LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Data from over 1500 librarian RSS feeds is collected and output via different categories. This feed contains the latest headlines from the user generated query: Swedish Sweden Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:52:02 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/02/05/new-online-guide-to-open-access-journals-publishing/ From the Introduction: This guide focuses on Open Access scholarly journals publishing. By “Open Access journals” we refer to the publication of peer reviewed scientific manuscripts under the umbrella of a specific journal title. The Online Guide to Open Access Journals Publishing is a web-based, living document that allows users to navigate quickly to specific areas of interest. Each chapter contains links to additional resources on the same topic in the form of: other documents and websites, tools and templates that can be adapted for your own use, and examples and best practices from other editorial teams to illustrate how the information can be implemented. Wherever possible, tables, charts, figures and checklists have been used in place of lengthy text. This is a living document. Users are asked to please submit their own best practices and experiences by using the “Share your best practices” function available at the bottom of each page. Your experiences can bring insight to others! We also request that users bring inoperable links to the attention of the developers by clicking on “Contact” in the menu to the left and filling in the form. Sources: Co-Action Publishing, Lund University Libraries Head Office, National Library of Sweden, Nordbib (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:51:40 +0100 815556 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/vTqCICdMw8E/karen-blixen-nobel-prize The Danish author had committee's majority support in 1959, but lost out amid anxiety that too many Scandinanvians had already wonOut of Africa author Karen Blixen missed out on a Nobel prize for literature because judges were concerned about showing favouritism to Scandinavian writers, according to Danish reports.Danish author Blixen was favourite to win the 1959 Nobel prize against candidates including Graham Greene and John Steinbeck, but recently declassified documents shown to Politiken newspaper show that despite having the committee's majority support her nationality was counted against her. The documents were classified by the Nobel archive in Stockholm until the end of 2009.Committee member Anders Österling nominated Blixen as his first choice in 1959, writing that "if the prize should go to the now 74-year-old author, it should happen without delay", according to the documents. Two other committee members agreed with his choice, but the final member, Swedish author Eyvind Johnson, said that Italian poet Salvatore Quasimodo should win, pointing out that Scandinavian authors had won the prize four times more than other nationalities. Quasimodo was eventually named winner, for "his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times".Blixen never won a Nobel, and died aged 77 in 1962. Johnson himself later won the prize jointly, in 1974, for "a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom"."The [Nobel] academy was probably afraid to appear provincial," Johannes Riis, literary director at Gyldendals publishing house told Politiken. "And so a mistake was made, because obviously Karen Blixen ought to have received the Nobel prize. Instead, it was a kind of reverse provincialism. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:18:58 +0100 814110 http://southlakelibrary.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html#8759397193708171078 1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/Love - a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker." ~Author UnknownWhen was the last time you enjoyed a good romance? Love isn't hard to find, we have pages and pages of it in the Library, come check it out.FICTION HARDCOVERDEEPER THAN THE DEAD, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton, $26.95.) An F.B.I. investigator and a teacher track a series of murders in California in 1985.Call #: F HOANOAH’S COMPASS, by Anne Tyler. (Knopf, $25.95.) A retired teacher with a head injury struggles to regain his memory and his engagement in life.Call #: F TYLIMPACT, by Douglas Preston. (Forge, $25.99.) Scientists race to defuse a doomsday weapon pointed at Earth from one of the moons of Mars.Call #: F PRETHE SWAN THIEVES, by Elizabeth Kostova. (Little, Brown, $26.99.) A psychiatrist who treats a man who slashed a canvas in the National Gallery is drawn into the world of French Impressionism; from the author of “The Historian.” Call #: F KOSTHE FIRST RULE, by Robert Crais. (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, $26.95.) Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, set out to clear the reputation of a former military contractor who has been murdered. Call #: F CRAI, SNIPER, by Stephen Hunter, (Simon & Schuster, $26.) Bob Lee Swagger discovers that the murder of four ’60s radicals is more complicated than it seems. Call #: F HUNTHE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $25.95.) A Swedish hacker becomes a murder suspect. Call #: F LARTHE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love. Call #: F SPADEEPER THAN THE DEAD, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton, $26.95.) An F.B.I. ... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0100 815172 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/ou8M7r90qs4/william-blake-human-image-divine-image This week, the Guardian and the Observer are running a series of seven pamphlets on the Romantic poets. To coincide with it, I'm blogging daily on one of each day's selected works"Without Contraries is no progression," said William Blake – and without contraries there would certainly have been no William Blake. His imagination was shaped by the diversity of London itself, and by the contrasting, semi-rural landscape that began a couple of miles north of Soho's teeming Broad Street, where his father was a hosier. When, at the age of 14, he wrote the Song that begins, "How sweet I roamed from field to field," it was an imaginative and impassioned response to his father's decision to send him to drawing school. And so the stage was set for another career of reconciled contraries: the tactile, smelly, thoroughly physical process of copper-engraving and the more elusive mental activity of making poems.As a thinker, Blake was influenced by Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish scientist, inventor, philosopher and theologian who was, perhaps, the supreme genius of contraries. Coincidentally (no doubt) 1757, the poet's birth-year, was the very year predicted by Swedenborg for Christ's Second Coming. He was another visionary, who claimed to have visited Heaven where he had met the souls of Jews, Muslims and pagans as well as Christians. Fundamental to his religious teaching was the belief that the love of God and one's neighbour mattered more than creed. He also claimed that everything in the natural world had a spiritual counterpart.Ultimately, Blake rejected Swedenborg's teaching, and moved on to a philosophy of cycles, embodied in the alternating rule of the Prolific and the Devourer. These opposing titans he considered to be the essential elements of existence, and were never to be reconciled. So Blake's idealism is no simple, reformist matter: it encompasses moral paradox, or, as we might call it these days, relativism. ... Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:10:56 +0100 813106 http://lib.wmrc.uiuc.edu/enb/2010/01/28/2010-environmental-performance-index-epi/ Via Docuticker. 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) Source: Yale University and Columbia University From press release (Word): Iceland leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale University and Columbia University. This is the third edition of the EPI, which has been revisited biannually since 2006. Released today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010, the EPI ranks 163 countries on their performance across 25 metrics aggregated into ten categories including: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland’s top-notch performance derives from its high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway – all of which have made substantial investments in environmental infrastructure, pollution control, and policies designed to move toward long-term sustainability. Occupying the bottom five positions are Togo, Angola, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone –impoverished countries that lack basic environmental amenities and policy capacity. The United States places 61st in the 2010 EPI, with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution. This ranking puts the United States significantly behind other industrialized nations like the United Kingdom (14th), Germany (17th), and Japan (20th). Over 20 members of the European Union outrank the United States. ... Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:41:01 +0100 812918 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=31573 Spain: a country profile Source: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). Introduction: Spain took over the European Union’s six-month Presidency from Sweden on 1 January 2010. This report aims to present an overview of the Spanish labour market and industrial relations system, mainly using research findings from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). The first chapter outlines the main features of the Spanish economic model, highlighting basic facts and data needed to understand the main issues affecting the economy at present. Chapter 2 depicts the Spanish industrial relations system. It presents the main social partner organisations, features of the Spanish collective bargaining and social dialogue processes, as well as the agreements reached regarding pay and working time. Special attention will be paid to recent trends in social dialogue in the workplace based on data from the second European Company Survey (ECS), which was carried out by Eurofound in 2009. Chapter 3 reviews the labour market developments covering the period between 1995 and 2009. It looks at the main patterns of employment expansion in terms of quantity and quality during the last prosperity cycle and highlights current developments as a result of the global economic crisis. Chapter 4 then explores the steps taken by the government and the social partners to tackle the consequences of the current crisis. The last chapter examines the quality of working and living conditions in Spain, using data from the fourth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) carried out by Eurofound in 2005 and the second European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) conducted by Eurofound in 2007. + Direct link to document (PDF; 656 KB) (Source: Docuticker) Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:51:18 +0100 812581 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=31800 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) Source: Yale University and Columbia University From press release (Word): Iceland leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale University and Columbia University. This is the third edition of the EPI, which has been revisited biannually since 2006. Released today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010, the EPI ranks 163 countries on their performance across 25 metrics aggregated into ten categories including: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland’s top-notch performance derives from its high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway – all of which have made substantial investments in environmental infrastructure, pollution control, and policies designed to move toward long-term sustainability. Occupying the bottom five positions are Togo, Angola, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone –impoverished countries that lack basic environmental amenities and policy capacity. The United States places 61st in the 2010 EPI, with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution. This ranking puts the United States significantly behind other industrialized nations like the United Kingdom (14th), Germany (17th), and Japan (20th). Over 20 members of the European Union outrank the United States. ... Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:31:39 +0100 812584 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/22/whats-new-with-the-directory-of-open-access-journals/ Tom Hill, Publisher and CEO of Libertas Academica, recently posted an interview with a few of the people who compile and maintain the Directory of Open Access Journals (an essential reference tool). The directory hosted/maintained/and partially funded by the Lund University Library in Sweden. My how the DOAJ has grown. There are now 4611 journals in the directory. Currently 1792 journals are searchable at article level. As of today 344222 articles are included in the DOAJ service. (1/23/2009). It’s a Q&A style interview. Here’s one exchange of many. Tom: Thank you all for being willing to be interviewed again. I appreciate this particularly because I know how busy you’ve all been since our last interview. Perhaps you could start by giving us a broad overview of what’s happened since August 2008? DOAJ: 2009 was a very eventful year: * Launch of the long-term preservation project * DOAJ receives the SPARC Europe Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications 2009 * Implementation of an RSS Feed function * Continued cooperation with China (ISTIC) * Arranged 1st Conference for Open Access Scholarly Publishers together with OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association) * New function to see how many journals have a Creative Commons license and how many have the SPARC Seal for open access journals. Access the Complete Interview Source: Libertas Academica (via OATP Project) (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:22:23 +0100 811023 http://www.readersclub.org/reviews/tresults.asp?id=6701 by Austin, LynnIn 1897, three orphaned sisters decide to emigrate from Sweden to America in hopes of a new beginning. As the oldest, Elin feels responsible for her younger sisters so she writes to her uncle in America for help. Believing their uncle and his family will take them in, the girls make the trip to Chicago. After learning the money for their tickets did not come from their uncle as they expected, but from three men expecting the girls to become their wives, the sisters decide to strike out on their own. Faced with difficult circumstances, Elin, Kirsten, and Sofia wonder if they made the right decision. With courage and determination the sisters work to make their dreams come true.- reviewed by Erin, Cornelius Branch, PLCMC (Source: Reader's Club's Latest) Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:40:01 +0100 810540 http://southlakelibrary.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html#509055015324530625 1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever." ~GhandiWhat complex creatures we are. Our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes, they are the essence of what it means to be human. Books are the key to exploring that world, a different journey for each person who has walked this earth.FICTION HARDCOVERTHE HONOR OF SPIES, by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV. (Putnam, $26.95.) An O.S.S. agent seeks information from a German prisoner of war; the fifth book in the Honor Bound series. Call #: F GRIDEEPER THAN THE DEAD, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton, $26.95.) An F.B.I. investigator and a teacher track a series of murders in California in 1985.Call #: F HOANOAH’S COMPASS, by Anne Tyler. (Knopf, $25.95.) A retired teacher with a head injury struggles to regain his memory and his engagement in life.Call #: F TYLTREASURE HUNT, by John Lescroart. (Dutton, $26.95.) A young San Francisco private investigator discovers some unpleasant facts when a well-known fund-raiser is murdered.Call #: F LESIMPACT, by Douglas Preston. (Forge, $25.99.) Scientists race to defuse a doomsday weapon pointed at Earth from one of the moons of Mars.Call #: F PRETHE SWAN THIEVES, by Elizabeth Kostova. (Little, Brown, $26.99.) A psychiatrist who treats a man who slashed a canvas in the National Gallery is drawn into the world of French Impressionism; from the author of “The Historian.” Call #: F KOSTHE FIRST RULE, by Robert Crais. (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, $26.95.) Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, set out to clear the reputation of a former military contractor who has been murdered. Call #: F CRAI, SNIPER, by Stephen Hunter, (Simon & Schuster, $26.) Bob Lee Swagger discovers that the murder of four ’60s radicals is more complicated than it seems. Call #: F HUNTHE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $25.95. ... Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 812837 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/ENkD8bTpYLo/melgibson-sweden If Mel Gibson wants to make a film with real Vikings in it, here are some tipsMel Gibson is to make a film set in the Dark Ages, in which Vikings invade Anglo-Saxon England, talking fluent Old Norse. Given his political and theological views, we can expect the the Christianised Anglo-Saxons to be the good guys, while the pagan Vikings bring fire, sword, slavery and socialised medicine.Of course this isn't the only possible treatment. Nothing but subtitles could diminish a Mel Gibson film recorded entirely in Old Norse. But still, if it were in a modern Scandinavian language, the possibilities might widen. One could get far beyond the old Kirk Douglas cliches about Vikings. We'd have to run it past the historians, but I can see a squad of Vikings, all with their own personalities:The serrated coastline stretched like a rusty knife in front of him. A little smoke wavered up from the ruins of the village, beaten back down by the sleety rain. The chief climbed down from his longship and splashed through the icy water to the shore. It never got warmer. Perhaps he had been raiding too long. Last night's mead was heavy on his stomach. The village, as usual, was heaped with corpses. He studied one or two of the younger ones. They reminded him of his daughter. He didn't know what she was up to. She never sent slaves these days. He walked to the centre of the village. Thorleif the war chief was there. 'Hey, Wallander,' he said. 'Hey,' said Wallander. 'So who killed these guys?'Or maybe something a little less downbeat?Blomqvist the bard came north on a freezing cold day in the dragonship with a girly tattoo. It was snowing. The bard had no feeling for snow. He had promised the crazed old war chief that he would investigate the death of his grand-daughter. He greeted the old man's elder daughter. 'We are a twisted family,' she said: 'You had better have sex with me.' When the witch learned she grew angry. To appease her anger she killed a monster. ... Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:31:07 +0100 810169 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/18/multilingual-translation-system-receives-over-2-million-euro-in-eu-funding/ From the Announcement: All citizens, regardless of native tongue, shall have the same access to knowledge on the Internet. The MOLTO project, coordinated by University of Gothenburg, Sweden, receives more than 2 million Euro in project support from the EU to create a reliable translation tool that covers a majority of the EU languages. ‘It has so far been impossible to produce a translation tool that covers entire languages,’ says Aarne Ranta, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Google Translator is a widely spread translation programme that gradually improves the quality of translations through machine learning – the system learns from its own mistakes via system feedback, but tries to do without explicit grammatical rules. In contrast, MOLTO is being developed in the opposite direction, meaning it begins with precision and grammar, while wide coverage comes later. We wanted to work with a translation technique that is so accurate that people who produce texts can use our translations directly. We have now started to move from precision to increased coverage, meaning that we have started to add more languages to the tool and database. [Snip] The project aims at developing the system to suit different areas of applications. One area is translation of patent descriptions. Ultimately, people around the world should be able to take advantage of new technology immediately without having to master the language in which the patent description is written. A large number of translators have long had to be engaged in connection with new patents. ... Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:59:20 +0100 809631 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/yoLcRwIYhSU/moomins-recipe-book Tove Jansson's much-loved characters are set to reappear in a book introducing Finnish cuisineFrom the unflappable Moominmamma's syrup to fight autumn coughs and colds to Moominpappa's spiced mulled wine for a frosty night, the culinary skills of Tove Jansson's much-loved Moomins are set to be revealed in a cookbook later this year.Drawing inspiration from Jansson's descriptions of life in Moominvalley, a place where "very often unexpected and disturbing things used to happen, but nobody ever had time to be bored, and that is always a good thing", Finnish writer Sami Malila has created a series of 150 "forest" recipes which will be published in The Moomins Cookbook this July, complete with original illustrations by Jansson.Jansson, who died in 2001, wrote and illustrated nine Moomin books in total. Her gently eccentric characters and their friends have captured children's hearts since they first appeared in the 1940s – and despite having no mouths in her drawings, the Moomins generally manage to eat well. "Moominpappa was busy on the veranda, making punch in a barrel," she writes in Finn Family Moomintroll. "He put in almonds and raisins, lotus juice, ginger, sugar and nutmeg flowers, one or two lemons, and a couple of pints of strawberry liqueur to make it specially good. Now and again he had a taste ... It was very good."Later, the inhabitants of Moominvalley gather for a feast. "There were big piles of gleaming fruit and huge plates of sandwiches on the bigger tables, and on tiny little tables under the bushes there were ears of corn and berries threaded on straws and clusters of nuts nestling in their own leaves," she writes. "Moominmamma put the fat for frying the pancakes in the bathtub because there weren't enough basins, and then she carried up eleven enormous jars of raspberry juice from the cellar. (The twelfth had been cracked, I'm sorry to say, when the Hemulen let off his squib. ... Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:41:53 +0100 809557 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=31189 Swedish Sea Level Series – A Climate Indicator Source: Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) Introduction: Global ocean levels have always fluctuated with changes in our climate. During the last ice age, about 10 000 years ago, some of the ocean’s water was frozen in ice sheets and the global sea level was more than 100 meters below the present level. As ice melted, sea level rose. Some of the effect still lingers, but over the last century, the global ocean level has started to rise faster. This is due to increasing melting of glaciers and thermal expansion of sea water, brought about by the present global warming. Reports from many stations around the world indicate a rising sea level, which is further confirmed by the more recent satellite measurements. Continuous sea level data are important for the understanding of the effects of global warming. + Direct link to document (PDF; 340 KB) (Source: Docuticker) Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:30:37 +0100 809482 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/so7Sxk5XQ70/tablet-ereader-newspapers Web-linked touchscreen tablet that repurposes print content unveiled by SkiffIt is thinner than a CD case and is made of a flexible sheet of stainless steel foil that won't shatter if you drop it. Yet the Skiff Reader, a touchscreen device unveiled last week, could be the salvation of newspapers and magazines challenged by the slow death of print.The Reader, developed by an offshoot of the Hearst Corporation and drooled over at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is undoubtedly a demonstration of faith, the technological equivalent of the concept cars that get wheeled out at the Frankfurt Motor Show every year. Boasting an 11.5-inch screen that is larger than anything offered by Amazon or Sony and with a better picture quality (1,200 x 1,600 pixels), its main job is to demonstrate how well highly customised text-based content can run on tablets that connect to the web via Wi-Fi and 3G networks.Editorial content It is being eyed by most of the world's biggest newspaper groups, who hope that tablet devices – some 50 to 60 of which could hit the market this year – will help with the transition into the digital world.In recent months, Time Inc and the Swedish publisher Bonnier have produced two demos of mocked-up colour tablets that open up possibilities beyond the lookalike pages of editorial content that clutter the web. Tablet-based content should also represent a big improvement on the boring pdf-style digital editions that most publishers produce.Gil Fuchsberg, the former journalist and new media deal-maker who has overseen Skiff from its origins as an R&D project within Hearst Corporation, argues that the time is right for magazines and newspapers to follow books, which are available on electronic readers such as Kindle. Fuchsberg says he looks forward to travelling on the tube in London surrounded by commuters reading touchscreen tablets. ... Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:05:00 +0100 809448 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/17/success-happy-2nd-anniversary-to-the-library-of-congress-flickr-account-as-lc-adds-new-photo-set/ Yesterday, the LC Flickr site celebrated it’s second anniversary. Here are a few “fast facts” from a blog post by Jennifer Gavin. Jan. 16 is the two-year anniversary of the launch of the Library’s account on Flickr, the photosharing website. We started with approximately 3,100 photos in our account; today 30 additional archives, libraries, and museums from the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and Sweden now contribute images with no known copyright restrictions to the “Commons” on Flickr. [Snip] As of today, there have been more than 23 million views of the images and more than 27,700 Flickr community members call us a contact. In two years, we have loaded more than 8,000 images in two collections (historic photographs and historic newspapers) in 11 sets on diverse topics—baseball, women’s rights, and Abraham Lincoln, to name a few. Over a thousand records in the Prints and Photographs online catalog have been enhanced with information from the Flickr Commons community. More accurate and detailed information in our catalog, with links to interesting histories, makes the pictures not only easier to find but easier to understand. The interactions with our photos are remarkably varied-ranging from the practical (corrected spellings and dates) to the imaginative. Here’s a link to the new LC/Flickr Photo Set. It’s titled, “Great Comments! THANK YOU!” Access the LC Site on Flickr Home Page Source: Library of Congress (Source: ResourceShelf) Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:24:21 +0100 809383 http://weblog.ib.hu-berlin.de/?p=7792 Vor allem für New Professionals interessant… Satellite Meeting Theme: The Global Librarian New Professionals Special Interest Group & Management of Library Associations Section Boras, Sweden 9 August 2010 This satellite conference will be held immediately prior to the World Library and Information Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden, August 2010. The IFLA New Professionals Special Interest Group and the Management of Library Associations Section invite proposals for presentations. First time presenters and new professionals are encouraged to apply. In order to meet publication deadlines (for inclusion on the IFLA website) proposals must be submitted by February 10, 2010. Conference Themes and Focus New librarians are positioning themselves as library leaders in academia, libraries, and professional associations. This event aims to address key themes and leading trends to provide library services while changing attitudes and expectations on the way. The conference organising committee wishes to showcase examples of best practice in how to develop new leaders, services, and inclusion of new professionals in decision-making processes through both research based scholarly presentations and experiential and practical stories of successes and lessons learned. The organisers are particularly interested in receiving proposals for presentations on any of the following, or related, key themes and issues : How to internationalize careers New librarian paradigm Mobile librarian Real-time librarian Advocating for library associations to include new professionals in their agenda We welcome and encourage proposals from first-time conference presenters, librarians, library school students, and information workers new to the profession. Conference Location and Dates The conference will be held in Boras, Sweden. The conference venue will be the University of Boras which is conveniently located one hour by train from the WLIC venue, Gothenburg. ... Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:36:29 +0100 809267 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/01/14/open-access-now-available-two-online-finnish-databases-some-content-in-english/ From the Article: The National Library of Finland (Kansalliskirjasto) has announced that two of its online databases are now freely available to the general public. The resources in question, which are available to all internet users in Finnish, Swedish and English, are LINDA, which is the unified catalogue of Finnish University Libraries, and ARTO, a reference database of articles published in Finland. In addition to the article collections, maps, archives, and other electronic resources of all Finnish university libraries, LINDA also covers the National Repository Library (Varastokirjasto), the Library of Parliament (eduskunnan kirjasto), the Library of Statistics (Tilastokirjasto), and Lahti Science Library (Lahden tiedekirjasto). ARTO contains references to articles in scholarly (i.e., peer-reviewed) journals and some other journals published in Finland. ARTO most comprehensively covers articles that have been published since 1990, but also provides many references to older materials. Articles from around 600 periodicals are registered in ARTO, and some chapters published in monographs are also included in the database. http://linda.linneanet.fi http://arto.linneanet.fi Before 1 January 2010, the two databases were freely available only in third-level educational institutions and in the larger libraries, and access from all other locations required the purchase of a user licence. Open access for all has been made possible through funding provided to the National Library of Finland by the Ministry of Education. Negotiations are underway to secure long-term funding to continue the service after 2010. Source: Helsinki Times (Source: ResourceShelf) Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:05:02 +0100 808476 http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2010/01/in-search-of-credibility.html Article in the latest issue of Information Research (open access)Sundin, O. & Francke, H. (2009). "In search of credibility: pupils' information practices in learning environments" Information Research, 14 (4) paper 418. http://InformationR.net/ir/14-4/paper418.html"We aim to create an in-depth understanding of how pupils in [a Swedish] upper secondary school negotiate the credibility and authority of information as part of their practices of learning. Particular focus is on the use of user-created resources, such as Wikipedia, where authorship is collective and/or hard to determine. An ethnographic study was conducted ... The pupils make credibility assessments based on methods developed for traditional media where, for instance, origin and authorship are important. They employ some user-created sources, notably Wikipedia, because these are easily available, but they are uncertain about when these sources should be considered credible. "Photo by Sheila Webber: Branches in snow, January 2010. (Source: Information Literacy Weblog) Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 808457 http://southlakelibrary.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html#5097086220037618065 1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/Up rose the wild old winter-king; And shook his beard of snow, "I hear the first young hard-bell ring, 'Tis time for me to go! Northward o'er the icy rocks, Northward o'er the sea, My daughter comes with sunny locks: This land's too warm for me!" ~Charles Godfrey Leland, American humoristOld man winter is outside your window, but that's okay. You're snug inside with one of these bestsellers picked up from the Southlake Public Library.FICTION HARDCOVERI, SNIPER, by Stephen Hunter, (Simon & Schuster, $26.) Bob Lee Swagger discovers that the murder of four ’60s radicals is more complicated than it seems. Call #: F HUNTHE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $25.95.) A Swedish hacker becomes a murder suspect. Call #: F LARTHE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) A 17-year-old girl spends the summer with her divorced father in North Carolina and finds many kinds of love. Call #: F SPAALTAR OF EDEN, by James Rollins. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $27.99.) A Louisiana veterinarian discovers a wrecked fishing trawler filled with genetically altered animals. Call #: F ROLDEEPER THAN THE DEAD, by Tami Hoag. (Dutton, $26.95.) An F.B.I. investigator and a teacher track a series of murders in California in 1985.Call #: F HOAFIRED UP, by Jayne Ann Krentz. (Putnam, $25.95.) A venture capitalist who believes he has inherited an ancestor’s psychic powers searches for an elusive artifact. Call #: F KRESIZZLE, by Julie Garwood. (Ballantine, $26.) A film student who witnessed a crime is aided by a handsome F.B.I. agent. Call #: F GARU IS FOR UNDERTOW, by Sue Grafton. (Putnam, $27.95.) Kinsey Millhone investigates the case of a 4-year-old girl who disappeared 21 years earlier. Call #: F GRA99.) Book 12 of the Wheel of Time fantasy series.Call #: F JORI, ALEX CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown, $27.99. ... Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 808300 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/zcGn/~3/oI-JFAz4Cag/deadline-for-ifla-international.html Here's an important reminder for marketing-type librarians around the world: The deadline for entering your work for the IFLA International Marketing Award is January 31. IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) has a Management and Marketing Section that, in collaboration with sponsor Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., organizes an international marketing contest. IFLA and Emerald invite proposals for the 8th contest, which recognizes the best marketing project/ campaign in any kind of library throughout the world. "Best" is judged on the basis of true marketing, including demonstrating a strategic approach and sharing results and measurable objectives.The winner will receive airfare, lodging and registration for the World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly in Sweden in August 2010, as well as a cash award of $1,000 (US $) which must be used to further the marketing efforts of the recognized organization.You can find complete application material and an entry form (available in IFLA's seven official languages) here. You can read coverage of this award from previous years in IFLA's archive here and in Marketing Library Services newsletter here and also here. This is a very prestigious award, so if you want global recognition for your efforts, enter this month!The M Word Blog teaches your library and non-profit tips, tricks and trends of the marketing trade (Source: The "M" Word - Marketing Libraries) Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0100 808767 http://librarian.lishost.org/?p=3026 Fiction dominates the seven prizes this year, from Basque to Finnish The seven prizes will be presented by the Editor of the TLS, Sir Peter Stothard, at a ceremony at King’s Place in London on January 11. This will be followed by the 2010 Sebald lecture, to be given by Will Self. [Curated by The British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia and The Society of Authors]. The Premio Valle Inclán – translation from the Spanish The Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize – translation from the Arabic The Schlegel-Tieck Prize – translation from the German The Scott Moncrieff Prize – translation from the French The Vondel Prize – translation from the Dutch and Flemish The Bernard Shaw Prize – translation from the Swedish The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Prize – translation from the Portuguese The Rossica Translation Prize – translation from the Russian (Source: Librarian) Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:38:51 +0100 807987 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/ZfROjbqpC1o/tony-judt-motor-neurone-disease Motor neurone disease has left the historian Tony Judt quadriplegic and, he tells Ed Pilkington, has forced him to think about what it really means to be human. The result is an astonishing series of essays and a determination to get young people thinking collectively againA few weeks ago the English historian Tony Judt delivered a speech at his home in New York University (NYU). More than 1,000 people turned up, and few left disappointed. What they heard was classic Tony Judt: the lecture, a plea for the positive virtues of social democracy, was as erudite as might be expected from the author of Postwar, his epic portrait of Europe since 1945, and as politically pointed as his controversial writings on the Middle East.The Judt they saw that night, however, was anything but expected. He rolled on to the stage in an electric wheelchair, a blanket wrapped around his body so that all could be seen was his neck and head, to which a breathing tube was attached like a bit of facial Tupperware. "The last time anyone had seen me in public I'd been bouncing around the stage full of fitness and energy," Judt says. "Now they saw this quadriplegic with plastic on his face."He was concerned about how his audience would react to the new-look him, and tried hard to make them feel at ease. It worked, and at the end of the speech he received a standing ovation.It was only afterwards that Judt suffered the intense irritation of being accosted by someone who seemed unaware of the difference between physical and mental incapacity. "I'd just delivered this long lecture completely by memory, no notes, for an hour and 15 minutes. Someone comes up to me and says 'TTTTOOOOOONNNNYYYYY. DOOOOOO YOOUUUUUU REMEEEEMMMMBER MEEEE?'" Judt mimics the person in an exaggerated drawl, as though he were talking to a baby in a buggy. "I thought, 'You stupid bitch! Of course I remember you. ... Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:08:41 +0100 806500 http://www.slaw.ca/2010/01/08/invasion-of-the-body-scanners-the-secret-truth/ wherein (because it is a Friday) we peel the layers of the onion (in attempted homage to that Onion) and reveal the secret behind the recent prorugation of the Canadian Parliament.  Is there also some connection to this  and from appearances this?. You’ll have to decide for yourself. Our story begins a number of years ago (not necessarily on Friday the 13th or otherwise). Do we start here? At some point in the far past? We don’t need to. Instead, we’ll start here  sometime in the latter part of the last century of the last millenium where, according to the appropriate caption, “During university, the young Ontario man started to feel like a Westerner and became a conservative”.  One might conclude from that the the writer of the caption equated all Westerners and “conservatives” or perhaps had problems with logic. We should recall Ambrose Bierce’s definition of “Conservative” as a noun, in The Devil’s Dictionary: “A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.” In any event, that change of attribute, whatever it meant, apparently led to visits to places such as the Calgary Zoo (described in the earlier link). In passing, compare the left-hand figure in the  last picture to the left-hand figure in this photo from a documentary (?)  about aliens visiting the planet and settling in Roswell, Nevada. In any event, as of 1988 (backstory here) and later, yet, in 2001, the situation still seemed innocuous enough. That state of affairs  seems to continue through 2003: here (though consider the tie) and here (though the last scene gave some some reason to wonder). But consider this, starting in 2004 By 2007 and here and, remarkably,  this But, most remarkably, this apparently undated picture Which seems to bring us to this. ... Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:02:04 +0100 807036 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/brjTPEB6RCo/tls-awards-translation Anthea Bell and Margaret Jull Costa are among the winners at the Times Literary Supplement's honoursAfter landing an OBE in the New Year honours for "services to literature and to literary translations" Anthea Bell has notched up another award just eight days into 2010, winning the Times Literary Supplement's prize for translation from the German for her work on Stefan Zweig's novella Burning Secret.Set in an off-season Austrian resort, Burning Secret tells the story of the tensions between a 12-year-old boy and "the Baron", who is trying to seduce his mother. "The boy is used as a go-between but then wakes up and tries to thwart him at every turn," said Bell, who has won a succession of awards and honours over the years for her translations from French and German. "It's full of human interest, and you feel something for all three protagonists. It's moving, with a certain wryness – I'm very fond of it."Winning the TLS's Schlegel-Tieck prize for German translation was "a great pleasure, particularly for something by Stefan Zweig who's a very favourite author of mine", she said. She and publisher Pushkin Press have been trying to revive interest in Zweig, an Austrian Jew who committed suicide in 1942, recently releasing a new translation of his memoir The World of Yesterday. Adrian Tahourdin at the TLS called Burning Secret "a small masterpiece, beautifully rendered in Anthea Bell's translation".Fiction dominates the TLS's translation prizes this year, with Tove Jansson's translator Thomas Teal taking the Bernard Shaw prize for Swedish translation for Jansson's Fair Play, a portrait of two women praised by Tahourdin for its "Nordic lyricism". ... Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:40:37 +0100 806493 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TameTheWeb/~3/zsSILrKOrhk/ Working in a university library, as with any type of library, means a dedicated service focus which supports the goals and directions of the parent company or institution.  While each individual university will have their own priorities and strategic directions, there are some themes that seem to resonate across the board.  One such area is the recognition of the need for universities to internationalise.  Internationalisation benefits a university’s staff, students, research, and institutional profile and competitiveness, to just skim the surface of its influences. I work at Flinders University in South Australia, which has established a number of ways to incorporate internationalisation.  One strategy is through strategic partnerships, including being a member of the International Network of Universities (INU).  Within this network, a Special Interest Group for University Libraries has been established, and stemming from this affiliation the University Librarians (otherwise titled Head Librarians) discovered that they had much in common with regard to their services and how they were attempting to deliver them.  The directions they were heading and their plans regarding negotiating future directions, looking at future concerns, issues, etc. also displayed close similarities.  From this beginning came the idea of establishing a staff exchange program.  Since that time, the library at Flinders has been involved with a number of staff exchanges, in particular with Hiroshima University Library, Japan.  Hiroshima staff member Tomoko Sammi has just finished a 2 month staff exchange to Flinders, and in the next 6 months there will be visitors from Malmo University Library in Sweden, as well as another staff member from Hiroshima. For my part, I went for a 3 month visit to Hiroshima in August to October, 2008.  It was an amazing experience. ... Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:39:57 +0100 805472 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=30329 Cardiovascular fitness is associated with cognition in young adulthood Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences During early adulthood, a phase in which the central nervous system displays considerable plasticity and in which important cognitive traits are shaped, the effects of exercise on cognition remain poorly understood. We performed a cohort study of all Swedish men born in 1950 through 1976 who were enlisted for military service at age 18 (N = 1,221,727). Of these, 268,496 were full-sibling pairs, 3,147 twin pairs, and 1,432 monozygotic twin pairs. Physical fitness and intelligence performance data were collected during conscription examinations and linked with other national databases for information on school achievement, socioeconomic status, and sibship. Relationships between cardiovascular fitness and intelligence at age 18 were evaluated by linear models in the total cohort and in subgroups of full-sibling pairs and twin pairs. Cardiovascular fitness, as measured by ergometer cycling, positively associated with intelligence after adjusting for relevant confounders (regression coefficient b = 0.172; 95% CI, 0.168–0.176). Similar results were obtained within monozygotic twin pairs. In contrast, muscle strength was not associated with cognitive performance. Cross-twin cross-trait analyses showed that the associations were primarily explained by individual specific, non-shared environmental influences (?80%), whereas heritability explained (Source: Docuticker) Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:31:57 +0100 805306 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/SlBAowtEpj4/robin-wood-obituary Influential teacher, critic and pioneer in the field of film studies'Why should we take Hitchcock seriously? It is a pity the question has to be raised. If the cinema were truly regarded as an autonomous art, not as a mere adjunct of the novel or the drama – if we were able yet to see films instead of mentally reducing them to literature – it would be unnecessary." The opening lines of the first book by the film critic and teacher Robin Wood, who has died at the age of 78, had a remarkable and lasting impact on the field of film studies both in and beyond academia.Before he published Hitchcock's Films in 1965, there were – in English, as opposed to French – virtually no books on film directors, and few books of any kind that brought either rigour or sympathy to the analysis of popular cinema. The teaching of so-called "film appreciation" in Britain was confined mainly to a few pockets within adult education and teacher training. This was already starting to change, but Wood's work was a key influence in validating and shaping a new discipline.His Alfred Hitchcock book brilliantly set out the case for treating even Hollywood cinema with the same analytical seriousness as classic literature, and he quickly followed it with books on directors as diverse as Howard Hawks (1968), Arthur Penn (1969) and Ingmar Bergman (1969), as well as jointly authored books on Michelangelo Antonioni (1968) and Claude Chabrol (1970). By the end of the decade, he was able to leave his post teaching English at a secondary school, which he had somehow managed to combine with all that writing, for the university sector, and he remained a prolific and influential film scholar. ... Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:37:50 +0100 805267 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/zQpKV87P_pg/review-the-road A stark adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel brings out all its harrowing yet ultimately life-enhancing qualities, writes Philip FrenchIn the past, some of it not too distant, people the world over have thought during times of plague and famine that they were living in the last days of our planet. For most of us today, such visions are of a future where a nuclear holocaust, global warming or some other man-created calamity threaten the imminent end of life on earth. In his masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman brought together both experiences by projecting the nuclear angst of the 1950s (a major cinematic subject at the time) on to a Sweden of the Middle Ages visited by the black death. Earlier, the 1936 film based on HG Wells's Things To Come foresaw a world war in 1940 that would return Britain to a dark age of tribes battling for depleted resources.Such movies are now highly fashionable and the heavyweight film version of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, first published in 2006 (and his third to be filmed after All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men) comes in the wake of three relatively lightweight movies covering similar territory released over the past 10 weeks. In the Canadian movie, Pontypool, an apocalyptic outbreak of cannibalism, seemingly carried by language itself, is reported from a small-town radio station in the basement of a deconsecrated church. The premise of Zombieland, an exercise in pitiless black humour, is that most of the population of America has been wiped out by a form of mad cow disease. Co-directed in the States by two Spanish film-makers, Carriers is a low-budget horror flick in which four young Americans drive towards the Gulf of Mexico across a country ravaged by a deadly virus that has no known cure. ... Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:05:56 +0100 804813 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/MbJf-hiES1o/noughties-writers-obituaries-review A celebration of the great writers who died in the past decadeJG Ballard (1930-2009) by Michael MoorcockMy friendship with JG Ballard lasted about 50 years and was not always the easiest to maintain. In the early days at least we were naturally confrontational. Happily, we were united in what we wished to confront, if not always agreed on how best to go about it. We were both in those days "family men" and we shared a love for our children. Jimmy's love was almost mystical. When fathers were discouraged from attending births, he had insisted at being present at his children's. We had some fine times – Jimmy and Mary, Hilary and me – arguing into the night until it was time to go home. They'd climb into his battered but romantic Armstrong-Siddeley and head for Shepperton, or Jimmy would drive us back to Notting Hill.Mary died in Spain. His eyes filling with tears, Jimmy had to make frequent stops as he drove his children home to England. Afterwards, he focused almost obsessively on them. His relationships with women became horrible. There were fights, bad acid trips, wild drives through the London night, arguments between us which stemmed, Hilary and I believed, from his largely unadmitted grief, his wish to protect his children at all costs. His stoicism blocked almost all attempts to reach out to him. Finally, I introduced him to Claire Walsh, who seemed better able to help him emotionally, though he treated her pretty badly on occasions.He complained, in turn, that I bullied him, "making my eyes bleed", forcing him to write the first of a group of stories which had their origins in dummy pages he hung all around his living room wall for years. Bits of them had appeared as titles or subtitles for stories and eventually began to see print in New Worlds with "The Atrocity Exhibition" in April 1966, and with later stories appearing in Science Fantasy and Ambit. ... Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:08:38 +0100 804722 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/960QOy2odRs/photography-books-2009 From reissues of classic editions to an eye-opening collection of mobile-phone snaps, photography books in 2009 captured a medium in flux. Sean O'Hagan picks his favouritesIn 2009, photography grappled more than ever with the notion that the mobile phone, rather than the cheap digital camera, may yet make photographers of us all. It seemed apposite, then, that it was also a year in which old masters reasserted their importance with books that reminded us that the truly visionary are few and far between.In many ways, the year belonged to Robert Frank. Now 85, the Swiss-born photographer was garlanded with a major American touring show to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of his classic work The Americans. The catalogue, Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans (Steidl, £49.90), is, hands down, my photography book of the year. Complete with absorbing essays, personal letters – to the likes of Jack Kerouac and Walker Evans – and contact sheets that show off Frank's extraordinary eye for the telling vignette, it is a must for anyone with an interest in photography's past and present.The other big American photography book of the year has just been published. Irving Penn's Small Trades (Getty, £34.99) is a valediction of sorts for the great man, who died in October. Though better known for his fashion photography, Penn started the Small Trades project in 1950, photographing everyday subjects – plumbers, cleaners, shop assistants – in their work clothes between style shoots for French Vogue in his rented Parisian studio. Shot in austere blacks, whites and greys, the portraits possess a cumulative power that is full of quiet dignity, and subtler than Richard Avedon's similar images of American workers. (Intriguingly, one of the scouts who went out on the streets of Paris to select and then persuade the workers to pose was a young Robert Doisneau. ... Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:13:51 +0100 803810 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/yRR-tRHdh7E/ Attention, Amazon shoppers—and BN.com fans, too, as well as those at other Internet stores selling e-books and more! Randall Stross, the New York Times columnist, wants you to pay sales taxes on Net purchases no matter where you live, at least if you’re in the U.S., where he says Amazon collects for just five states. I respectfully disagree with Stross despite the grotesque botch that Amazon has made of my novel’s listings. Here’s a pro-Amazon post—at least if just sales taxes are the issue. Let CEO Jeff Bezos lavish money on lobbyists to rid us of the scourge. Amazon’s customers anywhere—inside or outside the United States—shouldn’t have to pay a penny in sales taxes on e-books, paper ones, stereos, baseball bats or washing machines. Sales taxes are legalized pickpocketry, no matter how noble or official the uses of the money are. But read on, Jeff. You might not like all I have to say. No, I’m not anti-tax, just anti-sales tax. They are inherently regressive and  beset the planet’s retailers with gig after gig of paperwork. But should we starve government? Emphatically not, just so the money is well spent. At all levels—local, state and federal—I want the super-rich to pay a larger share of income taxes than they do now. Care for some numbers arguing for an end to sales taxes and the expansion and better targeting of income taxes? Here they are. 1. Here in the United States, the odds are already stacked against the nonrich. Take a look at the Gini index used by the Central Intelligence Agency to measure “the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country.” We Yanks are in Mexico’s class or getting there. Our index reading was 40.8 in 1997, 45 in 2007—the wrong direction. By contrast, Mexico’s was 53.1 in 1998, 47.9 in 2006. We’re become more Banana Republic-like, Mexico less. The number for Germany was 30 in 1994 and 27 in 2006. ... Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:26:00 +0100 803852 http://www.teleread.org/2009/12/28/why-amazon-customers-shouldnt-have-to-pay-a-cent-of-sale-taxes-on-e-books/ Attention, Amazon shoppers—and BN.com fans, too, as well as those at other Internet stores selling e-books and more! Randall Stross, the New York Times columnist, wants you to pay sales taxes on Net purchases no matter where you live, at least if you’re in the U.S., where he says Amazon collects for just five states. I respectfully disagree with Stross despite the grotesque botch that Amazon has made of my novel’s listings. Here’s a pro-Amazon post—at least if just sales taxes are the issue. Let CEO Jeff Bezos lavish money on lobbyists to rid us of the scourge. Amazon’s customers, inside or outside the United States, shouldn’t have to pay a penny in sales taxes on e-books, paper ones, stereos, baseball bats or washing machines. Sales taxes are legalized pickpocketry, no matter how noble or official the uses of the money are. But read on, Jeff. You might not like all I have to say. No, I’m not anti-tax, just anti-sales tax. They are inherently regressive and  beset the planet’s retailers with gig after gig of paperwork. But should we starve government? Emphatically no, just so the money is well spent. At all levels—local, state and federal—I want the super-rich to pay a larger share of income taxes than they do now. Care for some numbers arguing for an end to sales taxes and the expansion and better targeting of income taxes? Here they are. 1. Here in the United States, the odds are already stacked against the nonrich. Take a look at the Gini index used by the Central Intelligence Agency to measure “the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country.” We Yanks are in Mexico’s class or getting there. Our index reading was 40.8 in 1997, 45 in 2007—the wrong direction. By contrast, Mexico’s was 53.1 in 1998, 47.9 in 2006. We’ve become more Banana Republic-like, Mexico less. The number for Germany was 30 in 1994 and 27 in 2006. For France? 32.7 in both 1995 and 2008. ... Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:26:00 +0100 803932 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/EQnWlLhuHYw/wallandar-hemming-mankell-tv-books-detective Grief-stricken author ends award-winning crime series after actress who played Wallander's daughter takes her own lifeAs a dysfunctional, divorced, middle-aged man with personal issues, Swedish detective Kurt Wallander has become a famous figure in crime fiction.His creator, Henning Mankell, is about to introduce a female protagonist, caught up in an equally grim world of bizarre multiple murders, who may prove as popular as the portly figure who has captivated millions of readers worldwide. But Judge Birgitta Roslin might never have been created had a tragic, lonely death close to Mankell not forced him to adapt his award-winning formula.Wallander first appeared in Sweden in 1991 in Faceless Killers, with the English translation arriving in 1997. Nine Wallander mysteries were written, set in bleak, flat farmland inhabited by few around the small town of Ystad in southern Sweden. Having introduced Wallander's daughter, Linda, early on as a supporting character, and later as a policewoman, played by Johanna Sällström in the Swedish TV series, the author decided to "retire" the male detective and embark on a natural progression.In Mankell's imagination, Before the Frost, published in 2002, was to be the first in a projected three-part series where Linda would take centre stage. But in 2007, Sällström committed suicide. The 32-year-old was found alone by police at her Malmö home on 13 February 2007, shortly after being released from a psychiatric unit.Depression, traced to her surviving the 2004 tsunami when she was on holiday in Thailand with her young daughter, Tallulah, was believed to be the cause, though no suicide note was found. Sällström had clung on to life that day by holding on to a tree with one hand and her three-year-old daughter with the other. The experience had a devastating effect.After her death, Mankell was unable to write another novel with Linda, saying his grief and guilt were too great. ... Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:05:21 +0100 803676 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/6N-x8CbUTTk/culture-review-of-the-noughties Twitter, Daniel Barenboim, XBox, WG Sebald, Nicholas Hytner's National, Big Brother and The Wire... just some of the cultural highs of the noughties. From the rise of Dizzee Rascal to the emergence – at the age of 89 – of the dazzling Cuban painter Carmen Herrera, our critics pick the defining people and trends of the past 10 yearsTECHNOLOGY GOOGLELarry Page and Sergey Brin began thinking about a new kind of internet search engine in early 1996 and their company was incorporated as Google Inc in 1998. But it was in 2000 that they started selling advertising against search results and this allowed them to move into their Mountain View headquarters in California (aka the Googleplex), begin acquiring other companies (including YouTube) and drastically expand their other ambitions throughout the noughties.The verb "to google" entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 and Google dominates the search engine market despite ferocious competition from Yahoo! and Microsoft. The company has also given us innovations such as Google Earth and Street View, services such as Gmail and its new Chrome browser, and if you've been given an Android phone for Christmas – well, it's Larry and Sergey you have to thank for that, too.Their motto remains "don't be evil" and the company has pledged 1% of its annual profits to Google.org, its charitable arm; revenues last year totalled $21.8bn (£13.5bn). Strange to say, but Google's original mission statement – "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" – now sounds rather modest.AND THE RESTSocial networkingRemember when you'd just meet your friends down the pub? Friends Reunited had a tough time of it, but where would we be today without MySpace, Facebook or Twitter?iPlayerWith the growth of competing forms of entertainment, who'd have thought we'd be gawping at more and more television in 2009 (up 3.2 % to 3. ... Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:05:01 +0100 803677 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/eJ-N_3ukAXM/ Bookeen’s long-delayed upgrade for the Cybook Opus and the Gen3 is out, with two flavors available—one for the aging Mobipocket format and another for ePub, including the Adobe-DRMed variety. In addition, Bookeen is claiming greater-than-expected sales and says it will have a CES booth (12245) in Los Vegas. Now back to the fun stuff. Both versions of the upgrade can display the HTML and TXT formats. Plus, the second flavor includes the FictionBook 2 format. Go to this password-protected support area for the downloads. The readme PDF is here, without a PW needed. Via a memory card I effortlessly installed the Adobe upgrade on a 64MB, 200Mhz Cybook Gen3, a long-term loaner from Bookeen (ultimately destined for return to Bookeen or as a library or university gift). On the whole the news was good despite some problems that might be more related to my older unit than to the upgrade. Page turning may have been a bit faster than with the earlier software, although this was still E Ink territory. Occasionally when I pressed for a page turn, the Gen3 didn’t register, but that’s probably a hardware glitch with the old Gen3s and may have been fixed (anyone care to weigh in with the latest?). Certain  large e-book files took perhaps 20 seconds or so to pop up, far, far longer than with my Kindle 2. Some users doing the Cybook upgrade have reported lockups, just as earlier. I’ll welcome reports from TeleRead community members. Titles from Feedbooks displayed gloriously in ePub and PDF, although the latter from other sources may be a challenge if they’re not customized for the Gen3’s small screen. I tried Google books. Because of Google’s ePub coding, apparently, I could not vary the type style, although I could change size. ... Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:36:16 +0100 803442 http://rabid-librarian.blogspot.com/2009/12/its-not-every-day-you-see-flaming-straw.html Swedish Christmas straw goat burnt A giant straw goat - the traditional Scandinavian yuletide symbol - erected each Christmas in a Swedish town has been burned to the ground yet again. The 13-metre (43-ft) high billy goat has been torched 24 times since it was first erected in Gavle in 1966. The goat was set alight in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the city north of Stockholm. City spokeswoman Anna Ostman said the incident, which is being treated as serious vandalism, was "sad". "We had really hoped that he would survive Christmas and New Year's," she said. The goat has survived the Christmas season just 10 times since 1966. I think the town should embrace the tradition--it has shades of a pagan sacrifice à la the Wicker Man. (And before you say, but it's Christmas, and Christian, let me just remind you that Yuletide greenery, Christmas trees, and Jolly Old Elves have nothing to do with Christianity, but are pagan remnants, as is the date of Christmas and the tradition of giving gifts. Without paganism, there would be no Christmas, or at least any Christmas fun.) (Source: The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind) Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 804000 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/gMgxiIuE7z8/dan-brown-celebs-christmas-books-number-one The Lost Symbol gives author second Christmas number one in five years, as celebrity memoirs sinkDan Brown and his debonair professor of "symbology" Robert Langdon have broken the stranglehold that celebrity autobiographies have held over December book sales in recent years to take the Christmas number one slot.A last minute sales rush propelled Brown's long-awaited novel The Lost Symbol – in which Langdon takes on the Freemasons – to the top of the charts, giving the author his second UK Christmas number one in five years after The Da Vinci Code was the Christmas bestseller in 2004.Brown just pipped the second-placed Guinness World Records – a perennial Christmas bestseller – to the post with such gems as "'Actually, Katherine, it's not gibberish.' His eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. 'It's ... Latin''', and "Is there life after death? Do humans have souls? Incredibly, Katherine had answered all of these questions and more" helping propel him to pole position in the busiest week for book sales.In recent years celebrity memoirs by the likes of Peter Kay, Russell Brand and Dawn French have dominated the Christmas book charts, which are compiled by book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan. But this year only two celebrity autobiographies – a joint memoir by Ant and Dec, and Frankie Boyle's My Shit Life So Far – scraped into the top 10, in ninth and 10th place respectively.The public appetite this Christmas was, instead, for fiction, with two titles from Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire series, a new novel from Jodi Picoult and the first title in late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, all making the top 10 ahead of a host of celebrity autobiographies.Kay's second volume of memoir, Saturday Night Peter, missed out on the top 10 despite high expectations, as did Jo Brand's autobiography. ... Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:39:47 +0100 802732 http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2009/12/mexico-city-votes-to-legalize-gay.html The BBC reports here on the vote by Mexico City's leftist city legislature to legalize gay marriage. The mayor is widely expected to sign the bill. The language changes the definition of marriage from a relationship between a man and woman to "the free uniting of two people". The bill passed 39 to 20 with five abstentions. Gay rights has been an increasingly popular issue in Mexico's capitol recently, with gay pride parades drawing thousands, according to the Associated Press report in the Boston Globe on the vote. The bill was urged in order to provide same-sex couples equal rights with heterosexual couples in such matters as benefits, adoption, bank loans and inheritance, which civil unions, already allowed in Mexico City, failed to provide. According to the Globe version of the AP report: Only seven countries allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. In the United States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Iowa permit same-sex marriage.Argentina’s capital became the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex civil unions in 2002. Four other Argentine cities later did the same, as did Mexico City in 2007 and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Uruguay alone has legalized civil unions nationwide. Both articles report plans from the opposition party, which is the majority nationally to challenge the vote, and opposition from conservative groups and Catholic church spokesmen. But the BBC report notes that: A handful of cities in Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia permit gay unions.Uruguay alone has legalised civil unions nationwide and allowed same-sex couples to adopt children.Last month, an Argentinean court narrowly blocked what would been the continent's first gay marriage.In a last-minute challenge, a court referred the case to the country's Supreme Court, which is due to rule on the issue. This is worth watching. ... Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 802708 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/12/17/sweden-concept-for-swedens-digital-library/ Note: This article was translated mechanically using Google Translate. From the Article: On 15 December, signed a unique document in the Royal Library in Stockholm. There were representatives of the Swedish Writers ‘Union (SFF), the Swedish Publishers’ Association (SVF) and KB, which agreed on a concept sketch for the digitization of the Swedish literary heritage. [Snip] It is a great project that will take time to realize. The idea is to begin to digitize older works and make them available on the Library’s website. Books that can not be bought in printed form or as e-book is provided free to readers. It is an ambitious project,” said Kjell Bohlund on SvF. I am very pleased that this cooperation and the high goal. Access the Full Text Translation See Also: The Concept (Translated) Source: National Library of Sweden (Source: ResourceShelf) Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:41:02 +0100 801303 http://ddc.typepad.com/025431/2009/12/translations-translations-translations.html Over the last three weeks, we’ve had that “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Arabic” feeling (with apologies to the movie title). We’ve had visits from members of the Arabic and Swedish translation teams, plus discussions with the Norwegian and Spanish translation teams (by e-mail and teleconference, respectively). Ann Tobin, a member of the translation team at the National Library of Sweden, paid a working visit to the Dewey Editorial Office at the Library of Congress November 30-December 4. The Swedish translation will employ a mixed approach. The Introduction, Glossary, and Tables 1-6 will be translated into Swedish. The top levels of the schedules plus the full hierarchy of classes down to and including classes with a defined level of literary warrant will be translated into Swedish; the rest of the classes will be ingested directly into the translation as English-language records. Manual records will be translated if associated with classes in Swedish; otherwise, they will be included in English. The translation will be accompanied by separate indexes in Swedish and English. (For more information on the mixed translation model, see here; for more information about the adoption of the DDC in Sweden, see here.) During Ann’s visit, we reviewed the Swedish versions of the Introduction; Glossary; and Table 1, 4, and 6. We also discussed proposals and issues related to geographic areas, education, animal husbandry (yes, a new provision for reindeer farming will be coming to the DDC soon!), sports, literature, and historical periods. Additional topics of discussion included training, translation workflows, and WebDewey 2.0. Lest you think it was all work and no play, we managed to have many interesting meals together (and helped Ann execute her plan of trying a variety of hamburgers across the city) and even caught a world premiere of a new piano concerto by U.S. ... Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 802025 http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2009/12/making-it-count-social-science-data.html The Social Science Libraries Section and the Information Literacy Section are seeking proposals for a program to be held at the IFLA conference in Gothenburg, Sweden in August 2010. "Statistical and information literacy provide the basis for comparison, understanding, and forecasting conditions for economic and social development. Access to this type of data exists in a variety of venues from governments to multi-national corporations to small non-governmental organizations. Through formal presentations, this program will explore the availability of this type of information and the skills needed to access, understand and use statistical information for development." Papers should focus on the relationship between statistical literacy and how this skill can be applied to access to knowledge for development. Case studies, theoretical applications, and translational research will all be considered for inclusion in this program.Papers should be in one of the IFLA official languages. Proposals for papers must be submitted by December 31, 2009. Please include a title, and abstract of no more than 300 words as well as a brief biography for the speaker or speakers. Abstracts should only be submitted with the understanding that the expenses of attending the Gothenburg conference are the responsibility of the author(s)/presenter(s). Send your proposals via email to Lynne Rudasill, rudasill@Illinois.eduPhoto by Sheila Webber: Misty autumn, Nov 2009. (Source: Information Literacy Weblog) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 800591 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/12/13/springer-sciencebusiness-media-sold-to-eqt-and-gic/ Springer Science+Business Media has been sold to EQT and GIC. Here's an excerpt from the press release: The Board of Directors of Springer Science+Business Media (Springer Group), composed of Springer executives and representatives of Cinven and Candover, have agreed to accept an offer from and have signed a sales agreement with a partnership of EQT, a private equity investor based in Sweden, and GIC, a Singapore-based co-investor, for all shares of the Springer Group. The Springer Group is the world’s second largest scientific, technical and medical (STM) publisher and a leader in the digitalization of scientific information. Furthermore, EQT and GIC have agreed to inject new equity into the Springer Group, to strengthen its balance sheet and decrease the overall cost of funding. A refinancing agreement with a syndicate of banks will give the Springer Group medium-term stability by removing imminent potential refinancing issues. The acquisition is subject to examination and approval by European, US and national competition authorities. This process is expected to be finished by mid to late January or early February 2010. Derk Haank, Springer’s CEO, said, “The Springer Executive Management Team has had constructive and collegial discussions with EQT. I am confident that this marks the beginning of a new exciting and successful chapter for us and for our new partners at EQT and GIC. The sale will allow us to move our ambitious and ongoing 'e' strategy forward, and to invest more heavily for our stakeholder’s benefit – this is the best solution for the company, our employees and shareholders.” Read more about it at "Springer Group, Second-Leading STM Publisher, Sold by/to Private Equity Firms" and "Springer Publishing Group Sold for €100m. ... Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 800598 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2009/12/ifla-2010-gothenburg-sweden.html IFLA 2010 (Gothenburg, Sweden) URL: http://www.ifla.org/en/ifla76CFP for main meeting: http://www.ifla.org/en/calls-for-papers/216(check back as they will be adding calls often)Calls for Papers for Satellite Meetingshttp://www.ifla.org/en/calls-for-papers-satellite/216 (Source: A Library Writer's Blog) Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 801690 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DigitalKoans/~3/EweSq8ctdbs/ Springer Science+Business Media has been sold to EQT and GIC. Here's an excerpt from the press release: The Board of Directors of Springer Science+Business Media (Springer Group), composed of Springer executives and representatives of Cinven and Candover, have agreed to accept an offer from and have signed a sales agreement with a partnership of EQT, a private equity investor based in Sweden, and GIC, a Singapore-based co-investor, for all shares of the Springer Group. The Springer Group is the world’s second largest scientific, technical and medical (STM) publisher and a leader in the digitalization of scientific information. Furthermore, EQT and GIC have agreed to inject new equity into the Springer Group, to strengthen its balance sheet and decrease the overall cost of funding. A refinancing agreement with a syndicate of banks will give the Springer Group medium-term stability by removing imminent potential refinancing issues. The acquisition is subject to examination and approval by European, US and national competition authorities. This process is expected to be finished by mid to late January or early February 2010. Derk Haank, Springer’s CEO, said, “The Springer Executive Management Team has had constructive and collegial discussions with EQT. I am confident that this marks the beginning of a new exciting and successful chapter for us and for our new partners at EQT and GIC. The sale will allow us to move our ambitious and ongoing 'e' strategy forward, and to invest more heavily for our stakeholder’s benefit – this is the best solution for the company, our employees and shareholders.” Read more about it at "Springer Group, Second-Leading STM Publisher, Sold by/to Private Equity Firms" and "Springer Publishing Group Sold for €100m . ... Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:02:58 +0100 800337 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/search/librarianship/SIG=12skrjl4n/*http%3A//www.apo.org.au/research/delphi-investigation-research-needs-swedish-librarianship This article reports on the conduct of a national survey in Sweden to establish the desired research priorities for libraries. Creative Economy (Source: Yahoo! News Search Results for librarianship) Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:19:59 +0100 801920 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/4GKYEHhY4yo/true-deceiver-tove-jansson-review This Swedish gem has the translation it deserves, says Ursula K Le GuinAfter the enduring international success of her Moomintroll fantasies, the Swedish author-artist Tove Jansson, in her 60s, began to write adult fiction. It has taken a while for these books to get much attention outside Sweden. On the patronising assumption that books for children are nice, ie morally bland and stylistically infantile, critics, reviewers and prize juries often dismiss those who write them as incapable of writing seriously for adults – a prejudice which, transferred to painting, plays a part in the plot of The True Deceiver.Anyone familiar with Jansson knows it would be unwise to dismiss her or patronise her work on any grounds. Her books for children are complex, subtle, psychologically tricky, funny and unnerving; their morality, though never compromised, is never simple. Thus her transition to adult fiction involved no great change. Her everyday Swedes are quite as strange as trolls, and her Swedish village in winter is as beautiful and dangerous as any forest of fantasy.If a transformation has taken place, it is in the nature of her writing. The language is more than ever spare, lean, taut, minimalist. These adjectives describe a good deal of modern narrative prose – the modishly anorectic style, well suited to thrillers, police procedurals and the existential noir, but very limited in range. Jansson's range, though effortlessly controlled, is great. Her spare exactness can express not only tension and stress but deeply felt emotion, expansion, relaxation and peace. Her description is unhurried, accurate and vivid, an artist's vision. Her style is not at all "poetic" – quite the contrary. It is prose of the very highest order; it is pure prose. Through its quiet clarity we see unreachable depths, threatening darkness, promised treasures. The sentences are beautiful in structure, movement and cadence. They have inevitable rightness. ... Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:08:55 +0100 799761 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/12/11/springer-sciencebusiness-media-sold-to-private-equity-firms/ From the Article: German academic publisher and online data group Springer Science + Business Media is to be sold to Swedish PE group EQT and the Government of Singapore Investment Group (GIC), ending a lengthy sales effort by Springer’s PE owners Cinven and Candover. The buyers plans to invest in the debt-laden business and agree a new refinancing package, removing pressing concerns over its profit-to-debt ratio. EQT will take a 82 percent stake with GIC taking the rest. [Snip] Springer CEO Derk Haank says the new owners will invest in “our ambitious and on-going ‘e’ strategy”. Springer has 2,000 journals, publishes 6,500 new books and more than 30,000 e-books a year. Source: PaidContent UK See Also: Official News Release See Also: EQT, GIC Agree to Buy Springer Science+Business (via Bloomberg) (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:06:34 +0100 799654 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConversationalReading/~3/pjgURA6UCYY/best-european-fiction-review.html Well, "review" is perhaps too strong a word, but The Wall Street Journal has a short article about Dalkey Archive's inaugural volume of Best European Fiction. Not a whole lot in the piece that will be new to readers of this blog, although this sounds most excellent: Dalkey, a nonprofit based at the University of Illinois, is printing 25,000 copies, and plans to expand the project to other continents, starting with Asia. There's also the obligatory: Mr. Riker hopes the anthologies will spur interest in foreign fiction. Newly translated works accounted for about 3% of all books for sale in the U.S. in 2004, according to Bowker, a company that tracks the publishing industry. Last year, the secretary of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature, caused a stir when he chastised the American literary community for being "too insular." To which I say: Translate This Book! I've read Best Euro and I'd say I was favorable to about 2/3 of the material in it. I'd love to see a translation of the Toussaint in there (from Zidane's Melancholy, a sort of narrative/philosophical inquiry into the titular soccer player who briefly became a worldwide celebrity when he head-butted an opponent on the field), and I'm sure Dalkey is on top of that one. The piece by Christine Montalbetti ("Hotel Komba Eminence (with Haruki Murakami)") was wild and good fun. The piece by Pelevin is remarkably good, although he's fairly well known now. And Cosmin Manolache's "Three Hundred Cups" was decidedly Sebaldian (and it concludes--quite courageously--with an actual list of the three hundred cups--marvelous!). (Source: Conversational Reading) Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 800073 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/8KgVxmLOKLU/nobel-prize-other-winners-obama Barack Obama picked up his Nobel peace prize in Oslo today, but less high-profile recipients have also been rewardedBarack Obama was the centre of attention when he picked up the Nobel peace prize in Oslo, Norway, today. But there were also prizes for physics, literature, medicine and chemistry, in a parallel event in Stockholm, Sweden.In Charles Kuen Kao, Woolwich Polytechnic in east London – now part of Greenwich University – has its first Nobel laureate. A Chinese-born Briton, Kao studied at Woolwich before joining a phone company in Essex. He shares half of the prize for physics with two Americans, Willard Boyle and George Smith.Kao made a discovery that led to a breakthrough in fibre optics in 1966, when he calculated how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibres.Optical fibres are the basis for high-speed communications – without fibre optics, there would be no broadband for example. The transfer of enormous amounts of data – text, music, images and video – around the globe in a split second is possible thanks to fibre optics.Boyle and Smith share the award because of their work in digital imagery. They invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (charge-coupled device). The CCD revolutionised photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film. CCD technology is also used in many medical applications – imaging the inside of the human body, both for diagnostics and for microsurgery – and in barcode readers in supermarkets.Herta Müller, the German novelist, is only the 12th woman in 108 years to win the Nobel prize for literature.Born in Romania in 1953, Müller refused to co-operate with Nicolae Ceausescu's secret police, lost her job as a teacher and was the subject of repeated threats until she emigrated in 1987. She now lives in Berlin, where she has won several literary awards, including Germany's most prestigious, the Kleist prize. ... Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:35:43 +0100 799395 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/12/10/formula-to-detect-an-author%e2%80%99s-literary-%e2%80%98fingerprint%e2%80%99/ From the Announcement/Summary: Using literature written by Thomas Hardy, DH Lawrence and Herman Melville, physicists in Sweden have developed a formula to detect different authors’ literary ‘fingerprints’. New research published today, Thursday 10 December, in New Journal of Physics (co-owned by the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society), describes a new concept from a group of Swedish physicists from the Department of Physics at Umeå University called the meta book which uses the frequency with which authors use new words in their literature to find distinct patterns in authors’ written styles. For more than 75 years George Kingsley Zipf’s maxim, based on a carefully selected compilation of American English called Brown Corpus, suggested a universal pattern for the frequency of new words used by authors. Zipf’s law suggests that the frequency ranking of a word is inversely proportional to its occurrence. New research suggests however that the truth behind word frequency is less universal than Zipf asserted and has more to do with the author’s linguistic ability than any over-arching linguistic rule. The researchers first found that the occurrence of new words in the texts by Hardy, Lawrence and Melville did begin to drop off in their texts as their book gets longer, despite new settings and plot-twists. Source: Institute of Physics (Source: ResourceShelf) Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:01:14 +0100 799075 http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/12/massachusetts-primary-guest-blog.html Yesterday the primary took place in Massachusetts to replace Senator Ted Kennedy. Link. AG Martha Coakley won the Democratic nomination with 304,056 votes or 47% of the Democratic vote and 37.5% of the total vote. Scott Brown won the Republican nomination with 141,810 votes or 89% of the Republican vote and 17.5% of the total vote. You can cross parties in the primary so it is difficult to say whether a Republican voted Republican or did they cross over and vote Democratic. But a big factor is that only 11% of all registered voters in Massachusetts are registered Republicans. The last time there was a Republican Senator was Edward Brooke who lost his seat in 1979. But how come Massachusetts gets a Republican governor every second or third election? Because they need one to clean up the financial mess the Democrats create. Well, the Democratic train wreck is here now and the nation, along with Massachusetts needs to put a Republican in this seat. Is it impossible? It is next to impossible, but the time has never been better. Republicans don't vote much in Massachusetts elections as they think it is no use. Well, with these very small turn outs the Republicans have a better chance than normal. I have addressed this communication to those of you who live in Massachusetts. You must vote! Also, please send this to all the people you know in Massachusetts and work to get a better turn out. I believe the election date to fill this seat is January 18th or close to this date. Democratic candidates for governor in NJ and Virginia were voted down. That made big news and sent an unsettling message to the 111th congress. A Republican Senator from Massachusetts would be like setting of the A bomb in Congress.Again, please vote and pass the word onto your fellow Massachusetts residents and friends. It is not impossible. ... Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 799635 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/12/09/libraries-as-important-meeting-places-at-universities/ From the Summary: Library buildings play a vital role at universities and university colleges. Their architectural design is of particular importance for librarians, as this affects their interaction with visitors, among other things.These are the findings of a new thesis for University of Gothenburg, Sweden, which examined the planning of one Swedish university library. Planning university library buildings has become increasingly complex since the late 1900s. Changes within teaching and learning, informatics, and higher education and research mean that there is a wealth of information that needs to be considered by library operators and other players when planning a new building. The planning process encourages interaction between interested parties and representatives of various professions, in particular librarians and architects. Access the Complete Report Source: University of Gothenburg (via AlphaGalileo) (Source: ResourceShelf) Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:54:22 +0100 799083 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2009/12/cfp-ifla-2010-libraries-promoting.html CFP: IFLA 2010: “Libraries Promoting Reading in a Multicultural, Multilingual Society”The Section on Literacy and Reading and the Section on Library Services to Multicultural Populations plan to hold a three-hour joint program at the 2010 Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, on the topic, “Libraries Promoting Reading in a Multicultural, Multilingual Society.” We expect to select four to six high quality papers for presentation and discussion.Papers selected for presentation will reflect a variety of geographic settings. They should clearly document research and/or library practices that have been effective promoting reading that celebrates cultural diversity or that were designed as multicultural reading promotions. The role of the library in the reading promotion should be clearly stated.Paper proposals should be no more than one page in length and should include an abstract of the final paper.Please, provide as follows:a) Title of proposed presentationb) Abstract of the presentation (no more than one page)c) Name(s) of presenter(s)d) Position or title of presenter(s)e) Presenter(s) employer or affiliated institutionf) Address & E-mail addressg) Short biographical statement regarding the presenter/s.Proposals can be written in any of the official IFLA languages, but please, provide abstract in English too!Proposals should be sent electronically no later than January 10, 2010: to Elena Corradini at elenacorradini@freemail.it or ecorradini67@gmail.comPapers will be refereed by members of both sections. Decisions will be made by February 20, 2010.Please note: All expenses incurred for attending the Gothenburg conference are the responsibility of the authors whose papers are accepted.Authors/presenters are expected to attend the World Library and Information Congress and present their papers in person.Accepted papers: Full papers must be from 3 to 20 single spaced pages and delivered by April 15, 2010. ... Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 799698 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2009/12/cfp-ifla-cataloguing-section.html CFP: IFLA Cataloguing SectionSession Theme: Multilingual Bibliographic Access: Promoting Universal AccessThe IFLA Cataloguing Section invites cataloguers and others involved in the following to express their interest in making presentations at the section's programme during the World Library and Information Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden, August 10-15, 2010.2010 will be yet another exciting year in the area of cataloguing and bibliographic control. The new Statement of International Cataloguing Principles will by then have been adopted by many countries and as a consequence universal bibliographic control should be working even moresmoothly; the new cataloguing code, RDA: Resource Description and Access, replacing the AACR 2, will be published during the year and implemented by four participating countries (U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia) and maybe more countries will follow soon after that; theconsolidated ISBD will be complete with full examples and a new preliminary area 0 for content form and media type.The theme of next year's World Library and Information Congress is Open Access to Knowledge - Promoting Sustainable Progress. Connecting to this theme the IFLA Cataloguing Section has therefore chosen the session theme mentioned above: Multilingual Bibliographic Access: Promoting Universal Access. Presentations on this topic are now requested. Three successful proposals on the topic will be identified.Send a detailed abstract (1 page or at least 300 words) of the proposed paper (must not have been published elsewhere) in English and relevant biographical information of author(s)/presenter(s) by 15 January 2010 via email to:Anders CatoChair, Cataloguing Sectione-mail: anders.cato@kb.seThe abstracts will be reviewed by members of the Cataloguing Section's Standing Committee. Successful proposals will be identified by 15 February 2010. ... Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 799700 http://bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com/2009/12/girl-with-dragon-tattoo-by-stieg.html What can I say about this mystery except that I felt deliciously guilty keeping it out of other readers' hands? Or ears, since I listened to the audiobook. (Thankfully the narrator used British accents, even though the characters were Swedish.)Journalist Mikael Blomkvst is hired to re-investigate the disappearance of a wealthy industrialist's niece, under the guise of writing his biography. (This happens in the aftermath of Blomkvst being convicted of libel when he prints a story that seems true but whose sources wish to remain anonymous. Subplot A.) The case of Harriet Vanger is especially cold, because she disappeared 40 years ago, and it's also a vexing one. A traffic accident on the bridge of the island she and 30 or 40 other people lived on cut the island off from the mainland the day that she vanished.Blomkvst eventually teams up with Lisbeth Salander, a hacker who works for a security firm as a researcher, but who has a strange past that has somehow led the state to declare her mentally incompetent and in need of a state-appointed guardian (subplot B).I'm looking forward to reading the next two in this trilogy given how fast-paced, original and yet plausible The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was. If you'd like to read a similar book that's actually in the library right now, you could try one of Arnaldur Indridadson's mysteries. (Source: Berkeley Heights Public Library Book Blog and Buzz) Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 801013 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=30302 Global Survey: Concern for Climate Change Cools Off Source: Nielsen and the Oxford University Institute of Climate Change Concern for climate change has declined in the past two years with many countries recording a double digit fall, according to new research released today by The Nielsen Company and the Oxford University Institute of Climate Change. In the latest round of the survey, conducted in October 2009, 37 percent of global consumers said they were very concerned about climate change (compared to 41 percent in 2007), with the highest levels of concern expressed in Latin America (57%) and Asia Pacific (42%). However, North America lagged global regions with 25 percent of respondents saying they were “very concerned” about climate change. Thirty five out of the fifty four countries surveyed recorded a decline in climate change concern, led by Poland (23%) and Canada (22%). Climate Change concern also fell by 18 percent in Portugal and 17 percent in Taiwan, Spain and Sweden. + Full Document (PDF; 387 KB) (Source: Docuticker) Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:40:33 +0100 798556 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConversationalReading/~3/23BKZDpEuSE/foolish-pride.html Rarely do we see such a lambasted piece of book journalism as Liesl Schillinger's post-Nobel piece from the Oct 18 edition of the NY Times. To say nothing of the bashing that's gone on in other quarters, I already dismantled it here, the editors and I just took it apart again in our editorial, and now noted translator Russell Valentino wants to take a few more slaps in celebration of our Translate This Book! extravaganza of literature that has still never been translated into English. Literary Parochialism, and Proud of It The problem is not merely that so little of world literature, especially the most recent, gets translated into English. It is also the enormous cultural blind spot that follows from that absence, the assumption of centrality that US readers make about their own way of reading and seeing the world when the foundation of such an assumption is so flimsy. The Bushisms of recent memory were embarrassing: how could he be so certain in his views of the rest world when he knew so little about it? An American president should know better, at the very least should know what he does not know. We should not expect any less of prominent literary institutions in the US. The New York Times Book Review piece by Liesl Schillinger from October 18, “American Literature: Words Without Borders”, which, as its sub-title suggests, implicitly makes claims on the territory staked out by another publication, deploys an embarrassing riches of cultural Bushisms. I didn’t find the piece nearly so hilarious as Michael Orthofer did in his post in the Complete Review (even if his laughter there was clearly facetious); but I agree with his reading that the review appears to take up a stand in defense against the criticism of American literature as parochial made by Horace Engdahl of the Swedish Academy last fall, and that the stand is shaky. The first mistake that Schillinger makes is to confuse American multiculturalism with the international. ... Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:00:00 +0100 800085 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/12/06/nobelprize-org-provides-live-hd-quality-webcasts-of-2009-nobel-prize-award-ceremonies-and-nobel-lectures/ From the Announcement: Nobelprize.org, the official web site of the Nobel Foundation, will provide live webcasts in HD quality of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony from Oslo, Norway, and the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony from Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 December 2009. Nobel Lectures on 7, 8 and 10 December will also be webcast live. Nobelprize.org brings you closer to the 2009 Nobel Laureates as they receive their Nobel Prizes, by providing live webcasts of the 2009 Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies and Nobel Lectures as they happen. Access a Complete List of Times and Lectures Source: Nobelprize.org (Source: ResourceShelf) Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:04:19 +0100 798126 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=30248 Norwegian Consumers Most Confident in Europe, Rest of Scandinavia Mixed Source: Nielsen Nordic consumers have more confidence in the economy and their personal finances than the rest of Europe and are increasingly ready to spend, according to the latest edition of the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey. But within Scandinavia, there are some variations. Norway and Sweden posted double digit increase in confidence (up 10 and 11 points, respectively) while Finland’s score was up two. Meanwhile, confidence in Denmark declined two points in the third quarter, although it still recorded the second highest score in Europe. Norwegians posted the highest levels of confidence on the continent. Almost two-thirds (64%) said that they thought their country was not in a recession, compared to 85 percent of European who thought their country was in recession (globally, the average was 64% thinking they were in recession). The same percentage of Norwegians also believed that their job prospects were “good” or “excellent” in the coming year, compared to just 30 percent saying the same in April 2009. More than half (51%) of Nordic consumers said that it is a “good” or “excellent” time to buy the things they want and need, compared to just 31 percent of Europeans and 37 percent globally. Swedes and Danes have a fairly poor outlook on job prospects, while Finns are quite negative: 83 percent believe prospects for the next 12 months were “not so good” or “bad.” + Full Report (PDF; 388 KB) (Source: Docuticker) Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:22:26 +0100 797541 http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2009/11/dont-wait-to-be-asked-towards-next.html There is a call for papers for the two hour session at the IFLA (World Library and Information) Conference which will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden, next August. This session is organised by the IFLA Reference and Information Services Section and the Information Literacy Section. Subjects of interest include: How do we transform and integrate reference and information literacy into new models of instruction and service? How can we identify and understand the future needs of our users? How will the relationship and collaboration between librarians and users change? What information skills will be needed in 2010 and beyond in all sectors of society? How do we transform our users' computer savvy into the ability to use and evaluate information efficiently, effectively, and ethically? What is the role of the library website? How can we move from passive pages to interactive learning tools and valued information assets? How can we deliver innovative and effective information literacy support, guidance and programmes to the right people at the right time? How will we define and develop the reference and instruction librarians of tomorrow?Proposals should include: abstract of paper (max. 500 words); author details (name, institution, position) and brief biographical statement of no more than 50 words. The deadline for submitting proposals is January 22, 2010 and they should be sent via email to Amanda Duffy (burntoak@dsl.pipex.com) with "IFLA proposal" in the subject line. (Source: Information Literacy Weblog) Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 796253 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/SAdKXSM3f5c/ Mobile Read is reporting that the Hanlin V3 has received a minor firmware update which includes support for Swedish and Thai and imporved PDF zooming. You can find the update here. The Havlin v5 was updated a couple of week ago and you can find that here. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:31:40 +0100 795447 http://librarytwopointzero.blogspot.com/2009/11/utrecht-ruling-causing-mininova-to-go.html Seems that bit torrent site Mininova has had to go legitimate after Dutch Court of Utrecht ruled that BitTorrent platform Mininova acts unlawful. Seems that Bittorrent is taking a bit of a battering with Peter Mandelson hoping to amend the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and Piratebays case in Sweden. (Source: librarytwopointzero) Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 796236 http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6708430.html?rssid=190 Authors Sara Kadefors and Annika Thor may not be household names in the United States. But representatives in their native Sweden are hoping to change that. (Source: School Library Journal Breaking News) Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:17:16 +0100 794978 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=29331 Outrunning the Gender Gap – Boys and Girls Compete Equally (PDF; 389 KB) Source: SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance Recent studies find that women are less competitive than men. This gender difference in competitiveness has been suggested as a possible explanation for why men occupy the majority of top positions in many sectors. In this study we explore competitiveness in children. A related field experiment on Israeli children shows that only boys react to competition by running faster when competing in a race, and that only girls react to the gender of their opponent. Here we test if these results carry over to 8-10 year old Swedish children. Sweden is typically ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world, thus culture could explain a potential difference in our results to those on Israeli children. We also introduce two more “female” sports: skipping rope and dancing, in order to study if reaction to competition is task dependent. Our results contradict previous findings in two ways. First, we find no gender difference in reaction to competition in running. In our study, both boys and girls compete. We also find no gender differences in reaction to competition in skipping rope and dancing. Second, we find no clear effect on competitiveness of the opponent’s gender, neither on girls or boys, in any of the tasks. Our findings suggest that the existence of a gender gap in competitiveness among children may be partly cultural, and that the gap found in previous studies on adults may be caused by factors that emerge later in life. It remains to be explored whether these later factors are biological or cultural. (Source: Docuticker) Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:00:38 +0100 794522 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/11/22/oberlin-college-adopts-open-access-policy/ Oberlin College has adopted an open access policy. Here's an excerpt from the press release: The Oberlin College General Faculty unanimously endorsed on November 18 a resolution to make their scholarly articles openly accessible on the Internet. As a result of the measure, the rich scholarly output of the Oberlin faculty will become available to a much broader national and international audience. The Oberlin resolution is similar to policies passed at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Kansas, and Trinity University. "Through this resolution the Oberlin College faculty has expressed a principled commitment to disseminating their scholarship as widely as possible,” said Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies and Chair of the General Faculty Library Committee. “The current system of journal publishing, which largely relies on subscriptions and licenses, limits access to research information in significant ways, particularly for students and faculty at smaller and less wealthy institutions, as well as for the general public. Access is also seriously limited around the world in countries with fewer resources." Under the new policy, Oberlin faculty and professional staff will make their peer-reviewed, scholarly articles openly accessible in a digital archive managed by the Oberlin College Library as part of the OhioLINK Digital Resource Commons. Oberlin authors may opt out of the policy for a specific article if they are not in a position to sign journal publishing agreements that are compatible with the policy, or for other reasons. The resolution also creates an institutional license that gives Oberlin College the legal right to make the articles accessible on the Internet through the digital archive. The resolution further encourages, but does not require, authors to submit publications other than peer-reviewed articles in the same manner. . . . ... Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:01:35 +0100 795347 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/DGGJXUwEWiA/crime-thriller-maj-sjowall-sweden When Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö started writing the Martin Beck detective series in Sweden in the 60s, they little realised that it would change the way we think about policemen for everIt might count as one of the most remarkable writing collaborations in the history of publishing. A man and a woman, a couple, sit down every evening to write. Dinner is over, their children are in bed. She's never written a book before. He's a published author, but not with anything like this. They write in long hand, through the night if necessary. One chapter each. The following evening they swap chapters and type them up, editing each other as they go along. They don't argue, at least not about the words. These seem to flow naturally.Ten years, 10 books. Each book 30 chapters, 300 chapters in all. Every one centred on the same group of middle-aged, mostly unprepossessing policemen in Stockholm's National Homicide Department. Often, very little happens. Sometimes for pages on end. What is more, each book is a Marxist critique of society. Their mission – or "the project" as the authors call it – is to hold up a mirror to social problems in 1960s Sweden.Unlikely as it may sound, the books have become international bestsellers, over 10m copies sold and counting. Classics of the thriller genre, they've been made into films and adapted for television. Subsequent generations of crime writers are fans. There's no doubt that the latest left-leaning Swedish author to hit the bestseller lists, Stieg Larsson, would have read them. Some say the couple wrote the finest crime series ever; that without them we would not have Ian Rankin's John Rebus or Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander.Yet if Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö had not met, the books would not have existed; and if they hadn't fallen in love, the books would be nowhere near as good as they are.More than 40 years have passed since they wrote together every night, filling in each other's sentences. ... Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:10:12 +0100 793875 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/11/19/government-2-0-new-book-details-challenges-of-web-2-0-usage-across-the-globe/ An Audio Report is Also Available at the Top of the Web Page. From the Article Starting Wednesday in Sweden, the European Union is holding a conference of ministers of technology from across Europe that will be looking at lessons learned throughout the EU. In conjunction with that, a new book is out: State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards. It’s available online for free, and will eventually come to a store near you. It pulls from some of the Web 2.0 thought leaders, many of whom you have heard here on Federal News Radio, including Tim O’Reilly, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, and Mark Drapeau from George Washington University. Source: Federal News Radio Hat Tip: Pete W. Access the Full Text Book: State of the eUnion: Government 2.0 and Onwards (321 pages; PDF) (Source: ResourceShelf) Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:38:11 +0100 793012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AginfoBlogFromIaald/~3/mbXwQItKlXc/ifla-2010-aglibraries-group-current.html The IFLA Agricultural Libraries Special Interest Group in association with IAALD (International Association of Agricultural information Specialists) invites papers to be presented at a two-hour session to be held at the World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference at Gothenburg, Sweden, 10-15 August 2010. Information needs of farmers center around the problems such as seeds, soil fertility, soil erosion, climatic conditions, fertilizers, pest hazards, weed control, water management, farm credit, post-harvesting, transportation, marketing and so forth. Timely provision of information is essential in solving these problems. However, the impact of agricultural research and innovations on farmers is not much either because they have no access to such vital information or it is poorly disseminated. Information provided is mainly focused on policy makers and researchers with little attention paid to the information needs of farmers. It is more so in developing countries and particularly small-scale farmers.This session is aimed at discussing current trends in providing farmer-oriented information services in developed and developing countries. ... Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 793513 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/11/17/netherlands-organisation-for-scientific-research-will-commit-5-million-euros-to-open-access-publication/ According to a news article by the SURFfoundation, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, which "funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course of Dutch science by means of subsidies and research programmes," will commit five million Euros to support the open access publication of its funded research results. Related Posts Canadian Association of Research Libraries and JISC Join Confederation of Open Access Repositories Two Open Access Policies Adopted: NCAR and University of Salford UK's National Institute for Health Research Funds 15% Discount in BioMed Central Publication Fees for Its Researchers Swedish Research Council Adopts Open Access Mandate Greater Western Library Alliance Members Send Letter Supporting Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 to Senators (Source: DigitalKoans) Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:02:11 +0100 793243 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/trH9EJ0JrTo/my-media-christopher-meyer The former PCC chair Sir Christopher Meyer shares his media choicesOnlineAfter the morning papers, I use the BBC website to access the rest of the papers online. I get the Financial Times and the New York Times by email. The FT is obviously good on business, and I like its comment page. because It often has a different take on national political news, supplemented by its FT Westminster blog. The NYT, for all its recent travails, is still the best American paper, though it's being pushed by the Wall Street Journal. And I read the News of the World online. When I was chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, I got hooked on it for professional reasons: so often we would receive complaints on a Monday, so I liked to get ahead of the curve by reading it on the Sunday. The blogosphere is essential. I love the Spectator Coffee House, for its own value and as an entry point for a whole bunch of other political blogs – Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale, Ben Brogan, FT Westminster, Clive Crook from the FT because he talks so well about America, Nick Robinson, Adam Boulton and many others including Red Box at the Times. The blogosphere has made me go to bed an hour later! Realclearpolitics.com brings together a digest of all the best articles on politics to be found in the United States and occasionally has British articles too. It's indispensable.NewspapersComing through the letterbox each morning are the Times and the Daily Mail. On Sundays it's the Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday. The Times is a good all-round newspaper, they are going through a good patch, with an excellent website. And I always want to know what the Mail is campaigning for, because the politicians pick up on it. I especially like the Mail's football coverage too.MagazinesThe Spectator has still got the edge – just as good under Fraser Nelson, its new editor. I've been reading Private Eye from its very first edition in the 60s. I read the New Yorker for the features and film reviews. ... Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:05:26 +0100 791819 http://northmetrotechlibraryatacworth.blogspot.com/2009/11/triskaidekaphobia.html Today is Friday the 13th. Except in Australia, which by the time I write this it is Saturday the 14th I should think. Triskaidekaphobia is the term given to the fear of the number 13. This is a fear common in North America and Europe. This fear has morphed into a fear of the date Friday the 13th. Fear of Friday the 13th has given rise to a slasher film franchise, which subsequently created higher sales of ice hockey goalie masks (but that's another story). A search for triskaidekaphobia in Galileo yields 4 results in Academic Search Complete and 4 results in Research Library. The results span all the way back to 1980, and most of the articles deal with the psychological aspects associated with the number 13 and its perceived lack of luck.And in unrelated news, the people of Sweden voted to join the European Union on this day in 1994. JWFView from the Library maintained by The Librarian at North Metro Technical College c2006 (Source: View from the library) Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 791222 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/ZL7QchFUD0s/free-culture-charter-calls-for-oa.html Participants in the Free Culture Forum (Barcelona, October 29-November 1, 2009) developed this Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge: We are in the midst of a revolution in the way that knowledge and culture are created, accessed and transformed. ... In spite of these transformations, the entertainment industry, most communications service providers governments and international bodies still base the sources of their advantages and profits on control of content and tools and on managing scarcity. This leads to restrictions on citizens’ rights to education, access to information, culture, science and technology; freedom of expression; inviolability of communications and privacy. They put the protection of private interests above the public interest, holding back the development of society in general. Today’s institutions, industries, structures or conventions will not survive into the future unless they adapt to these changes. ... We have identified gaps that exist in national regulations and international treaties concerning the dissemination of culture and knowledge, both in private, contractual relations and in international public policy. We propose reforms which we believe are necessary to overcome these flaws. These weaknesses of existing regulations and treaties are detrimental to the public interest and to a modern, democratic cultural industry. In this context, the public interest is best served by supporting and ensuring continued creation of intellectual works of significant societal value, and to ensure all citizens have unfettered access to such works for a wide variety of uses. ... Publicly funded research, and intellectual and cultural work should be made available freely to the general public. ... ... Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 790598 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/qLYwXvRWX3E/new-oa-journals_10.html OA journal announcements, conversions, and launches spotted in the past week: The Journal of Aesthetics & Culture is a new peer-reviewed OA journal, now accepting submissions. See the announcement and launch editorial. The journal is published by Co-Action Publishing with financial support from the Swedish Research Council and Stockholm University. AoB PLANTS is a new peer-reviewed OA journal, now accepting submissions. See the launch editorial. The journal is published by Oxford University Press for the Annals of Botany Company. The International Journal of Studies in Mathematics Education is a new peer-reviewed OA journal. The inaugural issue is now available. The journal is published by UNIBAN Brasil and publishes articles in Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French. Trace (Travaux et recherches dans les amériques du centre), a humanities journal focused on Mexico and Central America, converted to OA. The journal has been published under that title since 1985 by the Centre d'Études Mexicaines et Centraméricaines. The journal publishes in Spanish. The new OA site is hosted by Revues.org. Back issues to 2007 are currently available. Humanitaire, a journal on humanitarian issues, converted to delayed OA with a three-month delay. The journal has been published since 2000 by Médecins du Monde. The journal publishes in French. The new site is hosted by Revues.org. Back issues to 2008 are currently available on Revues.org; previous issues are available OA from the publisher. New Prairie Press will republish as OA the original run of the GDR Bulletin, a journal on East German literature and culture published by the Washington University Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures from 1975 to 1999. The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, published by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, will be managed by Taylor & Francis. As a result, the journal will offer an OA option as part of T&F's iOpenAccess hybrid program. ... Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0100 790268 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/e4-sZK_xSjI/tove-jansson-true-deceiver Celebrated for the Moomins, Finnish novelist Tove Jansson also wrote many books for adults. Being able to read one of her best novels in English for the first time is like discovering buried treasureIn 1962 Tove Jansson published a story for children called "The Spring Tune", featuring Snufkin, the peripatetic musician of the Moomin stories. "'It's the right evening for a tune,' Snufkin thought. 'A new tune, one part expectation, two parts sadness and, for the rest, just the great delight of walking alone and liking it.'" As he settles down to compose, he is disturbed by a small creature, a "creep", which rustles out of the undergrowth, declares its admiration for the famous Snufkin, asks him a lot of questions, and demands attention and comfort.Meanwhile, the tune, which until then had been forming itself out of the noises of forest and brook and the slow revelations of the season, disappears. Snufkin has to wait for it to come back. Never underestimate Jansson, who never ever underestimates her reader. This story for eight-year-olds is a sharply pertinent discourse on the relationships between art, nature, fame and identity, a discussion of the place and role of the artist and of the mysterious sources of creativity.It could be said that everything she wrote is, in one way or another, about the creative interactions between art and reality or art and nature.Tove Jansson was born an artistic child of bohemian Finnish artists. Her mother, Signe Hammarsten, was one of Finland's best-known artists, designers and book illustrators; her father, Viktor Jansson, was a celebrated sculptor. Jansson herself became well known in her 30s for her Moomin tales and illustrations, which eventually made her world-famous. ... Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:07:19 +0100 789089 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/11/03/the-next-big-thing-in-the-u-s-a-music-service-named-spotify/ These days, Spotify is all the rage in Europe and other parts of the world. They’re working to begin serving the U.S. market (lots of licensing issues). From a Reuters Article: The Sweden-based startup Spotify, launched for public access in October 2008, has momentum like no other digital music service of the last six years. It offers on-demand music streaming, in both free and premium services, and now claims to have more than 6 million users in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France and Spain. At one point it reported signing up new members at a rate of 50,000 per day, although that figure has fallen since September, when the service restricted its free version to invited guests in the United Kingdom. Spotify has won high marks from reviewers for the ease with which it provides access to a catalog of more than 6 million tracks from majors and indies alike and the unobtrusive way it delivers advertising. Access the Spotify Features Page to Get an Idea of What’s Available Access the Complete Reuters Article Source: Reuters Music in the USA Here are three of a growing number of services available in the U.S. See Also: Pandora Music Service (Free and Fee-Based Accounts) See Also: Slacker (Free and Fee-Based Accounts) See Also: lala (Free to Listen Online, Pay to Purchase Individual Tracks) (Source: ResourceShelf) Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:19:04 +0100 788298 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/7ZhZfVM2gB0/stieg-larsson-partner-sweden-inheritance • Bitter row over legacy of Swedish crime sensation• Trilogy published after author died of heart attackAs the author of three dark and violent crime novels, Stieg Larsson was at home in a dysfunctional landscape of simmering resentments and rancourous family secrets. But the Swedish writer cannot have foreseen how, almost five years to the day after his death, the novels' success would lead to bitterness and paranoia in his own family.In one of the most spectacular and unlikely ascents in recent literary history, Larsson, largely unknown before his sudden death at 50, has become one of the most successful writers in the world. Some 20 million of his books, the first of which was published in Britain as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, have been sold to date in Europe alone. Last year he was the world's second best selling author after Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, and his estate is thought to be worth more than £20m.But because he and the architect Eva Gabrielsson, his partner of 32 years, never married and he died without making a will, the proceeds have defaulted to his blood relations, provoking controversy in Sweden and displeasure from Gabrielsson.Today in the latest episode in the acrimonious saga, Erland and Joakim Larsson, the author's father and brother, made Gabrielsson a public offer of £1.75mto settle the dispute, telling the Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet, "We have to move on." Gabrielsson's response was curt: "You don't solve these things via media. It is so low. My lawyer will have to answer any further questions."She has previously accused the Larsson family of seeking to "make money from someone who can't defend himself", saying it would make her partner "absolutely furious", and accusing Erland and Joakim of not being part of Stieg's life while he was alive. ... Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:25:20 +0100 788037 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/m9oV0dYXN1o/stieg-larsson-mark-lawson-critic Larsson took a genre which has generally sold to men – thrillers turning on technology and conspiracies – and feminised itOn a French beach this summer, almost every sunbather regardless of nationality was reading one of Stieg Larsson's three novels in one of their numerous translations.This phenomenon is improbable, given the project's many obstacles. The author died before the first book even went through the editorial process and, in most such cases, readers are left with a tantalising sense of the polish further drafts might have provided. And, while Swedish crime fiction already had a high reputation – through the Wallander novels of Henning Mankell – Larsson has achieved a global level of acclaim and sales which is very unusual for a story that is not originally written in English.My theory for the phenomenon is that Larsson took a genre which has generally sold to men – thrillers turning on technology and conspiracies – and feminised it through a highly unusual central character: Lisbeth Salander, who combines the brain of Sherlock Holmes with the martial arts skills of Lara Croft. It's also likely that the history of Sweden – where an experiment in liberal government was compromised by violence and corruption – resonates with readers in other countries. And the author's sudden death – although family and fans accept that he was killed by smoking rather than a smoking gun – adds to the sense that the novels contain urgent and dangerous truths.And yet perhaps the books' triumph should not have been so great a surprise. It is an oddity of Swedish culture that a country often easily ignored suddenly throws up an example in a certain field – Abba, Bjorn Borg, Volvo – which proves to be a world-beater. Larsson is the latest example. ... Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:24:59 +0100 788048 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digizen/~3/Y5-nB3N6tbU/ Un poema que refleja nuestra naturaleza múltiple, diversa y plural. No somos Uno, somos Legión. Al no entender esa pluralidad, la psicología tradicional continua desarrollando  teorías que fallan en comprender quiénes realmente somos y termina reduciendo nuestro complejidad a simples patrones de conducta. Each Person Is A World by Gunnar Ekelof Each person is a world, peopled by blind creatures in dim revolt against the I, the king, who rules them. In each soul thousands of souls are imprisoned, in each world thousands of worlds are hidden and these blind and lower worlds are real and living, though not full-born, as truly as I am real. And we kings and barons of the thousand potential creatures within us are citizens ourselves, imprisoned in some larger creature, whose ego and nature we understand a little as our master his master. From their death and their love our own feelings have received a coloring. As when a great liner passes by far out below the horizon where the sea lies so still at dusk. And we know nothing of it until a swell reaches us on the shore, first one, then one more, and then many washing and breaking until it all goes back as before. Yet it is all changed. So we shadows are seized by a strange unrest when something tells us that people have left, that some of the possible creatures have gotten free. trans. from the Swedish by Robert Bly Etiquetas: Psicologia, Psicologia Entradas relacionadas Más allá de YouTube: En busca de sitios con videos educativos (0) Aplauso para la Asociación de Psiquiatría Americana (0) La bella revolución de Andre Jordan (1) Posesión , exorcismo y psicología (10) La Wikipedia de psicología (2) (Source: DigiZen: Un blogfesor aprendiendo) Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:46:09 +0100 786785 http://infobib.de/blog/2009/10/30/live-in-the-library-2-peter-moren-take-on-me/ Bibliothekspop was an event in december 2009 in Stockholm. The public library presented some live gigs in their own building. One of those gigs was by Peter Morén, who is very popular in Sweden as a member of Peter, Bjorn and John. Here you can see him with his version of a song originally by another wellknown band from Scandinavia. If you find nice clips of live gigs in libraries please tell me in the comments! All songs will be tagged with “live in the library“. Thanks to Peter! Share This (Source: Infobib) Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:06:50 +0100 787124 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/zBMekQIICZg/burgundy-to-exclusively-represent-world.html "Specializing in the promotion of innovative publishers, Burgundy Information Services has signed an exclusive agreement to represent the World Scientific Publishing Group in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia for the sale of their 112 ejournals and digital archive. With immediate effect the contract covers growth markets of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as well as building on Burgundy's specialist knowledge of developing countries within Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungry, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia Montenegro, Slovakia and Slovenia" (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:52:01 +0100 786586 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/10/27/papers-from-the-european-research-area-2009-conference/ Papers from the European Research Area 2009 Conference are now available. Here's a selection from the "Open Access and Preservation" session: Open Access And Preservation: How Can Knowledge Sharing Be Improved in ERA? (presentation slides), Alma Swan "Optimizing Research Sharing in the European Research Area: Cyberinfrastructure, Quality, and Open Access," Jean-Claude Guédon Related Posts Digital Videos: Presentations from Access 2009 Conference Swedish Research Council Adopts Open Access Mandate Publishing and the Ecology of European Research Project Releases PEER Annual Report—Year 1 Greater Western Library Alliance Members Send Letter Supporting Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 to Senators "Open Access Advocacy: A Checklist for Research Libraries" (Source: DigitalKoans) Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 786344 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/zcGn/~3/bWOQFTb8YMU/beautiful-library-calendars.html Do you need a great gift for a colleague, library lover, or bibliophile? One of the best I've come across is the Renaissance Library Calendar from ISIM in Stockholm. The group is set up to take orders from the US or Europe.The calendar contains 12 of the most beautiful and famous old libraries in the world. With the 2010 edition we celebrate the 10th year with this unique calendar. The front cover of the 2010 edition of the calendar shows the Vyssi Brod Abbey Library, Theological Hall (1750), in Vyssi Brod, Czech Republic.I have ordered these before and they are really quite beautiful. Price depends partly on quantity ordered, and runs from $13.95 US for one to $12.00 US each for 50. (Then add shipping, which is specified on the site.) When I bought them they arrived in perfect condition.The organization that produces these products goes by ISIM: Information Strategy & Information Management. "We are an information strategy and information management consultancy, and a small publishing company, based in Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm, in Sweden."ISIM also sells library posters and greeting cards. It will sell in bulk so you can use the products for fundraising, and when you do this you can even customize the calendars with your logo and more. Check it out today!The M Word Blog teaches your library and non-profit tips, tricks and trends of the marketing trade (Source: The "M" Word - Marketing Libraries) Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 786647 http://yourlibrarycsu.blogspot.com/2009/10/sweden-makes-research-free.html In a trail-blazing move, the Swedish Research Council has made it mandatory for researchers to publish their materials so that it is freely available to the public."We consider that publication of research which has been paid for out of public funds should be made freely accessible to all" says Professor Pär Omling, Director General of the Research Council. Open Access is an important condition if research results are to be disseminated for the benefit of society.What this amounts to, is that from 2010, researchers will not get funded unless their work is published open access within six months of the publication. This applies to all academic articles and conference reports, but not monographs or chapters in books.So what do you think? Is this a good idea? Should Australian researchers publish in open access journals? Vote below and leave us a comment.DisplayVote62720();http://www.pollmonkey.com/p.asp?U=354762720 (Source: Your Library@CSU) Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 787348 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/10/26/presentations-from-throwing-open-the-doors-strategies-and-implications-for-open-access/ Presentations by Tracy Mitrano and Heather Joseph from "Throwing Open the Doors: Strategies and Implications for Open Access" are now available from EDUCAUSE. Here's an excerpt from the announcement: n the past decade, the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools for sharing and creating knowledge, coupled with the creation of open-access journals, databases, and archives across the web, has begun to redefine the concept of "openness" in higher education. Advocates of the open-access campaign argue that free, virtual access to scholarly works and research advance scientific discovery and lead to faster knowledge dissemination and richer research collaborations, throwing open the doors that once restricted knowledge sharing and exploration. Critics of the movement have doubted its economic sustainability and raised concerns about its impact on peer review. Regardless, open access requires a new examination of campus copyright and publishing policy. Related Posts Two Open Access Policies Adopted: NCAR and University of Salford Swedish Research Council Adopts Open Access Mandate Greater Western Library Alliance Members Send Letter Supporting Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 to Senators Digital Video Presentations from the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing Open Access in Portugal: A State of the Art Report (Source: DigitalKoans) Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 786347 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/qB95vCjA8js/ Faced with a plague of rabbits, some wild and some abandoned pets, the city of Stockholm is pursuing a unique pest-control strategy. The city is hunting, deep-freezing, and shipping the rabbits to a heating plant in central Sweden where they're processed for fuel. Three thousand rabbits have been culled this year. (Source: Freakonomics Blog) Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:37:09 +0100 785803 http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/a-very-renewable-energy-source/ Faced with a plague of rabbits, some wild and some abandoned pets, the city of Stockholm is pursuing a unique pest-control strategy. The city is hunting, deep-freezing, and shipping the rabbits to a heating plant in central Sweden where they're processed for fuel. Three thousand rabbits have been culled this year. (Source: Freakonomics Blog) Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 785625 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/talis/panlibus/~3/fMoHeuySHXo/will-linked-data-mean-an-early-end-for-marc-rda.php For the uninitiated, NGC4LIB is a library focused mailing list which has a reputation for often engaging in massive discussions and disagreements around the minutiae of future cataloguing and library focused metadata practices.  