LibWorm: Wikis

Louis riel: a comic-strip biography by chester brown (april 2007)

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 04:00:00 +0100

In 1869, the Red River Settlement area, home to the French-speaking Metis, is sold to the Canadian government. Louis Riel, the de facto leader of the Red River Settlement, demands that they be granted the right to govern themselves. Not suprisingly, the government refuses this. This story relates Riel's resistance to the Canadian government's mistreatment of the Metis community.Louis Riel - Wikipediahttps://owa.fibrehost.net/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_RielLouis Riel - rethinking Riel (CBC Archives)Louis Riel - Trivial Pursuit (CBC Archives) Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here. (Source: WPLBOOKCLUB)

Mongoliad is live

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:30:24 +0100

From Boing Boing. I hate serials so I won’t jump in, but I’ll probably buy the thing when it’s finished. The Mongoliad is live! This is the collaborative, participatory shared-world project from Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and pals. It’s an epic fantasy novel about the Mongol conquest, told in installment form, with lots of supplementary material (video, stills, short fiction, etc), and a strong audience participation component in the form of a Wikipedia-style concordance, fanfic, etc. You can read the free samples without registration, but you need an account to edit the “Pedia.” For $5.99 you get a six-month subscription to the main body of fiction; $9.99 gets you a year (you retain access to the fiction after your subscription expires, but don’t get any new material until you renew, which is a major plus in my view — much fairer than most online “subscriptions” that lock you out once you let your sub lapse). Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)

Spacetime 3d for visual search

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

There are a few visual search engines around at the moment, and SpaceTime 3D is a new one that I've just discovered. A visual search engine is one that displays results for you visually - usually as a series of thumbnail shots, although of course it there are other alternatives. SpaceTime 3D displays pages in an arc, and you can flick through them, clicking on any that interest you. Spacetime has search options for Google, Images, Wikipedia and YouTube. I have to guess at the selling point, since there's nothing on the page to tell me anything about these people, but it's the size of the thumbnail - it's very clear indeed. Perhaps too clear I'm afraid, since the thumbnail dominates the webpage, pushing out the other pages in the arc, and I found it rather too claustrophobic for my tastes. However, demonstrating or training could be another matter, and I can see how it would work there. My preference is still for RedZ in this area - it was the first of them and I still prefer it. Yes, the previews are smaller, but I like being able to see more of them, and that's surely what visual search is all about. RedZ doesn't have the Wikipedia option, but as well as Web and Images, it's got News and Video, which I'm happier with anyway. Your mileage may vary however, so I've included a screenshot of both engines for you to take a look at. (Source: Phil Bradley)

Torrent my books: een nieuwe downloadsite voor studieboeken

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:35:00 +0100

Tot twee jaar geleden was TextBookTorrents een populaire website voor het downloaden van studieboeken. Toen de site uit de lucht werd gehaald waren er weliswaar nog meer dan genoeg alternatieven, maar een echte opvolger verscheen niet ten tonele. Nu is die opvolger alsnog gelanceerd, in de vorm van Torrent My Books. Het verschil met TextBookTorrents is dat de nieuwkomer geen eigen tracker (centraal distributiepunt voor P2P) heeft. Torrent My Books wordt ongetwijfeld weer een hit onder studenten en andere liefhebbers. Je leest er meer over op TorrentFreak. Over het downloaden van boeken gesproken: Steve Jobs heeft vandaag bekend gemaakt dat er tot op heden ook 35 miljoen boeken zijn gedownload via iTunes. Dat maakte me nieuwsgierig. Hoeveel zouden dat er zijn bij The Pirate Bay? Op die site betalen de gebruikers immers alleen voor andere dingen. Het uitgebreide Wikipedia-lemma over de website maakte me, ondanks de 189 referenties (!) niet veel wijzer. Ik zal nog even verder moeten zoeken. Trouwens, nu we het toch over Wikipedia hebben. In sommige landen vinden veel mensen de online encyclopedie betrouwbaarder dan kranten. Hoe zou dat zijn in een land als Nederland? Maar nu houd ik op met vragen stellen. Zo blijf je aan de gang... @ (Source: Digitaal Inlichtingenwerk Zeeuwse Bibliotheek)

1906 chicago manual of style: free, but not drm-free

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:47:03 +0100

This month’s free e-book from the University of Chicago Press is a replica of the very first, 1906 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style to commemorate the 16th edition of that work. Of course, as with all University of Chicago Press free e-books, this book comes wrapped in Adobe Digital Editions DRM—even though, since it was originally published in 1906, this book is well within the public domain by now. (Oddly, I can’t seem to find any public domain version of it on-line, at least not in Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, or Manybooks. There is a somewhat rough scan of a 1911 edition on Wikimedia Commons, however.) It’s a pity that this press—an academic press, yet, and thus part of an organization supposedly dedicated to advancing the spread of knowledge—should choose to impose technological restrictions upon a document that should legally be free to all. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)

1906 chicago manual of style: free, but not drm-free

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:47:03 +0100

September 2010

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:22:29 +0100

Welcome to the Link. Each month the ipl2 brings you some of the best information sites on the Internet. If you have an Internet connection, you can connect with us! The September edition of the Link is filled with birthdays and celebrations throughout the world. So join the party and explore the world through these colorful and informative websites! Suggest a site for the ipl2. Know of a great site, but you cannot find it in the ipl2? Use the form located at http://www.ipl.org/div/contact/ to let us know about good resources to add to our collections. September 1 – Independence Day Uzbekistan Uzbekistan: A Country Study “An historical overview and information on the geography, economy, government, transportation and telecommunications, foreign relations, national security, languages, religions, and people and society of Uzbekistan. Includes a glossary, a bibliography, and statistical tables. Searchable. “Completed [in] March 1996.” A part of the Web site Country Studies, from the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.” Country Profile: Uzbekistan “Profile of this former Soviet country that is “positioned on the ancient Great Silk Road between Europe and Asia.” Includes demographic facts, historical overview, timeline of key events, and information about leaders and media. Site also includes links to related news stories, and audio of the national anthem. From the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).” September 2 – National Day Vietnam Country Profile: Vietnam “Profile of Vietnam, which “became a unified country in 1976.” Includes demographic facts, historical overview, timeline of key events, and brief listings of leaders and media outlets. Site also includes links to related news stories, audio of the national anthem, and video clips. ...

36% of online americans consult wikipedia

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

More than one-third of American adult Internet users consult the citizen-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And on a typical day, 8 percent of online Americans consult Wikipedia. Wikipedia is one place to start when understanding your research topic but another place would be Credo Reference. It is a huge collection of great reference books: encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, measurement conversions and much more!We also subscribe to Oxford Reference Online and Gale Reference Online, both contain great collections of reference books! You can find these under "Articles & More" then "Encyclopedias & Dictionaries" on the library's homepage.-sg (Source: CSBSJU Library Blog)

Integrating the hospital library with patient care, teaching and research: model and web 2.0 tools to create a social and collaborative community of clinical research in a hospital setting.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Integrating the hospital library with patient care, teaching and research: model and Web 2.0 tools to create a social and collaborative community of clinical research in a hospital setting.

Health Info Libr J. 2010 Sep 1;27(3):217-26

Authors: San JosÃ© Montano B, Garcia Carretero R, Varela Entrecanales M, Pozuelo PM

Background: Research in hospital settings faces several difficulties. Information technologies and certain Web 2.0 tools may provide new models to tackle these problems, allowing for a collaborative approach and bridging the gap between clinical practice, teaching and research. Objectives: We aim to gather a community of researchers involved in the development of a network of learning and investigation resources in a hospital setting. Methods: A multi-disciplinary work group analysed the needs of the research community. We studied the opportunities provided by Web 2.0 tools and finally we defined the spaces that would be developed, describing their elements, members and different access levels. Model description: WIKINVESTIGACION is a collaborative web space with the aim of integrating the management of all the hospital's teaching and research resources. It is composed of five spaces, with different access privileges. The spaces are: Research Group Space 'wiki for each individual research group', Learning Resources Centre devoted to the Library, News Space, Forum and Repositories. Conclusions: The Internet, and most notably the Web 2. ...

Library blog search

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:53:35 +0100

Sometimes when I am working on a post, I wonder if another library blogger has already covered it - an am afraid I’ll look kind of dumb rehashing something. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great to set up a Google custom search engine to search all library-related blogs? Before I did, I checked if anyone already created one, and it turned out Library Zen had - four years ago (I’m even further behind than I thought). LISZEN Search searches over 500 library blogs, and has an accompanying wiki to keep track. If you write about the library world, add yourself. Something related that would also be nice is a custom search of just library websites - so it would be easy to quickly see what other library’s policies are regarding ebooks, or circulating laptops, or how much they charge for printing, etc. But considering the breadth of libraries and the complexity of maintaining it, just using regular Google might be more realistic. (Source: herzogbr.net blog)

Scott rosenberg defends hyperlinking

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:15:00 +0100

Scott Rosenberg, late of Salon Magazine, has an interesting post on his blog, Wordyard. It is actually a rebuttal to another post by Nicholas Carr depicting hyperlinking as a bad, confusing thing. Rosenberg points out that Carr is actually conflating two different forms of linking in his rant: the artistic and the pragmatic. Artistic hyperlinking is predicated on creating an artistic work in segments with links that lead to different parts of the work. An example might be a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Pragmatic hyperlinking uses links as footnotes and references, demonstrating where information comes from and where they can learn more. Carr, Rosenberg says, rails against the pragmatic hyperlinking upon which the web is built using arguments predicated on the confusing nature of artistic hypertext works. Links, Rosenberg says, can be confusing at first, or if used to excess, but judicious linking is not the impediment to understanding that Carr claims it is. If your experience matches mine, then today, your eyes pass over a link. Most often you ignore it. Sometimes, you hover your mouse pointer to see where it goes. Every now and then, you click the link open in a new tab to read when you’re done. And very rarely, you might actually stop what you’re reading and read the linked text. If you do, it’s usually a sign that you’ve lost interest in the original article anyway. Which can happen just as easily in a magazine or newspaper — where, instead of clicking a link, we just turn the page. Rosenberg’s post is the first in a three-part series. Carr responds to Rosenberg’s points (and Rosenberg replies in turn) in the comments below it. My own linking strategy for the stories I write in TeleRead is to link (of course) the source of the story, and where I found the story (since it’s courteous to give credit where credit is due). Beyond that, I will occasionally link informational pages, especially from Wikipedia. ...

Wikipedia and wikileaks: jimmy wales on some people not understanding the difference

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:35:03 +0100

Confusion between one source and another is rather sad but not that infrequent. Also, in the web age the people say the source of an article they’ve read is Google News or Yahoo News not understanding that they aggregate but (in a majority of cases) don’t supply that much original content. Yes, both news engines clearly list the source but apparently some users do not pay attention. Go back ten years and it was the same thing with web browsers and search engines. In other words, “What Search Engine Did You Use?” The answer would be something like, “Netscape.” From an article in The Independent: …a “wiki” [Hawaiian for "fast"] is defined, at least in computing terms, as a website that allows the easy creation and editing of web pages, and the term has entered the vernacular as a result of two web behemoths – Wikipedia and Wikileaks. Now the two men most responsible for boosting your Hawaiian vocabulary, Wikipedia’s co-founder, Jimmy Wales, and the Wikileaks editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, seem to be having a gentle falling out. In an interview with The Independent, Mr Wales said he was getting a bit fed up of being blamed or praised for the other “Wiki” website. “I get a lot of emails from people who think I run Wikileaks,” he said. “There are people who say: ‘you are responsible for putting the lives of thousands of US troops at risk’, others seem to think I am some sort of freedom fighter, holding governments to account. “I just roll my eyes, chuckle to myself and tell them they’ve got the wrong man. Practically speaking, there isn’t anything I can do about the confusion between the two companies, I wish they had chosen a different name but I can’t go about trying to copyright the word ‘wiki’,” he said. ...

Free textbooks online, and a few other favorite resources

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:23:30 +0100

Open Culture (a wonderful blog that deserves your full attention if you’ve never visited) and led by Dan Colman at Stanford U., has started compiling a collection of free textbooks available on the web. The post mentions to check back often to find new titles. Hopefully, as new titles are added they can be easily found by including an “added on” date or perhaps placed in the collection and on a separate list, with the date added also included. From the Open Culture Text Book Post: Free textbooks (aka open textbooks) written by knowledgeable scholars are a relatively new phenomenon. Below, find a meta list of 150 Free Textbooks, and check back often for new additions. Access the Collection of Free Textbooks You’ll find links to a MANY other free resource on the site and while IT IS included in one several past ResourceShelf posts, we will once again mention the Online Books Page from John Mark Ockerbloom at the University of Pennsylvania is a wonderful place to find FREE full text books from many different sources and collections. The homepage currently says it contains 40,000 titles but our guess is that it is much larger as the 40K number hasn’t changed in several months as new titles pour in. We would also suggest that the “New Listings” page is not only a tribute to Ockerbloom’s hard work but a resource that should be looked at often. New titles are added several times a week (most weeks). Amazing! Look at how much was added from a huge number of sources and collections in just last week. “New Listings” even has its own RSS feed. Two More Favorites That We’ve Mentioned Many Times: OpenLibrary and WatchKnow First, the great work that George Oates and the team at the Open Library are doing. They’re building a database of free books and other material (bibliographic data) very powerful but easy to use. One click and you can quickly limit your search to only e-books. ...

