Adieu to Google Answers, from the Google Blog Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers… Though it does not say why. I first learned about this from a student who is a Google Answerer, who forwarded an email announcement from Google that he received to me. In it was this: We considered many factors in reaching this difficult decision, and ultimately decided that the Answers.. Read More
Everything cannot be Miscellaneous
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
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
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!
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
The library as a forum for personal protest?
University Library Reinstates Its ‘New York Times’ Subscription, from the Chronicle In announcing on Friday that the subscription would be reinstated, Mr. Morgan said that he did not believe his use of the university library as a forum for personal protest was inappropriate… It’s amazing, there are so many ways in which I disagree with this statement. The library should not be anyone’s personal soapbox, not even the library director’s… Read More
Long Overdue
Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public Attitudes About Libraries in the 21st Century, a report from Public Agenda In which we learn that: Americans prize public library service and see libraries as potential solutions to many communities’ most pressing problems… But few Americans are aware of the increasingly tenuous financial picture faced by many libraries.
OCLC + RLG
RLG Proposal to Combine with OCLC–Frequently Asked Questions What’s the proposal? RLG‘s Board of Directors and OCLC‘s Board of Trustees have recommended that RLG be combined with OCLC, effective July 1, 2006. The RLG Board is asking the RLG membership to vote on and affirm this decision. How does the combining of RLG and OCLC further the two organizations’ goals? As RLG and OCLC have grown, a significant overlap has.. Read More
The Librarian Empire
I’ve been reading A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge as my bedtime reading recently. For those of you who have not read it, spoilers ahead. Pham Nuwen is a character in this novel, more or less the founding father of the Qeng Ho, a spacefaring trading semi-culture. Sort of an interstellar Merchant Marine, but if the Merchant Marine was not an arm of any government but its own.. Read More