LibrarianInBlack

Clean Your Code, Young Man

Still creating webpages with FrontPage?  If so, we need to talk.  But beyond that, as a temporary solution, try this FrontPage Code Cleaner.  It cleans out all that extra garbage code that FrontPage is famous for.  I tried feeding our library's homepage (which was most certainly not created with FrontPage), and it reduced the file size by 3K and the page still worked.  Nice!

link via Gadgetopia

Searcher's Fault

Phil Bradley blasts a UK technology analyst for his article for BBC News: "Why the Web is Often Woeful."  The author complains about search engines, but the real fault lies with him: his search strategies are quite flawed.  Kinda funny...

Google Suggest's Gutsy-Wutsies

So, this guy dissected the ba-jeebers out of Google Suggest.  So, if you want to see how this little tool works from the inside out, here ya go! 

link via ResearchBuzz

Training Library Bloggers

Michael Stephens has posted a great list of guidelines and tips for library blogging on his blog, Tame the Web.  Thanks Michael!  If your library is currently blogging, or you plan on setting up a blog for your library, this is a great starting point.

Ben & Claudia--oh yes!

Now it turns out that contrary to my previous post, both Ben Browser Browder (oh dear, what a goof!) & Claudia Black (John Crichton and Aeryn Sun on Farscape) will be starring in Stargate SG-1 episodes.  "Hurrah," said the LiB, "hurrah!"

What should your site be doing?

"Ten things your web sites should be doing" by Nick Finck gives a list of things any organization's website should contain.  Of the ten things listed, our website is doing nine of them, so I feel pretty happy about that.  The concept of the one we missed, (#8: Intelligent system to system communication ([XML, SOAP, etc.]) is a little fuzzy to me, but since we're not using XML or SOAP, I guess we're not doing that ;)

found via Dave's Blog

Infinite Flash Painting

Zoom in and out of this magnificent Zoom Quilt flash painting, which loops backward and forward, forever and ever and ever.  Each illustration connects to the next--truly a special creation.

link via BoingBoing

Google Scholar's advanced search

Google Scholar now has an advanced search interface.  Gary Price does a great job of detailing its abilities and limitations over at ResourceShelf.

Cites & Insights

The January edition of Cites & Insights is up.  Topics this month include (among many other things) conference blogging, Walt's lack of commentary on Google Library, Trends & Products from 1995-2000, and DRM developments.

Library/Google Comic

Hmmm, does this FoxTrot comic rub anybody else the wrong way?  Lib is nearly in a tizzy... not in a tizzy anymore, but still somewhat out of sorts that this is the aspect of our profession that gets highlighted...oh well.

The Complex of Babelplex

Babelplex allows you to conduct a bilingual search through Google, Yahoo, or Altavista.  So far, they offer English, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The results screen is split in the middle with search results on one side, and the translated search term on the other.  Very nice!  I can see a definite use for this at the reference desk when you have patrons speaking a language that the staff do not.

link via Wazzup

Google as Wal-Mart

From the Retrofitted Librarian, a posting from Jessica Smith on libref-l about Google as the Wal-Mart of online resources.  I like this comparison, only in that it could bring home to students the idea that Google is not the end all and be all of online information. 

Folktexts

Another link from Librarian's Rant, Folktexts provides e-text versions of world folklore and mythology.  A nice set of offerings, and a site to keep in your pocket for those junior high world mythology projects.

Hee hee!

Now I have another shirt to buy.

link via Librarian's Rant

Gollum/Smeagol's Mental State

A group of medical students have tried to figure out what's wrong with Gollum/Smeagol.  From their analysis:

Gollum displays pervasive maladaptive behaviour that has been present since childhood with a persistent disease course. His odd interests and spiteful behaviour have led to difficulty in forming friendships and have caused distress to others. He fulfils seven of the nine criteria for schizoid personality disorder (ICD F60.1), and, if we must label Gollum's problems, we believe that this is the most likely diagnosis. 

