Archive for December, 2005
Steve Matthews Compiles, We all Benefit
December 18th, 2005Steve Matthews, proprietor of the the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog, has put together a list of Canadian law blogs. A nice narrow listing (we need a lot more of these for reosurce discovery - humans creating lists, not machines!), which I would love to see grow. (link via LexBlog)
Sirsy
December 18th, 2005A while back, I was watching a local public television channel late at night while writing an article and a band called Sirsy was profiled. Great sound, with a flute playing female vocalist, and well worth taking a listen.
This got me thinking (as smoke started to spew out of both ears) that if SirsiDynix [...]
Scott Johnson Moves On
December 18th, 2005Scott Johnson, the co-founder of Feedster (for those into search trivia, Feedster was originally called Roogle - just for a few days), has left the company to pursue other ventures. Best wishes Scott. (link via j’s scratchpad)
opinmind
December 17th, 2005
opinmind
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
One of the hardest pieces of the blogging community to measure is context. How many bloggers like something as opposed to those that don’t? This is not an easy task to accomplish (I’ve had many discussions at the office about context and intent [...]
Voo2do
December 17th, 2005
Voo2do
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
Organization, organization, organization. We all are trying to accomplish more tasks with less time and the key (we think) is in proper organization. Despite all of the Web tools out there to use, I am convinced that success will have nothing to do [...]
nativetext
December 16th, 2005
nativetext
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
Well, this was a necessary entrance into the podcasting movement.
Nativetext is an open community where humans will translate your podacsts into any language, for free. It’s not live yet, but you can be notified when it is. Great idea. (link [...]
Perfect Definition of Synonym
December 16th, 2005From my friend over at Critter’s Mom
“A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the word you first thought of” - Burt Bacharach
Sad and true. I do that all the time.
Syndicate Conference - a Photoset on Flickr and Some Thoughts
December 16th, 2005Here’s a few shots from the conference. A few thrilling moments.
1) Michael Arrington coming up to the PubSub booth and introducing himself.
2) Meeting Ross Mayfield and telling how much I love his del.icio.us tags.
3) Meeting the guys from Wondir (and having them tell the “Who is Steven M. Cohen” story to my bosses).
4) A [...]
Protopage
December 16th, 2005
I used to play with the online version of Post-It Notes. In fact, the were always sitting on my desktop, where chose to constantly ignore them. Useful? Nope. They weren’t interactive enough. I could only just put my notes and nothing else. No weather reports, no RSS, [...]
Heading Home
December 14th, 2005I’m about to get on the red-eye back to New York after a tiring show at Syndicate. More on the show within the next few days (there was lots of library-related discussion which blew my mind!). A few pieces of housekeeping:
1) If you’ve sent me an e-mail during the past week, I’m not [...]
Gritwire
December 14th, 2005
Gritwire
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
I know that I said that I wasn’t going to post to LS this week, but I promised the Gritwire guys a plug and a review of their aggregator. This resource couldn’t have come at a better time for me as I’ve been in [...]
Hey, I’m Over Here
December 12th, 2005I’m in San Francisco for the next few days at Syndicate and will be blogging the show over at in the Sandbox for PubSub. If you are at all interested in the business of syndication, this is the place to be. If you weren’t able to come out to the conference, jump in [...]
Midwinter get-together to Celebrate C&I
December 10th, 2005In celebration of 5 years of C&I, Walt Crawford wants to have a get together at ALA Midwinter next month. I’ve mentioned this on several occasions, but Walt has been one of my unofficial mentors in the library profession (Sadly, I didn’t have an official one) so I’ll be at his shindig helping him [...]
Brian Smith on Gorman, Steven Johnson, and Blog People
December 10th, 2005Maybe by linking to his post, I can get Brian Smith to blog like this more often. Breaking from his usual pattern of short blurbs, Brian (writing in the plural as usual) blogs:
“We’re not an ALA member, but that has nothing to do with Gorman. We don’t hold anything against him. We thought his [...]
InfoTangle
December 9th, 2005Take a look at InfoTangle. Not your typical library blog (which is why it captured my attention). Ellyssa Kroski (a reference librarian at Columbia University as well as a technology consultant) uses her blog to publish lengthy scholarly articles. Well, article (she only has one there so far).
Her first article is titled, [...]
