Archive for December, 2006
Blawgs.fm
December 15th, 2006From Library Boy (amazing blog - subscribe to it!) comes word that Justia, the company behind Blawgsearch, has come out with Blawgs.fm, a directory and search engine for legal-related podcasts.
Quantcast
December 15th, 2006I’ve been thinking about stats lately and whether or not I should care about how many people read LS. If I do care (and I think I do), Steve Rubel made my day with a blog post about Quantcast a traffic tool:
“The methodology is stronger on Quantcast because they qualify publishers and they don’t [...]
BooksOnCampus
December 15th, 2006Mashable mentions today that Books On Campus is now using the Facebook API to enable students to exchange books at colleges.
More Library Video Goodies
December 15th, 2006Some great stuff from The “M” Word today.
First, two commercials from the Lexington Public LibrarY:
Second, a neat marketing video from The Fulton County Public Library:
Very cool!
Risen
December 14th, 2006
Risen
Originally uploaded by azstudent.
I wish I was going to ALA so that I could get a copy of this book. There is a site up with some information, but I’ll be tracking it for more.
Michael Arrington
December 14th, 2006Mr. Arrington blogs:
“I can’t believe blogging hasn’t driven me to drink yet”
After months of communicating with Mike last year, we finally met up at a conference in San Fransisco. He came up to me and introduced himself while I was sitting at the PubSub booth. Great guy.
Hang in there buddy. Everything [...]
Hictu!
December 14th, 2006I linkblogged Hictu last night but am more excited about the service after reading this post:
“Hictu! is a Web application that allows you to handle your contacts in a more efficient way, and helps you finding the best way to communicate. Nothing to download: just login, wherever you are, and use it. For free!
Something [...]
Manatee libraries block MySpace
December 14th, 2006There’s an interesting piece in the Bradenton Herald today about the decision of a local library to block MySpace.
Shelfari Launches Book Widget
December 13th, 2006Via Mashable!, I learned that Shelfari has launched their widgets feature (which they mentioned in a 11/15 blog post). They are going to have to continue to release cool stuff like this to compete with LibraryThing.
On a related note, check out this (yet another) compare and contast of cataloging tools (Shelafri is not included). [...]
Tag Parts of Videos
December 13th, 2006So, check out Scenemarker. From the press release”:
“Gotuit Media, a digital media company delivering advanced on-demand video products to broadband, mobile, and cable, today announced the expansion of its online video portal www.gotuit.com with the introduction of SceneMaker, the industry’s first social video tagging application. SceneMaker enables consumers to define and tag specific [...]
Utube Tries its Hand at $$$
December 13th, 2006Remember utube? That company that was swarmed with web users when You Tube was acquired? And threatened to sue because they had too many hits on their site? Yeah, them.
They smartened up and realized that web traffic = money. Hook up with an ad company and start making dough. Congrats!
[...]
Peter Boyle, Father on ‘Raymond,’ Dies at 71
December 13th, 2006Barbie and I spent many nights watching “Raymond”, arguably the funniest show of its time. Peter Boyle made that show. It was his transparency that we loved, never taking even a second to tell Marie or the rest of the family how he felt.
Yesterday, he died. RIP Mr. Boyle and thanks for [...]
Librarian love
December 12th, 2006Neat post today on Meeblog about librarians who love Meebo (and vice-versa).
You Tube Contest
December 11th, 2006Michael Sauers notes that the Denver Public Library is holding a YouTube Contest for their teen users. Suweeeeet!
Online communities, virtual worlds popular among the younger set
December 11th, 2006From the article:
“Webkinz, Club Penguin and Neopets are sites aimed at kids between eight and 14. They allow members to take on a character - usually in the form of an animal or creature - and create a world for them.”
I admit, I only linked to the story so I can say how cute Hallie [...]
Search Engine Land
December 11th, 2006Librarians need to keep up with Search Engines. Period. We should even know about SEO and SE Marketing. Danny Sullivan, the master of search has officially started Search Engine Land today, so add the feed to your aggregator. Your patrons who ask for research advice will thank you.
Another Reason to Love Pandora
December 11th, 2006So, I’m listening to my Michelle Branch station on Pandora when a familiar song comes on. Everything, by Stereo Fuse. This song was originally recorded by Material Issue (one of my favorite bands from my previous life as a Doc Marten wearing, bangs-in-my-face, wanna be). I looked up Stereo Fuse and it [...]