The article is an interesting read if you're a Middle Earth freak like LiB.  They do rule out MPD, however, because the two personalities are aware of each other.  From what I remember from my two years as a psych major, you can have MPD and have your personalities be aware of each other.  But hey, that was some time ago and I did get a B- in Abnormal Psych :)

Information Overload Project

Lois C. Ambash's Information Overload project, InfoYou, is conducting a survey to collect data about how people find, organize, and use information.  The point?  To then create personalized tool kits to help people avoid info overload.  If you fill out the survey, you get a thank-you PDF of "Infomaven's Top Ten Free and Inexpensive Tools for Taming Information Overload Online."

link via beSpacific

Metatag Analyzer

Here's another resource (from that same session at Internet Librarian, I think): META Tag Analyzer.  Plug in your URL, click Submit, and wait for the results (often given in poor English, but  generally understandable). 

I've had mixed results from this resource--it gives me failing marks for the library's page, even though I know it has all the metatags in place.  But for LiB, and for other pages I've worked on, it shows accurate results.  The library's page is done with Cold Fusion (with a .cfm extension), so I wonder if that somehow interferes with the results.  Has anyone else used this, or have any ideas why the results are inconsistent?

*wink* No, seriously--Wink!

Wink is a freeware application for online training.  You can capture screenshots, use saved images, type-in explanations for each step, and create a navigation sequence complete with buttons, delays, titles etc.  Nice! 

I heard about this nifty application at the Internet Librarian Conference (I think it was at Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone's session on tools for webmasters). I've played with it a bit, and am thinking of applications for training my library's staff.  My ideas so far are Microsoft Word & Excel, using the library's databases, pretty much anything that would ordinarily require lots of screenshots. 

Has anyone else used this fine piece of freeware?

Copyright Myths

Kathy Biehl has an interesting article over at LLRX about 8 copyright myths in the online world.  Some of the information here conflicts with information I've been presented with by both lawyers and librarians, so I'm not sure who's right.  At any rate, it's a different point of view, and worth reading.

Google Watch, Digitization, and Privacy

Google Watch wants Google to specify its privacy policies for the Google/Library Digitization scanning project.  They're asking the libraries working with Google to demand privacy policies.  Makes sense right?  This discussion over at the Library Law Blog talks about the issue a bit more.

The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age

Listen to the All Things Considered interview with Carol Brey-Casiano (American Library Association President): The Future of Libraries in the Digital Age. She discusses, among other things, Google's library digitization project, the access issues with digitization, and services libraries offer beyond those Google is trying to duplicate.

Digital Preservation Management

This online tutorial, entitled "Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-term Strategies for Long-term Problems" is a must-read for anyone involved in the digital preservation of anything--text files, archival documents, images, anything.  Hey, it even won the Society of American Archivists 2004 Preservation Publication Award.  I also like the fact that they have a "Is this tutorial right for you" quiz to take before you start.  As someone who does training on a regular basis, I often long for that "pre-requisite quiz," which (in-person) can seem authoritarian and contrary, but online can be a blessing.

Virtual Land

This story is a few days old now, but I think it's so nifty that I wanted to mention it here.

A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game. [...]  The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other.

"Okay, that's stupid," you think.  But wait...there's more.  He now gets to tax people who come to his virtual land and sell plots to folks who want to build their virtual houses on it.  Project Entropia has an actual economy (based on real currency, not imaginary gold ingots or credits).  This guy is brilliant.  If he turns a profit, I will personally send him some very nice chocolate as soon as I hear about it.

