Blog
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Documentary Editing and Distributed Proofreading
It’s been years since I edited anything more complex than a typed website column, but this article in Slate about documentary editors–meaning the folks who prepare original hand written manuscripts for the press rather than film makers–made for fascinating reading. Definitely worth a look if you have time today (or any day). And if the
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It’s Been a Rough Few Weeks . . . Can You Tell?
"The only kinds of fights worth having are those you’re going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to
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New Digital Collection at Center for Jewish History Now Online
Tony Gill, Director of the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory at the Center for Jewish History posted this announcement on the METRO Digital Collections Special Interest Group mailing list: The Center for Jewish History recently completed a METRO-funded pilot project to digitize and make freely accessible online 40 Yiddish and Hebrew children’s books, many of which
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How Our Parents Shopped and Other Tales of the Recent Past
I know, I know, I owe you a discussion on how some knowledge of cataloging can help you refine your OPAC/web search strategies. The article was begun and then put aside as the Art Institute donated 4 boxes of new books that need to be cataloged, processed and moved to the library. That will take
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“Google Generation” A Myth, Says New Report
This came in this morning from Gary Price over at Resourcesshelf.com: "Google Generation" is a Myth, Says New ResearchGoogle is in the title but that’s an attention grabber. The primary focus of the report is about younger people and access to info. "A new report, commissioned by JISC and the British Library, counters the common
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Back on Track and On-line
SirsiDynix’s hosted account servers are back on-line and we’ve had nothing but consistent access to our catalog and ILS all day. The explanatory e-mail that we received from their tech people said that IBM, seeing a weakness in BellSouth’s service conduits, allowed their primary service system to fail to bring the secondary into play. That
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ALA Announces Book Awards
First, the American Library Association Announces Literary Award Winners. That’s great. Second, SirsiDynix’s server access has been in and out all morning. A brief e-mail from the company says that the problem has to do with network issues on IBM’s end, which literally filter down to us peons at the circulation desk who merely rely
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A Good Index is a Thing of Beauty
I remember indexing class at Queens College’s MLIS program: it was called "GSLIS 743, Indexing, Abstracting, and Other Access Systems," met for three hours a week and was filled with about 40 individuals who just wanted to get through the course and on their ways to more interesting things. Over the course of the semester
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A Question of Attribution
I came across this tidbit while looking over Andy’s website this afternoon. I’m not a reference librarian by training and my days as an English major are long behind me, so I thought I’d toss this out there to see if anyone wanted to chime in. To wit: BEWARE THOSE WHO HAVE FOUND THE TRUTH
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Seriously, Read! Now!
Remember a few months ago when I suggested that reading was still a worthwhile activity for the American public? Well, this report seems to support that idea (as if we needed the extra confirmation, right?) To wit: Harry Potter, James Patterson and Oprah Winfrey’s book club aside, Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to