“meta-collection: free textbooks online” and a few other favorite freebies

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:41:38 +0100

Burn your books (actually, don't) | michael tomasky

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:42:12 +0100

A conversation this weekend got me thinking about book-banning in America. This list on amazon.com purports to be of the 20 most challenged and banned books in the US. You can Google around. Other lists seem similar.I haven't heard of most of these. They're children's books. Numero uno is called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which is a trilogy by a fellow called Alvin Schwartz. Its Wikipedia page cites the issues as being its "religious viewpoint and violence as well as for being occultist, satanic, or inappropriate."Number two is Daddy's Roommate, with which Sarah Palin had a contentious history of some sort as we learned in 2008. Heather Has Two Mommies is on there too. As I've told you previously, I was a young reporter when those books came out, in 1989, and were first proposed for introduction into New York City schools under the aegis of then-chancellor Joe Fernandez's cloyingly named "Rainbow Curriculum." All right, conservatives: sometimes I can see why liberals bug you. At any rate I still own pristine first-edition copies from those days. Depending on how things go in this country, they may really be worth something someday or they may land me in the hoosegow.The only actual literature: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (3); Huck Finn (5); Of Mice and Men (6); Catcher in the Rye (10); The Color Purple (17). I would guess that at least Huck Finn and Mice and Men are the targets of campaigns from the identity politics left, for their respective liberal use of the n-word and the portrayal of Lennie. Did George end up killing Lennie? I don't even remember, but that seems to ring a bell. At any rate I was about 14 or 15, and it certainly didn't make me think that I should go out and crush mice in my pocket or kill people with mental disabilities.What's allegedly offensive about The Color Purple? I never read it. Have you ever encountered such a "challenge" where you live?United StatesMichael Tomaskyguardian.co. ...

Extra aside bar -- from the editor

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

The immediacy of a blog makes the subject of this post seem a little outdated, but we'd normally be addressing the SLA conference in New Orleans in the Summer issue and I didn't want it to go unmentioned.My SLA experience was largely colored by the fact that I was wheelchair-bound thanks not to a parachuting accident but sheer clumsiness the week before. A special thanks to Amy Disch for helping me get around, as well as the random librarians I met along the way who volunteered to help push me here and there.This year, the sessions to me seemed more informative than full of whiz-bang ideas to take back to your shop. Not that this is a bad thing; I still learned a lot.The conference really started up Sunday night with the annual News Division Silent Auction and Networking Reception -- if you could find it. Just like rumors on the internet, news researchers had to separate tales of the real room number from the false reports. We thought we could just follow the noise, but with fewer of us present than in years past, we had to get to the right floor first. Then, the fun began and the goodies were bidded upon and won.Bright and early on Monday, at Reality Check: Adapting to changes in media and dissemination, Angie Holan told us about Politifact.com and then Marcus Zillman told us about his bots and deep web research. Later, Tom Corbett, executive director of Cushing Academy's library, discussed how his facility went all-electronic at The All-Digital School Library: Managing Electronic Resources.I moderated Evolving Roles: Conversations in the Round, a session co-sponsored with the Knowledge Management Division. Karen Huffman of the National Geographic Society, Cindy Hill of Hill Information Consulting Group, Jessica Baumgart (lately of Needle) and I all discussed how the role of librarian has changed over time and what we see for its future. We also took questions from the audience and had a great discussion. ...

Reference question of the week - 8/22/10

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:39:57 +0100

This was sort of a frustrating question, but in the end was fun - mainly because I get to tag this post “gonzo reference.” A patron came rushing up to the desk (literally) and said he quickly needed to know John Philip Sousa’s religion. Since time was important, I gave the patron Encyclopedia Britannica and showed him how to find the John Philip Sousa article, while I searched Wikipedia. Neither identified his religion, so the next step was to grab the one Sousa biography we had on the shelf, and the patron looked through the index under “faith,” “religion,” etc., while I kept searching our databases and the internet. Again, neither of us located anything quickly, except for a quote online attributed to Sousa: My religion lies in my composition. That didn’t exactly answer the patron’s question, but he felt Sousa must have meant that, regardless of what religion he was officially, he wasn’t himself a very religious person, and that was good enough for the patron. He thanked me and rushed out. But I was still surprised that such an simple fact wouldn’t have been more readily available. I decided to keep searching until I found it, and then add the fact to Wikipedia - mainly because I can. I was already in the library’s catalog, so I requested a Sousa biography from another library (John Philip Sousa: American Phenomenon) that seemed likely to have the information. When it arrived, I started flipping through it, then wondered if this had been scanned into Google Books - turns out, it had. I searched the content of the book for “religion” and found the answer I was looking for at the bottom of page 102. I then composed a little paragraph and added it to Wikipedia: Although Freemasonry is an organization influenced by religious beliefs, John Philip Sousa himself was not. ...

In ishmael's house: a history of jews in muslim lands by martin gilbert | book review

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:34 +0100

David J Goldberg finds that a study of Jews under Muslim rule suffers from its broad-brush approachThe feared doyen of Judaic scholars in the US is Professor Jacob Neusner, an abrasive curmudgeon who, to borrow football manager Sir Alex Ferguson's description of an opposition player, could start a fight in an empty room. Wikipedia credits him with the authorship or editorship of 950 books – a stat that has prompted a joke about a student who knocks on his door, asking to see the professor. "You can't," says Neusner's wife. "He's writing a book." "That's alright," replies the student. "I'll wait."In this country Sir Martin Gilbert – urbane, charming, helpful; the official biographer of Winston Churchill and a member of the Iraq inquiry panel – is the polar opposite of Neusner in personality and reputation, but for sheer fecundity he is a potential challenger. He has over 80 books to his name and, one senses, more to come.Neither a brash TV personality nor a young turk revisionist, Gilbert writes broad-brush narrative history of the old-fashioned kind. By now his method is well rehearsed: a balanced overview is produced, based on exhaustive research of all the available material, and then illuminated with individual case stories or a telling quotation. It is a technique that proved popular in his books about the Holocaust, the state of Israel and Churchill. Now he brings it to bear on the history of Jews in Muslim lands.Perhaps that well-oiled modus operandi is why there is a sense Gilbert is going through the motions here. He dedicates In Ishmael's House, somewhat preciously, to the 13 million Jews and 1,300 million Muslims in the world "in the hope that they may renew the mutual tolerance, respect and partnership that marked many periods in their history". ...

Updating lis768 list of context books for student reports

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:59:46 +0100

This morning I’m updating one of my favorite assignments for LIS768 Participatory Service and Emerging Technologies. Two years ago, I asked for further suggestions to share with my class. Today. I’ll do the same: what would you add? Please share in the comments below. I’ll be including the post URL in the course site. Original post from 2008: http://tametheweb.com/2008/09/10/lis768-reading-list/ Current list included in syllabus: Assignment – Context Book Report – 10 points Students will read a book selected from the list provided below or suggest another title for Michael’s approval, and write a 200-300 word reflection posted to your blog relating the topic and focus of the book to libraries, technology and participatory service. OPTIONAL: Instead of writing your report, create a media presentation such as a podcast, YouTube video, Animoto show, etc. Let your creativity flow! Selections from the Online Reading List Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail Beck, John C. & Mitchell Wade. Got game Bernoff, Josh. Groundswell Breakenridge, Deidre. PR 2.0 Carr, Nicholas. The Big Switch: rewiring the World, from Edison to Google Collins, Jim. Good to Great Doctorow, Cory Content Doctorow, Cory Little Brother Frankel, Alex. Punching In Fried, Jason & David Heinemeier Hannsen. Rework Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to teach Us about Learning & Literacy Gilmore, James & B. Joseph Pine II. Authenticity Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers Godin, Seth. Small is the New Big Godin, Seth. Tribes Godin, Seth. Linchpin Heath, Chip & Dan. Switch Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers & Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good for You Keen, Andrew The Cult of the Amateur Kelley, Tom with Jonathan Littman. ...

Library news 08/27/2010

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Hurrah for cooler weather, everyone seemed in a better mood. We continue to get more and more new stuff, DVDs, databases etc. DatabasesYou can use both of these off campus if you have the log-in and password brochure available in the library when you show your valid student ID. It is amazing to me how many students get home and decide they need to use the databases and call the library to ask for them. WE WILL NOT GIVE THE PASSWORDS OVER THE PHONE OR IN EMAIL!! We really, really mean it!Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition provides the Encyclopaedia Britannica, plus statistics, magazine articles, biographies, evaluated web sites, timelines, country information, educational videos and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, quotes, an atlas and news feeds from The New York Times. Wikipedia wants to be Britannica when it grows up. CQ Researcher is noted for its in-depth, unbiased coverage of health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy. Each issue has an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources. Updated online 44 times a year. MediaFirstcom is a production music and sound effects service with 140,000 tracks and 6,000+ new track releases every year. Searching is by keyword, styles, eras, tempos, instruments, moods, countries and dances. Sign in using the log-in and password available in the library when you show your valid AiDallas ID for on and off-campus access. Please set up your own folder for your projects. Turn off your pop-up blocker. This site will not function properly with your pop-up blocker on.VideosBusiness90 minutes to killer presentation skills. ...

Call for chapters: getting started with cloud computing (a lita guide)

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Call for Chapters: Getting Started with Cloud Computing (a LITA Guide)Dear Librarian Colleagues:Consider writing a chapter for the forthcoming book, “Getting started with cloud computing: A LITA guide”.Edward Corrado and Heather Moulaison, editors, are looking for 8-12 page (double spaced standard font) chapters on either:1. Applications and services used by librarians in the cloud and how they might be used in a variety of libraries, including information on:a. The tool itself (what it does, why it could be of use to libraries)b. Why librarians should know about this application or service2. Descriptions of best practices/ok practices/not good practices in using cloud services, including information on:a. The background to the project: Describe your library, your collection, your resources, or any other element that will be necessary to understand what you did and whyb. The project: Describe what you did, why you did it, who did what, and how, being sure to mention any special funding you needed or resources you usedc. The assessment: How have you assessed your project and what are the results of that assessmentPossible topics: Using Amazon S3 for backups/storage, Hosting Websites, blogs, wikis, etc., in the Cloud, Hosting Library Subject Guides in the Cloud, Using Google Docs and other Google Applications, etc.Examples can focus on all kinds of libraries, including public, special, museum, academic, etc.Projected deadline for chapter: Nov. 1, 2010.Authors will receive a copy of the book as compensation.If you are interested in submitting an idea for consideration, please send a rough outline of your proposed chapter to ecorrado@ecorrado.us before Sept. 15, 2010. Clearly indicate in your email your name, contact information, and any other information the editors should take into consideration about the context of your proposal.-- Edward M. CorradoAssistant Director for Library TechnologyBinghamton University Libraries P.O. ...

In for a penny, in for a pound… my promotion “case for support”

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:55:39 +0100

JUst before going away on holiday, I popped up a questionnaire asking for a little help working out what sort of impact – if any – I had on folk that could weave in to my promotion case for support… Thanks to all who took the time out to reply (it was very humbling:-) Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s a draft of the Case for Support, which I need to submit tomorrow. Whilst I haven’t been able to add direct quotes from the questionnaire responses – the word limit is set at 1500 words – your responses did inform what I wrote: some of the words are very heavily loaded and more densely packed, on occasion summarising whole responses… Tony Hirst – Case for promotion to Senior Lecturer My case for promotion is based around excellence in teaching and scholarship, with a strong theme of digital scholarship and community engagement. Teaching & contributions to the teaching system I have chaired three courses (production and presentation), and authored on four others, pushing the elearning agenda through technology and design innovation with a view to reuse. In 2000, I developed two units for T396 delivered via a novel electronic study guide, providing a unified browser-based interface to online, offline and CD-ROM content, and a mobile website for course alerts. This work identified issues relating to authoring content specifically for browser based delivery on desktop and mobile devices that have informed my work ever since. A major feature of my approach to the production of teaching materials relates to supporting reuse in other contexts. Whilst writing online material for the T184 robotics course, I commissioned several interactive browser-based activities that have been reused on courses such as TXR174, as well as for outreach. Using T184 software, I developed a range of activities for schools and OU regional Aim Higher/Widening Participation initiatives. ...

Happy women's equality day!

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

August 26 is Women's Equality Day, to celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is the 90th anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States. After more than 70 years of ceaseless campaigning, our grandmothers (and a few of our grandfathers who supported them!) finally won for us the right to vote in public elections. The League of Women Voters has a very nice website with a brief history of the struggle. Here is the way they "bookend" the effort: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others first seriously proposed women’s right to vote at Seneca Falls, N.Y., on July 19, 1848. Prior to this time, Susan B. Anthony was active in the women’s temperance movement, but when she met Stanton in 1851, they joined forces and worked together over the next half of the century – and what a force they were. Although they both died before the goal was reached, they lived long enough to see significant progress and were primarily responsible for the ultimate success. Carrie Chapman Catt, founder and early leader of the League of Women Voters, younger than Anthony and Stanton, entered the struggle later and became a leader in the suffragist movement that helped lead it to victory with passage of the 19th amendment in 1920.Congresswoman Bella Abzug introduced legislation in 1971 naming the day Women's Equality Day, not only to memorialize women's suffrage but also the entire women's civil rights movement. The Seneca Falls meeting at which Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed women's voting was actually the world's first Women's Rights Convention. The 15th Amendment, after the Civil War, extended voting rights to African American males. At the time, there was discussion among women's rights supporters of pushing to include women in that amendment. Here is a detailed history of the struggles of the American suffrage movement. Between 1880 and 1920, when Tennessee was the final state required to ratify the 19th amendment, ... ...

