Archive for December, 2008
Friday, December 26th, 2008
From the Article:
We’re hanging in as best we can,” he said. “I don’t think (full-time) layoffs are something we have to seriously think about.”
Some considerations include instituting fees for services that have been free, such as postage for interlibrary loans in which patrons can request materials available only at other libraries, Maurins said. Rates on public copiers also might be raised.
The plan, which is being divided into two phases, will be presented to the Washoe County Commission on Jan. 13, Maurins said.
“It doesn’t look good for the near future,” he said.
Ever since the November election, the number of patrons going to the libraries is on the rise.
“We have 9 (percent) or 10 percent more people over last year, I think because of the early voting,” Maurins said.
Source: Fresno Bee
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
From the article:
The West Virginia Humanities Council announced it has awarded a contract to Information Research Corp. of Fairmont to develop an online version of the West Virginia Encyclopedia.
The online version of the encyclopedia is targeted to be up and running by June 20 (West Virginia Day) 2010.
Source: Charleston Daily Mail
Posted in Databases, Directories, and Guides, E-books, History, Resources, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
OMG, We’re Not BFFs Anymore? Getting ‘Unfriended’ Online Stings
Unfriending online “friends” is emerging as the latest offense in the world of social networking. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace allow people to build personal profiles with photos, videos and up-to-the-minute updates about their lives, then to share them with select users, or “friends.” The process has even turned the word “friend” into a verb, as in, “so-and-so just friended me on Facebook.” Users agonize over whom to friend (your mom? your ex-boyfriend? your boss?), and worry about whether their friend requests will be accepted or ignored, lingering in cyberspace in what some dub “friend purgatory.”
Now, people who have accumulated hundreds, or in some cases more than a thousand, friends are cutting loose some of the ones they have lost touch with or who were little more than acquaintances from the start. It’s a shift from the days when users, eager to boast about their online popularity, added new friends with abandon, whether or not they really knew them.
…
Most sites allow you to remove friends with a click or two, but they don’t notify people when they’ve been dropped. Sites say that’s a decision designed to mitigate any awkwardness and to respect users’ privacy. A Facebook spokesman says the Palo Alto, Calif., company isn’t concerned with the impact of unfriending and it prefers to “leave the delicate etiquette of defining online social norms” to its users.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Posted in Search News, Social Media, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
From the Article:
A new online database of medical records is offering a glimpse into the difficult lives of chronically ill children during the Victoria and Edwardian eras.
Around 10,000 records of admissions to Great Ormond Street Hospital’s (GOSH) Cromwell House convalescent home in north London have been added to the Small and Special website which already features 84,000 records of young GOSH patients.
Direct to Database
Source: The Independent (U.K.)
Posted in Genealogy, History, Science, Search News, Source File | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
From the Article:
Minneapolis and Seattle have tied for the title of America’s most literate city in 2008, according to a recent survey.
Minneapolis moves down from its No. 1 ranking last year to tie with Seattle, last year’s number two city, according to a survey taken by Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University. Washington D.C. took third in the rankings while St. Paul slipped a notch in the annual ranking, moving down from third in 2007 to fourth place this year.
The study uses six key indicators of literacy: number of bookstores, educational attainment, Internet resources, library resources, newspaper circulation and periodical publishing resources.
Minneapolis was ranked No. 4 in the bookstore category, with criteria including: number of retail bookstores per 10,000 population; number of rare and used bookstores per 10,000 population; and number of members of the American Booksellers Association per 10,000 population. St. Paul tied for sixth with Pittsburgh in this category.
Direct to Full Text Report: America’s Most Literate Cities 2008
See Also: Library Section of Report
See Also: Methodology
Sources: Minneapolis Business Journal and Central Connecticut State College
Posted in Lists and Rankings | No Comments »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
From the article:
The New York Public Library is now expanding to Facebook, YouTube and iTunes, by launching a new online video series highlighting rare documents that can only be seen in person. Such documents include handwritten letters by Katherine Hepburn and menus from long-gone restaurants.
“What we’ve amassed over the course of more than 100 years is one of the single greatest repositories of all kinds of materials about the human experience and there are more than 50 million items in these collections,” said N.Y. Public Library President Paul LeClerc. “This shows the sometimes interesting or quirky or fascinating things we have at the library.”
Direct to Videos
Source: NY1 (via LibraryStuff.net)
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
From the Article:
An investment research company is planning to construct a database that will include performance and operational information on foundations, endowments and pension funds.
Morningstar hopes to have the launch the database, which the public can access free of charge, in early 2009.
The system will track foundations, pensions and endowments along about 300 data points, including portfolio holdings, fees and expenses, assets under management and quarterly performance.
Source: Philanthropy Journal
Posted in Business and Economics, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Too bad library-based Q&A services like Question Point are not mentioned in the article.
From the article:
Why is the sky blue? How do you bleach a stained shirt? Why does cheese smell?
