tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59803832024-03-07T05:02:21.459-05:00(Mostly) Work LogJust Stuff I'm Trying to Keep Track ofAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.comBlogger487125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-40493987530088071052010-08-16T18:10:00.006-04:002010-08-25T11:34:14.909-04:00Internet Broadband and "The Tragedy of the Commons"I read for the first time Garrett Hardin's excellent 1968 article, "The Tragedy of the Commons", after someone brought it up on the ngc4lib discussion list in reference to the Google-Verizon broadband proposal. While Hardin speaks as an expert in biology, I like his use of philosophy in building his argument. For example, he invokes A.N. Whitehead's definition of 'tragedy': "The essence of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-49446954910122570152010-07-13T09:38:00.002-04:002010-08-10T11:58:07.266-04:00Fun with DrupalHaven't posted much here lately, partly because I've been messing around with Drupal. See dsl_drupal feed in right navigation panel.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-28565921198725149932010-06-04T10:46:00.001-04:002010-06-04T22:33:46.690-04:00Analog vs. Digital at the Harvard LibraryJust posted something on this to the CMS WeblogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-50674576511026611992010-04-16T12:13:00.001-04:002010-04-16T12:19:47.491-04:00More Massive Disruptive Change at the Network LevelTwo interesting reports: Schonfeld & Housewright's "Faculty Survey 2009: Key Strategic Insights for Libraries, publishers, and Societies" (Ithika, 2010) and Michalko, Malpas, & Arcolio's "Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change" (OCLC Research, 2010).
The Ithika report (from the folks who bring us JSTOR) continues a longitudinal study begun in 2000 to Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-45076904273620843862010-02-27T15:49:00.005-05:002010-03-04T09:17:03.392-05:00OCLC putting Squeeze on MSU?Karen Coyle has an interesting (and alarming) post on OCLC's punishing treatment of Michigan State University after the MSU Library chose SkyRiver over WorldCat for its cataloging operations. It appears that even after MSU's switch, the Library still wanted to contribute records back to WorldCat for ILL purposes and expected to pay the advertised rate of $0.23 per record. In fact, OCLC wanted to Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-64931706655216289022010-01-24T16:05:00.000-05:002010-01-24T16:05:42.901-05:00Metadata Services Toolkit ready for Production?I was impressed with Jennifer Bowen's demo at ALA and installed the software on my local machine once I got back. I wrote up some specifics at CMS blog. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-7569839308214684372009-11-30T16:03:00.004-05:002009-11-30T16:12:28.651-05:00Programming Skills Recommended for LibrariansThere's an article by David Stuart in the latest issue of Research Information entitled: "Research Skills could Transform Librarians Roles". Because someone tagged it "code4lib" in delicious , the citation showed up in Planet Code4Lib. I was happy to discover it there since it helps me understand my own growing enthusiasm for programming. The reality today is that most people Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-75507095978526990702009-11-23T18:18:00.001-05:002009-12-10T09:57:57.471-05:00Report on Harvard LibrariesA high-level Harvard task force urges closer cooperation and a unified strategic plan among the university's 73 separate libraries (and with peer institutions). I posted a few notes on the CMS blog.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-49837491266308974522009-11-17T15:07:00.000-05:002009-11-17T15:07:25.966-05:00Report on the Faltering MARC Market: Call to Action? Defense of LC? (Both?)I just posted some excerpts from the Study of the North American MARC Records Marketplace (along with a bit of commentary) to the CMS blog .Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-75304655255694265362009-11-03T14:31:00.001-05:002009-11-03T14:32:03.478-05:00Stephen Abram's anti-OSS position paperI posted some links about Abram's position paper (and mostly negative feedback) over at the CMS blogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-12707506923730528352009-11-01T14:46:00.004-05:002009-11-01T14:50:39.955-05:00Cartoon Worth a Thousand WordsI think this Jim Morin cartoon pretty much hits the nail on the head:
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-53543430149279706682009-10-26T09:40:00.001-04:002009-10-26T09:45:30.049-04:00White House deploys Open-Source DrupalWhitehouse.gov is now Drupal-powered. I commented on this (and Drupal use in libraries) over at the CMS blog.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-45859626966313606312009-10-23T09:20:00.001-04:002009-10-23T09:28:40.476-04:00Squeezing 1TB of data onto a fingernail-size chipSee article in computerworld.com about breakthrough at NCSU: "Engineers create fingernail-size chip that holds 1TB of data", and featured today on slashdot.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-77079480563356200932009-10-19T16:15:00.000-04:002009-10-19T16:15:58.182-04:00U.S. Industrial Decline (as viewed from Germany)A thoughtful and poignant (if also left-slanted) essay from the Berliner Umschau, translated by Watching America: "American De-Industrialization Continues Unabated."
