Google has launched Google Blog Search. On the About page they write that the entries go back to about June 2005. The goal seems to be to include every blog in the world (though only 35 languages are currently supported), that has an RSS or Atom feed, not just those on Blogger. Their coverage seems to be pretty thorough; they have all the ibiblio blogs that I could think of.. Read More
The Blue Screen of Death
So last night, in the middle of me checking my email, my laptop suddenly went to the Blue Screen of Death. Reboot, same deal. Run diagnostics & reboot, ditto. Boot to Safe Mode, more BSD. Boot to Safe Mode with Networking, it starts fine, don’t ask me why. Grab CDs & make backups of everything under My Documents. Shut down for the night. This morning I get the laptop into.. Read More
My mom is a geek
My mom sent me an email yesterday: she recently bought Harry Potter 6, & she’s re-reading numbers 1-5 before reading 6. Now that’s willpower, man. I thought about re-reading 1-5, for about 10 seconds. Then I actually picked up #6 & opened it & that idea went right out the window. Anyway, she emailed me because something was bothering her: The Ministry goes to a great deal of trouble to.. Read More
Reed Elsevier and the international arms trade
I learned about this from a post to the Dig_Ref listserv: Lancet calls for publisher to cut ties with international arms trade, from The Guardian Editors of the Lancet, one of the world’s foremost medical journals, have demanded that its corporate owner stop promoting the international arms trade. The journal’s publisher is Reed Elsevier, the multinational behind an arms fair opening in London next week. Understand, of course, that The.. Read More
Connecticut PATRIOT Act case
Organization That Received Patriot Act Letter May Identify Itself in Public, Judge Rules, from the Chronicle A Connecticut organization that received an order from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over the records of library patrons should be allowed to identify itself publicly, a federal judge ruled on Friday. The FBI issued the order under a provision of the USA Patriot Act, a controversial law intended to help prevent.. Read More
Open JCDL
For those of you who weren’t at the brownbag yesterday, Gary talked about the upcoming JCDL, & had us all brainstorm a bit about it. Gary mentioned that the theme of the conference, Opening Information Horizons, was an attempt to implicitly play on the theme of open-source, open-access, open-science, etc. I suggested that one way to embrace that theme would be to implement open reviewing. That idea pretty much went.. Read More
Listserv archive badness
When Hitting Reply Means Forever, from the Chronicle This is a slightly old (August 23) but very sobering article about the dangers of conducting important business via email & listservs. It’s amazing the things people write, when they (should) know that everyone & their uncle will be able to see it. One colleague — someone who has grown to be a friend and whom I respect a great deal as.. Read More
We apologize for some serious cut-and-paste confusion
I’ve had 2 articles published in JASIST in recent months. I say this not to boast, but so that you have the background to what has turned out to be an incredibly confusing editorial snafu. Pomerantz, J. (2005). A Linguistic Analysis of Question Taxonomies. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56(7), 715-728. Pomerantz, J. (2005). A Conceptual Framework and Open Research Questions for Chat-based Reference Service… Read More
Third-year review materials: Submitted
Believe it or not I’m starting my 3rd year in SILS, so it’s time for my Third Year Review. It’s a bit strange that it happens at the beginning of year 3 & not at the end, or even in the middle, but that’s the way it is. For those of you not familiar with how this process goes, here’s how this process goes: I have to put together a.. Read More
Upgraded
Once again, the gents from ibiblio have saved my bacon. (Ever since I used that expression in my post a few days ago, I’ve thought that it’s a weird expression. Extra credit for anyone who looks up its origin & lets me know.) On Thursday TJ upgraded this blog to WordPress 1.5.2. I don’t know how he managed to handle the hack that I posted about the other day, but.. Read More