The answers to these questions used to be sought in encyclopedias and other reference books. Now, we increasingly seek the answers to such questions online; the top two Web sites specializing in answers have each rapidly increased their audiences in the last year.
But online answers are often disappointing, particularly among the myriad Web sites that pop up at the top of a Google Inc. search.
These Web sites are the lowlifes of the Internet: Their business model is to make a quick buck by selling advertising and providing the cheapest kind of answers available — unvetted answers that are provided for free by users.
Source: WSJ
Posted in Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
From the article:
As technology has grown in the Coppell ISD the role of the library and librarians has changed.
“Our libraries are very busy places,” said Debra Marshall, Wilson Elementary School and head librarian for the district. “The roles of librarians have changed dramatically over the last 20 years.”
She said that the librarian is no longer a clerical keeper of the books, but a curriculum specialist co-teacher and collaborator.
“We are now a digital library serving the student of today,” Marshall said. “The job I do today is different from the job I did years ago.”
According to a report made Marshall to the CISD Board of Trustees the job of the librarian is now as an information coach, learning consultant and reading guru.
“As an information coach, we teach students and faculty how to use the Internet, databases and online information tools,” Marshall said. “And as a learning consultant, we work with the teachers to plan higher level learning and real world experiences.”
Source: Coppell Gazette Star
Posted in Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
From the IHT article:
On Tuesday, the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research group at George Washington University, published an online edition of transcripts of 15,000 Kissinger phone calls from 1969 to 1977, fully indexed and searchable for the first time. A selection was posted on the archive’s Web site, nsarchive.org, and the full collection is available to subscribers, which include many university libraries.
Direct to Highlights from the Database
Source: International Herald Tribune
Posted in History, Search News | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
From the article:
Bhuvan, India’s response to Google Earth, will be launched in March 2009 and will provide high resolution imagery data of the order of five metres which would be of great help for real-time exercises, including disaster management and military operations…However, it is not yet decided whether the data can be put on the web as it could be misused. Some locations can, however, be blurred or blocked due to security reasons. “Bhuvan will be created by March next year. Then we will seek the government’s permission to put it on the web,” Pathan said.
Source: Business Standard
Posted in Geographic | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Posted 23 December 2008 on DocuTicker:
+ 1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007 (National Center for Education Statistics)
+ Tough year ahead for IT industry, warns OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
+ Clinical Cancer Advances 2008 Now Available (American Society of Clinical Oncology)
Posted in Best of DocuTicker, Source File | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
A review of eight new or updated features and services that MapQuest launched or relaunched in 2008.
Source: MapQuest Blog
Posted in Geographic, Search News | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
From the web site:
On January 20, 2009, the United States will inaugurate Barack Obama, the country’s first African American president. In anticipation of citizens’ efforts to mark this historic time around the country, the American Folklife Center will be collecting audio and video recordings of sermons and orations that comment on the significance of the inauguration of 2009. It is expected that such sermons and orations will be delivered at churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship, as well as before humanist congregations and other secular gatherings. The American Folklife Center is seeking as wide a representation of orations as possible.
Source: American Folklife Center @ LoC
Posted in Arts and Humanities, History, Libraries and Librarianship | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
From the summary:
It’s no mystery that publications have been taking a beating as more and more people read their news on the Net. But there’s a catch. The online info may be instant and abundant — and in many cases free — but it may come at a cost, says a new study published in the Journal of Research in Reading.
Source: Scientific American
Posted in Information Literacy | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Posted in Search News | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
Man Says DVD At Town ‘N Country Library Is Porn
A Rocky Creek man wants to have a film he regards as pornographic removed from the shelves of the Town ‘N Country Regional Public Library.
Frank DeAngelis, a former police officer and retired sociology professor, said he didn’t know what to expect when he checked out “The Films of James Broughton.” DeAngelis said he was shocked to see naked men engaging in various sexual acts. In one the collection’s films, “Devotions,” two men dress up like nuns and embrace and kiss.
But what really concerned DeAngelis is that naked children are shown, albeit in nonsexual situations.
“Why would they put little children in there to infer pornography?” DeAngelis said. “They crossed the line with the little children.”
…
Broughton was a poet, playwright and avant-garde filmmaker. Born in 1913 in Modesto, Calif., Broughton wrote more than 20 books of verse and considered himself “first and foremost a poet.”
But his films, including “Dreamwood,” “The Pleasure Garden” and “The Golden Positions” received more attention, earning him an American Film Institute lifetime achievement award in 1989. He died in 1999 at age 85.
The DVD that DeAngelis borrowed was not rated but had a warning on the back cover saying it was for “mature audiences.” The front cover shows a man sitting on the floor, filming a dancing man who appears to be naked.
Keith Allen, supervisor at the Town ‘N Country library, said he had never heard of the film and doesn’t remember anyone complaining about it.
Source: Tampa Tribune
Posted in Censorship, Libraries and Librarianship, Search News | No Comments »
