Bill Drew points to the WikiProject Librarians page at Wikipedia. Intro:
We librarians flatter ourselves that we know a thing or two about organizing information. It’s time we stepped up and contributed to Wikipedia: not just to its content but to its structures and technologies. This project page is intended to provide a rallying point […]
Google has updated the support for link resolvers and WorldCat in Google Scholar. From the new about page:
Support for Institutional Access
For libraries that make their resources available via a link resolver, we are now offering the option to include a link for their patrons to these resources as a part of the Google […]
The Encyclopedia of Chicago is now online. The Encyclopedia is a joint project between the Chicago Historical Society, Newberry Library and Northwestern University and has a hugely popular dead tree counterpart.
From Eric Hellman of Openly:
I think that libraries should consider returning to their historic roots that have nothing to do with “search”.Forget search- a billion dollars says that Google and Amazon will do search way better than any real library on the planet, and libraries can now leverage these searching capabilities in very real ways.
What […]
Chicagocrime.org lists reported crimes by type and displays the location of the crime on an inserted Google Maps display. Pretty nice integration. From BB
from the NYTimes:
By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library’s 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.
This article came to my attention in a posting from a professor […]
Jakob Nielsen writes:
Summary:
Users now have precise expectations for the behavior of search. Designs that invoke this mental model but work differently are confusing.
Search is such a prominent part of the Web user experience that users have developed a firm mental model for how it’s supposed to […]
On Web4Lib list yesterday Bernie Sloan posted a March Library Journal article by WebFeat president Todd Miller on why libraries should be simple like Google. Tom Miller is eloquently saying what many other have also said: the library web tools aren’t working. Users don’t like them and don’t want to use them. […]
As reported everywhere, a federal appeals court has ruled that the FCC stepped beyond its authority with the broadcast flag:
In a blow to the entertainment industry, a federal appeals court on Friday found that federal regulators overstepped their authority by requiring consumer-electronics manufacturers to help restrict digital home recording.
Link to Wired
My Architect (IMDb) is the 2003 documentary on architect Louis Kahn created by his son, Nathaniel Kahn. A few of the buildings were spectacular, but the Exeter Library at the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire stood out as particularly interesting. I’ll be up in the area next month and might visit […]
Old news in internet years (last week):
In a stand against a deal struck by five of the world’s top libraries and Google to digitize millions of books, 19 European libraries have agreed to back a similar European project to safeguard literature.
European Libraries Fight Google-ization
Deutsche-Well 4.27.5
New Scientist reports that Google has filed for patents related to adding authority as a factor in Google News rankings.