Monthly Archives: February 2008

Short Pencil Saga

Posted on 29 February 2008 by Rick Mason

From Nick Baker, the guy who brought us March of the Librarians (and some help from his cohorts at Williams College Library) comes a documentary examining the life of a golf pencil. Short Pencil Saga (I challenge you to not … Continue reading →

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Tim Berners-Lee and DataPortability

Posted on 29 February 2008 by Rick Mason

In a long interview on the state of the semantic web, Tim Berners-Lee (if you don’t recognize the name, you should really read this) briefly discussed DataPortability, the ability to move information freely and easily from one site to another: … Continue reading →

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Online Office Software

Posted on 27 February 2008 by Rick Mason

None of this is new, but I encountered a reminder of how quickly online software is becoming more and more useful: Zoho Writer (part of the Zoho collection of online tools) has been updated, and now supports saving in the … Continue reading →

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Courseware, Web 2.0 and Libraries

Posted on 26 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Last September I wrote about Libguides, an online service that creates web 2.0-style offerings for library web sites. I was impressed with the quality of their offerings, but had misgivings about the cost, especially when one considers that a library … Continue reading →

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TimesMachine

Posted on 25 February 2008 by Rick Mason

TimesMachine is a complete, easy to use browser for all New York Times editions between September 18, 1851 (their first date of publication) through December 31, 1922 (the day before copyright still exists). from Metafilter

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Free Online Courses from Great Universities

Posted on 25 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Free Online Courses from Great Universities is a collection of lecture podcasts organized by topic; organized by Open Culture. found via Open Access News

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Abandoned Books in Detroit

Posted on 22 February 2008 by Rick Mason

This is one of those stories that just makes one feel sick to your stomach… the Detroit Public Schools simply abandoned a book depository sometime in the mid 1980s.  Twenty years, several fires, and a great deal of weather exposure … Continue reading →

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Evergreen Acquisitions

Posted on 21 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Evergreen has announced their progress on their Acquisitions portion of the open-source ils.  They are on target to have a functional acquisitions/serials capability by summer! Take a look at their progress, noting that their vanilla interface is only in place … Continue reading →

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Code4lib 2009 may be in Columbus

Posted on 21 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Columbus is an exciting town when you are interested in libraries.  This was driven home by the Code4lib Conference Proposal : Columbus, OH page of Roy Tennant’s website.  Take a look, and see if you agree. The Code4Lib Conference has … Continue reading →

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Bibliographic Formats and Standards

Posted on 21 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Bibliographic Formats and Standards is an OCLC resource that provides information about Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) records.  It is geared towards WorldCat records, but should be a great reference for anyone with MARC questions. from Kristen on the SERIALST list

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Library of Congress LCCN Permalink Service

Posted on 20 February 2008 by Rick Mason

LCCN Permalink is a service provided by the Library of Congress that allows one to generate links to items in the LC collection by the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). The format is: http://lccn.loc.gov/99011685 This is similar to the … Continue reading →

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Are You Prepared?

Posted on 14 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Today’s horrific news, the campus shootings at Northern Illinois University, has struck fairly close to home for me. Before moving to Columbus, my current residence, I lived in DeKalb for 18 years. I have attended NIU; my former wife was … Continue reading →

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Suitcase Libraries

Posted on 13 February 2008 by Rick Mason

There is a post on LISNews today about “Suitcase Libraries” in South Africa. These are basically small book collections in suitcases which are distributed to preschools to help encourage reading in areas with low literacy. The original article is here. … Continue reading →

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The Librarian Song

Posted on 12 February 2008 by Rick Mason

The Librarian Song (YouTube video) is, well, a song… about librarians… specifically about how librarians train users (Show it to them, do it with them, and then the user can do it themself). And above all… it is really funny … Continue reading →

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Recipes for a 5-Star Library

Posted on 11 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Recipes for a 5-Star Library is the latest “cookbook” from the MaintainIT project.  The cookbooks are pdf files that are free to use The project focuses on public computers in libraries, and their Library Spotlight articles are drawn from real-world … Continue reading →

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Paper Use

Posted on 10 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Remember how, about 10 years ago, the concept of a “paperless office” began to seem like a weird joke? The proliferation of the desktop computer and the ascent of the internet introduced the potential of foregoing paper documents, relying instead … Continue reading →

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Public Domain Archive and Reprints Service

Posted on 9 February 2008 by Rick Mason

The Public Domain Archive and Reprints Service is something that I have thought would make an interesting business model:  take public domain materials and publish them using a print-on-demand service. With the various scanning projects, there are more and more … Continue reading →

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SERU Initiative

Posted on 9 February 2008 by Rick Mason

SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding is an attempt by libraries and publishers alike to break out of the licensing process that many in both camps find problematic. Simply put, it is a straightforward agreement that a particular library subscribes … Continue reading →

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Day of the Blog

Posted on 8 February 2008 by Rick Mason

This will be the eighth post today, possibly a record. Not that I was trying… there were just too many interesting bloggable items, and for once there was enough time to post them all. In addition, and the purpose of … Continue reading →

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Speed Writing

Posted on 7 February 2008 by Rick Mason

A couple of years ago I encountered some type of advertisement for a particular book. I don’t recall what the exact title was, but it was something along the lines of “The 2004 Outlook for Thingamajiggers in the United States.” … Continue reading →

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