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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!"
Okay, today was not Freud’s 150th birthday, this past Saturday was. (Meghan Daum writes a rather awkward birthday greeting for him here.) In any case, the "Freud on Fifth" exhibit at the Academy is now in full swing and open to the public (Alan Alda stopped by to see the collection for a half hour or so yesterday.) If you’re in the neighborhood and have the time, this is definitely worth checking out.
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 get a few thousand knowledgeable individuals together in collaboration and you will end up with a very complete information website indeed.
With this in mind, enter the Wiki of Wrongdoing. People for the American Way, a political action group that would like to see regime change in the U.S. in 2008, has implemented the same technology that Wikipedia utilizes to come up with a definitive encyclopedia of George W. Bush’s administration’s legal, ethical, moral and competency shortcomings. If you’re into this sort of thing it’s definitely worth a look.
Just received this tidbit (which is a pretty major tidbit) from Kathleen Gundrum, the Director of Member Services at Nylink:
RLG to combine with OCLC
Combined programs and services to advance offerings
and drive efficiencies for libraries, archives, museums and other research
organizations worldwide
DUBLIN, Ohio, May 3, 2006—Two of the world’s largest
membership-based information organizations have agreed to come together. The
combined organization will offer an integrated product and service line, and
will give libraries, archives and museums new leverage in developing services,
standards and software that will help them support research and disseminate
knowledge online.
The RLG Board of Directors and OCLC Board of Trustees
have recommended that the two service and research organizations be combined
effective July 1, 2006. If approved by RLG member institutions, RLG’s online
products and services will be integrated with OCLC products and services, and
RLG’s program initiatives will be brought forward as a new division of OCLC
Programs and Research.
A combined organization would provide an opportunity
to leverage program strengths, services and innovative research initiatives, and
to deliver more value to a greater number of libraries, museums, archives and
other research organizations around the globe.
RLG is a nonprofit organization of over 150 research
libraries, archives, museums and other cultural memory institutions that designs
and delivers innovative information discovery services, organizes collaborative
programs, and takes an active role in creating and promoting relevant standards
and practices. OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership,
library service and research organization whose public purposes of furthering
access to the world’s information and reducing library costs dominate its plans
and activities. OCLC provides computer-based cataloging, reference, resource
sharing, eContent, preservation services and research to 54,000 libraries in 109
countries.
“The last few years have instilled in us all an
urgent need to find innovative, cost-effective and compelling ways to bring
research collections into the heart of the online environment and into the hands
of those who can benefit from them,” said James Neal, Vice President for
Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University, and Chair
of the RLG Board of Directors. “It is time that RLG and OCLC take united action
if we are to realize our long-held and long-shared mutual goal of providing
information to people when and where they need it. New challenges demand new
thinking, so after deliberation and careful thought, both RLG and OCLC came to
the conclusion that the best way to serve our members’ interests was to combine
forces.”
“The OCLC Board of Trustees and OCLC management
believe that it is in the best interests of the library and cultural heritage
community in general, and the research library community in particular, for RLG
and OCLC to create a united organization that leverages our respective
strengths,” said Betsy Wilson, Dean of University Libraries, University of
Washington, and Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees. “We must work together, so that
in the years to come, the people and institutions we serve will point to our
alliance as a signal achievement in advancing research, scholarship and
education.”
RLG’s program initiatives would be continued as
RLG-Programs, a new division of OCLC Programs and Research that would provide
programs to support architecture, standards development and best practices, to
name a few.
James Michalko, who currently leads RLG, would serve
as Vice President of RLG-Programs Development, working under the leadership of
Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President of Research and OCLC Chief Strategist.
RLG-Programs would remain a membership-based organization. Its agenda would be
shaped by the needs of its members and guided by a dedicated Program Council.
“RLG-Programs will continue RLG’s successful
tradition of identifying issues and building consensus among research
institutions,” said Mr. Michalko. “When combined with OCLC’s research
capacities and robust prototyping capabilities, RLG-Programs will transform
collaborative activity for our member institutions. Through RLG-Programs
initiatives, staff from member institutions will work together to gain and share
competence in the use of new technologies, contribute to the development of new
standards, and collectively improve the ability of researchers to find and use
the rich collections that members manage on their behalf.”
RLG’s online products and services would be
integrated with OCLC service offerings as appropriate. The potential for
increased services and consolidation of costs would result in overall savings.
For example, RLIN, the RLG Union Catalog, would be integrated into WorldCat,
delivering economies of scale and reach that would benefit members of both RLG
and OCLC.
Both organizations are committed to providing
seamless, high-quality services and service levels. Any change in RLG service
offerings will be announced well in advance.
Approval of the agreement requires the assent of
two-thirds of voting RLG member institutions. Voting will conclude in early
June. RLG-Programs would maintain an office in Mountain View, California.
Staffing decisions will be made in the weeks leading up to the proposed
transition.
“We know that the RLG membership shares with the OCLC
membership a conviction to deliver access to the world’s information,” said Jay
Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. “Together, we can deliver enhanced solutions
that collect, organize, preserve and provide access to information, not just for
today, but for future generations.”