Lessons in creating open source software

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:04:53 +0100

Ed Corrado has a nice post entitled “Little Things Matter” on some key things that open source software creators should keep in mind. I agree with the spirit of what Ed says wholeheartedly. I can’t tell you how many times when I was an open source noob, I’d wonder what the heck the installation instructions were talking about or was frustrated because no one answered questions posted to the listserv. I suppose that is one of the reasons I thought “when I write a book on open source web applications that it will contain specific installation instructions”. Having written that book now, its not as easy as it might seem. I mean do I give step by step instruction on MySQL using the command line or MyPHPAdmin? Instruction for what OS? It is daunting for both people writing documentation and those using it. Which bring us to the point that Kathryn Greenhill makes in comment on a post by Roy Tennant which highlights the Ed’s commentary. Open source software means that users need to take an more active role than often people are used to taking. More than once at the end of a frustrating day working to get something installed properly, I’ve gone back in and edited software’s documentation wiki or sent an email with suggested changes. Better and more thorough documentation almost always comes from a community effort. To do this though one has to learn how to participate in an open source community. Learning how to participate is a ongoing process though because one may participate in new ways or in different communities over time. The idea though is that community members are able to build confidence over time by acquiring new skills. Case in point, there is a patch for a Drupal module I’d like to test, try and report back on. But I’ve never done that before. ...

Ebooks, filetype, and drm

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:31:58 +0100

This morning I got a tweet from Bobbi Newman that said: librarianbyday Can someone explain to me the tech reasons Kindle doesn’t work with library ebooks, know its DRM, want more specific plz & thnx @griffey More than you ever wanted to know about filetypes, DRM, and eBooks…here we go. There are two different things going on when someone tries to open an eBook file on an eReader. One is filetype…how the file itself is organized internally, how the information contained within is encoded. This is analogous to the difference between a Word file saved as a .doc file, a Word file saved as a .docx file, and an Powerpoint file (.ppt). All are different filetypes…the program involved in the creation, editing, and display of those files describes the information contained inside. Right now, there are two main filetypes being used to describe eBook files: the Amazon eBook standard, or .amz file, and the ePub file (.epub) that is used by just about every other eBook vendor. Amazon purchased Mobipocket (an early ebook vendor/distributor) way back in 2005, and used their format as the basis for their current proprietary .amz filetype. ePub, on the other hand, is an open, XML based eBook standard, and is used by a huge number of eBook vendors…indeed, it’s easily the standard for current ebook publishing. But filetype is only half the battle. In addition to the way the file is organized/structured internally, there is also Digital Rights Management to deal with. Think of DRM on an eBook as a lock, with your eReader having the key to open the lock and display the file. Without the lock, the eReader can’t open the file at all…can’t even see what it is. And if it has the key, but can’t read the filetype, that’s no good either…in that case, you can view the contents of the file, but will have no idea how to render it on the screen properly. ...

Feds investigating wikipedia editing

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:26:15 +0100

We all know that editing a Wikipedia entry is fairly straightforward – and that the Wikiguardians keep a vigilant eye over entries and edits that stray from the norms of objectivity and verifiability. So the announcement that the Correctional Service’s internal operations arm is investigating an edit made to the Wikipedia entry on Canada’s Official Languages Act, which appears to have been made from a government computer connected to the Corrections Canada server at the department’s offices on Laurier Street in Ottawa, is arousing the interest of the mainstream media. Denis Coderre appears to have noticed the edit a week ago and brought it to the department’s attention. That online edit could result in the suspension or dismissal, and it may even be a crime if the comment were considered to amount to hate propaganda. “Behaviour of this nature is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in a statement Wednesday. “My office has raised its concerns with the Correctional Service of Canada, who are investigating its origin and will follow up with appropriate action.” The department says there is a definite way to trace the suspicious activity to a particular employee’s computer, but it may take some time to complete the investigation. “Obviously we take this issue very seriously,” said Christelle Chartrand, a spokesperson with the Correctional Service of Canada. Here is the edited page: There’s a great book by Andrew Lih, called the Wikipedia Revolution on the culture of Wikipedia which largely explains the process and the dialectic of reconciling controversial edits to the encyclopaedia. (Source: Slaw)

Mapa da web

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0100

Gráfico traça o mapa da web com ícones Autor: Vinicius Aguiari.Fonte: Info Online . Data: 25/08/2010.O site Nmap.org colocou no ar um infográfico com a representação dos 300 mil maiores sites da web, de acordo com o ranking do site Alexa.com.No gráfico, o tamanho do ícone do site corresponde ao seu alcance na web. Como o esperado, o Google lidera, seguido do Facebook e do Yahoo!. Segundo o infográfico, o Google tem um alcance de 91,79% na web, enquanto Facebook e Yahoo! atingem 29,17% e 23,45% dos usuários. YouTube, MSN, Wikipedia, Wordpress e Gravatar são outros que aparecem no topo da tabela.O ícone do Google ocupa uma área de 11 936 x 11 936 pixels. Já o menor deles tem apenas 16 x 16 pixels e pertence a um site com apenas 0,00001% de alcance na web. A área total da imagem é de 37 440 x 37 440 pixels.O infográfico pode ser visualizado em uma versão interativa [URL: http://nmap.org/favicon/], que permite ampliar ou reduzir o seu tamanho, ou em modo para impressão. (Source: A "INFORMAÇÃO")

X-ray vans challenge privacy

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:33:56 +0100

Forbes published a story online yesterday about the use of “backscatter x-ray vision” in mobile vans. This scanning technology is the same as that employed at some airports, enabling authorities to see through clothing and luggage. The article features the product being advertized and sold by American Science and Engineering, which has sold more than 500 of the scanners. Their (in my view, creepy) promotional video is embedded below: The backscatter technology and safety are discussed in the Wikipedia article on the subject. The use of this technology creates obvious privacy problems, particularly when wielded by or on behalf of governments, as is likely to be the case most of the time. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has addressed the use of “millimetre-wave full body scans” — a somewhat more powerful version of this technology — for airport searches: In planning for the deployment of the first 44 of these scanners, the federal government pledged to implement the program in a way that respects people’s privacy and dignity. Here’s what the government promised: - Passengers selected for secondary screening, either at random or for cause, can choose to pass through the scanner or to undergo a physical search (see previous section.) - No personal information, such as the passenger’s name, boarding pass number or passport information, is associated with the scanned image. - The security officer with the passenger doesn’t see the scan, while the official viewing the scan cannot see the passenger. - Images are examined for concealed threats and immediately deleted. They are not recorded or stored for future use. So far as I know, she has not yet said anything about the mobile use of x-ray scanning. (Source: Slaw)

Court web site guidelines – principles 7, 8 and 9 (bilinguism, accessibility, interactivity)

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:05:59 +0100

Earlier last week, I presented the CCCT IntellAction Working Group selection of principles that should guide the design and organization of court web sites and further explained, in a later post, principles 4, 5 and 6 on notification, content organization & search and security. In this post, I further explain the next three principles: Principle #7: Bilinguism Principle #8: Accessibility Principle #9: Interactivity Comments and suggestions are welcome! Principle #7: Bilinguism Canadian courts need to offer bilingual web sites, as a minimum; and wherever appropriate and desired, even offer additional languages. The bilingual requirement covers both the web site interface and web site content. Users should be able to switch from one language to the other from any page on the site. Each content type offered on the site should be reviewed and guidance issued by the court to web site administrators as to what content should be offered in what languages. In addition, the web site should ideally provide the ability for content authors to notify translators that content is ready to be translated allow translators to open a session on the site and quickly identify the content that needs to be translated allow content authors to review translations before they are published Principle #8: Accessibility Web accessibility is an important principle and the corresponding entry on Wikipedia deserves to be quoted: Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality. For example, when a site is coded with semantically meaningful HTML, with textual equivalents provided for images and with links named meaningfully, this helps blind users using text-to-speech software and/or text-to-Braille hardware. ...

More american soldiers killed in afghanistan

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:00:28 +0100

Internet Censorship: Content-Control Software, History of Wikipedia, Project Chanology, Criticism of Facebook, Wikileaks, Adnan OktarPurchase include (Source: pligg - all)

Information isn't knowledge

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:00:05 +0100

Andrew Orlowski at The Register discusses the Wikileaks situation. A key point made is that data alone is useless without contextualization. A key (Source: pligg - all)

Students in the digital age-some thoughts

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

I came across some interesting articles regarding the current generation of students, who as children of the digital age are expected to embrace technology in all it's glory. You might be surprised...The Digital Generation? Not so fast.http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/07/29/29readwriteweb-so-called-digital-natives-not-media-savvy-n-74704.html?src=me&ref=technologyAbandoning print for online sources? Again, not so fast.http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/readers-are-abandoning-print-yet-dont-trust-the-web/?ref=technologyStudents and digital plagiarism.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?ref=technologyAnd finally, information without context is well....just information. Nice to know, but what does it mean?http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/28/wikileaks/Make of it what you will.Later,KB (Source: See What We Can Do For You - GTCC Library)

Event: mcn 2010

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

As received in email...Registration for MCN 2010 is now open! http://www.mcn.edu/mcn-2010-conference-registration From museums to libraries,From conservation to future technologies, From building communities to museum ethics, From case studies to the great debates of our age:MCN 2010 is what YOU make it!Help us keep Austin weird at Halloween: MCN 2010, October 27-30th (fun, costumes and instruments strongly encouraged)!I/O: The Museum Inside-Out/Outside-In opens with a huge range of workshops to raise the bar on your professional skills, followed by three action-packed days of programmed sessions and a parallel ThatCamp Un-conference to cater to every interest and specialist topic. Learn, teach and share while playing the MCN 2010 ARG, crawling Austin's pubs, jamming to jazz during our silent auction, and touring Austin's great museums and amazing bat caves. Check out the full program on our Conference Wiki http://mcn2010.pbworks.com/Conference-Program!Registration fees:MCN Members: Earlybird: $450.00 | Regular: $500.00Non-Members: Earlybird: $550.00 | Regular: $600.00 Student / Emerging Professional Members: Earlybird: $200.00 | Regular: $250.00Daily: (members and non-members) Earlybird: $250.00 | Regular: $250.00 Guest Registration: Earlybird: $105.00 | Regular: $105.00 Half-Day Workshop Fee: $100.00Earlybird Registration Deadline: Friday, September 24, 2010. Register Today! http://www.mcn.edu/mcn-2010-conference-registrationFollow us @mcn2010 (twitter)This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. (Source: Digitization 101)

Event: mcn 2010

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

British library catalog

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Image via WikipediaThe British Library has made their catalog freely available for research.As part of its work to open its metadata to wider use beyond the traditional library community, the British Library is making copies of its main catalogue and British National Bibliography datasets available for research purposes. Files are initially being made available in XML and structured in an RDF/DC format (see sample). Files are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.The British Library is currently investigating options for structuring its catalogue information as linked data and is collaborating with a number of organisations in examining the issues associated with making bibliographic metadata available in this way.Related articleBritish Library to share millions of catalogue records (bl.uk) (Source: Catalogablog)

Best websites for learning

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:04:43 +0100

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced the 2010 Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning. The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning were named so because they foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. The Web sites honored include: Animoto; Classroom 2.0; Curriki; diigo; edublogs; facebook; goodreads; Google reader; mindmeister; Ning; OurStory; Partnership for 21st Century Skills; Poll Everywhere; PrimaryAccess; RezED; Second Life; Simply Box; Skype; S.O.S. for Information Literacy; Teacher Tube; twitter; VoiceThread; Wikispaces; Wordle; and Zoho. All sites are free, web-based sites that are user-friendly and encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. You can find Madison Public Library on both facebook and twitter. (Source: What's New)

Information isn't knowledge

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:46:28 +0100

Andrew Orlowski at The Register discusses the Wikileaks situation. A key point made is that data alone is useless without contextualization. A key quote from the piece: The nature of news and journalism hasn't really changed. We want the world explained, the dots joined, and factoids are a poor substitute, no matter how sensational the trappings. We know that information isn't knowledge, and sometimes barely causes a ripple. (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News)

Information isn't knowledge

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:46:28 +0100

Report from ifla: the information literacy section meeting

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

In this post I will describe some key items that came out of the IFLA Information Literacy Section committee meetings that took place during the IFLA conference held in Gothenburg, Sweden, 11-15 August (the poor pictures were takenat the section committee dinner). IFLA (International Federation for Library Associations and Institutions) has a very small headquarters in the Hague, Netherlands, and most of its work is done by its members. IFLA has many sections and divisions, representing different regions of the world and different subject areas. One of the sections is Information Literacy and I am a member of its Standing Committee. As with all IFLA comittees, it is truly international, with members from Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, South America and Europe (though there is a bit of a bias towards Europe).The IFLA Information Literacy Section website is at http://www.ifla.org/en/information-literacyAt the Section Committee, apart from talking about events we were organising, the following topics were discussed:1. International Information Literacy logo. The website where you can download this is at http://www.infolitglobal.info/logo/en/ We decided that we are going to make an effort to make this available in more languages (currently it is there in French, Spanish, Russian, English), so people have been asked to say what the right phrase is in their language and we will arrange the graphic design2. The Marketing manual for the logo was published earlier in the year at http://www.infolitglobal.info/logo/en/manual and is a useful online guide for marketing more generally3. “State of the art” of IL in different countries. Reports on some countries were drawn up a few years ago and are available at http://www.infolitglobal.info/en/ There are also some updates at http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/81 (scroll down to see them) There was a proposal to turn these into an open wiki so that they were easier to keep up to date. ...

