Author Archives: Rick Mason

Pipl

Posted on 29 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Pipl is a search engine geared towards finding people, but it casts a wider net than other people search tools. It searches social networking sites, job sites, and blogs. As you might guess, there are usually a lot of results … Continue reading →

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Wide Open Education

Posted on 26 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Wide Open Education is a new blog from the Online Education Database.  Each of these links is well worth following:  you will find great information and resources related to the open education movement on either. from Open Access News

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Geonames

Posted on 26 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Geonames is an online database of places.  Type in the name of a place, be it a town, city, geographic feature, or landmark, and you get a list of places with that name. Want to know how many places in … Continue reading →

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Advice to a slightly less experienced geek librarian

Posted on 25 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Advice to a slightly less experienced geek librarian is written by Daniel Chudnov at One Big Library, and is an excellent essay with good advice for anyone exploring new ways to do things in libraries.  I can vouch for a … Continue reading →

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Plantfacts

Posted on 25 May 2007 by Rick Mason

PlantFacts is a resource from the Ohio State University which provides a wealth of information about plants and horticulture through a plant web search, an image database, how-to videos, a collection of over 800 FAQs, and an illustrated glossary. from … Continue reading →

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Cross Language Web Search

Posted on 24 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Google Translate has a new feature:  it will allow you to search foreign language pages using your language’s search terms, and translates the results on the fly. As with all machine translation, the results will vary; the interface is well … Continue reading →

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BibMe

Posted on 24 May 2007 by Rick Mason

BibMe is a great site for locating and generating bibliographic citations in MLA, APA and Chicago styles, which you can then download to your computer, or store on their server (if you sign up for a free account). In their … Continue reading →

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Libraries and Zombies

Posted on 21 May 2007 by Rick Mason

The folks at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana bring you this public service announcement: Video Contest Submission-Allen County Public Libraryfrom blyberg.net

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It’s a Wiki… It’s a Skymap…

Posted on 19 May 2007 by Rick Mason

It’s WikiSky! Ideal for answering the question “was that object in the western sky a star or planet?”, as well as  many other star / constellation type questions.  It also includes photographs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which … Continue reading →

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Encyclopedia of Life

Posted on 16 May 2007 by Rick Mason

The Encyclopedia of Life is an ambitious new project aimed at creating an online reference for all 1.8 million species of life.  The encylopedia would have multiple user levels (from “novice” to “expert”), multimedia, and interactive means of exploring related species. from … Continue reading →

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LibraryThing for Libraries

Posted on 14 May 2007 by Rick Mason

LibraryThing for Libraries has launched!  Without needing to alter your existing ILS software beyond a few lines of javascript in your OPAC’s page footer, you can add the following functionality to your book catalog: Links to other editions and translations. Links to “similar books”. … Continue reading →

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Bibliographic news

Posted on 7 May 2007 by Rick Mason

A couple things of note are happening in the realm of bibliographic information: The Library of Congress will be holding their second regional meeting of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control on Wednesday, May 9th.  This one … Continue reading →

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Lighthouse Library

Posted on 7 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Last summer I visited Daytona Beach in Florida. One of the many interesting places I visited was the Ponce de Leon Light Station at Mosquito Inlet. They had an example of one of the “libraries” that were used by those … Continue reading →

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Ok… not on hiatus

Posted on 7 May 2007 by Rick Mason

Due to some really time-consuming activities over the next two months, I had thought that it would not be possible to make time to update the LibrarySupportStaff.org blog as it should be.  However, after a couple of weeks away from … Continue reading →

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Hiatus

Posted on 1 May 2007 by Rick Mason

See the next entry…. The LibrarySupportStaff.org blog is on hiatus through July.

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Library of Congress Blog

Posted on 24 April 2007 by Rick Mason

It seems odd that it hasn’t happened before now, but the Library of Congress has just started a blog. from One Big Library

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Open Medicine

Posted on 19 April 2007 by Rick Mason

Open Medicine is a new journal from Canada which is striving to be an online, open access alternative to the likes of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).  There have been many … Continue reading →

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WorldCat Local

Posted on 12 April 2007 by Rick Mason

OCLC is announcing a new pilot project called WorldCat Local, intended to provide tools to help find materials close to the user. These tools will likely include circulation information, full-text capabilities for available resources, and eventually social networking features. The … Continue reading →

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CC Learn

Posted on 12 April 2007 by Rick Mason

Creative Commons is getting ready to create CC Learn, a new division that will be devoted to “education, broadly defined — from kindergarten to graduate school, to lifelong learning.”  Their immediate need is to hire an Executive Director for the … Continue reading →

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CBS News and Plagarism

Posted on 11 April 2007 by Rick Mason

A CBS News producer has been fired for plagarizing a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow about how children and adults view libraries in different ways.  The CBS report by Katie Couric has been removed from their website. The article is interesting, … Continue reading →

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