They have recently been involved in one of these great debates stimulated by the comments of Sir Tim Berners-Lee in a recent interview.    As is often is the case on this list, the debate wandered well off topic in to the realms of FRBR and it’s alternatives before being brought back on topic by Jim Weinheimer, who started the conversation in the first place. A statement in Jim’s contribution caught my eye: Implementing linked data, although it would be great, is years and years away from any kind of practical implementation Implementing linked data is already well underway with many groups across the Globe.  For instance there are couple that we at Talis are closely involved with.  Following on from Sir Tim’s interview comments, the British Government are currently running a, soon to be opened, closed beta of data.gov.uk.  Through this site they are not only opening up data in many forms such as CSV, like their American cousins at data.gov, but they are also starting to encode in RDF and publishing it via the Talis Platform which provides a SPARQL (the query language of the Linked Data web) end point.  This approach not only lets anyone download the raw data, but also enables them to query it for whatever they have in mind. If you want a sneak preview of how such data is queried, take a look at some of theses examples.   In a similar vein, metadata from BBC programmes and music is being harvested in to Talis Platform stores.  Again these are open to anyone to innovate with – check out these screencasts  to see some of the early possibilities. ... Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:13:23 +0100 786492 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/l9jUouXkns4/inventing-future-of-librarianship-dave.html Inventing the Future of Librarianship by Dave Lankes - Keynote Knutpunkt 2009, Linkoping, Sweden (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:13:36 +0100 785056 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/10/22/editorial-in-praise-of%e2%80%a6-wikileaks/ From the Editorial A brown paper envelope for the digital age, Wikileaks.org is now home to more than 1m documents that governments and big business would rather the public did not see. The site – similar to Wikipedia in style, but otherwise independent of it – serves as an uncensorable and untraceable depository for the truth, able to publish documents that the courts may prevent newspapers and broadcasters from being able to touch. [Snip] Useful in Britain, it is invaluable in less free societies, such as China, where the authorities play a cat-and-mouse game with Wikileaks’ Swedish webhosts to try to block access. So far Wikileaks has stayed ahead, with technology leaving the law lagging behind. The site exists in a sort of legal limbo, not private, but not yet fully accepted by courts as part of the public domain. Source: The Guardian (U.K.) (Source: ResourceShelf) Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:59:42 +0100 784408 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/I4yHki56IqE/new-issue-of-sciecom-info.html A new issue of ScieCom Info is now available. Contents: Adrian Price, Danish Open Access Network (DOAN) - A new Open Access network established Jyrki Ilva, Building a repository infrastructure for Finland Áslaug Agnarsdóttir, The University of Iceland joins Skemman Ian Watson, Starting an Open Access Journal in Iceland Ingrid Cutler, Creating a library service for scholarly open access journals Ingar Lomheim, The Focus on Publishing at the NTNU Library Jan Hagerlid, Open Minds – an interview with Gunnel Engwall, President of The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (Source: Open Access News) Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 784162 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/i28bgf9J6RE/nordic-crime-writers-us-awards The Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason and the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson were honoured at the major US mystery convention BoucherconAmerica's reputed long-standing indifference towards literature in translation was thrown in doubt this weekend when Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason and the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson picked up a host of awards at the major US mystery convention Bouchercon.Indridason's The Draining Lake, in which a skeleton is discovered in an Icelandic lake after an earthquake, picked up the Barry award for best novel, voted for by readers of Deadly Pleasures and Mystery News. Larsson's first Lisbeth Salander tale, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, won best first novel prize in the prestigious Anthony awards – voted for by the 1,700 crime fans at the convention – and the Macavity awards, named for TS Eliot's "mystery cat" and voted for by members of Mystery Readers International.Steve Murray, Larsson's English translator, was at the convention and said it was "great to see the fans and other writers voting for him"."The awareness of Scandinavian crime fiction has certainly been building, with Henning Mankell and others softening readers up for Stieg," he said. "Then he came along and was so much better than all the others."Larsson's British publisher Christopher MacLehose at Quercus agreed. "The crime writers in translation are for perfectly obvious statistical reasons better than English ones, because they are all chosen by serious publishers in their countries of origin and filtered down and down before they get translated into English," he said. "We're translating a tiny proportion so we should be getting the best of the best."Indridason's editor Stuart Williams at Harvill Secker said that the success of authors such as Larsson marked "another evolutionary stage" in attitudes to translated crime. ... Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:53:25 +0100 783804 http://northmetrotechlibraryatacworth.blogspot.com/2009/10/gadgets-and-more-gadgets.html Just some musings on the new Credo Reference Gadgets tool . . .The gadgets tool will appear as a frame on the right side of the Firefox window. If the frame does not appear, you may need to click on the gadgets link in the top center of the Credo homepage.Not all gadget options will appear on the frame initially. You may click on the + symbol to see what additional gadgets are available and add them to the frame.Searching within the gadgets is rather straightforward. A search for a word under ‘define’ will take you to entries for that word. The location search appears to have some issues. A search for ‘Atlanta, GA’ did not take me to the desired articles. A search for ‘Atlanta’ did take me to the desired entries. The conversions tool is a bit simple and compares laterally to similar tools on websites found through a search engine. The conversion answers appear in script below the tool itself and the display is a bit untidy in my opinion. The quotations tool will take you to entries from quotations books related to the searched for person, as with a search for George Bush, which included both elder and younger. However, due to the slightly dated nature of the Credo materials, a search for Barack Obama through quotations yielded no hits. The crossword tool allows you to look for a crossword answer. Enter the letters you have and place a ? in the stead of the letters you desire. The tool will pull up a list of suggested answers. There is a drop down list explanatory device that appears with this tool in the form of a question mark icon. I tested the holidays tool by typing Sweden in the search bar. This took me to a list of entries for holidays that originated in Sweden, followed by entries for holidays associated in some way with Sweden.A useful tool for ready reference. The image search may lead to students/others using copyrighted pictures in their presentations though. ... Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 783918 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ConversationalReading/~3/UozXWyjq49A/in-which-we-pat-our-own-backs-because-we-are-so-great.html I don't really know how to read Liesl Schillinger's article in the NYTBR as anything but facile self-congratulations. Apparently, Schillinger's argument amounts to: "we don't need to bother with that foreign literature nonsense because we nominated some immigrant authors for an impressive American award": Last fall Horace Engdahl, then the spokesman for the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel literature prize, criticized American fiction for being “too isolated, too insular.” In light of the controversy that followed, it seems natural to ask: was Mr. Engdahl wrong? To refine the question: how can our literary tastes be “isolated” and “insular” when they can be assimilated and imitated so successfully? And what does it mean to write an “American” book, if you don’t need an American address to do it? The judges of the National Book Awards tacitly suggest a heartening response: the American idea not only translates, it disregards national boundaries. To qualify for the award, a writer must have American citizenship but can carry other passports, too. This is either hopelessly naive or hopelessly arrogant. Or to put it another way, I'm sure Horace Engdahl et al. will be pacified by Schillinger's insistence that we need not bother with those other writers out there since American ideas are better anyway and have already slathered themselves across so much of the globe. One might respond that McDonalds hamburgers and epic Hollywood action movies have been similarly assimilated and imitated, although clearly both are the product of extremely isolated world-views and now have less to do with "America" as such than some murky post-national niche of the capitalist economy. Of course, it's great that America provides a home for writers from other countries, and it's likewise great that said writers are eager to relate the immigrant experience and in so doing convey a sense of their homeland. ... Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 785163 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/10/19/congressional-research-service-electronic-accessibility-act-of-2009-introduced/ Rep. Frank Kratovil and Rep. Leonard Lance have introduced The Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 3762). Here's an excerpt from the press release: In an effort to make sure the public has access to the same research reports and analysis Members of Congress use to make decisions, Rep. Frank Kratovil today introduced HR 3762, The Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Act of 2009. This bipartisan legislation, introduced with fellow freshman Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ), would make published Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports available to the public in an effort to increase transparency and help citizens become more informed and engaged advocates. "Across the country, citizens are deeply and passionately engaged in debates about the future of our country and the significant challenges we face at home and abroad," said Rep. Kratovil. "As the public debate has become increasingly partisan and polarized, it is more important than ever for citizens to have full access to the same neutral, unbiased information that many of us rely on to help us formulate important decisions." The lawyers, economists, reference librarians, and social, natural, and physical scientists of CRS offer invaluable research and analysis to Members of Congress on all current and emerging issues of national policy. CRS has a responsibility to ensure that Members of the House and Senate have available the best possible information and analysis on which to base the policy decisions. CRS is governed by requirements for accuracy, objectivity, balance, and nonpartisanship — the very sort of analysis sought and valued by engaged constituents. As a dedicated congressional support agency, CRS is joined by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in providing Congress with information and analysis that is unequaled by any other national legislature. ... Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:02:42 +0100 784538 http://digital-scholarship.com/digitalkoans/2009/10/19/two-open-access-policies-adopted-ncar-and-university-of-salford/ The National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Salford have adopted open access policies. Here's an excerpt from the National Center for Atmospheric Research announcement: The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has passed an Open Access policy that requires that all peer-reviewed research published by its scientists and staff in scientific journals be made publicly available online through its institutional repository. The new policy has been put in place by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the governing body that manages NCAR. A national lab, NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. It has conducted research into the atmospheric sciences since 1960. UCAR last month formalized the new policy and is developing an institutional repository known as OpenSky, which will include all published studies by NCAR and UCAR researchers in scientific journals. The repository will be free and available to the public, but access to the works it contains will depend upon the policies of their publishers. In support of copyright law and the health of the publishers that support NCAR and UCAR science, all publishing agreements will be honored. OpenSky will be managed by the NCAR Library and is expected to go live in 2010. Read Peter Suber's take on this policy at "OA Mandate at a US National Lab." Here's an excerpt from the University of Salford announcement: The University has announced its intention to implement plans that will make free, easily accessible research knowledge available to a world wide audience via the University of Salford Institutional Repository (USIR) portal. . . . For the last two years the University has been implementing systems to enable the University's research active staff to deposit their findings and research into the repository. ... Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:01:35 +0100 784539 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/zcGn/~3/x3WttE67AYc/2010-ifla-international-marketing-award.html Have you conducted an outstanding marketing campaign? Why not consider applying for the 2010 IFLA International Marketing Award? The winner will receive airfare, lodging and registration for the World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly in Sweden in August 2010, as well as a cash award of USD 1,000 which must be used to further the marketing efforts of the recognized organization. Full details here. The M Word Blog teaches your library and non-profit tips, tricks and trends of the marketing trade (Source: The "M" Word - Marketing Libraries) Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 784616 http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/10/maybe-its-little-guilt-about-samis.html Facing mounting criticism for their noble choice: "Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe."All these things have contributed to – I wouldn't say a safer world – but a world with less tension," Jagland said Tuesday."Norway is a tiny country. It rates very high on all the social-cultural perks--usually at the top which liberals attribute to their confiscatory taxes and socialist government and not their shared gene pool. (I'm guessing if you examined Norwegian-Americans you'd get a similar result without socialsim.) I think they've even taken in a few dispossessed non-blonde, darker skinned people over the last 30 years, like Somalis and Vietnamese. Some have even decided to become members of the family (citizens)--but they were chosen for adoption. Illegal immigration and racial dust-ups aren't much of a problem there--so they can be smug when chosing peace prize winners who speak but don't do, because that's their way too. Unless of course, you look waaaay up north at the Sami culture within Norway's borders, a very ancient, indigenous, nomadic people who were living there centuries before the "Norwegians" and who prefer to ignore man made boundaries and move their herds across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. No, to those people (who have many dialects) they aren't so welcoming. Whether with good intentions or bad, as a result of all the efforts of the four countries in which they live, the Sami culture will soon be reduced to some pretty costumes in cultural museums and special representation in the various parliaments. (Source: Collecting my Thoughts) Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 782096 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/earlham/dGCQ/~3/By2XQQn3MZk/economics-nobel-goes-to-commons.html The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced yesterday that the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson. Ostrom was recognized "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons". Ostrom's research has touched on many types of commons, knowledge among them. See, e.g.: Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool Resource, Law and Contemporary Problems, 2003. Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom, eds., Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, MIT Press, 2006. See also our past posts on Ostrom. (Source: Open Access News) Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0100 781960 http://blogs.ala.org/coswlcause.php?title=herta_muller_has_been_named_by_the_swedi&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed" Herta Müller has been named by the Swedish Academy as the winner of the 2009 Nobel prize for literature (Source: ALA Weblog Service) Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:08:17 +0100 781605