Category Archives: Open Source

The State of Open-Source Library Software

Brett Bonfield has a great post, actually more of a long essay or article, on open source library software projects.  W-E-B-S-I-T-E, Find Out What It Means To Me (great title, but certainly more limited than the post’s topic) covers a … Continue reading

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Sugar for Your Computers

Sugar is the desktop environment developed for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, and it is now available as an open-source download through the Sugar Labs project.  This could be a fantastic way to keep older computers useful and … Continue reading

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Open Web Tools Directory

Mozilla’s Open Web Tools Directory is a site designed to quickly connect the user with a variety of online tools for a variety of projects.  The categories include Design tools, Coding tools, Debuggers, and more.  Many of the projects listed … Continue reading

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Trends in the WebSphere

A couple of news items that signal trends in the way the web will evolve: Internet Explorer has lost a significant amount of market share recently. This is good news in a couple of ways.  First, it signals growing diversity … Continue reading

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Open Source Survey

If you have a few minutes, answer a few questions for Nicole Engard, the Open Source Evangelist for Liblime (how’s that for a job title?).  She is conducting an online survey because, in her words: “I am working on some … Continue reading

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HTML 5, Google Wave, and the Future of the Web

Amidst a great many other topics, HTML 5 has been on my mind the past couple of weeks.  It started on Tuesday, May 26th, with Kevin Yank posting HTML 5 : Now or Never? on the SitePoint blog.  He was … Continue reading

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Useful Lists to Browse

This post will contain just a couple of links, but there is a wealth of information on the other end of each: 101 Great Free Sites and Downloads You’ve Probably Never Heard Of has been put together by PC World.  … Continue reading

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Oracle buys Sun

Oracle has purchased Sun Microsystems. This is significant on many levels.  Many of our library systems run on software or hardware from these companies.  The Voyager library I used to work for used an Oracle database running on a Sun … Continue reading

Posted in Acquisitions, Blogs, Cataloging, ILS, Libraries, News, Online Databases, Online Services, Open Source, Software, Wiki | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Oracle buys Sun

Open Source ILS and Technical Services

For those interested in Open Source Integrated Library Systems such as Koha, Evergreen, Open Library Environment Project (OLE), OpenBiblio, etc., the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) will be holding an e-forum on April 21st and 22nd.  From … Continue reading

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Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies

The Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies is a British site “established by Jane Hart as a place to keep track of learning trends, technologies and tools.” Most impressive, at first glance, are the lists of free tools and resources: … Continue reading

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Document Freedom Day!

Today is the second annual celebration of Document Freedom Day! So why are open document formats important?  What happens when someone sends you a document created with Microsoft Word 2007, and saved with the default file format?  You get a … Continue reading

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Strategic Thinking Guide for Academic Librarians in the New Economy

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has issued a new report titled Strategic Thinking Guide for Academic Librarians in the New Economy (pdf). It joins the growing chorus of reports that indicate that we are in for a … Continue reading

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New Plugins

I’ve added a couple of plugins to the Libology Blog to increase usability: Viper’s Video Quicktags – this is a great improvement over the way video is embedded in blog posts.  First, it is much easier than the other methods … Continue reading

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Touch Book

I don’t normally gush over new tech toys on this blog, but I suspect that we are about to witness a sea change in portable computing: The Touch Book is a netbook-but-more from a company called Always Innovating.  It reverses … Continue reading

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Zotero 1.5

Zotero 1.5 Beta has been released! When I attended OneBigLibrary Unconference last summer, Trevor Owens gave a talk (un-talk?) on this version of Zotero and some of the new features and ideas that would be part of it (my post … Continue reading

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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

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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

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Open Source Government

Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has been asked to write a paper for the Obama administration on the benefits of the United States government using open source software for improved security and lower cost. Yes.  With the right software, … Continue reading

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LucidChart

LucidChart is a free (with a premium option), web-based flowchart creation tool.  It appears to be quite easy to use, yet very professional. If you are looking for software to install on your PC, remember that OpenOffice (or Go-Oo) offer … Continue reading

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