety of individuals in the library and university, working in Linux and Windows environments, providing software analysis, metadata transformation, and support for digital library applications. Experience with XSLT is a primary need for this position. This position will interact with counterparts at peer institutions developing similar systems. Current systems in use are DLXS, XTF and a variety of locally developed systems. Required Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree or advanced degree in Computer Science; or a combination of an Associate's degree or Bachelor's degree, and a minimum of two years related work experience. Programming experience, such as Java EE, XSLT, XML, SQL; demonstrated familiarity with Unix and networking. Experience with web servers and web technologies. Ability to interact professionally with faculty, librarians and technical staff, as well as good customer service and communication skills. Preferred Qualifications: Graduate degree in Computer Science or closely related field. ... Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:48:01 +0100 670154 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/446752285/ Given the Kindle’s closed nature—for example, Amazon’s eagerness to herd you into a DRMed proprietary format–it’s weird to think of the K machine as a Linux device. And yet that’s the Kindle’s  operating system (2.6.10 kernel), In 10 linux-powered e-book readers, the Bohol tech source site lays out the pros and cons of the Kindle, the Sony readers, the Cybook and other linux-powered E Ink Machines Among those mentioned is the Ganaxa GeR3 (photo), whose display supposedly offers superior  speed and contrast. Anyone familiar with the machine and the claims about it? Valid? And is it generally available at this point? The Ganaxa site talks about the tech being sold only for "specific editorial projects." Hmm. Related: The linux-oriented OpenInkpot project developing free open source apps for E Ink machines. Technorati Tags: Ganaxa GeR3.Ganaxa,GeR3 (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:10:57 +0100 670192 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.education.web4lib/13215 I haven't totally bought into the use of social networking sites as it seems in many cases they don't often provide any added value other than yet another forum for communication and the content is often not all that useful. However, as a member of the program committee for an annual conference for an open source organization (JA-SIG) and the person responsible for the web presence of the conference for the past 6 conferences we used a site called Crowdvine for our last conference (we're using Facebook this time). In this case, the social network is created with participants that will be networking face-to-face at the conference and/or provides a forum for those that actually attend the conference to network virtually after the conference. Although I have been using online forums since 1985 I only recently started using Facebook and Twitter because they were actively used for a recent unconference I attended (Barcamp Africa). Although FB and Twitter seem to be incredible time syncs I have m (Source: gmane.education.web4lib) Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670216 http://epist.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/which-class-would-you-sign-up-for/ It’s my last term in library school.  It will be a term full of job hunting, packing, pre-moving, farewell-ing stress.  With that in mind, I’m conflicted about which classes to take in my last semester.  I will only take 2 in order to spare myself any sort of pre-graduation melt down.  But … But … But … which two classes?  This is where your outsider / experienced / ironic perspective comes in handy. Class:  Understanding Multimedia Information: Concepts and Practices Description: Designed for those with an interest exploiting multimedia information in web and electronic publishing projects, students will be introduced to the theory behind, and the tools associated with, a wide variety of audio (e.g., MP3, WAV, WM9, RealAudio), graphic (JPEG, GIF, PNG, etc.), music (MIDI, GUIDO, etc.) and text information formats (e.g., PS, PDF, etc.). After completing this course students should be empowered to make intelligent choices in selecting appropriate multimedia formats to match particular design requirements. A mix of lectures, demos and hands-on work. Students should have access to a personal computer upon which they can experiment on their own with downloaded multimedia software tools. Students must be competent in basic computing including the installation and configuration of software packages. Must understand basic HTML and simple web site construction tools (e.g., FTP, text editing, etc.). Pros: It’s on-campus!  (as opposed to online classes, which drive me nuts.) It will give lots of hands-on experience with cool stuff. It’s visual.  I definitely think visually, that’s something I’ve learned in grad school. Seems like it would be pretty good for any future job. Cons: It’s on-campus. ... Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:08:55 +0100 670015 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/talis/panlibus/~3/445347679/keeping-the-worldcat-in-the-bag.php I’ve been travelling, and preparing for it, over the last couple of days so haven’t had chance to update my thoughts on the OCLC Updated Record Use Policy saga.  In my previous post I was musing that whatever OCLC were trying to do in this area they were not making a good fist of doing it. From that point of view things have definitely got a great deal better.  They re-released their policy, with many changes from the one they previously posted and took down almost immediately.  