U.s. supreme court and u.s. corporate political spending

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:44:29 +0100

Back in January, the United States Supreme Court released its judgment in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 50 (2010) [PDF], a challenge by a “non-profit corporation” to §441b of the U.S. Code limiting election spending by corporations. In the words of the judgment’s syllabus (i.e. headnote): [This] federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech that is an “electioneering communication” or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate. The court decided 5-4 that the law could not stand, that it was an unjustified abridgement of the plaintiff’s constitutional right to free speech. (There is a good Wikipedia article on the decision.) The judgement appears to have opened up a spending spree by corporations weighing in on current political issues and politicians; the messages have almost exclusively a highly conservative bent, as might be imagined. Typically, this corporate support is disguised or obscured as the messages purport to emanate from groups with innocuous names. For a good description of some of the corporations, people, and machinery behind these right-wing message groups, take a look at an article in the latest issue of New Yorker, “Covert Operations, The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama,” by Jane Mayer. Clearly U.S. President Obama is concerned by this new corporate spending. He delivered a video warning about it in his most recent Weekly Address, describing a “flood of attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless sounding names.” He lays the blame in so many words at the feet of the Supreme Court and its decision in Citizens United. (Source: Slaw)

Fedora repository 3.4 released

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Fedora Repository 3.4 Documentation - Fedora Repository 3.4 Documentation - DuraSpace Wiki The latest release of Fedora is now available. Some of the new features: DC, RELS-EXT, RELS-INT as Managed Content: The Dublin Core and Relationships datastreams can now be stored as Managed Content, improving performance particularly when these datastreams are large. A migration tool is included to migrate existing inline XML datastreams to managed content datastreams REST API relationships methods: New methods in the REST API for adding and manipulating relationships in RELS-EXT and RELS-INT Enhanced Content Models: Including the ability to validate objects against their content models, and support for optional datastreams Optimistic Locking: The REST API now provides support for optimistic locking to ensure no one else has made a change to an object since you started editing it FeSL Authentication: FeSL Authentication can now be used independently of FeSL's experimental authorization mechanism, and is now the default authentication mechanism (although the old mechanism can be specified during installation). FeSL Authorization is still disabled by default. FeSL policies as Fedora Objects: XACML policies are now managed in FeSL directly through the Fedora API by manipulating Fedora objects containing a FESLPOLICY datastream Logging reconfiguration without restart: Using the new SLF4J and Logback logging framework, logging configuration changes now become effective without having to restart the server Akubra low-level storage: Akubra is now considered production-ready and is the default low-level storage module REST API improvements and bug fixes: further stabilizing the REST API Deprecation of "LITE" APIs: As of this release, the API-A-LITE and API-M-LITE APIs are deprecated, and will be removed in a future release. You are encouraged to migrate any code using these APIs to use the new REST API. (Source: LoomWare)

Top de las 14 mejores bibliotecas virtuales:

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 04:17:00 +0100

En base al listado de bibliotecas publicado por la página "En la red", Literatura hoy hace un ranking de las catorce mejores bibliotecas digitales: 1. Biblioteca Digital MundialTodo tipo de libros históricos, artículos y mapas de todos los países. Biblioteca virtual que cuenta con el apoyo de Naciones Unidas2. Biblioteca digital europea - EuropeanaEuropeana.eu trata de ideas y de inspiración, con enlaces a 2 millones objetos ditigales Imágenes - pinturas, dibujos, mapas, fotos y pinturas de museosTextos - libros, periódicos, cartas, diarios y papeles de archivoSonido - música y palabra hablada en cilindros, cintas, discos y emisiones de radioVídeos - películas, telediarios y programas de TV 3. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica - Biblioteca Nacional de EspañaAcceso libre a más de 10.000 obras de la biblioteca nacional. Rigurosa selección de documentos singulares que conserva la Biblioteca Nacional, cuyo contenido es esencial para el conocimiento de la cultura hispánica.4. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de CervantesLa Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, la primera en lengua castellana, es un fondo bibliográfico con obras de Literatura, Historia, Ciencias, etc., de libre acceso. Incluye trabajos de investigación, catálogo en otras lenguas y bibliotecas del mundo.5. ...

Ruido para relajarse

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 04:11:00 +0100

Hace poco completé una semana llena de exámenes y trabajos, que me obligó a aprovechar al máximo el tiempo de estudio. Esto es un poco difícil, especialmente para alguien con dificultades para concentrarse, como yo. Por lo que tuve que apelar a las más diversas técnicas para enfocarme solo en la lectura, arrancándome a bibliotecas o desconectándome de internet.Pero una de las herramientas que más me ayudo a concentrarme fue conocer el “ruido blanco”. ¿Qué es esto? Es simple de explicar: Sabemos que se denomina “luz blanca” (como la luz del sol) a la luz que posee todos los colores. Bueno, el sonido que incluye todas las frecuencias audibles, en un nivel homogéneo, se denomina por lo tanto ruido blanco.Ejemplos de ruido blanco pueden encontrarse al sintonizar una radio o un canal sin señal o en otro elementos que producen ruidos similares al ruido blanco, como un secador de pelo.Ejemplo White NoiseLo interesante de este sonido, es que tiene la capacidad de bloquear otros sonidos del ambiente,por lo cual se puede utilizar para concentrarse, meditar o solo relajarse. Muchos médicos recomiendan utilizan audífonos con Ruido Blanco para enmascarar el tinnitus que sufren algunos pacientes.Herramientas para producir este ruido blanco existen muchísimas, algunas tan simples como poner la radio en una emisora sin señal. Otra forma, es acceder a la página web que me ayudo a estudiar: www.simplynoise.com. Esta web tiene una aplicación flash que produce de manera infinita ruido blanco, además de 2 tonos que también abarcan todas las frecuencias, que denominan ruido rosa y ruido café.Unas pueden ayudarte y otras a concentrarte más. Además puedes bajar archivos mp3 a tu computador con distintas combinaciones (una es gratis, que recuerda a una noche de lluvia), por un aporte voluntario. Poseen también una aplicación en la App Store de Apple, por solo US$0,99.Ojala les sea tan útil como a mi, sea para concentrarse o solo para relajarse. ...

Wikileaks founder charged with, then cleared of, rape

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:46:27 +0100

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, was reportedly charged with rape and sexual molestation in Sweden on Saturday. He was, as the Swedish authorities put it, arrested in his absence. Naturally, conspiracy theorists were abuzz with the prospect that this was a smear campaign in retaliation for his recent publication of thousands of U.S. military memos. See, e.g., the Mashable story. Later that same day — today — Swedish authorities announced that: Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not suspected of rape. Considering that, Assange is no longer arrested in his absence. Now conspiracy theorists will have some real material to play with, I’d say. In the meantime, we await revelations as to the basis for the original charges. (Source: Slaw)

Article note: on liaison activities for academic librarians

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:50:00 +0100

Citation for the article:Kozel-Gains, Melissa A. and Richard A. Stoddart, "Experiments and Experiences in Liaison Activities: Lessons from New Librarians in Integrating Technology, Face-to-Face, and Follow-Up." Collection Management 34.2 (April 2009) :130-142. Read via Interlibrary Loan. The article reviews some librarian liaison activities. It specifically looks at blogs, customized research pages, and the use of Library Thing for collection development. The article is mostly for new librarians who find themselves with liaison duties in academia, but librarians who are already working in academia will find benefit from the article as well. The authors cite RUSA's definition of liaison work as "the process by which librarians involve the library's clientele in the assessment and satisfaction of collection needs" (131). Let me put it in plain English. If you are an academic librarian, and your role includes working with faculty in a specific department, and if said role includes work in collection development for said department/subject area, and you also provide instruction specifically to meet those department's needs, you are a library liaison. In a university setting, odds are pretty good that if you are a reference and/or instruction librarian, that you will have some level of liaison duties. Let me use myself as an example. I am the subject librarian here for the School of Education, the Department of Psychology, and the Department of Social Sciences (specifically for areas in anthropology, criminal justice, public administration, geography, and political science). This means that I promote library services to those areas. ...

Vlissingen: op bezoek bij muzeeum en het gemeentearchief

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:34:00 +0100

Ondanks het feit dat ik ben geboren in Vlissingen is het niet best gesteld met mijn kennis van het culturele erfgoed van die stad. In 'globale zin' weet ik wel het een en ander, maar vraag me naar de geschiedenis van de Koninklijke Schelde, of naar de hoogtepunten uit het leven van Frans Naerebout, en je zult zien dat ik door de mand val. #durftoetegeven, zeg je dan op Twitter. Omdat we ons binnen het project Wiki loves bieb aanvankelijk juist concentreren op het erfgoed van de Koninklijke Schelde leek het mij wel een goed idee om eens een bezoek te brengen aan MuZEEum en het Gemeentarchief Vlissingen. "Was je daar dan ook nog nooit geweest, cultuurbarbaar?" (met een waasje schaamrood op de kaken:) "Uhm, nee, ik heb zelfs moeite met het vinden van het Zeeuws Museum, terwijl ik binnen een straal van 500 meter woon." Gisteren was het zover. Ik had afgesproken met Dick Broers, die sinds dit jaar ook voor de bibliotheek Vlissingen werkt, na 21 jaar in dienst geweest te zijn van het Maritiem Museum/muZEEum. Tijdens de rondleiding, die bijna vier uur (!) duurde, vertelde Dick meer dan een normaal mens kan onthouden. Na afloop tolde mijn hoofd van de ongelooflijke feitenkennis van deze man. Ik leerde van alles over de architectuur van het gebouw, de details en achtergronden van de schilderijen, de verhalen bij objecten die uit de Westerschelde zijn gevist, en vooral ook veel over de geschiedenis van Walcheren in het algemeen en van de stad Vlissingen in het bijzonder. Prachtig. Wat is er toch eigenlijk veel gebeurd door de eeuwen heen, in deze contreien. Waar Zeeland nu toch een soort buitengebied van Nederland is geworden, was het ooit een machtig en welvarend gebied, een toegangspoort tot de wereldhandel. Na afloop van de rondleiding bezochten we het Gemeentearchief, waar ik kennismaakte met Ad Tramper. Hij toonde ons een deel van de zogenaamde Scheldecollecties. ...

I know a dog that is terrified of butterflies

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

But these Humboldt penguins really, really want one... No butterflies were harmed in the making of this picture. Interesting trivia regarding Humboldt penguins, from Wikipedia: In 2009 at a zoo in Bremerhaven, Germany, two adult male Humboldt penguins adopted an egg that had been abandoned by its biological parents. After the egg hatched, the two male penguins raised, protected, cared for, and fed the chick in the same manner that regular penguin couples raise their own biological offspring. (Source: The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind)

Webinars and such

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:22:09 +0100

Man, webinars, streamed meetings, recorded speeches, etc. are everywhere. Earlier today I stumbled across a twitter hashtag #gwws discussing a seemingly interesting (haven’t had a chance to watch it yet) presentation on screencasts and staff development. This is directly in my professional interest wheelhouse. I am lucky I noticed the hashtag. What if I hadn’t? I, on the same hand, recently facilitated the Chicagoland Library Drupal Group. We had some great content, discussing the soon to come and conquer Drupal 7 and how to allow patrons to make customized database lists using the Flag Module. We streamed and recorded the event (here). I advertised on the drupal4lib listserv, web4lib, ALA Connect and Twitter. I am positive I have missed a large portion of the audience that have or will have an interest in learning about these topics. I think it is important to put my recorded content in a place where it can easily be found. I also want a place I can easily find content that interests me. Does this exist? I don’t think so, at least I have not been able to find it. So, might as well create it, right? I have made a page on the Library Success Wiki as a home for these webinars, streamed meetings, recorded speeches and the like, titled Webinars and such. I imagine I don’t have to describe why a wiki is a good idea for this. Please add links to the wiki and spread the word. TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen (Source: Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology)

Gezocht: mensen met kennis van vlissingen en de koninklijke schelde

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:02:00 +0100

Onderstaande tekst is ongewijzigd overgenomen van Bieb Blog Vlissingen. De tekst is geschreven door Dick Broers. Het Wiki Loves Bieb-project staat al een tijdje in de steigers, maar krijgt zo langzamerhand concrete vormen. Deze week zijn met het Zeeuws maritiem muZEEum afspraken gemaakt voor ontsluiting van de collectie via Wikipedia. Naast de, hier al eerder genoemde, collectie van de voormalige Oudheidskamer KMS (Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde), zullen ook door het muZEEum de gegevens, digitaal vastgelegd in een databestand van de Stadshistorische collectie, worden overgedragen. Daarmee kunnen alle objecten worden beschreven in Wikipedia. Vrijwilligers gezocht! Bibliotheek Vlissingen zoekt vrijwilligers die het leuk vinden om bij te dragen aan het project en aan Wikipedia. Uiteraard wordt men daarbij bijgestaan door een medewerker van de bibliotheek, als men niet precies weet hoe dat moet. Opgeven? Aanmelden kan via email: dbs@spui.nl, via telefoon: 0118-422 161 (Dick Broers) of stuur een brief je naar: Bibliotheek Vlissingen t.a.v. Wiki Loves Bieb, Spuistraat 6, 4381 HR Vlissingen. Kerncollectie De kerncollectie van het muZEEum is in 2007 (M.A. De Ruyterjaar) voor een groot deel digitaal vastgelegd. Echter, binnen de organisatie van het muZEEum zijn geen mogelijkheden om zelf onderzoek te doen, waardoor de voorwerpen uit collectie uitgebreid beschreven kunnen worden. Het Wiki Loves Bieb-project biedt met deze unieke overeenkomst de mogelijkheid om nog meer Vlissingse onderwerpen breeduit op te nemen in Wikipedia. Daarmee snijdt het mes aan twee kanten: iedereen die meer van of over de objecten weet, wordt uitgenodigd om zelf aanvullingen te plaatsen. Daarmee wordt niet alleen voorzien in verruiming van de kennis van het muZEEum over de eigen collectie, maar vergroot het ook het aantal bezoekers van het muZEEum. ...