I got started with online interactive gaming in 1995 through BatMUD (any other BatMUDders out there?).  It was a text-based RPG based in Finland.  I met people (usually guys who were just thrilled an actual girl was playing) from Canada, Great Britain, Finland, Norway, Germany, and all over the states.  It was crazy fun for a college kid.  I often broke the rules in the college computer labs and BATmudded late into the night, having a second window up with some mock English paper in case I had to do a quick screen switch.  Ahhhh, the good old days.  Anyway, even back then, people were giving actual money in the real world to get virtual goods in BatMUD.  I remember some guy trying to sell me an enchanted cloak of some kind for $50.  College kid that I was, that was out of my range. 

I remember the not too distant days of the start of Diablo eBay auctions.  It's still going on.  I always earned my EQ the hard way ;)

Anyway, I think this is indicative of things to come.  I think virtual land, virtual objects, will continue to gain value as people turn to these places to escape reality.  Just as NASCAR men turn to their car races, housewives turn to their soap operas, so we gamer folk turn to our RPGs.

RSS & Vendors: A Match Made in Heaven

Jenny hints that two major library vendors will be making some kind of RSS announcement soon.  Hmmmm....any guesses folks?

Weblogs and Libraries review

Phil Bradley has posted a brief review of Dr. L. Anne Clyde's new book Weblogs and Libraries on FreePint.  I'll be taking my copy of the book with me on my 4 day sojourn to Chicago in a couple of days (gee, I gotta finish packing), and was happy to see a positive review from the venerable Mr. Bradley.

More RSS feeds from The Man

The State Dept. is offering some more RSS feeds to us, the lowly taxpayers ;)  Among the new offerings are top stories regarding economics, Washington, International Security, etc.

link via Virtual Chase

Nerdy Christmas Crafts

I don't celebrate Christmas, but even so, I'm still geeking out over these Nerdy Christmas crafts (see the gingerbread CPU to the left).  Mediatinker posted links to several geeky crafts--among the other offerings were a gingerbread laptop and a Christmas tree decorated with computer bits.

via Engadget via BoingBoing

Desktop Search's Security Hole

Google Desktop has a security hole (surprise, surprise).  Seems they're taking the path of Microsoft--putting nifty things out for public consumption before they're ready.  But at least they're not charging for it.  A Rice University team discovered the problem, which could allow hackers to delve into your computer's contents through the security hole.

Salary Clock

Need a wicked dose of reality?  Try the Salary Clock--there's nothing like seeing a real-time measurement of how much you're making compared to Bill Gates or David Letterman.

link via Sarcasmo's Corner via J-Walk

Free e-Books

Gary Price gives us some updated information about Project Gutenberg and the Million Books Project, both free e-book initiatives.  Librarians really need to come together and create MARC records for all of these free e-books...  Most librarians don't even know they're out there, much less our patrons.  If I had any cataloging skills whatsoever, I'd make a go at it.  Unfortunately, I don't--they all left my brain after library school.  But truly, this is the only way these resources are going to make their way into our patrons' fields of view.

Google Scholar Q&A

The developer of the controversial Google Scholar answered some of the library world's burning questions in a Q&A with Gary Price.  Okay, well, sort of answered the questions.  At least it's more information than we had before...

Crichton (not Michael)

Crichton (not Michael) is back...well sort of.  Ben Browder (Farscape's John Crichton) will be joining the cast of Stargate SG-1 (also a darn good series, btw).  Perhaps LiB can glean some kind of Farscape fix off of this...

Font shirts

To appeal to the font snobs that we librarians are....check out these nifty font shirts from BuyOlympia.  Get a shirt saying "Chicago" in Chicago, "Helvetica" in Helvetica, "Garamond" in Garamond, or "Futura" in Futura.  Now, if they just had Papyrus or Harrington....

RLG DigiNews

The latest issue of RLG DigiNews is up.  Several good articles are included: one on the impending demise of the floppy (LiB raises a resounding "hurrah!"), "PREMIS — Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies Update 2: Core Elements for Metadata to Support Digital Preservation," and "X Marks the Spot: The Role of Geographic Location in Metadata Schemas and Digital Collections."  Good stuff.

Lovely Rita...

