Archives
Monday, November 29, 2004
Google Scholar
One of the benefits of my time “off-line” has been the forced sideline-watching of people’s reactions to the new Google Scholar.
Haven’t we all gotten tired of the “run search, change database, recreate search” routine? The reason for this has been that terms and structures change across databases. Which is true, but none of the search portals (Dialog, Ovid, etc.) have had the Google search engine either. I’m picturing users being able to login to a single site, do a keyword search, and be fairly confident in his/her results and their availablilty.
And isn’t it what we’ve been working for?
(more…)
Computing News — laura
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Web Editorial Process
This article describes how anyone, from a florist to an intranet web team, can develop a publishing process that meets their needs.
How To Create And Set Up An Editorial Process To Publish Web Content | ReachCustomersOnline.com
Perfect for small institutions. It’s not just about your website giving access to databases and the catalog. It also needs interest in the form of regularly updated content.
Web Tools — laura
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Ed-Tech Insider
eSchool News Ed-Tech Insider is a blog about technology in teaching. It can provide some great ideas for classes as well as up-to-date news.
Education — laura
Friday, November 26, 2004
Sample Blogging Policy
Charlene Li has listed a sample corporate Blogging policy…
Library Stuff
As more libraries incorporate weblogs as part of their content delivery mechanisms, has anyone established policies?
Not that I know of but I think it’s a good idea, particularly for group blogging and when the author(s) don’t have a lot of experience publishing on the web.
Blogging — laura
Thursday, November 25, 2004
RSS Overload
RSS Overload Strategies are being passed along. Once you start using an aggregator, that “XML” link becomes addictive!
Personally, I use a web-based aggregator which lists all of my unread items on a single page. I do a quick first run-through looking at things that won’t take long and marking ones I’m not interested in. Once those are gone, I make another trip through reading what’s left and saving some to deal with when I have time (like now).
Web Tools — laura
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Creative Librarian is back
I’ve got the database sorted out. It’s not accurate but at least it’s not showing 300 posts on one day!
I’ve gone ahead and changed some things.
- The archive lists are now on one page.
- The mobile version of the site is still at the same place though.
- My contact form has also moved.
- The biggest change is in the feeds. I’ve redirected the old ones to the default but you probably want to change your subscriptions to one of the new ones. If anyone knows how to get Wordpress to do full and partial feeds, let me know.
Site — laura
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Bibliography
The Open Source Software and Libraries Bibliography is amazingly long and far-reaching. It’s a great place to start for your own research.
Open-Source Software — laura
Monday, November 22, 2004
Still Screaming
I’ve finally got the site switched over to Wordpress.
I’ve planned on moving away from MovableType for a while, I was just waiting on WP to add a couple of more features so I could minimize the disruption here. So when there was a disruption with no easy fix, I took the opportunity to go ahead and do it. I’m using 1.3-alpha-4 and it is a leap ahead of 1.2. It’s a little rough but you have to expect that of an alpha release. Themes rock, pages rock and people who write plugins really rock!
Now that I’ve gotten the software worked out, I can work on fixing the back entries (oh joy!). I will be posting again though, because otherwise I’d just go insane(r).
Site — laura
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Pardon Me
… while I scream. I updated to MT 3 and my database was corrupted. All attempts to fix the problem failed. I am now in the process of installing Wordpress. The data has been imported and attempts to fix are succeeding. Still, this is going to take a while.
Site — laura
Firefox Notice
Am I the only one who finds the hardest part of customer outreach the actual writing? Either you have no time or writer’s block.
If I’m not, and you want to tell your community about Firefox, feel free to use the text below. Bend, break and mutilate as you see fit. 
The final version of Firefox is here. Firefox is a free web browser which is considered a safer, faster alternative to Internet Explorer. It will automatically import all of your IE bookmarks and preferences the first time you start it. It also has built in blocking of pop-up windows and tons of extensions that you can install with a click.
Examples:
- Adblock filters even more annoying ads.
