I’m not back, I’m not blogging as a regular thing again. Don’t get your hopes up. I just need a place to think out loud. I could probably do this in my head, but I find that writing helps me clarify my thoughts better. Less wandering off into irrelevancies like ’80s song lyrics and that conversation I had 2 days ago. So… I wrote in my last post that: Any.. Read More
Blog stats
I have had neither the time nor the inclination recently to post anything here. But for reasons I don’t fully understand, I am unwilling to just call it quits on this blog. Maybe I’ll regain interest in blogging eventually. In the meantime, I’ve done some simple analysis of my categorization of posts. This figure includes all posts except this one. Bates (1998) states that “most information-related phenomena have been found.. Read More
Wikicat
Surfing the biblioblogosphere just now, I came across this post on Panlibus, about Wikicat. In simple terms the Wikicat project is attempting to assemble a bibliographic database [yes another one] of all the bibliographic works cited in Wikimedia pages. I can’t decide if I think this is a good idea or a dumb idea. I mean, another bibliographic database, that will in all likelihood replicate content that is available elsewhere?.. Read More
Now where did I put that planet?
Probably fell between the sofa cushions.
It ain’t rocket science
No, it’s librarianship. NASA can’t find original tape of moon landing, from Reuters In all, some 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing… The material was held by the National Archives but returned to NASA sometime in the late 1970s. And the moral of the story is, if you want something archived, let an archivist do it!
Yet another article on Google Book Search
Search Me?, from the WaPo But it’s a good & thoughtful article & worth reading, even though it’s one of about a brazillion now on the subject. But for my money, this is the most interesting part: After the university digitized its card catalogue… use of the collection jumped 50 percent — simply because books were easier to find. The university here is Stanford. It’s refreshing to see some actual.. Read More
Had it taken place in the days of the Machine
A fascinating article by Jaron Lanier about why Wikipedia is an instantiation of a more insidious trend, the attempt to create an internet-based hive mind, of sorts: DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism …the trend has been to remove the scent of people, so as to come as close as possible to simulating the appearance of content emerging out of the Web as if it were speaking.. Read More
WikiReference
Thanks to Jason for pointing this out (and yes, I’m more than a little behind on reading my regular blogs): Wikipedia has a Reference Desk. Apparently The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk. Though without the librarians, and, one presumes, using only one information source. Members of my beloved audience (all 3 of you) know that I’m a loyal fan of Wikipedia. And I am also a.. Read More
Conversation with Gary Price
Gary Price posted an item to ResourceShelf recently about Fred & my new paper in RSR. And when he did, he emailed me to let me know he had, which I consider to be very good blog netiquette. He did the same thing when he posted a link to that paper when it was a wee technical report, so I can only assume that he makes a regular practice of.. Read More
Talis Mashup Competition
I just stumbled across this: Talis is sponsoring a Mashing Up The Library competition, due date Friday 18 August. This is your chance to wow the world with your ideas; your chance to build better systems on top of library data; your chance to demonstrate the value and the power of libraries; your chance to take library information and display it in exciting new ways. This is a cool idea,.. Read More