This guy who works in our County's IST department (Information Services & Technology--I like that better than just Information Technology) has this great website totally unrelated to all the work he does (which often includes re-mapping me to our web servers, creating new fonts for me in the style sheet, and generally being a cool guy).  It's BeatlesRadio.com.  It has general Beatles information (music, collectibles, DVDs, etc.), but the kicker is if you click on the radio in the middle of the screen (& have WM Player 9 or 10) you get streaming Beatles music.  Sweet!

Crossword Generator

I remember back in junior high I had to create a crossword puzzle (now that I think about it, I had to do one in 4th grade too).  Why?  I have no idea...perhaps it was a clever teaching strategy to improve word skills.  Anyway...somone very cool with too much time on his or her hands has created a crossword generator.  You just put in a few words of your own (choose unique, self-styled stuff), and it generates a crossword to fill in the rest of the blanks.  The source code for it is also available for download on the page.

link via Burp

Patent for WebFeat

WebFeat's federated searching technology now has a patent.  I've looked at several federated searching modules, and have to admit that (so far) I've been most impressed with WebFeat.  It's also compatible across different ILS systems--many of the fed searching tools out there have been developed for a particular ILS.  I like it, I'm glad they got a patent, and cheers to them!

Kids & e-books

From TeleRead, an e-book usability study focusing on children.  The results?  Kids like e-books, and find them relatively easy to use (even all those nifty add-on features like the dictionary & searching).  Also, their comprehension of what they read via "e" as opposed to what they read via print is not at all different.  I thought that, in particular, was interesting.

e-books are going strong

Here's an article from the New York Times about how the e-book market has grown and transformed over the last few years (login required)

From the article:

Industry predictions five years ago that e-books would quickly replace paper never came to pass. I figured the digital book had failed because everyone shared my distaste for the first generation of clunky, book-sized devices designed for viewing them. And in fact Gemstar, the principal manufacturer of the electronic readers, stopped selling them last year. But it turns out the e-book market has been changing course and, though still tiny, has been growing at double-digit rates.

UK SLA Blog

The UK School Library Association has started a blog.  How cool is that?  Now, let's please (oh, pretty please) see some US library associations follow suit...

link via Phil Bradley's Blog

ALA & ACLU condemn gay book ban

Both the ALA and the ACLU have issued statements in opposition to Alabama state Representative Gerald Allen's proposal to ban all books about gay and lesbian people from libraries.

The Librarian #1 Cable Movie

The Librarian was the number one cable movie of the year with 7 million viewers.  I can't help but think that a large percentage of those people were librarians...

Open Source ILS

Do you have coding skills that LiB does not?  Please, please help with the Open ILS Project!  Open-ILS.org is the center for an open source Intregrated Library System (ILS)--Evergreen. The software is being developed by the Georgia Public Library. The software can be downloaded for free, and anyone who has the skills & the desire can contribute to its development.  Only when libraries own the ILS software they're using can they truly customize it and make the enhancements they want.  This is the way of the future folks--pay attention.

Librarians & National Security

Eli over at Confessions of a Mad Librarian points us to this article by Joan Starr: "Libraries and National Security: An Historical Overview."  Eli told us to read it, so I did (call me a socially-conscious lemming).  It was totally worth it.  Read it, get a summary of librarians & the US government, and feel educated.  Really--go do it.

Information Brokers Unite

I love this post by Steven Cohen about how librarians are information brokers.  Every time I am asked what I actually do as a librairan (usually by family, as most of my friends are either librarians or librarian-supporters), I answer with the following (variations allowed for relation to person and alcohol consumption at point of contact):

You know stock brokers?  They broker stocks, right?  Give you information on which ones to pursue, which ones have a good outlook?  Librarians are information brokers.  We give you, or at the very least point you in the right direction for finding, whatever information you're looking for.  Trying to identify the leaf off of the tree in your backyard?  No problem.  Want to know the best places to get information about social security?  We can do that.  Need an online version of The Odyssey?  We gotcha covered.  And the best thing about librarians is that our services are completely free.  Cool huh?