Building a business case for an external blog

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:00:41 +0100

In June, Hicks Morley launched its first external blog, “Human Resources Legislative Update”. The blog replaces a monthly newsletter on legislative changes in human resources law that was sent to clients by email and posted on our website. The downside of the newsletter format was that by the time it was published, it was often already out of date due to the frequency of legislative changes and updates. We needed a time-sensitive solution that was accessible 24/7 to our legislative writers, provided a quick and easy publishing solution and gave readers the ability to ask questions or leave comments. The Knowledge Management Group had already successfully launched an internal blog that had similar features, so we proposed an external blog to our Executive. As I was writing this column, a blog entry by Sean D’Souza entitled “5 Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your Email Newsletter” appeared on Twitter and LinkedIn. The five reasons included: content which was not useful and involved self promotion; using a voice that is not compelling; lack of structure; lack of communication regarding certain actions; and lack of frequency. Our blog business case addressed many of the same issues, including the structure and content of blog entries, target audience, frequency of updates, the proposed bloggers, the accessibility of the blog platform and the ability to moderate and respond to readers’ comments. It also included a recommendation to outsource the blog design to a vendor that specializes in developing and hosting legal blogs. The content was ideal for the firm’s first foray into the blogging sphere because it was factual and authoritative. Each blog entry would be a short, succinct summary of the legal change and its impact on our readers. Blog posts would be targeted to a niche audience interested in specific legislative developments that could also be found through topics and tags. ...

Wikipedia : lamest edit wars

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:13:29 +0100

From the folks at Open Source Living comes a link to a Wikipedia page about… Wikipedia pages. Specifically the Lamest Edit Wars on Wikipedia pages. The list contains some thought-provoking debates, and some truly trivial arguments. Some highlights of debates that became a big deal in Wikipedia lore: Compact Disc or Compact disc? J.K. Rowling. Rhymes with “rolling” or “howling”. Apparently it doesn’t matter how she pronounces it. Color/Flavor vs. Colour/Flavour… etc. Star Wars: Is the Death Star 120km or 160km in diameter? Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker – one character or two? Which came first, Episode IV or Episode I? Daylight Saving Time or Daylight Savings Time? Was Fred G. Sanford an “irascible curmudgeon” or merely “irritable”? Discuss…. (Source: LibrarySupportStaff.Org)

Interview with michael edson from the smithsonian institution

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:19:22 +0100

Meeting Michael Edson and presenting on the same docket with him was one of the highlights of my time at the U Game U Learn Conference this past April in The Netherlands. Michael Edson is Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution and was in Delft to talk about the Smithsonian Commons project that recently debuted as a prototype here: http://www.si.edu/commons/prototype/. The day after the UGUL conference, we turned a serendipitous meeting at the Delft train station into a late afternoon walk around the town and dinner filled with conversation about our work, views of organizations and the future of library/museum services. It was one of those perfect “on the road speaking” travel experiences I most enjoy. The commons project prototype is a multi-faceted, well-planned and researched virtual community that seeks to engage and inspire visitors. Explore the site for more - including videos of the various personas of visitors: museum visitor, teacher, millennial, and enthusiast. Howard Rheingold, someone I consider to be one of the best authorities of the power of virtual community and interaction, recently said: “The Smithsonian Commons is not just about using contemporary technology to further an enterprise that was founded with deep respect for American technological innovation, but about expanding the idea of the institution itself. Every click on a website, every video viewed, every exhibition shared via mobile device, every citizen scientist project, every teacher and student interaction with the Smithsonian via social media expands the idea of what the Smithsonian Institution is, who it reaches, what it can do.” (http://www.si.edu/commons/prototype/comments.html) Sadly, my travel schedule prevented me from hearing Michael at ALA Annual in Washington DC, but I gladly followed mention of his talk via Twitter and blog posts. ...

What they don?t tell you about governance, risk and complianceintegrating and auditing content across the enterprise

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0100

The understanding that an organization's content is a critical competitive asset is universally accepted. However, the scope of what comprises that content has expanded dramatically. Content is created and resides in a wide variety of sources, including email, transaction records, images, photographs, audio and video files, Web pages, wikis and blogs. Content also includes spreadsheets, documents and presentations generated by individuals at their desktops. For most organizations, statements, bills, checks, invoices and high-volume reports generated by business applications are critical content, too. The risk of not managing this content effectively is high. Think about it: Do you know where all of the content in your organization resides, who authored it, who owns it, who can access it and which version is correct. . . ? (Source: KMWorld RSS Feeds : Research Center: Records Management, Regulatory Compliance)

Bibliothek legt "internationales handwörterbuch des gewerkschaftswesens" ins netz

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:10:00 +0100

Das zweibändige Handwörterbuch erschien zu Ende der Weimarer Republik und umfasste auf 2.000 zweispaltigen Seiten etwa 1.000 Aufsätze, darunter gut 500 biographische Einträge. An der "überparteilichen" Enzyklopädie arbeiteten eine Reihe renommierter Gewerkschaftspraktiker, Funktionäre der Sozialverwaltungen und Hochschullehrer mit. Das Handbuch hatte internationalen Charakter und berücksichtigte insgesamt mehr als 40 Länder. Der Gebrauchscharakter des Nachschlagewerkes ist heute immer noch hoch. Viele der behandelten Organisationen sucht man z. B. in der Online-Enzyklopädie "Wikipedia" vergeblich. Gleiches gilt für behandelte Personen. Das Handwörterbuch wurde bis auf die Artikelebene erschlossen. Mit Hilfe einer Google-basierten Volltextsuche werden weitere differenzierte Sucheinstiege möglich sein. Mit der Online-Edition stärkt die Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung ihre Rolle als SSG-Bibliothek für den Sammelbereich Parteien und Gewerkschaften. Internationales Handwörterbuch des Gewerkschaftswesens / hrsg. von Ludwig Heyde. Berlin : Verl. Werk und Wirtschaft, 1931-1932. - XV, XVI, 2183 S. Electronic ed.: Bonn : Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2009 Link zur Online-Edition (Source: News der FES-Bibliothek)

Ifpri adopts '3-d' approach to web management

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Chris Addison writes:To accommodate a complete change in the way we use the Internet to find information and stay in touch, a new and different strategy for online publishing is essential. At IFPRI, we have been experimenting with the concept of a “3-D” approach using (1) decentralized content, (2) a descriptive system to put information in context, and (3) ways to ensure we are part of the discussion. So, we have been looking at our work through 3-D glasses, and it has brought the system vividly to life.1. DecentralizeFirst, we have begun to decentralize what we do by moving from a “one-platform-fits-all” approach to one that encourages the most appropriate platforms for particular types of content. Individuals, projects, divisions, and departments in the organization need to be able to update information online, so the ability to input data and documents cannot rest solely with one group. We make extensive use of Slideshare and YouTube whenever content is photo- or video-based. To post short communications, we use Wordpress, which we also use to create “websites on the fly.” Our publications follow an open-access workflow that ensures they are published on the IFPRI website and stored on the server repository to be accessible to all. The decentralization also applies to how our content reaches our audience. We have turned the core IFPRI website into a web engine able to produce content feeds, which can be used by others. These feeds are now one of the top sources of traffic to our website. We are also rapidly moving toward providing content that can be embedded elsewhere, as is the case with the Global Hunger Index map.2. DescribeSince our content is now so well dispersed in different platforms, it is essential to link related items through a descriptive system so that information is displayed in context. ...

Opac do koha 3.2 em português

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:43:00 +0100

O Koha é um dos melhores e mais utilizados softwares livres para bibliotecas no mundo. Mas ainda não existia uma tradução em português do Brasil. Eu consegui fazer uma tradução que ainda está incompleta, mas já está bem utilizável. Escolhi usar os arquivos comprimidos ao arquivo .PO por este último ainda ter alguns problemas. pt-br Está no Wiki do RABCI um pequeno tutorial de instalação do Koha 3.2 no Debian Squeeze. em posts relacionados. Visite o blog e faça sua busca manual. (Source: Bibliotecários Sem Fronteiras 2.0)

There’s an app for that – ask a librarian

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:25:00 +0100

“The [Washington] state library says it’s the first in the nation to offer an app for online reference service, although technically the app switches users to the phone’s browser for the online chat). The Ask-WA service, also available through a traditional web browser, makes use of more than 60 libraries and hundreds of librarians. A national cooperative of librarian helps answer questions after hours.” I like how the “other services” page that you get to if you’re not coming from a WA state IP address (I’m not) shows the Library Success Wiki, one of my favorite “stuff that works” wikis. [thanks david!] (Source: librarian.net)

Upei, web of science and knowledge for all

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

There has been a great deal of interest in the last few days in an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week. Since it is about open access to knowledge, it seemed unfortunate to me that the article is behind a fee wall, so I have copied the text below, based on the assumption that the Chronicle is actually interested in facilitating a discussion around this issue. (I had to get a colleague to send me the article since I do not subscribe.) Might I suggest to the Publisher that they move the article outside the fee wall as a nod to the importance of access to knowledge. The Knowledge for All Proposal (about which I will write more in the coming weeks) is available on the Robertson Library Website : http://library.upei.ca/k4all. Hot Type: Canadian University Hopes to Lead Fight Against High Subscription Prices U. of Prince Edward Island By Jennifer Howard Famous for mussels, serenity, and as the setting for Anne of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, the smallest of Canada's provinces, seems an unlikely hotbed of revolution. But at the University of Prince Edward Island, the province's only university, a bit of scholarly-communication revolt is stirring. On June 15, the university librarian, Mark Leggott, released a campus letter to let the faculty know the institution would not be renewing its subscription to the Web of Science database. Mr. Leggott's letter cited several reasons for the decision: "a challenging fiscal climate," a required three-year contract with price increases every year, a weaker Canadian dollar that would make those increases even harder to bear. But here are the real fighting words: "Any subscription increase in these challenging times is difficult, but an increase of 120 percent is simply not acceptable," Mr. Leggott wrote. ...

Want to be a rock 'n roll librarian?

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Looking for a career change? Want to be in the rock and roll inner sanctum?THE Keith Richards, survivor of decades of rock and roll escapades, has confessed he has always wanted to be a librarian. Yes, a librarian.He had started to arrange the thousands of books in his two homes, only to find the Dewey Decimal classification system as “too much hassle.”Librarians, here is your chance. Surely Mr. Richards will entertain unsolicited resumes and create a librarian position—if you are the right person.No “I love the disco era” librarians need apply. Those of us who grew up in the early days of rock and roll should have first shot. The interview would likely include questions like which of the Rolling Stones albums sold the most; what album has the song “I can’t get no satisfaction,” and other key questions to test your knowledge.How could a librarian refuse such a position, when Richards himself said “When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser.”Well, maybe if it were a choice between Richards and Johnny Depp that might be a difficult decision. Nah, it's a no-brainer.By PCH @MainPhoto courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. (Source: ICARUS... the Santa Fe Public Library Blog)

Book trailer thursday: the clock without a face

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:30:18 +0100

One of the oddest books to receive a Booklist star this year is Gus Twintig’s The Clock without a Face, a picture-book (kind of) mystery (kind of) that’s a head-scratcher on more levels than you have fingers to scratch. To boil it waaaaaaay down, the Emerald Khroniker, a clock of incalculable value, has been stolen, and someone in a 12-story apartment is the one whodunit. What has gained more attention than the book’s clever characters and droll writing, frankly, is the ongoing hullabaloo surrounding the bonus mystery: each spread in the book contains secret codes that refer to 12 actual locations across America, where actual jewel-encrusted clock numbers await discovery. It’s a real-word/fictional-world mash-up that has amateur puzzlers a-puzzling. If this is your kind of thing, you probably already have the wiki bookmarked. So it’s no surprise that the book trailer–if you want to call it that–is one more sleight of hand. Presented as Episode #308 (is that a clue!?!) of a TV show called “Mystery/History,” it runs down the cursed past of the Emerald Khroniker. Using the sonorous voice-over and ominous music of TV documentaries trying to convince you that the Mothman just might be real!, it’s a lovely mock-up that holds off playing its full satirical hand until partway through. (One tip-off: a man whose credential is simply “Expert.” Another: the list of rumored Khroniker owners including Larry King, Carrot Top, and the cast of “Who’s the Boss?”) Verdict: Totally confused! Isn’t it great? (Source: Likely Stories)

Wikipedia's lamest edit wars

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Click to enlarge or an even larger version is here. (Source: The Centered Librarian)

Ifla report: delivering information literacy programmes in the context of network society and cross-cultural perspectives

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

This report on a talk by Huy Nghiem continues blog posts from the 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, held 10-15 August 2010, in Gothenburg, Sweden. The conference site is at http://www.ifla.org/en/ifla76. There is a podcast of this talk here, courtesy of Niels Damgaard. The full paper is:Huy Nghiem (College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam) Delivering information literacy programmes in the context of network society and cross-cultural perspectiveshttp://www.ifla.org/files/hq/papers/ifla76/74-nghiem-en.pdfHuy started by briefly indicating recent trends. He noted that there are many theories and frameworks on IL (e.g. SCONUL, Big 6). There is a new information lanscape, with social networking tools, and the way we use these digital tools has changed our information landscape and also opportunities for cross-cultural communication.Nuy presented a diagram (shown in the full text paper) that illustrated that individuals on the one hand are receiving information from many channels, often passively (with channels that cannot be controlled or customised), but also with opportunities for sharing and communicating. Also individuals are retrieving material (e.g. from wikis, paper based surces) to learn or make meaning, education, social inclusion or employability. Information literacy is important in helping to achieve this.In terms of the network society, so much is powered by networks and technology nowadays. What is important is the principle of inclusion. The network society can have an impact that is related to culture, country etc.Huy quoted Spiranec and Zorica (2009) “IL [IL] has its root in the activities of particular groups and communities; it evolves in disciplinary and other contexts and is practiced by communities using their corresponding technologies”, emphasising that is social as well as technical issue. ...

