I don’t generally post things like this, but this (assuming it’s real, and from what I can tell it seems to be) deserves a mention: "You lose a Sidekick, leaving it in a cab accidentally. Some idiots grab it. Instead of doing the right thing and returning it, even after a reward is offered? They…
From today’s New York Times (links & excerpt): Four Librarians Finally Break Silence in Records Case By ALISON LEIGH COWAN Published: May 31, 2006 Four Connecticut librarians who had been barred from revealing that they had received a request for patrons’ records from the federal government spoke out yesterday, expressing frustration about the sweeping…
From this week’s BusinessWeek (link & excerpt): The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBAAcross the country, public libraries are giving would-be entrepreneurs a helping hand with resources and expert guidance… Five years ago, Farid Ali was a Web designer for a Manhattan law firm when a friend, George Constantinou, suggested they open a restaurant…
I found this project by David Plotz on Slate.com this morning (I’m already behind the curve as he started this weeks ago), but it’s interesting to me since I started reading The Bible Unearthed by Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finklestein over the weekend. The Old Testament (as you non-Jews call it) is not history…
This comes from Margaret Mauer over at the Kent State TSLIBRARIAN listserv: "Many of the speakers at the recent Ohio Library Council Technical Services Retreat at the Mohican State Park and Resort have graciously agreed to allow OLC to post those presentations to the internet. They are now available at: http://www.library.kent.edu/mohican2006 Enjoy!"
If you’ve been involved with collaborative web projects you’ve probably heard of "wikis." If not, a "wiki" is a shared website that’s generally devoted to informational projects. Anybody can post, within certain limits, anything they like as long as it’s topical. The idea being that one person rarely can know everything about a subject, but…
Two things worth investigating if you’re so inclined, today: COinS in WorldCat: "OCLC has added COinS to its Open WorldCat Web pages. COinS, orContext Objects in Spans, is a standardized way to invisibly embedbibliographic metadata into a Web page’s HTML, using the OpenURLmetadata. This allows other tools, such as Web browsers, to identifycitation metadata in…
The Pentagon’s stated intention of gaining control of the internet and comprehensive control of the larger EM-spectrum, while perfectly logical and maybe desirable (in a Clausewitz sort of way,) is never going to work. This story is not exactly getting major air time in the U.S. as far as I can tell (which isn’t much)…
Howdy, Librarians! Just a fast reminder that Tuesday, April 11, 2006 is Medical Information Day, and the Academy is celebrating thusly: Tap into the 4-1-1 on medical information, on Tuesday, April 11, 2006, when the Medical Library Association (MLA) celebrates "Medical Information Day" in recognition of the invaluable information and vast range of services medical…
Worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Worship It! Now! All right, fine, don’t worship it . . . but don’t dismiss it out of hand, either. Faith is one of those wacky things of which only humans are capable, and it’s a delicate balance between making sense of the universe in which we live, and coming…