I know several relatives & friends who I have converted to lifelong library users and lovers as a result of this speech.  And truly, as Steven says, "We find information, filter it, and present it to our clients."  That's what I do.  Yes, I am Sarah, Librarian in Black, and I will be your information broker for today.

Newspapers with RSS feeds

Thanks to Tara @ ResearchBuzz for this great link--The Media Drop provides a list of U.S. newspapers with RSS feeds.  The San Francisco Chronicle is notably missing, as is the Chicago Tribune (two great papers still without RSS feeds).  142 papers are listed--and if your local paper isn't, send an e-mail asking them to start a basic RSS feed, or better yet, multiple subject-limited feeds.  They're not going to do it unless their local customers demand it.

Google and Libraries' Print Collections

Google is going to be joining up with the libraries of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, and Oxford University, as well as the New York Public Library.  Why, LiB, why?  (you might ask in a plaintive tone)

They're going to scan the pages of some of the public domain books held in these libraries' collections and make them available through Google.  The libraries themselves seem to be limiting participation (e.g. Harvard is limiting its participation to 40,000 books).  Why?

Gary Price (in SearchDay) provides the best summary I've found of what is "out" about the project.  He also points out some other sources of free full-text books online: Project Gutenberg, University of PA's Online Books Page, Internet Archive's Million Books Project, the National Academy Press, & the for-pay services netLibrary and ebrary.

Google Suggest

Google has a new service in Beta: Google Suggest. From their description of the new service:

This new web search service suggests queries as a user types what he or she is looking for into the search box. By offering more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make searching more convenient and efficient, because it eliminates the need to type the entire text of a query. In addition, the service can connect users with new query suggestions that are useful, intriguing, and fun.

Ah, so it's going to think for me....I see.  And what on earth do they mean, "new query suggestions that are useful, intruguing, and fun" ???  Let's not puff ourselves up too much kids...

So, what happens is that as you type in your search query, a drop-down menu appears with the most popular (I'm assuming) search terms for what you've typed so far.  I typed in "libr" and first on the list was Library of Congress.  Library was second.  That seems a little funny to me.  Annoyingly, Google Suggest also tries to auto-complete words as you type them in, so I type "ind" in and in the search field and it starts auto-completing (think auto-field completion here) with things I have no interest in.  Very distracting.

Two thumbs down from the LiB.  When the technology gets in the way of (literally) what you're doing, it's not a good thing.

Libraries not promoting databases...sound familiar?

This is an interesting article about why libraries in the UK aren't promoting their online subscription databases.  The short answer?  They have a limited # of simultaneous users built into their licenses, so don't want to over-promote them if they can't support the usage.  I think this problem applies to many libraries.  Personally, for all (but one) of my library's databases, we have paid for unlimited usage to avoid just this problem.  Our librarians (and I) feel that there is no worse feeling than having a user turned away from a service. 

link via Resource Shelf

Doctor Who, now?

Doctor Who (oh blessed British Sci-Fi genius) is returning this spring.  Well, a new Doctor Who, but a Doctor Who nonetheless.  You can view a teaser on BBC's site if you'd like to whet your appetite a bit...and I do mean just a bit.  The teaser is only 27 seconds long, but does use Orbital's Doctor Who theme remix (which is frelling awesome by the way).  I rock out to that routinely while driving.  Anyway, I can't wait for the new series...I think I might just start watching TV again!

Microsoft & content on your MSN Spaces Blog

Did you know that Microsoft owns anything that you might post on MSN Spaces?  Photographs, text, anything.  From the terms of service:

For materials you post or otherwise provide to Microsoft related to the MSN Web Sites (a "Submission"), you grant Microsoft permission to (1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission, each in connection with the MSN Web Sites, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Microsoft will not pay you for your Submission.

