LibrarianInBlack

Seattle Public Library Children's area

Seattle Public Library Children's area
Originally uploaded by librarianinblack.

We visited libraries on our honeymoon (we couldn't help it). I have fifteen photos from the Seattle Public Library, which is just as impressive in person as everyone says it is.

Public Libraries and the Internet 2006 Report

Florida State University released a report (funded by ALA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation): Public Libraries and the Internet 2006.

The report notes that 71% of librarians say that the most important impact of having the Internet in libraries is providing access to those who do not have access anywhere else.  The report also indicates repeatedly that librarians are finding innovative ways of offering internet access and services through their libraries, but that there simply isn't enough staff time or funding to keep up with changes, demand, or breakdowns.

California's RFID Law: Effects on Libraries

The always brilliant Mary Minow has a wonderful article about the effects on libraries of the newly-passed California bill about RFID.  Fortunately, the short of it is that it would only affect libraries that use RFID in library cards.  Read the entire article for more information.

Apple claims ownership of word "podcast"

According to Wired Magazine, Apple sent a "cease-and-desist letter" to the owners of the Podcast Ready website, claiming that two terms they use on the site, "podcast ready" and "myPodder," are infringing on Apple's trademark of the word "iPod."  The implications here are huge--does Apple really think it can now claim ownership over any word with "pod" in it?  Will we all have to rename podcasting something else, like "audiocasting"?  I think not.

Chicago Manual of Style now online

The complete Chicago Manual of Style is now available online as a subscription resource.  It's $25 for individuals and pretty cheap for organizations as well.  They have made their QuickGuide available for free for those of us not willing to dish out the dough.

Excellent tips for conference organizers and presenters

Rachel Singer Gordon has written a list of "Ten Do's and Don'ts for Conference, Workshop, and Program Organizers" that discusses tips for those people dealing with finding and planning speakers.  I would personally like to highlight #3:

DON'T change your mind at the last minute. If you have contracted for a given workshop or presentation, refrain from asking your presenter to change topics or format; she's probably already prepared as per your original agreement.

I have had this happen to me on more than one occasion, and every time I got flaming mad and swore I would never deal with that organization again.

Jessamyn West has written a list of "Ten Tips for Presenters" that tell presenters what is good form and etiquette when speaking to a group.  Again, I'll pull out my favorite--this time #8, which discusses tips for what to do when you're actually up there speaking.  I won't quote it here as it's very long and it helps if it's read in context with the other list items.

Thank you Rachel and Jessamyn!

LiB interviewed for article about libraries and publishers

I was interviwed for an article/report by EPS (Electronic Publishing Services, Lts.) in the UK titled: "Libraries in the Digital Age: Implications for Publishers." 

At the time of the interview, I didn't think to ask "well, how much will people have to pay to get access to this article?" assuming that it would simply be made available for free on a website, or available through subscription databases.  Silly me.  To see anything more than an abstract of this report, you have to either be a member of EPS or pay "£350.00 + vat (£411.25)."  Now, I don't know what vat is, but for the whole kit and kaboodle, you'd have to pay U.S. $769.54.   Pffffffffttttt.

And in case anyone thinks I have a copy of this report myself as one of the interviewees, I do not.  I don't even know if I was quoted accurately, or if they have me saying inane and incorrect things.  I can tell you that the next time I'm interviewed, I'm going to ask about the access level of the final product and decide whether or not to participate accordingly.

LiB Quoted on CNET

A reporter from CNET contacted me to ask me if librarians were irrelevant in the day of the search engine.  My half-hour response was an emphatic "NO" that boiled down to one quote:

"The idea of the 1950s librarian, that's outdated," said Sarah Houghton-Jan, information Web services manager at the San Mateo County Library in Northern California. "You find people who are expert at searching the Web and using online tools; high-level information experts instead of someone who just stamps books at the checkout desk."

