"The Three Worlds of IT"

In "Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology," (Harvard Business Review, November 2006, p. 141-149) Andrew McAfee argues that "managers who distance themselves from IT abdicate a critical responsibility." They should "stop looking at IT projects as technology installations and start looking at them as periods of organizational change that they have a responsibility to manage." He goes on to distinguish three categories of IT that need to be understood and harnessed by managers. My notes are posted on the CMS Weblog.

Map of Israel

Plugged in from Google Maps. Click on virtual pushpins to view labels.



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OSS for the Masses

This article in CNet was slashdotted today. Why should you care about open source?" the author asks rhetorically, "You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff like Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives."

"Productivity Toolbox"

Posted on LISNews 11/14/07: Productivity Toolbox: 37+ Tools ..., including the book Getting Things Done, "the most famous resource about completing your tasks and checking things off of your to-do list. Written by the now-famous David Allen, it is a must read if you haven’t already," Lifehacker.com, Simple GTD (free software based on Allen's work), Mee Timer (compares business versus personal web browsing at the office), clockingit.com, "a free web application that will keep track of your tasks and the time you spend on them. It’s really well designed, and fully featured, considering it is available for free," joesgoals, Motivation Hacks, toggl, etc.

Things to Do in Rochester and Buffalo

On the way to Kitchner, Ontario, Rochester, a 6-hour drive from New Haven,


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has the George Eastman House; and Buffalo, the Albright Knox Gallery

Movable Type Goes Open Source

Slashdot story: Movable Type Goes Open Source. But is it too late to catch up with Wordpress?

Cf. dlovins.wordpress.com

Fun with LoC Authority files

Back on February 12, Jessamyn West mentioned on librarian.net that a complete set of LoC authority records had been made available for download by Simon Spero. Tim Spalding also announced it on his thingology blog. Now (per Nathan Rinne on AutoCat 11/13) Bernhard Eversberg has used it to create a user-friendly BrowseLCSH application.

Michigan and Yale Take Heat on Commercial Digitization

In response to accusations that the UM Library has sold itself out to Google, Dean of Libraries Paul Courant told the Library Journal (Nov. 11 LJNewswire), "As part of our arrangement with Google [for 7 million volumes scanned in 6 years], they give us copies of all the digital files, and we can keep them forever," he wrote. "Our only financial outlay is for storage and the cost of providing library services to our users. Anyone who searches U-M's library catalog Mirlyn can access the scanned files via our MBooks interface. That's right, anyone." A related LJ article appeared on Nov. 12: "University of Michigan Library Head, in New Blog, Defends Google Deal."

A related article appeared in the Nov. 9 Yale Daily News, regarding the contract signed between Yale and Microsoft. The reporter points out Yale's endowment now exceeds $22 billion, and the 2008 library budget is $89.6 million. And assuming a $3.5 million price tag, covering the full processing of 100,000 volumes would cost only one-half of one percent of the University's $615 million capital expense budget. (Though estimate I've heard was more like $7.5 million).

Some Upcoming NELINET Events

These three look promising:

Nov. 16, 8:30 AM-3:30 PM, the 2007 Bibliographic Services Conference: "Subject Access - Out of Control?"

Dec. 10, 9:30 AM-3:30 PM a workshop by Ed Sperr on "Widgets, Mashups and Web Services", a kind of companion to the "Exploding Your OPAC" class of October 25.

Dec. 12, 10-11 AM, a webinar on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI).

FAST Database Available on Web

Steven just informed me that the FAST Authorities Database is available as a public Web site. I wonder if it will be integrated at some point with the NSDL Metadata Registry.

Joseph Lucia's Thought Experiment

Via ngc4lib, a a lucid suggestion from Joseph Lucia about building open source library applications.

Here's an excerpt:

What if, in the U.S., 50 ARL libraries, 20 large public libraries, 20 medium-sized academic libraries, and 20 Oberlin group libraries anted up one full-time technology position for collaborative open source development. That's 110 developers working on library applications with robust, quickly-implemented current Web technology -- not legacy stuff. There is not a company in the industry that I know of which has put that much technical effort into product development.

BiblioCommons founder Beth Jefferson Interviewed

On Jon Udell's "Interviews with Innovators" at IT Conversations. Podcast features Beth Jefferson, founder of BiblioCommons, a company that "aims to transform public libraries' online catalogs into environments for social discovery of resources that are cataloged not only by librarians, but also by patrons."

Beth was a speaker at 2007 code4lib .

Digitization and its Discontents

There's a nice article by Anthony Grafton in the November 6, 2007 New Yorker on the mass digitization of library holding.

Here are some of his conclusions:

"The supposed universal library, then, will be not a seamless mass of books, easily linked and studied together, but a patchwork of interfaces and databases ... The real challenge now is how to chart the tectonic plates of information that are crashing into one another and then learn to navigate the new landscapes they are creating".

Noting the great wealth of resources now available on line, he suggests that "these streams of data, rich as they are, will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you."

Is Waterboarding Torture?

Current.com journalist Caj Larsen hired professional interrogators to waterboard him in front of a TV camera. He was interviewed 11/5/07 on NPRs Talk of the Nation. Also, he explains why he did it in a Huffington Post column.