Even funnier is the fact that if you Google "MSN Spaces", the top hit you get is the Boing Boing post that alerted us to this issue. Tee hee!  Yeah, you know...I think I'll stick with Blogger.

Bloglines spricht Deutsches

I am so behind on blogging, so apologies straight off.  Other aspects of life sometime interfere with the blog.  Ah well.

Bloglines has gone multilingual.  The service announced on December 1st that they are now offering versions of Bloglines in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portugese & Spanish.  Nice!

Review of The Librarian

So, I posted about The Librarian a few days ago, and watched it last night, expecting very little and therefore not being disappointed.  Here begins my review:

NO MLS
Let me say first what any other librarian watching this movie was sure to notice.  Out of the 22 degrees that this chap held, not a single one was a Masters in Library Science (at least it was not mentioned, which you think they would have). 

SCHOLAR VS. LIBRARIAN
As someone who was watching the movie with me said, "They should have called this movie The Scholar, not The Librarian."  Flynn the Librarian was not, in any sense, a librarian.  He knew a lot of stuff (the movie emphasized linguistics, sociology, and world history), but "knowing stuff" does not a librarian make.  It perpetuates the myth that librarians actually know everything.  We can find just about everything, but no, we don't know everything.  But then again, this guy wasn't a real librarian anyway, so perhaps the point is moot.

TECH HITS & MISSES
Hits: During Flynn's interview, he is asked what makes him qualified to be The Librarian.  In his answer he mentions his web searching skills & being able to set up an RSS feed.
Misses: Not once, not a single solitary time, do we see a computer in The Library.  Sheesh.  We do see a wall of what I assume were supposed to be card catalog drawers, but they are a foot wide, so who knows.

GENDER BIAS
In my original post about the movie, I lamented that the main character was not female.  I stand by that.  I do appreciate the fact that The Librarian's security guard was a super-tough chick, but still.  There was still a heavy-male gender bias in who The Librarians were: Eldred (male), Edward Wilde (male), Flynn (male), and Judson (male).  Two "helper" characters were female--Nicole (the security guard) and Charlene (Jane Curtin's interviewer/helper character).  Huh.

THE LIBRARY JOB MARKET
The line of applicants for the Librarian position is extremely long (also diverse as to gender & heritage) which shows how tough the library job market is right now.

BAD EFFECTS
The blue screen and other special effects (like the one with all the butterflies flying off the tree) were simply horrible.  I know it's a "for TV" movie, but one would think they could invest another couple grand to make it look decent.

ERRORS IN LOGIC

• Flynn & Nicole literally waltz through booby traps.  Right.
• They jump off a cliff (100 feet or so) and subsequently fall down a waterfall (200 feet or so) and emerge unscathed.  Oh yes, and the book that was in Flynn's bag during all of this is also unscathed and undamaged by water.
• The mysterious "name of god" in the Shangri-la temple is the word "me" -- in English.  And yet the panels he presses are in Tibetan, while he says out loud "M...E."
• At the end of the movie, Flynn asks "What's up with these bad guys and their insect names?"  The two bands of bad guys were named "Serpent" (umm, not an insect) and Scorpion (also not an insect, but an arachnid).

TWO SMALL GOOD THINGS

• Kyle MacLachlan :)
• The showing of libraries as repositories for more than just books (in this case, artifacts).

TO SUM UP
The Librarian was a typical cheesy action film, with poorly done special effects, errors in logic, a weak story line, and some pretty horrible acting.  Oh yes, and it really wasn't about a librarian, either.  80% of the movie had absolutely nothing to do with The Library, much less being a librarian.  It was a typical poorly-done hapless adventurer movie.  It would have been a horrible, horrible movie--even if it hadn't had the added insult of innacurately portraying librarians. 

"When they're already vibrating, they only want full-text"

TangognaT has a funny post about a student who was vibrating on 3 cans of Red Bull when he came to the reference desk. 