I highly suggest that you read the full article, "Most reliable search tool could be your librarian," which contains quotes from Lee Raine, Gary Price, Chris Sherman, and more.  Good stuff, and not just because I'm in it :)

Another Video Search Engine Option

Google Video and YouTube are all well and good for finding video content, but other sites also work well for this task--like SingingFish and ClipBlast, which I had not heard of until I read Stan's post on Library Blog Buzz.  ClipBlast is  a new video search engine that says (but can't prove) that it has the biggest video index.  I ran a few searches and found comparable result numbers between Clipblast and Google Video, though they both found different content.  So, it's just like the other search tools out there--each one finds different stuff, so it's always a good idea to check in more than one place for the info you need.  It's just one more tool to put in my toolkit :)

Mathcasts.org

Mathcasts.org is just what you would think it would be: math-themed screencasts.  There are mathcasts from teachers, from students, tutorials, and more.  The site seems to be building itself still (it's a wiki after all), but is worth throwing into your pocket of math-question-resources for the future.

found via the Internet Scout Report

tips for designing e-learning

Michael Feldstein (SUNY Learning Network) and Lisa Neal (eLearn Magazine) have written "Designing Usable, Self-Paced e-Learning Courses: A Practical Guide" in eLearn Magazine.  If you're someone who plans to create self-paced e-learning, either for staff or the public, I highly recommend reading this article.  The article is extremely practical and includes templates you can use.  From the article itself:

This guide was primarily designed to help teams of instructional designers and content experts create effective, self-paced e-learning. It teaches best practices for improving usability that can be applied by any instructional designers or content experts and was created so that no prior knowledge of usability is required to use the techniques.

found via ResourceShelf

American Folklore Resource

From Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff newsletter, check out American Folklore, a site created by S.E. Schlosser, who, for her day job, is a Manager of Special Applications for Consumer Reports Magazine.

The site contains the texts for "American folktales, Native American myths and legends, tall tales, weather folklore and ghost stories from each and every one of the 50 United States."  There are sections for Halloween stories, campfire tales, urban legends, animal stories and more.  Some of the stories are presented as text, while others are MP3 files of Schlosser retelling the stories out loud.  This is a fabulous resource for storytellers, storytime-givers, teachers, and librarians helping kids with folklore projects.

Pandora Backstage: music database

Released earlier this summer, Pandora Backstage is a searchable database with information on various artists and their music.  As a post on ResourceShelf points out, however, that some or most of the data is coming directly from AllMusicGuide, the music database on the tip of most librarians' tongues.  Pandora's interface is easier to use, however, largely due to the lack of clutter....but it does appear, from a few sample searches that I've done, that AMG still has more data.

WetPaint

WetPaint.com is a free hosted wiki (they call it "website") creation tool -- think Blogger for wikis.  Whoa!  From their FAQ: 

Wetpaint sites are "click-and-type" websites that are easy to start and even easier to expand, because you can invite anyone you like to add text, photos, links, and other content to your Wetpaint site. To add or edit content, all you need to do is click the EasyEdit button to activate an editing toolbar similar to what you'd see in programs like Microsoft Word. Then just start typing!

It takes about a minute or two to set up a site (you get to select from pre-set design templates).  WetPaint does place contextual ads on its websites though, so as always, "free" comes with a cost.  Here's a sample site called WikiCancer.  To me, the site design is a bit busy and poorly-organized, but that might just be my non-digital-native mindset at work ;)

Two more sources for free eBooks

Two more places you can find free eBooks (courtesy of the eContent blog):

• FreeLoadPress: downloadable "e-textbooks and study aids for some of your college courses in Business, Math and Computer Applications."  Read: business and math text books along with software manuals.  The catch? An ad on the first page of each book.
• WikiBooks: editable (duh, it's a wiki) books on a variety of topics, some available as downloadable PDFs (here's a link to their All Books section with subject and sub-subject areas).

Medical Image Database

Gary Price has posted extensive information MedPix over on ResourceShelf.  MedPix is a free medical image database that includes high-resolution diagnostic images of various conditions and diseases.  The site is geared toward medical practitioners, and is a bit difficult to navigate.  It's quite busy and the various search and browse options aren't very straight-forward.  Nevertheless, it's the only resource  of this kind that I know of, and may be of interest or use to health and university libraries.  So, have at it!

Shakespeare Searched

Provided by Clusty (everyone's favorite clustering search engine), Shakespeare Searched is a one-stop resource for all Shakespeare texts.  The engine will search the text of all of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets and return the results in a nice, easy-to-decipher clustered list.  You can also limit by a specific  work or character.  Phil Bradley has written up an extensive review of the site on SearchEngineWatch.  For example, here are the results for a broad search for "adultery."  This is a remarkable resources for students of all ages studying Shakespeare.  Hurrah!