Track Netflix Renatls
December 11th, 2006Hey cool! Create a chart of your Netflix rentals with Swivel.
Look Out, LibraryThing is Huge!
December 11th, 2006OK, I may be getting ahead of myself, but it was mentioned in the NYT Magazine this weekend. Go Tim and Abby.
Disclaimer: Tim gave me a free “pro” account when he launched the service last year. In return, I will be buying him a few beers at CIL in April. Thus, [...]
Disappearing Towns…
December 11th, 2006Here’s an interesting piece from CNN:
“A total of 488 communities have been erased from the latest version of Georgia’s official map, victims of too few people and too many letters of type.
Georgia’s Department of Transportation, which drew the new map, said that the goal was to make it clearer and less cluttered and that [...]
Gimme That Remote
December 10th, 2006Sure, YouTube is the hottest thing on the Web right now. Put your videos up there and it will be seen by more people than via any other site.
I still think that this is suuuuulick!!
Via Library TV (subscribe to this blog. It had great stuff!), comes word of some creative media coming from [...]
Newzpile
December 10th, 2006Aggie sent me Newzpile today. Basically, it creates a personalized portal using tag search. If you have seen TagJag (which is currently broken), the concept is same.
So, most social sites have tags these days, but there is no way to look at multiple tools with similar tags. Newzpile will do that dor [...]
Find a Job in 10 Minutes a Day: Persistent Job Search Via an Aggregator
December 8th, 2006I met Sara R. Paul while at a presentation I did at the Practicing Law Institite in March (Great crowd - which is why I’m doing it again in 2007)
Well, Sara wrote a pretty cool article for LISCareer on how she used RSS to land a job at a law firm library (yay! [...]
An Evening With Stephen King
December 8th, 2006
An Evening With Stephen King
Originally uploaded by billericalibrary.
This is precious:
“On April 22, 1983 Stephen King came and spoke at the Billerica Public Library (Director Barbara Flaherty stands to the left). Fee? A place to bunk and a six-pack. The text of the speech can be read in his [...]
Bored at Lamont
December 8th, 2006Oh, I love this (via this):
“Lamont Library bears a striking resemblance to a Las Vegas casino. While Harvard’s monument to round-the-clock academic endeavor may lack blackjack tables and Siegfried & Roy, it shares the Vegas ethos of detachment from ordinary reality.
Temperature, lighting, and activity remain constant at all hours; concepts of time disintegrate as [...]
Yay for Full Text Feeds
December 8th, 2006This topic may be “so 2004″, but (via Techmeme - You DO read Techmeme, don’t you?) here’s some data on the power of full-text feeds.
Recently, I’ve unsubscribed to any blogs that do not have full-text feeds. It’s really a no-brainer. If you have a blog with partial syndication, consider a switch. You’ll [...]
The 40 Families Project
December 6th, 2006This is interesting.
The 40 Families Project is a photo archive hosted by the Palos Verdes Library District. Read more about the project. And take a look at this:
They’ve added a bunch of their pictures to Flickr. Cool. They’ve also added a running slideshow to the site.
And the library has four blogs too. [...]
Hunting the elusive search strategy
December 6th, 2006Oh, Jon Udell, you’ve done it again. On research:
“Last night an old friend who runs a small software company confessed a secret. When he and his staff answer technical questions for clients, they are often ‘only’ searching Google. At one point, he even asked a client: ‘Do you really want us to search Google [...]
Neat New Stuff from ALA
December 5th, 2006Via the Press Release:
“The “Librarian’s E-Library” uses tools from Google Co-Op to create a customized search engine. Librarian’s E-Library searches over 125 key information-rich web sites with the information library workers need to do their jobs better.
The ALA “Professional Tips” wiki provides a pathfinder to using the rich resources of ALA’s Web site; [...]
Library moving into 21st century
December 5th, 2006What a piece in the Cincinatti Enquirer yesterday! Pro library, pro customer service, and a well done needs assessment. Yay!
“We’re looking at ways to serve our customers better,” said public relations director Amy Banister.
The changes, which are about a year away, came after a “tremendous amount of research,” Banister said. Public Library of Cincinnati [...]