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Creative Librarian » 2003 » June

Archives

Friday, June 27, 2003

Filtering Update

Internet Censorship in Libraries has had some information added.

Site — laura


Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Internet Censorship in Libraries

I thought about doing a piece on the Supreme Courts decision but it had already been done better.

While this is a tragedy, the awful part is that it doesn’t seem so bad compared to the Patriot Act and the DMCA

Update 7/7/03: There are starting to be sensible options for dealing with the new regulations.

Update 7/25/03: FCC CIPA Rules- links to the final rules and an analysis.

Update 7/27/03: More on open-source solutions

Library Links — laura


Class blogging

In Real Life Implementation of Weblogs in the Classroom, a Georgia teacher talks about how her elementary school students and high school students in New Jersey learned writing skills by using blogs as a way of writing to and for each other. It makes you think about other possible uses.

Blogging — laura


Tuesday, June 17, 2003

RSS

RSS stands for either “Rich Site Summary”, “RDF Site Summary” or “Really Simple Syndication,” depending on who you ask. There are long, technical explanations for RSS but it’s more easily explained by what it can do than what it is. Essentially, you can download an aggregator and use it to keep track of the updates to favorite websites. You can find a website you like, such as this one and subscribe (bookmark) the RSS feed in your aggregator. Some are labeled RSS and some are called XML. Your aggregator will check the page for you to see if it has been updated whenever you tell it to. This doesn’t sound like much until you consider the sheer volume of information that can be kept track of automatically from multitudes of sites.

My boss, for example participates in a number of professional associations and mailing lists. Her email account is allways overflowing and she is so buried in information that very little of it sinks in. If each of the associations had a news page with an RSS feed, she could flip through the headlines in her aggregator and choose which ones looked pertinent. She could add feeds from the university’s website, the library’s Internet site, and the intranet site to stay abreast of the latest developments in all of these places. This would lighten up her email load considerably and make it easier to find personal messages.

More and more professional sites are adding RSS feeds, giving options for national and world news as well.

All of this information is accessable when it is convienent for the user and collected in such a way that browsing through it is fast and efficient.

RSS Aggregators

Finding Feeds

More Information

Tutorials — laura


Web Standards in Action

Web Standards in Action describes one developers experience in converting a site to standards-compliant code and the almost immediate benefits. Why are web standards important? Think MARC. Reuable, exchangable, understandable and easily manipulated.

Web Tools — laura


Sunday, June 15, 2003

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

“This bibliography presents selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.”

An authoritative resource going back to 1990, complete with blog, search engine and links.

Library Links — laura


Live Digital Reference Bibliography

Live Digital Reference Case Studies: A Bibliographyis a good place to start research.

Library Links — laura


University Library Navigation

University Library Navigation Enabled by Ekahau

“Wireless PDA based system called SmartLibrary helps users to find books and other material from the library collections. The help is provided in form of map-based guidance to the target bookshelf on a PDA. Ekahau Positioning Engine(tm) software is used by SmartLibrary system to pinpoint the accurate mobile client location.”

This is why tech stuff is cool.

Website Design — laura


Microsoft plays browser games

Microsoft plays browser games discusses the possible motives and ramifications of MS’s decision to stop updating Internet Explorer as a separate piece of software for both Windows and Macs. Unless users switch to otherbrowsers web development will be slowed or even stopped until the release of the new Windows OS, supposedly in 2007.

Computing News — laura


Thursday, June 12, 2003

Forum Moderator’s Guide To Life

The Forum Moderator’s Guide To Life gives some good points on managing online communities. As more people move online it becomes a good idea to start building library communities as well. After all, we can supply many of the things they’re looking for a price they can afford (free).

Web Tools — laura


Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Remote Online Usability Testing

Remote Online Usability Testing: Why, How, and When to Use It is a write-up of notes from a pair of web-developers who just went through the proccess. It’s good alternative when most of your website users are at a distance.

Website Design — laura


Thursday, June 5, 2003

Update to CMS Article

Content and Knowledge Management Systems. Huh? has been updated with new information.

Site — laura


Wednesday, June 4, 2003

What was she thinking?

Minnis bows to lobbyists of Microsoft

Essentially, despite demonstrable benefits and cost-savings, the Oregon Speaker of the House “killed” a bill to convert the state government from Microsoft to open-source software “after powerful out-of-state corporate interests showed up at the Oregon Capitol, seeking to make the bill go away. “

Computing News — laura


Monday, June 2, 2003

Tutorial updated

Content and Knowledge Management Systems. Huh? has been updated to add new information.

Site — laura


IM

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