- Biobar provides access to all major biological data resources. The primary advantage of this tool is that it allows a biologist to browse and retrieve data from Genomic, Proteomic, Functional, Literature, Taxonomic, Structural, Plant and Animal-specific databases. In addition to the browsing features, biobar also provides links to important bioinformatics sites and services including services at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ). The tool also provides links to major data deposition sites for nucleotide, protein and 3D-structure data. Finally, the menu also contains links to many Sequence, Structure alignment and analysis tools.
- Translate translates web pages (via toolbar button) or selected text (via context menu) to and from different languages.
- WeatherFox displays international weather forecasts from weather.com.
- WebmailCompose makes mailto: links load your webmail’s compose page and adds a Compose link to the context menu.
Yahoo! Companion provides same functionality as the official toolbar for Internet Explorer, i.e. search, customizable buttons and access to your Yahoo! Bookmarks.
Patriot Act — laura
The XHTML Way
4GuysFromRolla.com - The XHTML Way argues in favor of using the XHTML standard for coding websites. Many designers are debating between XHTML and HTML 4 which doesn’t have the same restrictions that XHTML does. The basic argument is that you can do more things with HTML 4 that you would have to resort to javascript for in XHTML. XHTML on the other hand, is much more restricted which gives clear rules and guidelines about how a document can be marked up.
Website Design — laura
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
eVoting Problems
But this issue goes deeper. As the flaws, the breakdowns, the mistallied votes show us, eVoting software is a) not ready for prime time, and b) has been deployed widely without a shred of evidence of working QA and code review. Counting votes is a very simple thing. Creating safeguards, paper trails, and offsite monitoring is something, junior coders and sys admins do every day. The underlying OS, as much as I am not a fan of Windows and don�t like VxWorks� RTOS touch screen routines, has working and QAd touch screen technology built in, most of which is capable of accurately intercepting touches. The issues and errors we�ve seen in the past days are most definitely a sign of the sloppiest of coding, the most outrageous of omissions, and the worst in software deployment and servicing.
This is the second Presidential election that has been called into question because of malfunctioning voting machines. Maybe auditing the code of these things should be the next major campaign.
Computing News — laura
Monday, November 15, 2004
Internal Blogs
From the experience, here are Ten Guidelines for Developing Your Internal Blog for any type of library that wishes to create an internal communication tool.
Easy and practical guidelines that you may not think of when you start.
Why would you want an internal blog? A lot of valuable information gets generated in a day that the entire library needs to know: who’s sick, which licenses are being changed, fixes to computer problems, etc. A blog (or a wiki) creates a central, searchable archive for all of that which is easy for users to add to or change quickly.
Blogging — laura
Thursday, November 11, 2004
syndication: Feasibility study
tonneten library :: syndication: Feasibility study: Alternatives for libraries lists several good uses for syndication feeds for both librarians and for library users. I’m trying not to link to everything Drew publishes but it’s hard because they’re all so interesting.
Web Tools — laura
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Ashcroft resigns
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned today, claiming credit for
an extraordinary era of justicein his resignation letter.
Where?!
Patriot Act — laura
Monday, November 8, 2004
Job Strategies
Off to a Good Start: Strategies for Your First Year in a New Job
Career Info — laura
Thursday, November 4, 2004
MPAA Sues
Following up an this earlier BoingBoing post: The Associated Press and Variety (sub required) report more details on an announcement expected from the MPAA tomorrow regarding lawsuits against hundreds of movie fileswappers. The anticipated move would be significant because movie studios — unlike the recording industry — have not yet taken large-scale legal action against individuals.
Because it has worked so well for the RIAA.
Copyright — laura
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Oct 2004 LIScareer Articles
The Oct 2004 LIScareer Articles have been posted. Information for new and not so new liberarians.
Career Info — laura
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Marketing Resources
Marketing Toolkit - Additional Resources contains information specifically to help libraries present themselves to the public.
Marketing — laura
Monday, November 1, 2004
BioMed MARC
BioMed Central provides MARC records to facilitate the cataloging of their large collection of Open Access journals. A delimited spreadsheet containing titles, URLs, ISSNs, journal abbreviation and date of initial publication is also available.
Open Access — laura