CIL 2006 Program Out
December 9th, 2005Looking through the advanced program [PDF] for CIL 2006, I was excited to see many new presenters and not the same people doing the same talks (that includes me, BTW). This could be due to the PLA/CIL cross-conferencing issue (which I’m still sad about) or that the new blood that was desparately needed was [...]
Many New Databases Added
December 9th, 2005Temple University Library has had a blog since March 2005, but I only first came across it today (via a Topix feed). The latest post is one of my favorites (and, IMO, most important) coming from library blogs: new databases added to the library collection. One of the least used parts of the [...]
Librarian Deciphers Grateful Dead Lyrics
December 9th, 2005A great article from AP on David Dodd, the library director and blogger who wrote a book on Greatful Dead lyrics. Some quotes from Robert Hunter:
“It has a lengthy foreword by the band’s principal lyricist, Robert Hunter, who came out of seclusion long enough to pay Dodd the ultimate compliment: He said the researcher [...]
Why Librarians Should Read Blogs
December 8th, 2005A student at Tufts writes in his blog about finding the online databases that the library subscribes to:
“Really, though there’s all kinds of cool stuff I can get at: the OED, the Oxford Reference Collection (encyclopedias, bilingual dictionaries, maps, quotations, etc.), Lexis-Nexis, the Grove Dictionary of Music, and seemingly hundreds of other sources. I guess [...]
Wanabo
December 8th, 2005
I don’t tag my own blog posts or place them into categories or any other library-type stuff that you might think I’d be into. The reason? Mostly out of laziness. I don’t want to take the time to categorize everything I write. It’s a pain in the neck.
Enter Wanabo. [...]
I Hate News That I Can’t Share
December 8th, 2005I have two incredible pieces of news that I want to share but can’t. Contracts need to be signed before I can blabber about it. Big news!
Oh, here’s something I can share: Come June, Hallie will have a sibling…
Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary
December 8th, 2005With all of the attention being paid to Wikipedia these days, I didn’t see much of a mention of the Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary, which allows users to add their own dictionary entries and definitions.
No entry for Podcast yet…
SLA Information Technology Division Blog and Blogging Section
December 7th, 2005They’re not playing around with blogs at the Information Technology Division of SLA, starting a “blogging section” of the subdivision. The scope:
“Provides a forum for members to exchange information on the technologies and applications of blogs and RSS. Central to this section is the development of blogs by and for information professionals and [...]
PeopleFeeds
December 7th, 2005
There’s a bunch of these “combining resources” tools available today (Suprglu, etc) and the concept is not really new (see Blogdigger Groups).
PeopleFeeds takes this concept a few steps further. Not only can you create your own mesh of feeds that you own, but you can locate others of interest [...]
Blogging at Unshelved
December 7th, 2005It’s blogging week over at Unshelved as Colleen reveals that she has a blog (well, “diary”) and is stunned when she finds out that it can be read by everyone. Hilarious.
FirstGov adds podcasts
December 7th, 2005Well, lookie what we have here. FirstGov now has a new page, listing podcasts from the U.S. Government. Pretty flimsy at this point, but hopefully it’ll start to grow.
The Memeo on WSJ
December 7th, 2005Congrats to fellow Web 2.0 Workgroup member Gabe Rivera for his write up in the Wall Street Journal:
“The easiest way to follow this world is via a useful blog-tracking service called tech.memeorandum. The site runs off software written by Gabe Rivera, a former Intel compiler programmer. It sifts through hundreds of technology-oriented blogs to find [...]
NYPL - RSS Feeds
December 6th, 2005Check out the 8 feeds from the NYPL. My favorite one is the recent additions to databases and indexes online. If you work at the NYPL, you should be reading this one if you want to serve your patrons better. The NYPL actually has an RSS link on the bottom of their [...]
Snippets
December 6th, 2005“If we approach the written word primarily through search-and-seizure rather than sustained encounter-and-contemplation, we risk losing a critical element of what it means to be an educated, literate society.”
I’ve had this article in my drafts pile for a few weeks now and just got around to reading it. For those who are embedded in [...]
Blog Salon at ALA Midwinter
December 6th, 2005The good folks at It’s All Good have announced that there will be a Blog Salon at Midwinter in San Antonio. Previously referred to as the Blogger Bash (is it more sophisticated now?), it’s an event not to miss if you are blogger, blog reader, or blog fan. Heck, I’d even invite the [...]