Archive for April, 2006
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April 16th, 2006I have a small post on the PLA Blog about a trip I made to Homer Glen, Illinois.
BusinessWeek has an article on finding, obtaining, and keeping users for your online business…without the old style PR. Libraries, take note.
Jeff Jarvis liked Will Richardson’s book on social software in the classroom. Side Note: I [...]
LS Quickes
April 15th, 2006Tape Failure – “Tapefailure is a “history recording tool.” What this means is that anyone can record a browsing session using Taprfailures’s recorder, then save it, and share it with others. Each recorded session can be played back virtually perfectly through our playback tool; as long as you know the tape ID or have a [...]
Libraries and Library Thing…
April 14th, 2006This is interesting. The Guilford Technical Community College Library posted on their blog that they have added a few new books to Library Thing.
Hmmm. Now, imagine for a few minutes that their entire collection was on Library Thing. I wonder how many of the 2.3 Million books in LT are in the Guilford [...]
Guitar Hero
April 13th, 2006
You have new Picture Mail!
Originally uploaded by The Shifted Librarian.
I have about 200 pictures from this past week that I need to get on Flickr. but I saw this on Jenny’s account, so I figured I’d blog it.
Yes, I was “devirgined” the other night, trying my hand (literally) [...]
Trade Books, CDs, and More…For a Buck
April 12th, 2006The NYT is running a piece on Zunafish, a cheap item swapping tool:
“The site, which looks remarkably similar to a prototype Mr. Bloom sketched on notebook paper four years ago with Mr. Elias, trades only one-for-one items within the same category — CD’s, DVD’s, VHS tapes, video games, audio books or paperback books. No item [...]
Zines at Barnard College
April 12th, 2006My favorite Lit Blog, Conversational Reading, tipped me off to this page on the zine collection from Barnard College. I love that there is a tutorial on finding the zines using the online catalog. Look closer and they link to their My Space account
About the collection:
“Although zines, a rich and democratic form of [...]
Microsoft Academic Search Blog
April 12th, 2006Want to keep up to date with Microsoft Academic Search development? Check out their blog. While criticism of the product has been a bit…well…critical (most of it well deserved) , I’m sure that there will be may improvements on the way. They are making the right moves with reaching out to the [...]
Sonic Youth? Meet the LOC!
April 12th, 2006I used to be such a huge Sonic Youth fan that I styled my hair after Thurston Moore from the Goo era. For those who have met me, imagine my hair shaved all over except for my bangs, which were long enough to reach 2 inches below my chin. I had a fun [...]
Microsoft Academic Search Review
April 12th, 2006I see that Dean Giustini (such a soothing voice – I felt calmer just listening to him) has written up his notes about Microsoft Academic Search, which we were lucky to see on Friday. We were asked not to blog certain parts of what they discussed, which makes me feel a bit icky about [...]
New Structured Blogging Site
April 10th, 2006Many folks have been working hard to get a new UI up for the Sructured Blogging site. This morning it went live and the following note was sent out to the members of the SB mailing list this morning:
“Since the official launch of Structured Blogging at the Syndicate Conference in December, the response has been [...]
Self Checkout 6.0?
April 9th, 2006
Self Checkout 6.0?
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
Think you have the most up-to-date high tech self-check out machine? Take a look at this picture that appeared in the New York Times, with this accompanying article. In the future, will self-checkout be more than just…well…self-checkout.
+ Will users [...]
Review of Microsoft Academic Search
April 9th, 2006As I mentioned, I was invited to Microsoft to view and critique their new Academic Search product. I see that there is much discussion out there already, but I’m waiting until early this week to post my review (they asked us to wait). In the meantime here are some pictures of the trip (no [...]
Reading Lists
April 9th, 2006My latest column (April 2006) for Information Today Magazine is about Reading Lists. It’s the first in a two-part series, with this one being an introduction and the second one (comging May 2006) about how librarians can use Reading Lists in their daily work. There couldn’t be a piece about Reading Lists without [...]
Who’s Fault is it Anyway?
April 8th, 2006A library director’s reaction to a 9 Million dollar fine on an overdue book (turns out it was a typo):
“To avoid mistakes, turn in books on time,” Schual said, adding that books can also be renewed online.”
Wait: Who’s mistake was it? That doesn’t seem like the correct response. The word sorry never [...]
Anyone Up For a Sleepover?
April 8th, 2006So, my wallet has been found (YAY!) and I’m on my way to LAX to pick it up this evening. My flight to New York leaves at 7AM tomorrow. If anyone lives near LAX and would be so kind to put me up for the evening, I’d be really excited and appreciative. [...]
Trip to Redmond, by Stewn Cohen
April 7th, 2006
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Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.
I’ll have a longer post about my trip next week, but it’s been amazing. Besides having my wallet stolen (ARGH!), Seattle is beautiful, the people at Microsoft were amazing and kind, I finally met Robert Scoble, saw Liz Lawley, and was introduced to many [...]
Serendipity and RSS
April 5th, 2006Ken Varnum has a well thought-out post about the lost art of browsing and finding something that you wouldn’t have normally seen otherwise. He links to an article on the topic, from which he postulates:
“The same is true with the feeds I’ve chosen to put in to my aggregator. While there’s still some opportunity [...]
“Taggers Block”
April 5th, 2006I read this post by Bradley Horowitz with enthusiastic glee. Using Flickr as an example, he discusses the benefits of the clustering mechanisms in place at the giant photo sharing site:
“In the great taxonomy/folksonomy debate, dewey-decimal fans generally invoke semantic ambiguity as a place where tagging will breakdown. Stewart invoked these illustrative examples [...]
So Many Roads…
April 5th, 2006Nothing like starting a night of blogging than with a Grateful Dead lyric in the title of my first post. It’s actually a very prudent song for my life lately.
“Wind inside & the wind outside
Tangled in the window blind
Tell me why you treat me so unkind
Down where the sun don’t shine
Lonely and I [...]
LS Quickes
April 2nd, 2006Just catching up on some Aggie reading…
+ RefGrunt the book? It looks too real to be an April fools joke. (via)
+ Yet another Web 2.0 blog. Totally subscribed. Heh.
+ While at PLA, I found myself hanging out with gamers and learning about gaming. I had a blast. Games [...]
Web 2.0 is For Web 2.0 Users…For Now
April 2nd, 2006I loved this blog post from Monkey Bites, which I saw linked from Geeking with Greg:
“[T]here’s still a fundamental disconnect between people who use the web and people who use the web 2.0. The perceived importance and revolutionary aims of most web 2.0 apps are lost on the vast majority of web surfers. That doesn’t [...]
The 3rd Time is Not A Charm
April 2nd, 2006I’ve attempted twice to write a follow up post to the one about not defaulting to Google and have lost the posts both times. I think someone is trying to tell me something…
So, I’m going to write it up for my column for Information Today. You should see it in…er…June.
The More Things Change…
April 2nd, 2006A loved the following quote from the director of the DeMoines Public Library, on the eve of their re-opening:
“The public library adapts to the community’s search for information and its need for recreational reading and development of activities. It is NEVER a static place. The collection, whose mainstay remains the book, spans the generations of [...]