Common craft security

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

We've already blogged about Common Craft, that fantastic source of short and informative videos. For anyone and everyone who uses a computer, public or private, please check out this video about Secure Passwords. It gives you tips to make your password hack-resistant, and also gives valuable advice about using publicly-shared computers.While you're on the site, check out some of their other videos. For example, if you've always wondered about that Wikipedia, they provide a fantastic introduction. You'll be an expert in no time. (Source: ICARUS... the Santa Fe Public Library Blog)

Personal knowledge management by harold jarche (blueiq ambassadors)

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:39:29 +0100

If you have been following this blog for a little while now, you would know how Personal Knowledge Management, a.k.a. PKM, or Personal Knowledge Sharing (PKS), whichever term you would prefer to make use of, has always been one of my favourite topics to talk about and share some further insights over here and elsewhere. It’s been all along one of those areas that has always caught my attention since way back when I was first involved with KM in the late 90s. It’s one of those fascinating fields that has permeated successfully throughout time from traditional KM and into the world of Social Networking reaching a new level of awareness that surely makes it all worth while diving into, if you haven’t done so just yet. More than anything else, because, if anything, that interest will keep raising as time goes by! And here is why … Managing knowledge is quite a daunting task; in fact, most people claim (I am one of them, too!) that it is almost impossible to manage it successfully. How can you manage what you yourself don’t know really that well after all? How can you manage what you are just not even aware you are knowledgeable about till you are confronted with it? How can you manage what you know till you eventually have a need for it to resurface again? Quite an interesting set of questions, don’t you think? So where does Personal Knowledge Management fit in then? Well, indeed, it’s impossible to manage knowledge, even your own knowledge. However, knowledge workers can have a good chance to self manage some of that knowledge so that they can re-find and reuse it effectively and efficiently at a later time. There are a whole bunch of processes and traditional technologies that have been helping people try to figure out how they can have their own PKM strategy. ...

Google og metaweb

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Google erhvervede midt i den danske juli-hedebølge Metaweb. Dette er officielt søgemaskinefirmaets seneste forsøg på at udvikle et semantisk søgesystem til korte svar på spørgsmål. Men som sådant er det ikke noget nyt: Søgemaskinen Ask er ligefrem levet af sådanne funktioner i årevis.Så hvad kan grunden være? Googleblog siger at det er fordi Metaweb har en database med 12 millioner film, bøger, TV shows, geografiske lokaliteter, mm. Bag de lidt kryptiske formuleringer gemmer sig en base, Freebase. Det ser ud til at være et emnekatalog med en række ressourcer. Hvem der har udvalgt det, og til hvilket formål står mig ikke særlig klart. Det er sådan set nemt nok at gå til. Der er både en emneindgang, og en søgemulighed med gode forslag så snart du starter at skrive i søgefeltet.Men så hører tilgængeligheden også op. Det er et udvalg af ressourcer som ikke umiddelbart giver nogen mening. Nogle er fuldtekst, mens andre er bibliografiske henvisninger eller leksikale artikler om en bestemt bog, film el. lign. Eller slet og ret henvisninger til andre ressourcer, som fx Wikipedia.Måske ligger hemmeligheden i at bag Freebase står frivillige som leverer stoffet. Formålet med det hele er at finde den rette information til de rette læsere. Men dette formål er jo snart sagt hvad alle påstår at ville.Eller ligger hemmeligheden i hvem der står bag? Ledelsen af Metaweb og Freebase er tilsyneladende nogle nørder fra de mest kendte universiteter i USA, Stanford, MIT og Yale. Så måske er formålet i sidste ende at støvsuge markedet for kloge hoveder. Denne form for "kannibalisme" er set før, og af andre firmaer. Tænk blot på Yahoo's opkøb af bl.a. All The Web, eller Ask af Teoma for år tilbage.Tilsyneladende har Google valgt at skyde med spredehagl for at imødekomme dette behov. For over et år siden var det Google Squared fra Google Labs. Andre har været "lignende sider" og den nye venstremenu. ...

Kmers – let go of control: encourage and monitor

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:59:18 +0100

Earlier on today, on my blog post around 10 Reasons NOT to Ban Social Media in Organisations I was eventually sharing a number of different arguments as to why social computing within the enterprise is a worth while effort to pursue further. Those arguments were trying to provide a reply to the original resource that stated why some businesses out there may not be that open and receptive, just yet, to social networking. So I thought in this blog entry I would continue to pick things up and share some further insights, specially around a number of those headings picked up by this meme itself. Namely, it’s about controlling the message, employees will goof off, social media is a time waster and employees can’t be trusted. How do I plan to continue the conversation? Well, with a little help of my friends, of course! In the past, you would remember how I have been talking about a special group of KMers, right? A bunch of really smart, witty, incredibly insightful, thought-provoking, passionate and rather enthusiastic people about the topics of Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Communities, Learning and Social Networking. Yes, that’s right! That talented group of great thinkers! Well, every Tuesday at noon EDT they get together on Twitter (I try to join them as many times as I possibly can), pick up a topic and a moderator and they embark, in my opinion, on some of the most interesting and exciting conversations you can have around on the Internet at the moment, covering various different areas, but perhaps with a special focus on KM itself, after all. Like last week’s, around the topic of "Let go of Control; Encourage and Monitor", moderated by my good friend, and KM extraordinaire, Stan Garfield. ...

Links zu lambert academic publishing (lap) und vdm

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:41:55 +0100

Jürgen Plieninger schreibt in Netbib: Interessanter Titel, dünn und teuer (65 Seiten für mehr als 50 Euro, Respekt!). Blick auf den Verlag: Nein, “Lambert Academic Publishing”. Blick auf den Kollationsvermerk: Doch! Dieselbe Adresse in Saarbrücken: “Dudenweiler Landstr. 99 66123 Saabrücken”. Man sollte also bei den Bestelldaten nicht nur kritisch nach VDM, sondern auch nach “Lambert” schauen. Die Liste der Verlage, die zur VDM Verwaltung Aktiengesellschaft gehören, umfasst neben VDM und LAP noch einige weitere. In Wikipedia steht dazu noch: Der Verlag Dr. Müller ist auf die Publikation deutsch-, französisch- und englischsprachiger Dissertationen und Forschungsarbeiten spezialisiert. Für Autoren sind die VDM-Dienstleistungen kostenlos. Das Geschäftsmodell von VDM basiert auf einer Gruppe von Akquisemitarbeitern, die das Internet nach in Frage kommenden akademischen Autoren durchsuchen und diesen per E-Mail ein Angebot für die Rechte an ihren Manuskripten machen. Manuskripte werden üblicherweise nicht lektoriert, da man annimmt, als akademische Texte hätten sie „ausreichend hohe Qualität“. Ein Korrekturlesen findet aus ökonomischen Erwägungen ebenfalls nicht statt. Die Auswahl von Cover, Klappentext etc. wird vom Autor selbst über ein Onlineformular erledigt. VDM Publishing behauptet von sich selbst, mehr als 10.000 neue Titel zu publizieren und damit „eines der führenden Verlagshäuser für akademische Forschung“ zu sein. Was andere über LAP/VDM schreiben: What Strange Spam Is This? (mit über 100 Kommentaren) Investigating “Lambert Academic Publishing” with Google Square (Nachschlag zum 1. ...

Aginfo developments in mauritius

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Mauritius recently hosted a 'National Workshop on Agricultural Information Communication Knowledge Management (AICKM) Strategy development.' See reports in the News of Agriculture from Mauritius blog.This was preceded by several days 'Web 2.0 Collaborative Tools Training' (check stories from early July 2010) in which "participants were exposed to tools covering: social media, RSS, blogs, wikis, Dgroups, GoogleDocs, social bookmarking, learning management and online surveys."Look out for lots more aginfo 2.0 from Mauritius! (Source: AgInfo News from IAALD)

#idsconf10 -- oclc web services for developers: worldcat api, et al.

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:37:00 +0100

August 3,2010 -- Tuesday Session #4 (4:10 pm - 5:00 pm) • OCLC Web Services for Developers: WorldCat API, et al. Have you wondered just what a web services is, and what it would mean to use one? Are you thinking of investing effort into building new systems that rely on web services, or enhancing an existing service with API-provided data? OCLC offers a variety of web services such as xISSN, WorldCat Search API, WorldCat Identities, and the WorldCat Registry provide a variety of data which can be used to enhance and improve current library interfaces. This session will provide an overview of the web services offered by OCLC and demonstrate several simple real world applications which use the data from these services in libraries. Examples such a Javascript and PHP code to add journal of table of contents information, peer-reviewed journal designation, links to other libraries in the area with a book, also available ..., and info about this author will be discussed. Karen A. Coombs' Biography Karen A. Coombs is a librarian and geek coder with an interest in mashups, web services, and library web sites and interfaces. Currently she is the Product Manager for the OCLC Developer Network, a community of developers collaborating in a “sandbox” environment in order to propose, discuss and test OCLC Web Services. Prior to joining OCLC, she worked part time as a Web Application Specialist for LISHost and as a library web technology consultant. From 2005 - 2010, Karen served as the Head of Web Services at the University of Houston Libraries. ...

Non words

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:03:33 +0100

What would you call a collection of non words? That question occurs to me with the news that Oxford University Press has a vault containing millions of “non words” notated on 4″ x 6″ cards. These are the words that were rejected for inclusion to the Oxford English Dictionary. My first thought was along the lines of “wouldn’t that be interesting in book form!” But what would they call it? Then the word “millions” sunk in. According to the OED’s Wikipedia entry, the dictionary had slightly more than 300,000 entries in November 2005. The last complete edition, published in 1989, was bound in 20 volumes. If you have used the set, you could understand how daunting the publishing of “millions” of entries would be. So what could we call it? The Oxford English Undictionary? (Source: LibrarySupportStaff.Org)

Geräusche und sounds aller art zum freien download

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:40:24 +0100

Wer Geräusche, Sounds oder Samples jeglicher Art sucht und auch weiterverwenden möchte, ist beim Freesound Project definitiv richtig. Beispiele: Gewitter Herzklopfen Gruselmusik auf verstimmtem Klavier Wie in der Wikipedia gibt es auch hier die höchst unterhaltsame Funktion, sich einfach zufällig irgendeine Seite vorschlagen zu lassen. Und hier geht’s zum Random Sample. Alle Geräusche sind lizenziert unter der Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. (Source: Infobib)

Lonely planet launches interactive ebook travel guides

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:53:29 +0100

According to an interview in Blackbook, Lonely Planet is launching a new series of interactive travel ebooks. The digital format will allow them to include hyperlinks within the book and to external websites. For example, POIs will include hyperlinked website addresses. Places can be bookmarked and terms can be searched in Google or Wikipedia. The new Discover series is meant to be viewed on the iPad initially and they are looking to get it on the iPhone. Five ebooks are available: Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Italy and France with more titles on the way. As new Discover titles are issued in print they intend to release them in ebook format as well. Much more info in the article. Thanks to eBookNewser for the heads up. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)

Lonely planet launches interactive ebook travel guides

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:53:29 +0100

Lonely planet releases more mobile city ‘compass’ guides with augmented reality; company also goes live with guidebook series for ipad

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:01:06 +0100

Two items of note today from Lonely Planet. 1. The release of more ‘Compass Guides’ with augmented reality built in. 2. The release of five Lonely Planet titles for iPad from the iPad Bookstore. From The Bookseller: + Available for Lonely Planet ‘Compass Guides’ for 25 Cities including Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Prague and New York City for $4.99 (3.12 pounds) from the Android store. + 25 More Cities to Come If Sales Go Well Note: Last Fall, Lonely Planet released 10 ‘Compass Guides’ via Mobilizy (developers of Wikitude) “This is a way of us testing the Android Marketplace,” Lonely Planet’s innovation ecosystems manager Matthew Cashmore tells paidContent:UK. “There is potential here. We have 25 guides —if things go well, we will roll out the rest.” [Clip] The application pinpoints your exact location so that when you find yourself in a new city and want to know what there is to see and do around you, just look through the camera and a wealth of Lonely Planet information on the best destinations, accommodation, sites, bars and restaurants appear stuck like posted notes to points of interest around you.” Key features of the guides include GPS-enabled maps and location based information for hundreds of points of interest. The phone’s built in compass allows users to see their current location and how near they are to destinations and sites. The guides also are able to be used offline (with the exception of the maps), so as to avoid roaming charges. See Also: Lonely Planet Tries Augmented Reality In Search For ‘Relevant Ubiquity’ (via MocoNews) See Also: On a Related Note: Sarah Houghton-Jan From the San Jose Public Library Has Posted a Recent Presentation That She Gave About Augmented Reality 43 slides. As always, this a presentation that many will find useful. It can also serve as a great intro to the topic. ...

