Creative Librarian » 2005

Archives

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Communication Skills for Managers

PLA Blog - The Official Blog of the Public Library Association:Communication Skills for Managers

David Orenstein’s presentation, in his own words, was a “little schizophrenic.” Schizophrenic or not, he had some excellent information to share that he’s garnered over several years of management experience.

Career Info — laura

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The Shifted Librarian: What I Took Away from the GLS Conference

The Shifted Librarian: What I Took Away from the GLS Conference

The most obvious, glaring thing is that librarians (in general) have absolutely no clue about what is going on in this area. Academia is only now starting to do more than just study it, but it’s not even on our radar. I’ve noted before that I talk about Millennials in the context of serving them where they are (rather than making them come to us), but I hadn’t really thought through all of the implications of the gaming side of it. If you have young children or grandchildren, you can see how gaming affects them, and in turn how they interact with information and multi-modal interfaces. Henry Jenkins, James Gee, Kurt Squire, and all of the other speakers presented a compelling case for bringing gaming into education and taking advantage of what these kids are learning from it to innovate, create, and collaborate. I’ve definitely drunk that Kool-Aid.

None of this would have changed what we submitted in the gaming grant last week, but now I’m thinking so much bigger. At MLS, we were already discussing holding an institute or a symposium on gaming and libraries this fall, and now I’m even more motivated to make this happen. There’s a lot going on here that librarians need to learn about, but I also want to see some action. For example, it seems to me that parents are also very unprepared for what is happening. Most of them don’t even know there is something happening, and I think libraries can help educate them. So my first thought is to have a two-day event where the first day is learning and education, and the second day is brainstorming actual implementations.

Gaming — laura

Monday, June 27, 2005

RSS4Lib:: Browser Toolbar with RSS Feeds

RSS4Lib:: Browser Toolbar with RSS Feeds is a great idea. The example only works in IE/win but I’ve heard doing one for Firefox isn’t that difficult. Definately on the “todo” list after I get the new library website up.

Web Tools — laura

Games, Learning, and Society Conference

Jenny is posting a lot of notes. Not as good as being there but they’re worth reading ;->.

Gaming — laura

LITA posts

Lots of great posts from conferences to read.

Library Links — laura

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Good LITA articles

Definately thought provoking.

Library Links — laura

Pop-up vulnerability

Pop-up vulnerability found in major browsers | CNET News.com

According to Secunia, the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer for Mac, Safari, iCab, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Camino are all vulnerable. Opera 7 and 8 are affected, but not 8.01, according to Opera.

Basically, all you have to do is not enter information in pop-up windows.

Computing News — laura

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

DRM apologist circumvents DRM

Boing Boing: DRM apologist circumvents DRM

Michael Gartenberg has grown so frustrated with the DRM on Microsoft Reader files that it would appear he has violated the DMCA in order to strip the files of DRM. He only wanted to read the files he had legitimately purchased.

Canada’s DMCA dissected

Boing Boing: Canada’s DMCA dissected

On the heels of the introduction of Canada’s Bill C-60, a Made-in-Canada version of the DMCA, Michael Geist has posted several long, thoughtful blog posts about the bill’s effects on different interests: search engines, ISPs, and P2P users…

Marketing & PR from the Mid-Hudson Library System

Library Marketing-Thinking Outside the Book: Many more marketing materials

Found on Neat New Stuff on the Net: Marketing & PR from the Mid-Hudson Library System. The site includes marketing templates, how-to’s, web links and demographic info for librarians. Enjoy!

Marketing — laura

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Canada’s DMCA introduced

Boing Boing: Canada’s DMCA introduced

The Canadian government has introduced a Made-in-Canada version of the US DMCA, a sweeping copyright law that creates a thicket of new rights for entertainment companies, reserving precious little rights for the public.

Laugh or scream time.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Next problem

Library Web Chic » Blog Archive » E-Reserve Issues

Publishers want to be paid for e-reserves now. Because library’s have so much money, right?

If the current lecture method of teaching doesn’t work very well (And most people I know agree that it doesn’t.), education will most likely be evolving in the next 10-20 years toward a more interactive model where the discussion between the teacher and the students is as important as cramming their heads with facts. With the text publishers more interested in recycling content in new editions for more maney than actually improving their works (bitter from college texts, nah) or putting some imagination in their materials and the copyrights getting so tight no one else can do it for them. Are they on the way to the same problems the music industry is having? And will it be worse, effecting education?

