Category Archives: Libraries

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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EZProxy Find and Replace

Posted on 7 February 2008 by Rick Mason

If you don’t like something about one of your web interfaces, and if you are running EZProxy, you can use a “Find and Replace” feature to replace any part of the web page code with whatever you would like in … Continue reading →

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LOC Docent Training Videos

Posted on 7 February 2008 by Rick Mason

The Library of Congress  web site has a collection of webcasts that they use for docent training.  If you would like to learn about some of the collections within in the library, this is a fantastic way to do so! … Continue reading →

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Confessions of a Rogue Library Book Buyer

Posted on 6 February 2008 by Rick Mason

Confessions of a Rogue Library Book Buyer is an article by a former university administrator. What he did, with the aid of a complicit librarian, would make an interesting exercise for an Ethics class. While I don’t feel that they … Continue reading →

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Copyfraud

Posted on 30 January 2008 by Rick Mason

The topic of Copyfraud has been on my mind for the past few months.  It is interesting how once you start noticing something relatively subtle, you can reach a point where you start seeing it all the time.  This has … Continue reading →

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Web 3.0, or just the fulfillment of the promise of 2.0?

Posted on 28 January 2008 by Rick Mason

Web 3.0: Chicken Farms on the Semantic Web is an article by Jim Hendler on the early signs of what he is calling Web 3.0.  The title caught my attention, natch, and so I read the article with great interest. … Continue reading →

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7 Things You Should Know About Lulu (and a book update)

Posted on 25 January 2008 by Rick Mason

7 Things You Should Know About Lulu (Pdf) is a two-paged pamphlet that is a great overview of what the web-based publishing company Lulu can do, especially if you are in an academic setting. I have quite a bit of … Continue reading →

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Foreign Book Dealers Directory

Posted on 23 January 2008 by Rick Mason

Foreign Book Dealers Directory is just as described : a database of book dealers around the world that lets you search for book dealers by company, region, and country.  It is hosted by ALCTS, and seems extremely useful for those … Continue reading →

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Library Training Game

Posted on 23 January 2008 by Rick Mason

Within Range , a training game from Carnegie Mellen University Libraries, has several strikes against it : it is flash-based, it only trains in LC classification, and it was rated “worst game” on reddit.com. Otherwise, it is a pretty good … Continue reading →

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Keeping Track of Stats

Posted on 15 January 2008 by Rick Mason

Does your library track reference statistics?  If the answer is “yes” (or even “possibly in the future”), then check out the READ Scale website.  Their system for categorizing and recording reference transactions via a 6 level hierarchy is both straightforward, … Continue reading →

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Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) review

Posted on 15 January 2008 by Rick Mason

Review : Directory of Open Access Journals (Pdf), by Heather Morrison is a very good introduction to what is becoming a top-tier collection of journals. Although some of the statistics are a bit dated (due to a strength of the … Continue reading →

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Indiana Open Source ILS Initiative

Posted on 13 January 2008 by Rick Mason

This announcement by the Indiana State Library and the Hussey Mayfield Memorial Public Library in Zionsville is significant : they aim to make Indiana the third statewide implementation of the Evergreen ILS, assuming that it meets their needs. Third??? Well, … Continue reading →

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