Trb 90th annual meeting, january 23-27, 2011 - call for poster proposals - search, discovery and current awareness: new and innovative uses of online research tools in transportation research and implementation

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

TRB 90th Annual Meeting, January 23-27, 2011 - Call for Poster ProposalsCall TitleSearch, Discovery and Current Awareness: New and Innovative Uses of Online Research Tools in Transportation Research and ImplementationSponsoring CommitteeABG40 Committee on Library and Information Science for Transportation (LIST)Call DescriptionThe Committee on Library and Information Science for Transportation invites you to submit proposals for a poster session focusing on new and innovative uses of practical online search, discovery and current awareness tools that can give modern transportation professionals a competitive edge. Posters will be displayed at the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, January 2011.BackgroundExtending a theme begun with LIST’s 2006 presentation session on wikis, blogs, RSS and podcasting, and continued in 2007, 2008, and 2009 with LIST sessions on the application of Web 2.0 social media technologies, the committee is issuing a call for posters related to new and innovative uses of online research tools as they relate to search, discovery and current awareness in transportation. This poster session is designed to complement this year’s LIST-sponsored workshop titled “The Right Tool for the Job: Search, Discovery and Current Awareness Tools, Tips and Tricks for Busy Transportation Professionals.” While the workshop will provide a high-level overview and will focus specifically on TRB and Google tools and ways they can be used to find high-quality transportation information, the poster session will allow presenters to explore specific tools and specific techniques in great depth. This poster session is not limited to TRB and Google tools.DescriptionThe poster session will focus on new and innovative uses of tools and techniques that can be used by transportation professionals to save time and improve the work effectiveness of professionals who must quickly search for, find and ultimately make decisions based on reliable information. ...

Fbi order to wikipedia "silly" and "troubling"

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 02:58:24 +0100

This is pretty ridiculous. The FBI recently sent a letter to Wikipedia (PDF) demanding that Wikipedia take down the FBI seal shown on the wikipedia article on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Does the FBI have nothing better to do than hassle Wikipedia (who's written a thorough and informative description of the FBI)?! As one Redditor named TheCid mused: "Somehow, I think a shit-for-brains lawyer at the FBI thinks Wikipedia and Wikileaks are the same organization, and decided to try to get at the latter via the former." The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.’s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal. Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided. F.B.I., Challenging Use of Seal, Gets Back a Primer on the Law By JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: August 2, 2010 [Thanks GovTwit!] (Source: Free Government Information (FGI) blogs)

More details on connecticut agency pricing investigation

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:35:34 +0100

Sharp-eyed TeleReader Aaron Pressman noticed this article yesterday, though it didn’t show up in my Google Reader until today. Though he mentioned it in his comment, and we did link a video earlier today, we never actually linked this rather informative article from the Wall Street Journal which sets the issues down in print. The Connecticut Attorney General has followed in the footsteps of the Texas Attorney General in investigating the possible anticompetitive ramifications of Apple’s and five of the Big Six publishers’ agency pricing scheme, which they have forced on Amazon and every other e-book seller. The article also points out that the FTC and the Justice Department have also been looking into other possibly anticompetitive behavior on the part of Apple, and a source says that the agency pricing deals are being looked into as part of that investigation. Update: Also interesting: the FTC turned down a Freedom of Information Act Request by Wired for information pertaining to the Apple/Adobe third-party development environment spat. “These records are exempt… because disclosure of that material could reasonably be expected to interfere with the conduct of the Commission’s law enforcement activities.” (Found via BoingBoing.) Whether agency pricing is legal or not hinges on an interesting legal argument. As Doug pointed out in a comment: [It] has long been legal in the US for sellers to set minimum selling prices on consignment sales. That’s what the “Agency Model” terminology is intended to suggest: that the publishers are the actual sellers of the product. That the bookstores aren’t buying product and then re-selling it; they’re just taking orders from customers and delivering the product. (See also C.E. Petit’s legal analysis of the agency pricing deal, from back in January.) I just want to know how that electronic goods can be “consigned” at all. ...

Burkas and bikinis | priyamvada gopal

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:00:13 +0100

Time magazine's cover is the latest cynical attempt to oversimplify the reality of Afghan livesReprising a legendary 1985 National Geographic cover, this week's Time magazine cover girl is another beautiful young Afghan woman. But this time there is a gaping hole where her nose used to be before it was cut off under Taliban direction. A stark caption reads: "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan". A careful editorial insists that the image is not shown "either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it". The stated intention is to counterbalance damaging the WikiLeaks revelations – 91,000 documents that, Time believes, cannot provide "emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land".Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify occupation is a cynical ploy, and the Time cover already stands accused of it. Interestingly, the WikiLeaks documents reveal CIA advice to use the plight of Afghan women as "pressure points", an emotive way to rally flagging public support for the war.Misogynist violence is unacceptable, but we must also be concerned by the continued insistence that the complexities of war, occupation and reality itself can be reduced to bedtime stories. Consultation with child psychologists apparently preceded Time's decision to run the image, but the magazine decided that in the end it was more important for children (and us) to understand that "bad things do happen to people" and we must feel sorry for them. The WikiLeaks revelations of atrocities and civilian deaths are evidence of some rather terrible things that are done to people but are bizarrely judged not to provide a "window into the reality of what is happening".Time is not alone in condensing Afghan reality into simplistic morality tales. ...

Openstreetmap data becomes available as a new “layer” on bing maps

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:07:50 +0100

From a Bing Blog Post by Chris Pendleton: OpenStreetMap (OSM) is the newest layer for Bing Maps and the newest Bing Map App in the gallery. The map app, dubbed simply, “OpenStreetMap” loads OSM maps as a new map style option. OpenStreetMap follows a similar concept as Wikipedia, but for maps and other geographic facts (despite its name, it’s by no means only limited to streets and roads). People, like you and me, gather location data across the globe from a variety of sources such as recordings from GPS devices, from free satellite imagery or simply from knowing an area very well, for example because they live there. This information then gets uploaded to OpenStreetMap’s central database from where it can be further modified, corrected and enriched by anyone who notices missing facts or errors about the area. Direct to OpenStreetMap Learn More About OpenStreetMap (Including a Beginner’s Guide via the OSM Wiki) Source: Bing Maps Blog Hat Tip: Adena Schutzberg at All Points Blog (Source: ResourceShelf)

Insite - august 2, 2010

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:46:38 +0100

InSITE: A Current Awareness Service of Cornell Law Library - Vol. 15, No. 23, August 2, 2010 is now available. Contents: # Defenders Online # FIRE: Foundation for Individual Rights in Education # WikiLeaks (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)

Infographic: the information explosion, forecasts, and the cloud

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:33:24 +0100

If you like infographics, forecasts, and comparisons about the booming amount of information (some might call it data) available, THIS GRAPHIC IS FOR YOU. From the Wikibon Blog: Even in 2009?s “Great Recession,” the amount of digital information grew 62% over 2008 to 800 billion gigabytes (0.8 Zettabytes). It is projected that the amount of digital information that will be created in 2010 could fill 75 billion fully-loaded 16 GB Apple iPads. What’s critical to realize is that 35% more digital information is created today than the capacity exists to store it; and this number will jump to over 60% over the next several years. While it might seem the responsibility of the consumer, most of these gigabytes of data will pass through the servers, network, or routers of an enterprise at some point. When they do, the enterprise is responsible at that moment for managing that content, protecting user privacy, watching over account information, and protecting copyright. Some fun comparisons and illustrations with the amount of data and elephants, skyscrapers, stadiums, and more. Finally, at the bottom of the infographic, you’ll find a list of sources (you’ll need to enlarge and look closely). Here it is. Click the infographic for a larger copy. Enjoy! Via: Wikibon Source: Wikibon Hat Tips: Alison Gow and The Guardian (Source: ResourceShelf)

Civic holiday today

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:30:32 +0100

As we said last year on the first Monday in August: Slaw will be quieter than usual today: it’s the August civic holiday here in most of Canada, which, as befits our particular federation, goes by various names across the land — Alberta (Heritage Day) British Columbia (British Columbia Day) Manitoba (Civic Holiday) New Brunswick (New Brunswick Day) Northwest Territories (Civic Holiday) Nova Scotia (Natal Day) Nunavut (Civic Holiday) Ontario (John Galt Day + Simcoe Day + others) Prince Edward Island (Natal Day) Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan Day) [source: Wikipedia] – or is not celebrated at all, as in Newfoundland & Labrador, Quebec, and Yukon. (Source: Slaw)

More shakespeare in the parking lot

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100

The Next Stage Ensemble of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey presents an hour-long version of The Rover by Aphra Behn this Friday, August 6 at 7 p.m. in the parking lot behind the library. This often-overlooked classic of the 17th century theatre is directed by longtime Shakespeare Theatre company member Doug West. The Rover is recommended for ages 12 and up. Free, please bring your own chair. If it is pouring rain, the performance will take place at the Community Center at 29 Park Avenue, but if the weather is just iffy, stop by the library first. A 2009 performance by the Next Stage EnsembleThe Rover is full of action, swashbuckling adventure and true (and false) love. Through a series of intrigues and mistaken identities, the play’s young heroine uses her wit and imagination to prevail in a man’s world. According to Wikipedia, The "rover" of the play's title is Willmore, a rake and naval captain, who falls in love with a young woman named Hellena, who has set out to experience love before her brother sends her to a convent. Complications arise when Angellica Bianca, a famous courtesan who falls in love with Willmore, swears revenge on him for his betrayal. The playwright, Aphra Behn, was a spy for Charles II in Antwerp, beginning in 1666 - the Second Anglo-Dutch War had broken out the year previous. Codenamed Astrea, she extracted valuable political secrets from her lover there. However, the English king did not pay her promptly, and she ended up in a debtor's prison in London. Later, Behn wrote for her living, the first woman in the English-speaking world to do so. (See the Wikipedia article for more information.) (Source: Berkeley Heights Public Library Book Blog and Buzz)

Social media: someone at canada’s defence department altering info critical of government

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:40:13 +0100

From the Ottawa Sun: Nine attempts were made July 20 and 21 to alter the online encyclopedia’s entry on the Joint Strike Fighter, including the removal of any information critical of the Conservative government’s plan to spend at least $16 billion on the new fighter aircraft. Defence Department computers were also used to insert insults, aimed at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, into the Wikipedia Joint Strike Fighter page. Ignatieff has questioned the proposed purchase. Nine attempts were made July 20 and 21 to alter the online encyclopedia’s entry on the Joint Strike Fighter, including the removal of any information critical of the Conservative government’s plan to spend at least $16 billion on the new fighter aircraft. [Snip] The attempts to change the web page, made during government work hours, stopped when Wikipedia administrators temporarily locked down the entry on the new plane. That allowed only recognized editors to work on the page. That particular Wikipedia site is popular, with more than 78,000 page views in the first three weeks of July. [Snip] Meanwhile, after the Wikipedia JSF site was re-opened for editing by the wider public, new attempts were made to remove information critical of the Harper government’s decision on the fighters. Those are linked to a downtown Calgary location. Access the Complete Article Source: Ottawa Sun See Also: Wikipedia data on new fighter altered (via Post Media) See Also: The Wikipedia Article See Also: The Wikipedia Article Revision Page (as of 8/1/2010) (Source: ResourceShelf)

U.s. dates for sherlock

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:33:24 +0100

U.S. dates for Sherlock***”Masterpiece Mystery!” will offer a new series of “Wallander” with Kenneth Branagh on Oct. 3, 10 and 17. “Sherlock” presents Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in the London of today. Martin Freeman plays Watson. Oct. 24, 31, Nov. 7. (Orlando Sentinel).(see Wikipedia link for official website and tie-in website. Warning: at least the Watson one is *extremely* spoilery for the episode that already aired. I haven't looked at the others, yet.) (Source: BentleyBlog)

August 2010

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:19:37 +0100

Welcome to the Link. Each month the ipl2 brings you some of the best information sites on the Internet. If you have an Internet connection, you can connect with us! The August edition of the Link is bursting with birthdays and celebrations throughout the world. So join the party and explore the world through these colorful and informative websites! Suggest a site for the ipl2. Know of a great site, but you cannot find it in the ipl2? Use the form located at http://www.ipl.org/div/contact/ to let us know about good resources to add to our collections. AUGUST 1 NATIONAL DAY (SWITZERLAND) Swiss National Day Celebration Photo – found on Creative Commons – Flickr Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/traviscrawford/2723772172/ Country Profile: Switzerland http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1035212.stm This news site provides an overview of Switzerland, including basic facts, profile of leaders, timeline of key events, and description of local media. Features news stories, an audio file of the Swiss national anthem, and links to related sites. From the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). INDEPENDENCE DAY (BENIN) Country Profile: Benin http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1064527.stm Profile of Benin, including demographic facts, historical overview, timeline of key events back to 1946, and information about Benin’s leaders and media. Site also includes links to related news stories and audio of the national anthem. From the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). AUGUST 2 INDEPENDENCE DAY (JAMAICA) Satellite image of Jamaica in November 2001.jpg http://tinyurl.com/26qjnsw Country Profile: Jamaica http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1190968.stm Profile of this Caribbean island, “the birthplace of Rastafarianism.” Includes demographic facts, historical overview, timeline of key events, and information about Jamaican leaders and media. ...

A soft spot for the ask search engine

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:28:44 +0100

Ask is relaunched with a question and answer database. We have always had a soft spot for the Ask search engine. Throughout the years they have managed to make some serious innovations as regards search technology and the presentation of search results. For instance: When Google and Bing presents search results in three column table, with results in the center, that is an idea they stole from Ask. But for some peculiar reason Ask seems to lose its direction. Ask abandoned that design for one that looked like the old version of Google before Google and Bing copied them. It is as if Ask lacks the courage to follow its ideas through, and ends up as a bleak copy of its competitors. Natural language Ask (or Ask Jeeves as it was called) originally was known as the natural language search engine. The idea was that you could enter a regular question in the search field: “Who is the president of the USA?”, instead of the queries we all use now: “president USA”. Ask Jeeves had a database of such questions, where the results were hand picked by human editors. If a relevant response could not be found in the search engine fetched results from its regular search index. It turned out that this wasn’t much of a competitive advantage after all, partly because searchers quickly learned the short hand of search engine queries, partly because Google became very good at guessing what you were looking for and partly because it takes a lot of work to manage a human edited database. A return to answers Ask has not given up on the idea, though. In 2008 and 2009 it announced that it was going to revive the idea of natural language search, this time base on automated semantic search. It didn’t make much of a difference. This week Ask (Ask Jeeves in Britain) was relaunched as a natural language search engine again, this time based on a human edited database of responses. ...