Friday, June 17, 2005

TWAS 503: (Warnings and Promises)

TWAS 503: (Warnings and Promises)

Dearest Industry, I write today in what began, at least, as a conflicted mixture of resignation and alarm. Probably you do not recognize my name, but it’s both embossed and encoded on my credit card, so possibly you should. I have been one of the staunchest defenders of your copyrights ever since the virtualization of music distribution began to challenge them, and I’ve been one of your most dedicated personal patrons since I was old enough to spend my own money. Originally I was a customer of necessity, of course, but I’m a computer and internet professional for a living, and have been fully aware of every iteration of the technical possibilities for acquiring music without paying for it. And yet, I have continued to pay. In a single year, not too long ago, I bought 1000 CDs, and most of them were yours. I continue to pay still. I bought two CDs this week, and will almost certainly buy more than 100 over the course of this calendar year. I have paid for legal downloads, as well. I have stubbornly forgiven you your trespasses against everyone you nominally serve, and kept supporting the idea of music as a Big Business. I have never condoned your numeric monopolies and tasteless denominator-lowering, but I support the dream of musicians being able to simply make music for their living, rather than operating themselves as a business, and somewhere far back in history that was what Industry allowed.

But I have also now started stealing your music. I haven’t stolen much, but I’m sure you will agree that the moral issue is not merely one of quantity. I have been one of the last independent apologists for a moral kernel, elusive now to perhaps the point of imagination, in your corrupt and desperate retreat, but now even I have given up. I still buy, but now I also steal. You have forfeited your right to my loyalty. And maybe you’re too lost and beaten to care, and even more likely it’s too late to matter, but for a few minutes I’m going to pretend that neither of those things are so. I’m going to pretend that you’re still capable of awareness and reason, and in a spirit of truth that you long ago stopped deserving, while I’ve still taken little enough to list, I’m going to tell you exactly what I have stolen from you, and why.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Can You Hear Me Now? Communicating Library Services To Distance Education Students And Faculty :: Distance-Educator.com’s Daily News :: Technology, Teaching, News, Research

Academic libraries have responded to the challenge of providing resources and services to off-campus users in a variety of innovative ways. However, recent survey results indicate that users are often not fully aware of what is available to them.

This study of library web sites at 100 distance learning institutions seeks to establish a checklist of best practice in terms of library resources and services provided and to establish a template for the effective distance education gateway. The results of this research will provide a comprehensive guideline for librarians seeking to institute, improve, or better communicate distance education resources and services to students and faculty.

Marketing — laura

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Wired News: House Votes to Limit Patriot Act

Wired News: House Votes to Limit Patriot Act

…lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.

A little progress but there’s still a lot left.

Patriot Act — laura

Welcome to the LITA Blog

LITA Blog » Blog Archive » Welcome to the LITA Blog

ALA Annual is coming up and we’re planning to blog LITA programs and other events of interest to the library technology community. We also have handy links here to ALA, LITA, and the ALA Annual official site and unofficial conference wiki.

Cool.

Library Links — laura

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Digital Web Magazine - The Principles of Design

Website Design — laura

Monday, June 13, 2005

PubChem

TechnoBiblio: Dueling Databases
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has recently called for NIH to restrict the information available in its freely accessible database. ACS’s complaint? It claims that PubChem is in direct competition with its own fee-based Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS).

Wasn’t there a recent to-do about the free information from the National Weather Service? It makes me wonder how long until someone gets the bright idea to try to shut down PubMed.

If they’re worried about competition from an organisation that has no extra cash for design or other “extras” then they must be pretty lazy about adding value to their own product.

Sounds like a problem of not enough competition.

Open Access — laura

Online Books Page

The Online Books Page
Listing over 20,000 free books on the Web With a RSS feed of new entries.

Open Access — laura

Friday, June 10, 2005

New Tools

Speakwire will read the contents of a RSS feed. And Talkr turns it into downloadable audio files for your computer or MP3 player.

Web Tools — laura

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Boing Boing: Jennifer Government’s author on copyright’s excess

Boing Boing: Jennifer Government’s author on copyright’s excess

Copyright extensions, of the kind popping up everywhere lately, have nothing to do with encouraging more creative work, and everything to do with protecting the revenue streams of media companies that, a few generations ago, had an executive smart enough to sniff out a popular hit. It’s a grab for cash at the public’s expense. The fact that there is any posthumous copyright protection at all proves that the law is intended to benefit people who are not the original creator: that is, heirs and corporations. The fact that copyright extensions retroactively apply to already-created works proves they’re not meant to encourage innovation. The only reason copyright extension laws keep getting passed is because the people and companies that became fabulously rich through someone else’s idea are using that wealth to lobby government for more of it.

Boing Boing: Savage, brilliant essay on DRM

Boing Boing: Savage, brilliant essay on DRM

Don Marti’s posted a scorching, brilliant essay on DRM and why it won’t work and why it doesn’t work and why we should stop trying to make it work.