Pew Study: The Future of the Internet II

Pew has released The Future of the Internet II, available as a 115 page PDF. "Hundreds of internet leaders, activists, builders and commentators were asked about the effect of the internet on social, political and economic life in the year 2020."  Some Brave New World-esque highlights from the survey:

• Respondants believe that a low-cost global network will exist in 2020, accessible to most people globally.
• Global competition is a definite, with resistance from currently successful businesses.
• Respondants say that "humans will remain in charge of technology between now and 2020" (that's good to hear...) but that machines/processes will exceed human controlability at some point (can we say AI?).
• People will expose more information about themselves and continue to lose any sense of privacy in an increasingly networked environment.
• Economic status and technophobes (who will begin to organize and violently protest) will remain unconnected, even in 2020.  (OK, that sounds a bit scary.)
• Users will continue to dedicate more personal time to "sophisticated, compelling, networked, synthetic worlds by 2020."  "Addiction" was discussed at length.

Great explanation of window management

The MPLIC Tech Train blog (a Memphis Public Library and Information Center staff blog with tech training tips) has a great explanation of how the different window minimize/maximize/close options work.  The Library also has blogs for reference, their ILS, and more.  Great usage of blogging technology to keep staff informed and at-the-ready!

Use LibraryThing to create a feed of your new items

The Shenandoah Public Library is using the RSS feed from their LibraryThing account to show a list of their newest items on their website.  How neat!

found via the TravelinLibrarian

Google Librarian Newsletter #5

The fifth issue of the Google Librarian Newsletter covers the recent Google Book Search additions of PDF downloads for                     out-of-copyright books and more "link to the library" links from individual book pages.  They also discuss their separate Library Catalog Search and link to a few other Google features (like Google Accessible Search).

RSS ticker for your blog

The Library Clips blog points out two sites that re-syndicate RSS feed content into a scrolling headline box: Feedzilla and Feedo Style (both cost $) and RSS Scroll Box and Scrolling RSS News Ticker (both free).  These are good tools for re-syndicating your own library's blog content on your homepage in a scrolling format (if that is your preference).

Accessibility Alert: NoveList not compatible with screen readers

A post to PubLib from Leah Langby of Wisconsin's Indianhead Federated Library System revealed that EBSCO's database NoveList (and as it turns out, its sub-product NoveList K-8 as well) are not compatible with screen readers at all.  I confirmed this myself by testing both resources with JAWS.  As such, neither of these resources is available to users with visual disabilities.  If you are a NoveList subscriber, and think this is a problem (and you should), please take a moment to contact your EBSCO representative to request that NoveList be made accessible to all users.

Incidentally, this has prompted me to push up a project I've been wanting to tackle for a long time now--testing all of our library's online resources with JAWS, and seeing which ones fall short.  If I discover any others, I will post about them here as well.  If you know of any others, please leave a comment as well. 

We need to let vendors know that we, as publicly-funded institutions, need to make our resources accessible to all of our users, and that responsibility thereby also falls to them.  This includes users with low or no vision.

Motivational Poster Maker

  Insanity 
  Originally uploaded by librarianinblack.

Using this neat tool you can make your own motivational (or sarcastic demotivational) posters.  I'm not feeling very creative right now, so this was the best I could do right now.  But you could make posters for people's birthdays or other holidays, posters celebrating reading in the library, image banners for your website, you name it.  Lots of choices

USB-rechargeable batteries

Do you hate wasting batterires?  Do you have rechargeable batteries at home and, if you're lucky, at work too?  If so, you'll be interested in these new batteries that are rechargeable via USB.  At 13 British pounds for a 2-pack, they're a bit pricey.  They're only available in the UK currently, but you can sign up to be notified when they become available where you live.

found via Boing Boing

ACRL Institute: The User at the Center

Registration is open for the ACRL Fall Virtual Institute, "The User at the Center."  The event will be held online on November 9th and will focus on how libraries can use technologies to put the user at the center for information services at colleges and universities. Registration materials are online at: http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/fallvirtualinstitute.htm.
Advance registration ends on October 26th. 

found via the Beyond the Job blog

Many More Image Generators

A few people in the life of this blog have commented about this site: Custom Sign Generators, where you can find many, many free image generators.  Examples include a license plate maker, a barcode creator, and a crime scene sign generator.  I really think simple tools like this can spice up library graphics work, book displays, shelf-end signage, event flyers, you name it.  Use the tools that are out there...you might just have a bit of fun doing it too!