Stewart lee: my life on the shelf

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:07:52 +0100

What happens to a man who compulsively collects comics, books, records and CDs? He becomes very good at building shelves… Comedian Stewart Lee on the challenges and hazards of extreme storageWhat are days for?" asks the curmudgeonly poet Philip Larkin in his poem Days, questioning the very point of living. He is unable to offer any real comfort, concluding: "Ah, solving that question/brings the priest and the doctor/in their long coats/running over the fields." For Larkin the idea of days, and what to do with them, represents the problem of existence boiled down to its barest essentials. I have a similar relationship with shelves.I love shelves, and if only I could work out exactly which of the many books, comics, records and compact discs that I own I should fill them with, and how many shelves I require to do this, I have always imagined my life would be complete. At the age of 43, I am finally in a solid-looking house, with my solid-looking family, where I imagine, uncharacteristically, I will stay for some time. I am well on the way, through my own efforts and those of contracted shelving professionals, to having the shelving system I have dreamed of since childhood, most of it concealed in nooks, cellars and the designated shelf room, so as not to destroy the internal integrity of our long-dreamed-of living space. But even as the shelves approach their final configuration, it seems the same doubts and fears about life and its purpose linger on, as if the answer to everything did not lie in the construction of shelving systems after all. I wonder where this profound faith in shelving began.When I was about five years old, I bought a copy of an American comic book called Captain Marvel off the lower rung of a revolving rack of True Detective, soft porn and pulpy thriller magazines, in a newsagent on the A34 just outside Birmingham. I was snagged. ...

Anne frank: was her diary intended as a work of art?

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:05:59 +0100

American critic Francine Prose argues that Anne Frank was a precocious young writer who set out to create more than just a diary of her experiencesIn a brilliant observation, Philip Roth once described Anne Frank as Kafka's "lost little daughter". Frank's diary of her sequestration in the secret annexe of 263 Prinsengracht in Amsterdam is surely one of the most compelling documents of 20th-century European history, a heartbreaking, at times uplifting, record of a young life scorched and then exterminated by the Nazis.But the title is misleading. Yes, it was first a diary, a teenage girl's response to extraordinary and terrifying day-to-day events. On closer examination, however, the back story of the "diary" and its composition reveals neither a wordstruck ingenue nor an impetuous adolescent scribbler but a precocious young writer at pains to create a work of art. Such is the argument of an absorbing new study by the American critic Francine Prose – Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife (Atlantic £16.99, pp336).Prose explores how the book that began as Het Achterhuis ("the house behind") went through many drafts in composition, and then several postwar incarnations before it acquired its canonical title, The Diary of Anne Frank – as a Broadway play. Prose also describes how Frank discovered her vocation as a writer through the experience of confiding her thoughts to a cardboard-bound notebook, and how the text she created has become a touchstone of 21st-century responses to the atrocities of Nazism.It is a measure of Frank's achievement that her work has inspired the most partisan and obsessive devotion on Broadway and in Hollywood, as well as provoking some of the most ludicrous episodes in the vile catalogue of Holocaust denial. Among those people, it has become commonplace to claim that The Diary of Anne Frank is a forgery.The afterlife of books is one of the mysteries and fascinations of any library. ...

Necrofilia 2.0

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:38:13 +0100

Necrofilia 2.0: Síndrome que afecta a estudiosos de la web 2.0 que se caracteriza por el afán de predecir la muerte de alguna herramienta de Internet. Desde que comencé a utilizar la Internet he escuchado hablar a estudiosos de la web comentar sobre la muerte de algunas herramientas de la web. Hace años que están matando el correo electrónico y el mismo sigue “vivito y coleando”. Lo que ha ocurrido es que el correo electrónico está cambiando. Después con el auge de los blogs comenzamos a matar las páginas web. Y digo comenzamos porque hasta este servidor ha pecado de este síndrome. Y se ha discutido extensamente la llamada muerte de los blogs, mientras los mismos continúan resucitando y transformándose de forma impresionante. DigiZen está hoy más vivo que nunca. Más adelante, le toco el turno a los wikis y se ha cuestionado si están muriendo. Si los wikis están muriendo pues han sabido muy bien como resucitar constantemente. Recientemente los necrófilos 2.0 la han cogido con el RSS y han anunciado su muerte. En mi caso el RSS y sus agregadores es esencial para mi trabajo y no me parece que vaya a desaparecer a pesar de que reconozco que Twitter ha reducido el uso que le doy al mismo. He aprendido la lección. No vale la pena predecir la muerte de estas herramientas. Lo mejor es hablar de la colaboración, la creación y la comunicación que se puede lograr mediante las mismas. Es decir, lo mejor es hablar de la Vida que son capaces de generar. Aunque pensándolo bien, ¿se han dado cuenta que Google Wave está muerto? Parece que no he aprendido bien la lección … (Source: DigiZen: Un blogfesor aprendiendo)

Berkman buzz: week of july 26, 2010

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:25:00 +0100

BERKMAN BUZZ: A look at the past week's online Berkman conversations If you would like to receive the Buzz weekly via email, please sign up here. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * What's being discussed...take your pick or browse below. * Wendy Seltzer, "Jailbreaking Copyright's Scope." * Facebook caper? Jonathan Zittrain holsters his pitchfork. * Facebook privacy settings? danah boyd, Eszter Hargittai ask, "Who cares?" * Peace on Facebook? Ethan Zuckerman tries to do the math. * Dan Gillmor's initial comments on the WikiLeaks "Afghanistan diary." * Weekly Global Voices: "Côte d'Ivoire: Journalists accused of document theft are freed" * Herdict on court-ordered filtering in Russia. * CMLP on the FTC's defense of its Blogger Endorsement Guidelines. * Radio Berkman 160: "Business, Meet Web" * Doc Searls' belated eulogy for Ricochet. * David Weinberger imagines a software-defined radio future. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The full buzz. "A bit late for the rule’s “triennial” cycle, the Librarian of Congress has released the sec 1201(a)(1)(C) exceptions from the prohibitions on circumventing copyright access controls. For the next three years, people will not be ” circumventing” if they “jailbreak” or unlock their smartphones, remix short portions of motion pictures on DVD (if they are college and university professors or media students, documentary filmmakers, or non-commercial video-makers), research the security of videogames, get balky obsolete dongled programs to work, or make an ebook read-aloud. (I wrote about the hearings more than a year ago, when the movie studios demoed camcording a movie — that didn’t work to stop the exemption. ...

Tweet the ids conference #idsconf10

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:07:00 +0100

I am sending this again. I have gotten a few volunteers. I am hoping for more. In my role as the “Conference Coordinator of Tweets,” I am hereby announcing the official hash tag for this year’s IDS Conference. It is #IDSCONF10. Other variations on IDS have already been used. According to the Twitter Fan Wiki (http://twitter.pbworks.com) , “Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.” To those new to hashtags, all you do is add #IDSCONF10 somewhere within your tweet. It then makes it searchable and it can be displayed with all of the others with the same hashtag. If you will be tweeting at the IDS Conference, please send me your Twitter ID. I will create a twitter list of those that will be tweeting. If you don’t want to do that, please feel free to still use the tag. My twitter name is BillDrew4. My role is purely as a coordinator not a content editor or manager. Twitter is impossible for anyone to control any way. Have fun and participate in the backchannel discussion. This may be a good time to try out Twitter. Bill Drew Conference Coordinator of Tweets http://twitter.com/billdrew4 ----------------------------------------- Wilfred (Bill) Drew, M.S., B.S., A.S. Assistant Professor Librarian, Systems and Tech Services Strengths: Ideation, Input, Learner, Command, Analytical E-mail: dreww@tc3.edu Follow the library: http://twitter.com/TC3Library PPlease consider the environment before printing this e-mail or document. Posted via email from Bill Drew - BabyBoomer Librarian (Source: Baby Boomer Librarian)

Kindle iphone/ipad app now smarter with a dictionary, wikipedia, and google

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:48:23 +0100

Kindle iPhone/iPad App Now Smarter With A Dictionary, Wikipedia, And Google Despite their clear commitment to the hardware version of the Kindle, Amazon continues to make the Kindle apps that run on the iPad and iPhone better. Today, version 2.2 of the app brings a full dictionary with it. This matches the functionality of Apple’s own iBooks app, but the Kindle implementation is even a little better. The feature also includes a link for the “Full Definition” of the word. Clicking on this will take you to the new Oxford American Dictionary that is automatically downloaded with this 2.2 version of the app. This dictionary contains some 250,000 entries, Amazon says. Full article: http://tcrn.ch/bp9zZt (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News)

Kindle iphone/ipad app now smarter with a dictionary, wikipedia, and google

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:48:23 +0100

Library location data on data.gov.uk

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:50:18 +0100

Where do I find a list of of UK public libraries so that I can: a) plot them on a map; b) search for them by location (e.g. within five miles of a particular postcode)? For UK Onine Centres, it’s easy enough (5 Minute Hack – UK Centres Online Map); and there’s the start of a hack for plotting out the locations of all HEI libraries via SCONUL data (UK HE LIbraries map); but when I asked the lazyweb this question with respect to public libraries at the end of last week, the best response I got back was to use Librarything (Libraries Near Me Map (Courtesy of LibraryThing)). So how about data.gov.uk? Has any library data been logged there? Searching for library didn’t turn up much at all, though libraries was a little more successful; here’s the result for library OR libraries More specifically, at the current time, there are the following relevant datasets: Libraries A list of libraries in Warwickshire, including contact details Overview … Tags warwickshire-county-council libraries warwickshire Department … Council Wiki Libraries Resources Other XML … Sunderland Libraries List of all Libraries in Sunderland. Overview … Tags local-authority-services libraries sunderland Department … Wiki Sunderland Libraries Resources … East Staffordshire Libraries A list of the libraries in East Staffordshire. ...

Hooray! dictionary, google and wikipedia lookups in kindle updates for iphone, ipod and ipad—plus word search

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:35:05 +0100

As eagerly as I slammed Amazon for dissing ePub, let me praise it for the fine dictionary and other wrinkles in the just-updated Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Fittingly, I’m in the middle of reading Losing Mum and Pup, a sprightly memoir by Christopher Buckley, son of the late William F. Buckley, Jr. WFB, my political opposite, was a strong supporter of the TeleRead vision of a well-stocked national digital library system. Maybe partly in deference to the father, the son’s memoir serves up more than its share of Latin and French phrases. Jeff Bezos’s dictionary, as you can see to the left, is up to the task at hand. You’ll also notice that the updates include Google and Wikipedia lookups, and as a bonus, it’s easier than before for me to select text on my iPad for notes or highlighting. Also handy will be the new search function. It can display multiple occurrences of a word. Jeff, this is all good stuff. Just please—let Kindle hardware and the apps also work their magic on ePub. And while you’re at it, I still would like the bold-all-text function I’ve been begging major vendors for. Even with good hardware, some of us can enjoy e-books more easily that way. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)

Hooray! dictionary, google and wikipedia lookups in kindle updates for iphone, ipod and ipad—plus word search

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:35:05 +0100

National security archive director discusses foia & wikileaks

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100

Released on July 25th, the Afghan War Diary (a.k.a. The War Log) consists of 92,000 secret documents about the U.S. military's involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Published by Wikileaks, the report is currently being touted as the largest single leak of classified material to the news media since the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The unauthorized disclosure has generated a great deal of controversy, spotlighting the issues surrounding the need to maintain secrecy for security purposes while promoting government transparency in the Internet age. Despite the ensuing hoopla, the release of the Afghan War Diary is legal. In fact, much of its content has been substantiated through other resources, most notably the CIA "Family Jewels" file which was released in June 2007 thanks to a FOIA request made by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Tom Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, made a guest appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" on July 27th, to discuss the importance of FOIA and the price of eternal vigilance. He also assured host Stephen Colbert that the CIA does not put bees in people's bonnets. (Phew!) The day before, Blanton visited Washington radio talk show host Kojo Nnamdi (WAMU 88.5 FM) for a more serious conversation about the implications of the leak. Check out the Archive's Web site for links and more information: http://www.nsarchive.org (Source: novalawcity)

Newsletter of the space studies board

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:00:21 +0100

Image via Wikipedia The latest newsletter of the Space Studies Board of the National Science Foundation is now available. Contents: From the Chair Director’s Corner SSB Membership SSB Standing Committee Chairs SSB Activities SSB Board Member News (Past and Present) Prospects Brighten for Modernization of U.S. Export Controls Space Weather Protection is a "Team Sport" University Rover Challenge New Releases from the SSB Staff News COSPAR News Lloyd V. Berkner Space Policy Internships SSB Staff Space Studies Board 2010 Workshop--November 8-10, 2010 SSB Calendar Selected Reports Available from the SSB Back issues of the Newsletter are available starting in 2005. (Source: New)

Project reference

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:53:35 +0100

Library world it is time to take a lesson from reality TV and the show Project Runway. Joe Janes, The Internet Librarian wrote an inspired article asking library professionals to be more creative with finding reference sources. He starts by imagining a world without Google and Wikipedia. His article appeared a few weeks aga in American Libraries. So get those creative juices flowing and enjoy his thought provoking article.http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/internet-librarian/im-sorry-youre-out (Source: SPLAT - Special Projects Library Action Team blogs)