Open Access — laura

InfoToday Blog:OAP

Open Access and Repositories: Hot Topics reviews the OA session at SLA with some interesting details.

Open Access — laura

peterme.com: Designing for the Sandbox

peterme.com: Designing for the Sandbox

In fact, the best thing a designer can do is dictate *as little as possible.* Because the point isn’t to control, it’s to connect–to weave your offering into the complexity of people’s life experiences, to allow them to figure out how to make sense of your offering within their world.

Website Design — laura

Peter Scott’s Library Blog

Five new Internet tutorials for adult learners have been launched in the RDN Virtual Training Suite:

A really nicely designed site.

Education — laura

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Library Journal.com

LJ has a new website.

Steven bemoans the fact that they still don’t have any RSS feeds. This is really becoming an accessability issue. With the amount of information we have to go through each day, clicking through the website on a regular basis just isn’t going to work.

Bill found a blog. Complete with RSS feed. Which is very nice but I never found it.

Jessamyn has an extensive list of problems with the site. I didn’t have all that much problem with the ads but that could be because of the Adblock extension I’m using. What I did notice were the Google ads at the bottom of the page. Am I the only one who things Google ads on a commercial site is tacky?

Website Design — laura

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Things I wish I could say 1

This is to the campus web admin.

Yes, I am insane. I’m also opinionated and stubborn. In other words, I’m a librarian. The sooner you give me what I want, the sooner the pain will go away.

General — laura

Click University

SLA 2005 Conference Blog: Go Back to School at Click University

With a crowd of more than 150 looking on, SLA Monday opened its newest member service, Click University.

Click U is an online learning community for continuing professional education for knowledge workers around the world. It is designed to train librarians and information professionals in core skills such as software and technology use; management, communications, and leadership strategies; and effective practices and methods for the collection, sharing, and use of information and knowledge.

Career Info — laura

Thursday, June 2, 2005

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship

The Importance of Open Access, Open Source, and Open Standards…

These benefits of open access, open source, and open standards are numerous. The benefits include lower costs, great accessibility, and better prospects for long-term preservation of scholarly works. Libraries should embrace all three of these concepts now and in the future. By supporting open access, open source, and open standards libraries not only can help ensure that their current and future patrons will have easier and more comprehensive access to scholarly research, they will also be helping other libraries around the world, including those in disadvantaged areas, to have access to important scholarly research.

Open Access, Open-Source Software — laura

So much to do

In an attempt to get my unread list in mt aggregator down to something managable, I present the inevitable link list (annotated because some librarians are born, not made).

ALA | Patriot Act Extension Debated at Closed Congressional Meeting: In a closed-door meeting May 26, the Senate Intelligence Committee failed to agree on a proposal that would renew the USA Patriot Act and expand the FBI’s powers to obtain records in terror investigations
Boing Boing: MPAA won’t get Broadcast Flag in digital TV bill!: It looks like the MPAA is giving up on getting a Broadcast Flag clause inserted into an upcoming digital TV bill!
Playlist: Latin music site to offer DRM-free downloads: Enter Musica360, a new online digital music download service, set to launch in September, that focuses on Latin music. Like AudioLunchbox, which focuses on Indie pop and rock; eMusic, that focuses on independent acts and live music; and IndieHeaven, which focuses on independent Christian Music, Musica360 sees a way to compete by offering a specialized service focusing on areas where the major players aren’t competitive.
Wired News: Big Brother Tries to Muscle ISPs: The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court Friday to restore its ability to compel Internet service providers to turn over information about their customers or subscribers as part of its fight against terrorism.
Tinfoil + Raccoon: The Economic Value of Libraries: I know you know, but if you’re trying to tell your library’s story and demonstrate its value to the community, Stephen Abram a VP at Sirsi, has written a fine article on the economic value of libraries and compiled a bunch of links to help you get the word out. Courtesy, Alice at It’s All Good.
librarian.net: 26 steps for effective web presence in libraries: Michael and the Librarian in Black have each posted their lists of Ten [Alternative for LiB] Steps to Effective Web Presence for Libraries. Here is my short list that builds on these, with particular attention to what I’ve learned from the web site building process in Vermont.
The Shifted Librarian: Gaming @ Your Library Sessions Blogged!: I really wish I could have been there.; The Shifted Librarian: Gaming Photos Up on Flickr
Library Stuff: Library Toolbars Galore: Tony Hirst built a Firefox Toolbar for his library.
Library Web Chic » Blog Archive » CSS Resources: The Librarian Way has a great post which lists a bunch of CSS resources and tutorials.
RSS4Lib: RSS Guide for Educators: This guide for educators has some great ideas for using weblogs and RSS in the classroom. Library instructors may find some useful ideas for their information literacy classes.