Ten Reasons Librarians Should Use Ask.com Instead of Google

We've all read the jokes like "I don't remember how I did reference before Google!" (which I'm hoping is a joke and not a serious statement).  Google is a tool, and it's only one tool.  I think many librarians forget that, and rely on Google as their sole search engine, forgetting other search tools and forgetting the wealth of information that's out there in the invisible web: web content that is not indexed by the big search engines (like Library of Congress content, huge image databases, other gateway sites).  But there is one search engine that I've come to rely on in addition to the big G: Ask.com.  So, here are my ten reasons that librarians should use Ask.com instead of Google.  See what you think.

1. Ask.com's Smart Answers rock my world.  This is the single biggest reason I use Ask.com more often than ever.  Searches for hundreds of commonly sought types of information yield answers--right at the top of the search results.  For example: earthquakes california brings back all earthquake activity in the state.  Put that into Google and all you get are links to pages that may or may not have that data, and you often have to dig through the site to find it.  Other types of smart answers they provide include sports scores, movie times, weather, dictionary definitions, translations, conversions, science and animal information, the list goes on and on.  A few more examples to whet your appetite: planet venus, wombat, little miss sunshine, the beatles, winston churchill, nigeria.  While Google provides some quick answers like this, it doesn't provide nearly as many and not nearly the same amount of detail and information as Ask.com does.  Try the same searches I used above in Google and see what happens.  You'll be disappointed, guaranteed.  And when a lot of our users want quick factual answers to questions, Ask.com makes so much more sense to use than Google.
2. Ask.com clearly identifies their advertising.  In Google, sometimes sponsored links are hidden inside the search results and so-called identified with a slightly shaded box behind the text or a dim outline which, unless you have Superman eyes, you may not notice.  The delineation between actual and sponsored results is essential for me as a librarian in recommending results to a user. 
3. Ask.com's Image Search is far superior to Google's in terms of relevancy--I'm finding that in the last year or so, more and more random junk comes up in Google Images, while Ask.com's relevancy ranking seems to keep getting better.  And talk about features!  Ask.com's image search offers one-click options to expand or narrow your search.  It also lets you save images with one-click into a list that you can access later (think "marked records" like in our subscription databases).  Here's an image search for "fire" in Google and Ask.com.  Compare for yourself.
4. For all types of searches, Ask.com offers one-click links to narrow your search, expand your search, and provides links to results for related terms.  For example, look at these results for Patrick Stewart.  I can narrow to things like biography, expand to things like Star Trek, and look up related names like Brent Spiner (go Data!). 
5. Ask.com provides a binoculars icon with each search result that, when hovered over, will provide a pop-up talk-bubble with a screenshot of what that webpage looks like.  This is particularly helpful if you are recreating searches, and you remember what that one good page you found looked like.  Saves the time for clicking, loading, and going back to start over.
6. Ask.com offers instant white pages searching from their main search box.  Just type in "address of FIRSTNAME LASTNAME TOWN STATE" and the top result will be a link to white pages results.  Just try that in Google and see that you get a big fat nothing (well, not nothing--you get a sponsored link as your top result).
7. Ask.com offers RSS Smart Answers: Searches for popular blog names will bring up the lastest posts from the blog at the top of the results list.  Ask is constantly building its database of sites with this feature.   Here's the example for Librarian in Black.
8. Ask.com has a version specifically designed for kids, Ask for Kids, that users natural language searching and has a kid-friendly interface.  A search for "Who is Zeus" brings back these results which can help a kid (or heck, an adult) find the right path to the information they need.
9. Ask.com's Maps and Directions Search has some neat features too.  A search for my workplace address yields this page.  But then I can add a location (say, one of our libraries) and then I get this page, which gives me not only driving directions, but walking directions and all the map view options we've come to expect: areial, physical, and street.  I can then add more and more locations to my heart's content.  And I get quick links to print, e-mail, or bookmark the map with all the additions I've made.
10. Finally, Ask.com has far fewer ads overall.  Google often usese the entire right-hand side of the results page for sponsored links.  Ask.com uses that to house its narrow/expand search options.  Fewer ads show up in Ask.com results overall, as well.  Fewer ads means more content, and as content is king, so is Ask.com.

