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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Libology Blog
Established July 2006
ISSN: 1946-1852
by Rick Mason
Author Archives: Rick Mason
Waiving Fines
When does your library waive fines and fees? How much do circumstance matter? How about this circumstance? I like that the book was about professional ethics. found via LISNews
CPSC Testing Requirements Delayed
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) opted on Friday to delay implementation of many of their new testing and certification regulations for one year, to enable them to review what products and organizations should be covered under the law. … Continue reading
May You Live in Interesting Financial Times
If you have been concerned about the possible effects of the global financial crisis on libraries, you aren’t alone. The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has issued a statement that is not only short, succinct, and dire, but also … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Groups, Libraries, Licensing, News, Online Databases, Online Services
Tagged consortia, Illinois, International Coalition of Library Consortia, Libraries, library consortia, Ohio, Online Databases, Online Services
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Customize Firefox for Your Public Workstations
It’s a post that is months old, but the information is just as useful: Swiss Army Librarian has a guide for Using Firefox on Our Public Computers. If you have computers that restore themselves to a pre-determined state upon reboot, … Continue reading
Posted in Libraries, Open Source, Software
Tagged firefox, public computers, Software
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Google Book Search – Publisher’s Perspective
A Fire on the Plain is a post by Peter Brantley of the University of California that relates the essence of conversations he has had with several rightsholders who were part of the Google Book Search negotiations. An exerpt: From … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Copyright, Google, Libraries
Tagged Copyright, e-audio, e-book, Google, Google Book Search, Libraries, Peter Brantley, University of California
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Michael Arrington Taking A Break
TechCrunch is a blog. A blog about technology startups. It is run by Michael Arrington, who is someone I consider to be a straight shooter. When evaluating a new technology, company, or service, he states what he feels about it, … Continue reading
Posted in Blogs, Death, Software
Tagged Blogs, death threats, Michael Arrington, Michael Arrington Taking, straight shooter, TechCrunch, technology startups
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Beautiful Library
The Open Library Environment (there will be a post on this project in the near future) recently met at Lehigh University’s Linderman Library in Bethlehem, PA. Pictures were taken and posted on Flickr. I especially love the stained glass skylight…
Posted in Groups, Libraries, Photography
Tagged Bethlehem, Lehigh University, Lehigh University's Linderman Library, Libraries, OLE project, Pennsylvania, Photography, United States
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Find Any Film
Find Any Film is a British site that strives to be the starting point for locating films for purchase and/or viewing. It is not nearly as comprehensive as the Internet Movie Database (I could not find The Story of English, … Continue reading
Posted in Online Databases, Search, Video
Tagged films, Find Any Film, Internet Movie Database, miniseries, movies, the award, The Story of English
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Self Publishing as a Marketing Trend
Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab is an article in today’s New York Times on how this one area of publishing is booming, while it seems all other areas are scaling back. The headline itself doesn’t quite fit the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Libraries, Library 2.0
Tagged Amazon, Libraries, media flourishing, New York Times, Publishing, self-publishing, the long tail, writer
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SitePoint Reference
SitePoint Reference is an online guide with a wealth of information on web design. Divided into three sections, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it is a great place to find that bit of information you need while designing or editing a … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Online Services, Web Design
Tagged css, html, JavaScript, online guide, SitePoint, Web Design
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NYT Best Sellers API
The New York Times Blog announced today that they have released an API for their Best Sellers list. Library programmers should jump on this. Imagine being able to display information about an item’s rankings – dates, placement, etc. – in … Continue reading
Posted in Blogs, Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, Online Services, Web Design
Tagged API, Best Sellers, Books, Google, New York Times Blog, NYT Best Sellers API The New York Times, OPAC, Steve Toub, The New York Times
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Upgrades Big and Small
A post on the Unshelved Blog reminds me of the varying philosophies towards upgrading web sites. In the post, Bill discusses how much easier it is to make incremental changes to their site fairly often, rather than a major overhaul … Continue reading
Posted in Web Design
Tagged home remodeling, incremental changes to their site, Unshelved, Web Design
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Data Isn’t Copyrightable
Data, Copyrights and Slogans, Oh My! is a post on the Common Knowledge blog discussing the idea that data is not subject to copyright. With the OCLC kerfluffle still echoing about the libibliogosphere, it stands out as a nice, succinct … Continue reading
Fonterrific
A recent post, and the resulting discussion, on Metafilter has put me in a Unicode font frenzy. A few links of note from there and elsewhere: decodeunicode.org is a wiki-based collection of Unicode characters. You can browse as well as … Continue reading
Posted in ILS, Language, Libraries, Online Databases, OPAC, Software, Web Design, Wiki
Tagged characters, fonts, ILS, Unicode, Unicode.org, Web Design
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Library Books in your Search Engine
Why you can’t find a library book in your search engine is an article in The Guardian. It is a good overview of the broader issues surrounding the OCLC Licensing problem, and is written for the general reader (i.e. this … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, Licensing, News, OCLC, Search, WebSearch
Tagged Librarian.net, Licensing, OCLC, OCLC Records Use Policy, search engine, the Guardian
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Open Source Attitudes
Karen Coombs has a post on the Library Web Chic blog about getting feedback for a problem she was having with Drupal, an open source content management system. She points out, and rightly so, the fallacies that techies run into … Continue reading
Posted in Blogs, Library 2.0, Open Source, Software
Tagged content management system, Karen Coombs, Open Source, Software, Web Chic blog
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LibraryThing Partners Up
LibraryThing has partnered with Cambridge Information Group (Bowker, AquaBrowser, ProQuest, Serials Solutions, and RefWorks), though Tim Spaulding still retains a majority stake. This means that we will be seeing a lot more of LibraryThing for Libraries in the future (good … Continue reading
Posted in ILS, Libraries, Library 2.0, News, OPAC, Software, Web Design
Tagged Cambridge Information Group, Inc., LibraryThing, LibraryThing for Libraries, Serials Solutions, Serials Solutions Inc, Tim Spaulding
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Does a Degree a Librarian Make?
The debate has been going on for years, and has recently flared up again on PUBLIB : Does a person need the MLIS degree to do the work of a librarian? LISNews has decided to take a poll (and encourage … Continue reading