Archives
Monday, August 28, 2006
Are OPAC Vendors Days Numbered?
LISNews.org | Are OPAC Vendors Days Numbered?
…the combination of open source and the reluctance of vendors to keep their systems up to date will result result in the demise of significant number of commerical library vendors in the next five years. The poor performance and outdated products of commercial OPAC products is due largely to the disconnect between developers in software firms and their customers. This should be an advantage to library developers, and the timing to look at open source networks/incubators is ripe.
I wish I could believe it but the adminstrative quagmire in libraries in my area is such that no one wants to do anything first. Not only do they ask if another library has already done it but they want to hear about another library of their type and size. I simply can’t see convincing the people who hold the purse-strings to take a risk on that large of an unknown.
Open-Source Software — laura
Universities put Hollywood ahead of students
Boing Boing: Universities put Hollywood ahead of students
Pathetic but predicable.
Copyright — laura
Friday, August 25, 2006
Tooting MPOW’s horn
The library where I work has been doing our best to move into the future. This summer with a redesigned website and not one, not two, but three new blogs! (The third one is internal.) We’ll also be trying IM reference shortly.
What prompted this post is the latest way we’ve drawn attention to ourselves. Awesome Office is a competition for Spirit week, which happens to coincide with the students returning for Fall. I think the library will stick in their minds, don’t you? 
Blogging, Library Links — laura
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Librarians at the Gates
Courage, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And in an era of increasing controls on the gathering and dissemination of information, many Americans are unaware of the courageous stands librarians take every day.
The day-to-day challenges librarians face are inherent in the job description: defending access to controversial or banned books, staving off budget cuts, and creating and expanding programs to draw more citizens into one of the few remaining genuinely public commons in American life. While the ethic of secrecy often prevails in the gathering and dissemination of corporate and governmental information, the work of a librarian is imbued with just the opposite. Be it in the capacity of archivist, reference librarian or information technology professional, a common thread is the profession’s dogged commitment to safeguarding books, research and information to make knowledge more widespread, not less.
In the past few years this dedication has become more important than ever. With the federal government ever more intent on spying on its own citizens, and on classifying, concealing and manipulating larger swaths of information and intelligence, librarians and library custodians are on the front lines protecting freedom of inquiry and our right to privacy. And where right-wing groups, both local and national, have campaigned for censorship, librarians have also stepped up to the plate to defend minority points of view in their collections. Anecdotes there are aplenty, too many to document here. The following are but a few profiles of courageous individuals in the field who exemplify the democratic values and the independent spirit of the profession.
Library Links — laura
Monday, August 21, 2006
OPAC Blog Posts - A List
Life as I Know It » Blog Archive » OPAC Blog Posts - A List is very comprehensive for anyone needing an overview or a more in-depth look at the discussion.
Library Links — laura
WPopac in Use
LibrarianInBlack: Bloggy-Bloggy OPAC
Casey Bisson writes that the Lamson Library at Plymouth State University has decided to use the WordPress-based OPAC (WPopac) he built on nights and weekends as its primary OPAC from now on.
Things like this just make me more frustrated with the IT department at my school. We can’t get them to install anything useful on our webserver.
Open-Source Software — laura
Judge Halts NSA Snooping
Wired News: Judge Halts NSA Snooping
The Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping on Amercians’ telephone and internet communications is unconstitutional and must stop immediately, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
The ruling is the first court order barring the National Security Agency’s ambitious domestic surveillance activities, which have spurred a string of lawsuits against the government and telecommunications companies around the country. It also marks a serious blow to the administration’s sweeping interpretation of executive authority under the Constitution, a stance that’s riled politicians and legal scholars alike.
Patriot Act — laura
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Our faulty intuition about open systems
Boing Boing: Our faulty intuition about open systems
Jamie Boyle’s latest Financial Times column points up a cognitive bias we seem to have against open systems — on their face, open networks, encyclopedias, and software projects seem unlikely, even doomed. Our intuition about closed-vs-open is often wrong:
Open Access — laura
FoxyProxy
FoxyProxy: etc: quick links to good stuff
Can’t get to MySpace from school? Can’t use instant messenger at work? Shhhh, don’t tell. Now you can with FoxyProxy: take back your privacyFoxyProxy is a full featured proxy management extension for Firefox, to help get around proxies of all sorts. Turn it on and off as needed.
Personally, I’m going to use it to test my library’s links going through our proxy-server to check off-campus access.
Open-Source Software — laura
Feed Button
Subtraction: Feeding the Hand That Fed Me
It took me a little while to get this all cleaned up and ready for release, but I’m finally making the expanded RSS buttons that we’ve started to use at NYTimes.com available to everyone. You can grab the PNG file here (right- or control-click on the image at the start of this post to save it to your computer) and start using it right away, or you can download the artwork as an Adobe Photoshop file and start customizing the label to suit your particular needs.
Personally, I find the button with the label neater and more understandable than just the icon alone.
Website Design — laura