More Librarian Desk Schlock: A Rex Libris Statue

If you're a follower of the Rex Libris comic book series (following a superhero librarian as he thwarts galactic badness), you'll be excited to see that they now have a Rex Libris statue (pictured at left). The base says "Have You Returned Your Library Books Yet?" and Rex is holding a copy of The something-or-other Encyclopedia (can't make out the word in yellow) and a gun (something I know a few of my colleagues wouldn't mind brandishing at certain patrons). 

They only have 750, which I'm guessing will sell out relatively fast given the $28.95 price.  And orders over $50 ship for free, so tack on all of the issues of Rex Libris, the T-shirt, and the poster and you'll be over $50. 

May I also suggest from the same publisher the Bear comic book series?   "Funny" does not do that series justice.  "Roll on the floor giggling" comes a wee bit closer.  Here's a description of the series from the Slave Labor Graphics site: "By Jamie Smart, Bear is a comic of doe-eyed hi-jinx, crazed slaughter and expanding heads, all wrapped up with a fuzzy bow. See Bear suffer undignified ickness, barely escape serious injury and flee the deranged whims of his tormentor Looshkin. It's a sweet crunchy bumf of horrible joy."  Yeah, that's about right.  Looshkin's a cat, by the way, so if you like seeing evil cat-action, it's a good source.  Me?  I like the cute fuzzy-wuzzy bear and his sarcastic ironic one-liners.

Bad reasons to buy tech

Ellyssa Kroski has a great post on the TechEssence blog: 5 Reasons NOT to Choose a Technology Solution.  I think a more accurate title would have been "5 Faulty Reasons People Use When Choosing a Technology Solution," because the article isn't about why not to choose tech, but rather really junky and stupid reasons for choosing to go with a particular technology like "my boss saw it at a conference and wants it now." 

It's a good reminder of what things to not be swayed by when researching and exploring different options for a particular need you have.  The second item on the list, "They sure do have snazzy marketing!," is, I believe, one of the main reasons many of us now have a junky ILS that we hate.  The sales pitch was great, but the salesmen lied or spoke about things they have no knowledge of, and as a result you end up getting a product that is not what you were promised it would be. 

How many of you wish you could retrace your steps and un-do a technology decision?  Go with a different vendor, knowing now what you didn't know then?  What have you learned from those experiences?  What will you do diferently the next time a tech decision comes your way?  Hopefully, we can use these instances as learning opportunities and move forward in a positive way.

Ground Control to Librarian Tom

NASA scientist David McKay has proposed a lunar library to act as an off-earth storage site for essential documents.  According to the post on the New Scientist blog, Mr. McKay proposes that the library could consist of computer storage units buried underground or placed in existing structures like craters or lava tubes.  To me, this isn't really a proposal for a library but rather for a large secure archive or storage site.  And yet, it doesn't sound like a bad idea.  Let's just say we all blow each other here on earth to kingdom come.  It would be nice if at least some of our history and records could be preserved off-planet somewhere, and the moon is as good a place as any.

Original Facebook Users Angry

Facebook has gradually opened up its site to more and more groups.  It used to be open only to college students with .edu addresses.  Now it's open to people with high school affiliations and much more.  And the original college users are irritated and up in arms, and have formed a protest group.

story via the ACRlog

Inspirational Library Staff Video

Michael Stephens has posted a video from the St. Joseph Public Library's staff day on YouTube.  The video (7 minutes long) emphasizes, in a fun way, the importance of the individual to the library, that it's made up of essential people all doing things that keep the library moving (in this case, often in fast forward!). The outtakes at the end were giggle-inducing.  Michael encourages (and rightly so) other libraries to do something similar to promote staff involvement and importance.  Good stuff!

Nominate Movers and Shakers

Nominations for 2007 Library Journal Movers and Shakers are being accepted now.  The fourth annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals (librarians, paraprofessional staff, vendors) from across the U.S. and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. Deadline for submissions is October 15, 2006. 

Contrary to popular belief, no, I was never named a Mover and Shaker.  I'm not sure why, but many people say upon meeting me that they remember me from M&S.  Perhaps there was a M&S last year who looked like me?