But I think it points to a larger issue--when students or other patrons come to the reference desk, completely hyped up on adreneline, other substances, or pure stress, they need what they need now.  Not 20 minutes later, after you show them all your cool databases and how to search each one.  Not after you've shown them an index, and then told them they have to travel to another library to actually get the full text.  Truly--if the patron is vibrating, give it up.  Give it up quickly, totally, and without regret.  It's what the patron wants.

A Library Toolbar

This is really awesome.  A toolbar for Stanford's Jackson Library that users can download.  The toolbar features the catalog, databases, eJournals, etc.  That is so completely, totally mind-blowing to me.  Congrats to whatever librarian or librarians came up with this one.  You rock!  And if you're reading this, be in touch--I'm very interested in hearing how you did this.  (Plus, I live close enough to you that I could buy you a beer in exchange for this wonderful information).

via Rob Coers via Tame the Web

Noah the Librarian

Okay, so, yes, to answer all of those e-mails & IMs about The Librarian, and whether or not I'm going to watch it--YES.  LiB is going to watch The Librarian on Sunday night on TNT.  I'm also going to fill out the survey that ALA has sent to its members asking us to respond to the film.  (Quick off-topic question: does it qualify as a film if it's only shown on TV?)  Anyway, the TNT site for the movie/film describes the plot: "A nerdish bookworm is called upon to save the world after a powerful holy relic falls into the wrong hands..."  *grumble*  I may have been a nerdish bookworm in junior high, but sheesh...I think that I (and most librarians for that matter) have turned out into well-rounded, intelligent, open-minded individuals.  Nerdish bookworm....ah well.  And I still think it would have been more fun if they had made this with a woman librarian as the lead.  Maybe it then would have fed into our profession's gender stereotype, but choosing a male as the lead says to me (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here) that only guys can have adventures--that the female librarians simply couldn't handle such a monumental task.  Perhaps I'm being oversensitive...

LiB--archived for posterity

The archived version of my webcast (Ebooks Update) is available for viewing anytime on Infopeople's website.  The biggest problem I had with this program was deciding on eBooks vs. Ebooks, vs. e-Books vs. e-books vs. E-Books vs. E-books.  *sigh*  I'm an e-Services Librarian, but talk about Ebooks.  How contrary is that?  (but in a funny technology silliness kind of way).

IM LII

Librarians' Index to the Internet is now offering Instant Messaging. To chat with an LII staff member using AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, send a message to: im4lii  Hurrah!  No, wait.  HURRAH!

Google Scholar: What it Indexes and What it Doesn't

Gary Price has a great article on the Search Engine Watch Blog about Google Scholar, particularly criticizing it for 1) not explaining what qualifies as scholarly and 2) not indexing larger PDF files (even though they might fit into that mysterious "scholarly" definition).  As I said in my original post about Google Scholar, I want to like this product--I really do.  But I simply can't, not yet anyway.

Blog says what?

Blog is the word of the year according to Merriam-Webster.  Dats kewl.

Yikes! I have to plan an IT project

Gawd, I've been there.  This Computerworld article discusses the experiences of a first time IT tech project planner...she also happens to be one of their editors.  Track her progress as Computerworld gets a new content management system.  As a first time planner, she's statistically bound to flub something at some point, so it's bound to be interesting ;)

MSN Launches blogging tool

Wow, that was quick.  MSN Spaces, Microsoft's free blogging tool, launched today.  I've had mixed results with their site today--me thinks the server might be a wee bit overloaded.  A Boing Boing reader found that the MSN folks apparently aren't using valid markup on their site (naughty, naughty)!  And Microsoft's press release about the product gives more information about the intentions behind the thing, validly marked up or not.

Gift Guide

Ars Technica has posted a holiday gift guide that covers gifts for gamers, gadgets, and hardware delectables.  Very cool.