From the announcement:

Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded the American Library Association $489,000 to support a new Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award.

Administered by the ALA’s Public Information Office and Campaign for America’s Libraries, the award will launch this year and will continue annually through 2013. The award encourages library users to recognize the accomplishments of librarians for their efforts to improve the lives of people in their community.

“In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself,” said Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Source: ALA

From the article:

From the 48th floor library at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy’s New York headquarters, the view is revealing. But it’s not just the outside world — the bridges and buildings of Manhattan — that catches the eye. Within, there is a world that’s changing, too. On first glance, it wouldn’t seem for the better. As part of a renovation last year, Milbank’s library space was cut from 10,000 square feet to 3,200. Many, many books are gone — enough, perhaps, to start a small law school. Even now, on what is otherwise a bustling summer morning, the silence seems a bit eerie. There is no one looking at the books that remain; just a few people standing around computer terminals

Source: LawFirm Inc.

From the story:

The U.S. Government Printing Office has launched an enhanced version of the Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects. All listings from the previous iteration have been incorporated into the new site.

The enhanced Registry provides the ability to:

+ Browse digitization projects by category or alphabetically by title.
+ Search the entire Registry or filter searches by category or fields.
+ Quickly access new and recently updated listings.
+ Utilize RSS feeds to keep informed of new and updated projects.
+ View listings by contributor.
+ Contact fellow digitization participants.
+ Recommend listings to others.
+ Report broken links.
+++ And much more!

Source: Admin Notes

From the article:

Is the best government Web site not a government site at all? A June paper released by Princeton University researchers said government agencies should feed information to third-party sites instead of developing their own sites.

“Today, government bodies consider their own Web sites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We would argue that this understanding is a mistake,” the researchers said. Government should understand providing reusable data, rather than Web sites, is its online main publishing responsibility.

Source: Government Technology

Who is watching your online image?

Teenagers are not the only ones who have to worry about getting their reputations smeared via an Internet blog, forum or social-networking Web site, although for them, it’s usually a lot more personal.
Government agencies also are the frequent targets of scurrilous online attacks. However, the figurative bull’s-eye on the government’s collective back is a lot bigger than any teenager’s.

With its countless offices, employees and policies that touch most aspects of everyday life, there are millions of potential lightning rods for online criticism from people with axes to grind. No matter what the original cause for complaint, these diatribes all eventually come down to that convenient shorthand — “the government” is to blame.

Government officials aren’t able to respond to every online smear, but doing nothing is not a good plan, said Andy Beal, an Internet marketing consultant at Marketing Pilgrim and co-author of the book “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.”

Source: Federal Computer Week

Old-school recordkeeping meets the Digital Age

How does the government manage data that was born digital, meaning it was created in electronic form? Organizations as varied as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the White House, open-government groups, and House members have recently offered recommendations for managing the growing volume of such information. Their approaches underscore the differences of opinion about how much responsibility and power various entities should have over future federal recordkeeping.

Electronic records management has been the topic of proposed legislation and rules, court cases, congressional investigations, hearings, and government audits as agencies weigh options for maintaining the vast amount of official communication that is conducted electronically. Because federal employees use e-mail and other technologies daily for routine notes and important information, it’s not always easy to decide which messages qualify as records that must be preserved. And once a decision is made, the next question is how best to store the messages.

Under the Federal Records Act, NARA approves agencies’ recordkeeping schedules and maintains data once it is submitted for archiving, but each agency decides whether to keep a document. In the case of e-mail messages, individual users typically make the decision.

“I think there is a growing consensus that electronic mail and other forms of electronic records that are born digital need to be managed and preserved in electronic form,” said Jason Baron, NARA’s director of litigation.

Source: Federal Computer Week

Battlefield knowledge management

We are all familiar with the frustration of a fruitless Internet search, where querying a seemingly simple topic returns a laundry list of enormous documents that must be downloaded just to find one piece of information.

Now picture the frustration of executing such a search not over a broadband link in your home or office, but instead over a slow speed link as a solider deployed in a hostile forward area, under pressure and time constraints to gather critical information in preparation for battle.

The Army may have found a solution by implementing a Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) to improve soldiers’ abilities to search the Army’s Warrior Knowledge Base (WKB). The system is based on MarkLogic Server, an XML-based content platform designed to allow for granular database searches, efficient document delivery, and knowledge and information sharing. The system enables soldiers to find the most up-to-date and cutting edge information that may assist them in the field.

Source: Government Computer News

From the article:

The National Archives has finished its Seamless Flow Programme to automate the preservation of electronic government records

The programme has developed tools and processes aiming to create a seamless process, so information created by government can be gathered by the Archives, stored and – when allowed – released online.

David Thomas, chief information officer, said: “The challenges we face with digital records – cataloguing, preserving, accessibility – are similar to those of paper records, but they clearly can’t be addressed in the same way. This new system, the first of its kind, means that we now have the tools to ensure that modern records survive the test of time.

Source: Kable Government Computing

From the article:

A new visual search engine could help photographers track where their photographs appear on the internet.

The TinEye search engine, developed by Canadian company Idee, allows users to search by uploading a picture rather than typing in a keyword. It then conducts a pixel-by-pixel search across the internet, flagging up all instances of that image even if it’s been cropped, merged or digitally altered in some way.

“TinEye does for images what Google does for text,” said Leila Boujnane, the chief executive of TinEye. “We are not limited by words, Google can only find an image if a particular search word is in proximity to it. We have the ability on a large scale to tell somebody where one of their images has appeared and how it’s being used.”

Source: ITPRO

This news release from the New Zealand Library and Information Association has more.

Source: Scoop

From the article:

How does the government manage data that was born digital, meaning it was created in electronic form? Organizations as varied as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the White House, open-government groups, and House members have recently offered recommendations for managing the growing volume of such information. Their approaches underscore the differences of opinion about how much responsibility and power various entities should have over future federal recordkeeping.

Source: FCW (via LISNews)

Video interviews with Cuil Co-Founders Tom Costello and Anna Patterson!

+ Take a tour of Cuil

+ Where Cuil Goes from Here

+ Cuil’s Patterson: “I Wasn’t Sure It Would Work”

Source: Yahoo Tech Ticker

From the news release:

Lyon Municipal Library is Google’s 29th library partner for the project and its first in France.

Source: M2

From the article:

The world’s largest monastery library, in the quaint Austrian town of Admont, has re-opened after four years of restoration work that have returned all its rococo splendour to this baroque jewel.

Source: AFP

From the article:

Library fines could become a thing of the past if a group of librarians get their way, reports the Guardian. A fiery debate has been raging for the past week between librarians, with anti-fine campaigners describing the charges as punitive, old fashioned and creating a negative impression of libraries.

Source: theBookseller