Three fun image generators

All from The Generator Blog, these three image-makers can spice up library displays, signage, or heck--just your cubicles :)

• Warning Sign Generator (use this one sparingly--don't be mean to the users)
• Tattoo Generator
• Fortune Cookie Message Generator

Internet Lingo and Emoticon Dictionary

Ask.com has incorporated several resources on internet lingo and etiquette into their answers database.  You can simply put in anything you want to know about, and Ask.com's answers module will come back with an answer right at the top of your search results (try this search for afk).  You can also access the resources individually:

• Instant Messaging Smilies
• NetLingo Dictionary
• Emoticon List
• Basic Internet Lingo
• IM Etiquette

Good resources for classes on IM and e-mail for staff members, especially if you're beginning to offer reference via IM.

Welcome to the Calisphere, my son

ResourceShelf reported a while ago that the University of California recently launched Calisphere: a website of primary documents contained in the UC collections.  The site includes over 150,000 images, documents, and other primary source materials from the campuses' museums and libraries, as well as hundreds of UC-created topical websites.  The focus of the collection is the history and culture of California. 

The site also offers teachers themed mini-collections on topics like the Gold Rush and World War II.  There are unique offerings here, that I doubt you could find anywhere else.  For example, by browsing for the Mission San Rafael (just down the street from my house), I get these results, including original surveys, drawings, and ground plans.  Searching for Sutter's Mill gets me 30 images of various sorts and 5 primary texts.  This site is a must-save for librarians and teachers!

Google's Webmaster Central

If you're a webmaster and are not familiar with Google's Webmaster Central, you should be.  Google has rounded up a number of tools helpful to webmasters of all kinds.  They've recently added a webmaster blog (here's the feed) and a whole bunch of FAQs.  The webmaster tools section, however, is the real gem--information on site performance and easy ways to get Google to accurately index your site faster.

Free consumer information publications

The Consumer Information Catalog is made available through the Federal Citizen Information Center and includes 200 free or very cheap (as in one dollar) publications on consumer issues.  For example: Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage: What You Need to Know and Introduction to Mutual Funds.  Many of these would be useful to have in your libraries in your consumer resources section.  To get a free copy of the catalog of materials, do one of three things:

• Visit www.pueblo.gsa.gov to order a Catalog, or to read or print these and hundreds of other Federal publications for free.
• Send your name and address to Consumer Information Catalog, Pueblo, Colorado 81009.
• Call toll-free 1 (888) 8 PUEBLO. That's 1 (888) 878-3256, weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

found via ResourceShelf

World Alamanc e-Newsletter

If you'd like gentle reminders of upcoming official days/weeks/months, as well as holidays and "this day in history" lists, subscribe to the World Alamanc e-Newsletter.  The newsletter also features celebrity obituaries, news stories, featured web resources, and more.  To subscribe, just send an e-mail to:  newsletter@waegroup.com with the subject line "SUBSCRIBE." 

Author Read-alikes

Always on the lookout for good online readers advisory tools (as it's something I'm horrible at without the internet at my side), I was happy to see Rick Roche post about the Downers Grove (Illinios) Library's list of 48 author read-alikes.  Through our subscription to NoveList, we get their author read-alike resources, but this list covers many that NoveList does not.  Hurrah!

Glass Ceiling in Libraries

Back before I was a librarian and was working as a circulation assistant or even a shelver, I noticed the female dominated workforce in the libraries, and that somehow, miraculously, the top managers were always men (sometimes the only men on the whole staff).  Now that I'm working as a librarian, I can see some of the reasons why this might be, but that doesn't mean it's ok.  Laurie the Librarian has gathered some resources on the glass ceiling for those of us interested in not only identifying it, but in breaking it wide open into tiny little shards of nothingness.

More cool mash-up content for Google Earth

Google Earth has a whole bunch of what they're calling Featured Content.  What's that?  Well, it's neat overlay-content that you can combine with Google Earth, like a mash-up.  Think of examples like information from National Geographic, the US National Park Service, Discovery Network, etc.  The new content is largely educational in nature, and could be a real boon for the classroom.

Marylaine Block on Library Signs

Much has been made of the friendliness and appropriateness of library signs in recent months.  Somewhat unexplainedly, it's become a current hot topic in our profession.  Michael Stephens got the ball rolling with dozens of signs he posted on his Tame the Web blog, and Michael Sauers (what's up with the MS thing?) has a Flickr Pool for library signs.  Marylaine Block wrote about library signage in her most recent edition of Ex Libris: "User Intelligible."  She gives some good tips on how to get good signage: asking users what they wish they had known when they started using the library, seeing where, physically, users stop to look for help, keeping a list of the seemingly-dumb questions you get.  Good suggestions! 