Thingology Blog has provided a interesting comparison between the two releases. More importantly, and usefully for those trying to get their head around this, Karen Calhoun published a helpful post on Metalogue - Notes on OCLC’s Updated Record Use Policy - exploring the reasoning and intentions behind this change in policy. I’ve been asked more than once why OCLC felt the need to update its policy and why member libraries should support the updated policy. This post is an attempt to answer those questions. One thing I believe everyone will agree upon is Karen’s starting point: Time for a change In Web years, the Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC-Derived Records, last updated in 1987, are not just 21, but as old as Methuselah.  While the principles underlying the Guidelines have held up well with respect to sharing among libraries, the language and 1980s context of the document have made the Guidelines increasingly hard to understand and apply.  The Guidelines have also been frequently faulted for their ambiguity about WorldCat data sharing rights and conditions. She then goes on to describe how the way records have been [or not] transferred around in the past is becoming less & less appropriate in this interconnected web world we are all operating in now – still not many arguments there. Karen highlights that “in one recent five month period, 87% of the referrals to WorldCat. ... Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:16:28 +0100 670180 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogs/distlib/~3/444626862/cfp-2nd-international-pkp-scholarly-publishing-conference.html The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the second international PKP conference, July 8 – 10, 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Session proposals will be accepted until January 15, 2009.Preconference Workshops on July 8 include:Networkshop - Editors/Publishers: John Willinsky, Rowly LorimerNetworkshop - Software Developers/Technical Experts: PKP Team DevelopersNetworkshop - Librarians/Information Specialists: Brian Owen, Kevin StranackOJS in an Afternoon: Kevin Stranack, James MacGregorL8X in an Afternoon: MJ SuhonosPKP Software Plug-in Workshop: Alec SmecherCLA Open Access Interest Group: Lynn Copeland, Heather Morrison, Leah Vanderjagt, Andrew WallerPostconference Workshop July 11:Workshop on Creating Open Access Journals: David Solomon, Caroline SuttonThe first PKP conference was an overwhelming success with presentations and participants from around the world. A selected set of conference papers was subsequently published in the October 2007 issue of First Monday.The conference will appeal not just to members of the PKP community, but to anyone interested in trends and developments for scholarly publishing and communication. There will be a wide range of topical sessions on new reading and publishing technologies; open access initiatives; alternative publishing and funding models; national and international collaborative projects; new roles and partnerships for libraries, scholarly publishers and others; and sustainability for open access publishing and open source software. Prospective and first time users of OJS and other PKP software will be able to learn more about the systems and establish contacts with the PKP community. Experienced implementers, developers, and system administrators will have an opportunity to participate in technical sessions and exchange information. ... Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0100 670019 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LibrariansMatter/~3/440764744/ LIANZA 2008 has continued to be an open, warm and intellectually stimulating conference. I liveblogged the sessions I attended on CoverItLive, so there is much more detail here (keynotes) and here (individual sessions). Did I mention that the conference committee have provided free wifi iin return for liveblogging? Thank you very, very much for this. A nice win/win situation. Here are the main ideas that took my fancy today: 1. Keynote - Professor Mason Durie. Talked about transformational leadership and the need for people to be Future Makers (proactive) rather than Future Takers (reactive). He talked about 5 contexts in which future leadership will take place and gave a New Zealand perspective on these: Demographic transitions Changes to Technology Information Avalanche Economic Transitions Globalisation Leadership for tomorrow will require leaders who can look outside their own institutions and make connections and community. He talked of many leaders and I saw a common theme - these were all people who could make links with business for economic support or community groups for social support. Professor Durie suggested that maybe leadership will become a separate career in the future - people with qualities needed for future leadership are hired  specifically to lead, rather than getting people who have been in the organisation for a long time and have risen to the top. 2. Charlotte Clements and Timothy Greig talked about two Instant Messaging projects set up among four universities. They had teams evaluating chat reference - one looking at proprietary purpose-built library reference software and one looking at Open Source solutions. They chose to test QuestionPoint (OCLC) and VRL plus (sirsi dynix) from the vendor based software and look at Psi, Trillian and Meebo for the  Open Source. Eventually they decided to implement meebo - straight away - without a trial. No stats on the usage yet. ... Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:47:41 +0100 669666 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/web2learning/YOVk/~3/439929243/2302 It’s that time of year again. Marshall Breeding has posted information on how to participate in his Perceptions 2008 International Library Automation Survey: We live in interesting times when it comes to automation strategies in libraries. Competition intensifies between traditional companies licensing their products and a new wave of open source challengers. I think that it is important to pursue research that gauges the effectiveness of the various approaches to help other libraries make decisions regarding their automation strategy. Last year, I conducted the inaugural version of this survey, which resulted in the report titled “Perceptions 2007: an international survey of Library Automation.” The 2007 survey included responses from 1,779 libraries. This survey is well known and highly regarded - so make sure your opinion is heard!! Read Marshall’s instructions and participate ASAP. (Source: What I Learned Today...) Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:49:14 +0100 669067 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/VNJN/~3/439879398/gong-herramienta-de-gestion-para-ongs.html .GONG es una herramienta de gestión para Organizaciones sin fines de Lucro (ONG). En la Conferencia Internacional del Software Libre de Málaga, se presentó esta alternativa open source para que proyectos sociales de ONG puedan utilizar de tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones.Vía PúblicoFernando Bordignon (@) 2006 (Source: Apuntes, son solo apuntes) Sun, 02 Nov 2008 04:00:00 +0100 668997 http://freegovinfo.info/node/2101 Cory Doctorow, co-editor at boingboing.net, Fellow for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and contributor to Wired, Popular Science, the New York Times, etc., has published a book called Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future and it's available for download on his website...for free! Cory is an advocate of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his own books. Here is an excerpt: Back in 1985, the Senate was ready to clobber the music industry for exposing America’s impressionable youngsters to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Today, the Attorney General is proposing to give the RIAA legal tools to attack people who attempt infringement. Through most of America’s history, the U.S. government has been at odds with the entertainment giants, treating them as purveyors of filth. But not anymore: today, the U.S. Trade Rep is using America’s political clout to force Russia to institute police inspections of its CD presses. (Savor the irony: post-Soviet Russia forgoes its hard-won freedom of the press to protect Disney and Universal!) How did entertainment go from trenchcoat pervert to top trade priority? I blame the “Information Economy.” No one really knows what “Information Economy” means, but by the early ’90s, we knew it was coming... (Source: Free Government Information (FGI) blogs) Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:16:55 +0100 668811 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=23085 al Qaida-Like Mobile Discussions & Potential Creative Uses (PDF; 6.9 MB) Source: 304th MI Bn OSINT Team (U.S. Army, via Secrecy News) Terrorists and persons sympathetic to terrorism recommend a variety of different mobile to web technologies, software, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for their mobile phone use. Some of the tactics are old, some of the tactics are still emerging, and some tactics may emerge from hacker, activist, and criminal non-terrorist use. This paper briefly covers a few examples of terrorist use and potential use of mobile to web and web to mobile technologies and tactics from an open source perspective. The paper includes the following five topics: Pro Terrorist Mobile Interfaces; Mobile Phone GPS for Movements, Ops, Targeting, and Explotation; The Mobile Phone as a Surveillance Tool; Voice Changers for Terrorist Phone Calls; a Red Teaming Perspective of the Potential Terrorist Use of Twitter, and a sample of software that is recommended on one pro terrorist website for mobile phone activities. There are numerous possibilities that are not covered in this paper due to time and research constraints. For example, Google Earth, Mobile GPS Mashups, and Mobile Phone Number Spoofing techniques are not addresses in this paper but are certainly worth Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) consideration and probably deserve a paper (if not a book) unto itself. Marked FOUO (For Official Use Only). (Source: Docuticker) Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:13:24 +0100 668629 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/439426792/magazine-supplement-on-jisc-activities.html The November 2008 issue of Library & Information Update contains a supplement on JISC's activities. (Thanks to Fabrizio Tinti.) Some relevant articles: Getting the right message across [interview with outgoing JISC Chair Ron Cooke] ... The infrastructure for e-science and data sharing poses another challenge. Data is being generated in unprecedented volumes. ... ‘The data deluge has all sorts of implications. Data is cheaper, and sometimes free, which leads on to open access. JISC is doing a lot here, and it is behind the creation of the Strategic Content Alliance ...’ Procuring content for the community [interview with JISC CEO Lorraine Estelle] ... As part of the Caspar project, JISC Collections is providing copyright advice for institutions creating e-learning courses for undergraduates. This involves clearing copyright for third-party content to be included and managing the intellectual property in the new content, putting all the right agreements in place through a new Open Education User Licence, so that other institutions can use it. ... A national e-content strategy and framework: the work of the Strategic Content Alliance Setting up and deploying a UK content framework is ‘a key strategic objective of JISC’, says Stuart Dempster, Director of the Strategic Content Alliance. ... Primarily through the website and the mechanism of affiliate membership (organisations should provide content ‘for the public good’), the Alliance allows public sector organisations to share expertise and knowledge. ... Underlying all the work is the principle of open access. However, it is still ‘an aspiration that needs to be supported by a business model’. ... International collaboration and global infrastructure ... Pan-European partnerships between libraries and library consortia are becoming increasingly common. ... Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:00:00 +0100 668740 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TameTheWeb/~3/438324108/ My colleague Brenda Chawner is working on her PhD. Please take her survey if you’ve worked with OSS: If you use free/open library or information management software, then please consider  completing this survey if you haven’t already done so. It is anonymous,  and may take up  to 20 minutes of your time. The survey is available at: http://surveys.sim.vuw.ac.nz/survey.aspx?surveyid=205 Brenda Chawner Senior Lecturer & LIM Programmes Director School of Information Management Victoria University of Wellington (Source: Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology) Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:45:43 +0100 668271 http://liszen.com/trends/story.php?title=What_I_Learned_Todayhellip_-_Blog_Archive_-_Library_2-0_Gang_on_OSS_and_--- I wasn't able to talk on the recent Library 2.0 Gang podcast cause of all of the travel I have been doing. The topic sounded great though: "Library (Source: pligg - all) Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:00:33 +0100 668023 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ChristinasLisRant/~3/438657862/asist2008-final-sessions.html This last bit of sessions was disappointing - in each session, some of the presenters didn't show up. I started in From open source to open libraries, but I had heard all but the first speaker speak - and I was looking forward to that presentation:Knowledge Sharing and Management in Open Access e-Resources & Communities (KM, DL)Thomas Krichel, LIU and RePeC(slides at: http://openlib.org/home/krichel/presentations/columbus_2008-10-29.ppt)archives with articles in one location but services can be widely used. RePEC is based on 900+ archives. 630k item dataset… talking at the speed of light no way I can do notes…some measures of users of servicessome measures of derobitified web impact through LogEcauthor registration success as a measure of community impact- matched registry and an independent list of top 1000 economists and 79% registered (some of these 1000 are dead, so never get to 100%)- impact on fee1) always have been free working papers2) publication delay is 2-3 years if not 10 by going down journal ladder so useless for state of artimpact a lot- more efficient for working paper- preserved working paper culture- better citation/use for working papers- preservation for working papersremaining nuisance – libraries, we’re supporting the toll based ,so as long as we do , they will continue to existkeys to success- need an extraordinary individual who can do a tremendous amount of work on “surplus” time- small group of volunteers- own server- disseminate as widely as possible[ditched that session and headed to the geographical information session - but only 2 out of 5 presenters showed, and I missed all but the last few words of Dr Buckland's, apparently to do with some aspect of http://ecai.org/ ... ... Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:00:00 +0100 668660 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/438278197/more-comments-on-google-publisher.html Here are some more comments from the press and blogosphere. From Reyhan Harmanci at the San Francisco Chronicle: ...[Allen] Adler, of the [AAP] , compared the new independent, not-for-profit Book Rights Registry to the music industry's American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), which monitors and compensates musicians for live and recorded performances of their music. "It's the same concept - a central entity that protects rights holders through third-party licensing," he said.... San Francisco Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Corynne McSherry said she is "still digesting" the agreement but had some early thoughts: "I will tell you, frankly, that I kind of wish this case had gone to litigation. I think Google had a great fair-use defense," she said. "A ruling from the court would have been good for everyone. It potentially could have fostered other offerings, based on that legal certainty" if Google had won. Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, which is based at the Presido and has partnered with Yahoo, Microsoft and 135 libraries to create the Open Content Alliance, said the agreement moves libraries "toward a monoculture." "One company is trying to be the library system," Kahle said, speaking of Google's plans to create a subscription service for library collections. "This is not good for a society that is built on free speech. Let's have the World Wide Web rather than the iTunes of books." From Mathew Ingram at MathewIngram.com: This settlement is a huge step forward for online and electronic access to books. As Google has repeatedly argued, this will make it substantially easier for authors and publishers to find, distribute and monetize out-of-print books — in effect, creating or enhancing a “long tail” for book publishing. ... Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:00:00 +0100 668319