Nylink promises to keep the updates coming, and as I get them, I’ll post them here.
Two things worth investigating if you’re so inclined, today:
"OCLC has added COinS to its Open WorldCat Web pages. COinS, or
Context Objects in Spans, is a standardized way to invisibly embed
bibliographic metadata into a Web page’s HTML, using the OpenURL
metadata. This allows other tools, such as Web browsers, to identify
citation metadata in Web content and automatically generate links to
appropriate resources in a user’s own library."
There’s more to it than that, obviously, but I think you get a gist of it.
Next, this came in this morning:
The May 1, 2006 edition of the "Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information" is available at:
http://library.usask.ca/~dworacze/SUBJIN_A.HTM
The page-specific "Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information" and the accompanying "Electronic Sources of Information: A Bibliography" (listing all indexed items) deal with all aspects of electronic publishing and include print and non-print materials, periodical articles, monographs and individual chapters in collected works. This edition includes 2,300 indexed titles. Both the Index and the Bibliography are continuously updated.
Introduction, which includes sample search and instructions how to use the Subject Index and the Bibliography, is located at:
http://library.usask.ca/~dworacze/SUB_INT.HTM
Again, check it out if you are so inclined and have the time.
Finally, may I humbly point out the best website on the subject of electricity I’ve encountered in a long, long time. Read this for ten minutes and you’ll come away with more knowledge on the subject than you have ever wanted. Remember, folks, lack of education is no shame; never allow yoursel to be intimidated by this stuff.
I’m not going to comment on the new Judas Gospels other than to say that I think this is the coolest historical find since they located the Dead Sea Scrolls. And, of course, to point people to what resources I found on the subject:
From the NY Times: Judas, minus the betrayal. Here, too. Also, yes, the document is genuine, but is the story true? And, of course, excerpts of the text itself (I have a copy of this on my iMac.)
Better stuff from National Geographic.
Enjoy!
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) but I found a mention of it here and here’s an article from the Sunday Herald.
It’s incredibly ambitious to plan this sort of thing, which goes far, far beyond mere national security. And knowing the way the highest levels of the military make plans, they most likely will attempt to implement this in some fashion in the near future (next decade? before 2010?) I merely don’t think they realize the scope of what the job entails (if they did, they’d have allocated billions of dollars to it, not a lousy $300 million). The truth is that the world has more tech-savvy nerds, freaks, geeks, and weirdos than the U.S. military and all of them would be highly motivated to punch any holes they could find in this attempt to dominate the world’s communication routes. And as one fellow I know who has worked with the military pointed out to me, those guys can barely manage their budgets, and the only reason ARPANet is still alive is because it went public (arguable, perhaps, but the point is an excellent one.) Big ideas and big plans that are brilliant in scope and unworkable in real life is the hallmark of the current Pentagon staff.
If you like maps as much as I do (even if, like me, you can’t always draw them as well as you’d like) and you’re concerned about (or merely interested in) gas prices or coastal inundation (or both,) then check these out:
The first is a map that shows gasoline prices (no diesel prices that I can find, sorry) from county to county;
And this one is a nifty splice of Google maps to show where the high ground is and whether you need to flee to it if sea levels rise X meters.
Enjoy!
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 librarians provide for their institutions and local communities.
To celebrate information day and learn more about how medical librarians can help you, the staff at the New York Academy of Medicine Library invites you for a day of demos at 1216 5th Avenue on the third floor of the Library. These mini-classes, designed to help you more effectively use the library’s various electronic resources, will be held every hour on the half hour from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm in the Hartwell Room. In addition, a staff-only demo on the new features in Groupwise will be held at 12 noon. All demos are free and open to the staff as well as the general public unless otherwise noted.
9:30 e-Journals
10:30 My NCBI (How to Save Your Searches in PubMed and More)
11:30 Genetics Home Reference
12:00 Groupwise (staff only)
12:30 New Features in the NYAM On-line Catalog
1:30 The Clipboard in PubMed
2:30 Grey Literature
For more information contact Winifred King x 7323.
(As a fast FYI, I’m teaching the 9.30 class on E-Journals. Hope to see you there.)
It’s probably not wise for a bibliophile to admit, but I’ve never been much of a fan of Dorothy Parker or Lillian Hellman. That said, this article by Marion Meade in the latest Book Forum was fascinating all the same. Enjoy!
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 off as stark raving mad. That goes for all of us professing belief in God, Jesus Christ who was his son and died for our sins, except for Jews who don’t, and Muslims who do but believe in His Prophet Mohammed, more, Evolution (note the capital E there), Quantum physics, General and Specific relativity, Buddha, Zen, various Hindu deities, Orishas, Lwas, Science, Satan, or what have you. I didn’t care for Hebrew school much (washed out after two and a half years) but I did come away with this notion: Faith is good, idolatry is bad. Questioning authority is good, blind obedience is bad.
Either we’re all crazy or we’re all sane. If my observation is worth anything, then God’s Children, we surely all are, but some of us are consistently more childish than others.
My point here is that religion is inherently funny. Laughter is inherently spiritual. Spirituality is inherently mind-expanding.
Just my two cents. </sermon>