Now, if we can all only convince our governing bodies that it is worth the thousands of dollars to create all the signs we need.  And no, I don't think it's okay to have photocopied pieces of paper stapled to the walls for signage.  Looking professional is also a key element to good signage, and for some ungodly reason, signs are very expensive.  Much like setting up a wireless hotspot at a conference.  No one really understands why it costs 10 times more than it does, but nevertheless it does.

Delivering Top-Notch Technology Training for Your Patrons

The OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries) presentation, "Delivering Top-Notch Technology Training for Your Patrons" is now available as an archived webcast on OPAL's website.  Thanks to Librarians with Class for the heads up!  There are many other archived programs on their site--there's something for everyone's niche interests!

Librariains with PhDs?

If you work in an academic library and hold a PhD in a subject other than LIS, please take Laurie the Librarian's survey about PhD holders' experiences.  The survey runs through September 20th.

Librarian Fit Club

Want to be healthy?  Lose some weight or get in better shape generally?  Join the Librarian Fit Club, complete with Flickr Group.

found via folderol

RSS Feed Displayed on Your Website

Check out Grazr, a tool that will take an RSS feed and turn it into a neat little widget that you can put on any webpage.  Using Javascript, Grazr lets you specify what feed you want, the width and height of the box, desired font and text styles, and you're good to go.  This is a very easy way to grab the RSS feeds from other parts of your site and display them on your homepage.  Great!

found via ResearchBuzz

e-Learning for Library Staff: What's New?

WebJunction has released a new report: Trends in E-Learning for Library Staff: A Summary of Research Findings.  The report is full of views from libraries already participating in e-learning for staff (or considering it) on a number of issues:

• why e-learning is a good solution
• resources on e-learning
• Course topics
• and software options

Google Celebrates Banned Books

Google has jumped on board the Banned Books wagon by offering a banned books feature page from within Google Book Search.  It's the 25th anniversary for Banned Books Week (coming up September 23-30).  Use Google's new page and ALA's resources (which Google was kind enough to link to) to build some displays and website information about Banned Books for your users.

Totally irrelevant sidenote: I know ALA is doing a website usability study currently, but it was painful for me to go from Google Book Search's website on banned books (which, for all its content flaws, is an easy-to-use interface), into ALA's website on the same topic, which is not only hard to use and navigate but looks so very 1995.  Sigh.

Windows Live Search

Windows Live Search is now offically open and has shucked its "beta" label for good.  Chris Sherman offers a run-down of the new features and capabilities in his SearchEngineWatch article.  My favorite change is the now uncluttered interface, but in terms of features, all of the neat-o things you can do in the image search wins my vote, including the slider bar to control thumbnail size and the mouse-over image-info boxes.

Wanna live in the Shire?

An Oregon subdivision is being modeled on Tolkien's Shire from the Lord of the Rings books.  The homes will be green and will be visually similar to the homes and landscaping described in the books.  This makes me want to move a bit North and get my own "Butterfly Cottage." You can read more on the development's website: The Shire of Bend, Oregon.

found via Boing Boing

Six Tips to Protect Your Online Search Privacy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has written up a 7-page PDF article on ways to improve your search privacy: Six Tips to Protect Your Online Search Privacy.  Some of the tips are simple things that are practical for every web user to do, while others require a bit more dedication to covering your tracks.  These are things you may want to teach, or at least point to, in web searching and privacy classes at your libraries, both for the public and your staff.

found via beSpacific

Want a Wiki? For Free?

Wikispaces is trying to give away 100,000 free wikis to educators (usually costs $50/year).  The offer is only open for K-12 use, so only school librarians, I think, would qualify for this.  They've given away only 13,000 so far--help them meet their goal!

Wikis allow you to create a webspace--either private or public--that can be edited by anyone or only by certain people.  It's up to you.  Think about using a wiki for a staff site/intranet, or for your recommended resources webpages/subject guides.  How about a way to share information about particular subject area in your school or library--whatever! 

found via weblogg-ed

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models

Michael C. Habib has updated his Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models, which describes how students view the library in relation to the rest of the things in their lives, in both physical and virtual spaces.  It details some opportunities for places for us to meet them--on their own turf--instead of forcing them to come to us, which obviously isn't working as well as we would like.