This part in particular made me wince: "When word gradually spread that Detroit automobiles were of inferior quality, all three American car manufacturers responded with attempts to inoculate their customers with doses of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-88740817419861850442009-10-05T10:02:00.004-04:002009-10-05T17:53:11.385-04:00Jung's Red Book to be Published after typed drafts found at Beinecke and ElsewhereThe New York Times Magazine 9/30/09 cover story, “ The Holy Grail of the Unconscious: What the Unearthing of Carl Jung's Red Book is Doing to the Jungs and the Jungians (and maybe your Dreams)", recounts how the “most influential unpublished work in the history of psychology” is now about to be published.
Jung's complete illustrated manuscript had been locked away in a safe deposit box for many Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-78399669295793452702009-10-02T09:06:00.003-04:002009-10-06T08:26:30.734-04:00A 1,300-year-old Japanese HotelHōshi Ryokan, featured today on gizmag.com, is the world's oldest hotel and its oldest continuously-operating business, owned and operated by 46 generations of the same family over 1,291 years so far. According to gizmag, it was established by a Buddhist disciple at a hot spring in Komatsu, Japan, after its location was revealed to his master in a dream.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-5366579537672689512009-09-19T10:16:00.002-04:002009-09-19T10:25:32.377-04:00"Nine Weirdest Things at Yale" (YDN)Yale Daily News article suggests "The Nine Weirdest Things at Yale", two of which are in the Library: the Voynich manuscript at the Beinecke, and the Greco-Roman-Egyptian Magical amulets in the Babylonian Collection.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-16438476532472968072009-08-21T22:34:00.001-04:002009-08-22T10:52:00.592-04:00"1959: The Year that Changed Everything"Just finished reading Fred Kaplan's "1959: the Year Everything Changed", and while I'm not convinced 1959 qualifies as the singular hinge year of the 20th century, I'm not sure that matters (even to Kaplan), and it's a good book in any case.
He analyzes and weaves together a wide variety of events, e.g.: Castro seizing power in Cuba; Allen Ginsberg reading poetry to rapt audiences in New Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-48744592178912384822009-08-21T08:24:00.005-04:002009-08-21T10:31:23.991-04:00"Emerging Technologies in Academic Libraries" (International Conference in Norway)Per emtacl10 announcement: "The future success of academic libraries is dependent on in-depth understandings of the relevance of emerging technologies. Our focus must be on accessibility, interaction, intuitivity, sharing, user-driven content and other web 2.0 challenges. This is a conference for academic library workers and others with a general interest in emerging technologies and electronic Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-33453601599103666312009-08-10T09:18:00.006-04:002009-08-10T09:47:20.970-04:00Learning Languages on the WebI'm grateful to dchud for pointing out to me these two outstanding open-access web sites: lang-8 and smart.fm . I'm particularly intrigued by the way lang-8 connects people around the world who are trying to improve their language skills. For example, it lets you keep a "journal" that native readers will review and correct for you (and you do the same for them), and might even help you make new Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-55895342605017182212009-07-30T19:33:00.005-04:002009-08-03T09:09:39.589-04:00Nicholson Baker reviews Kindle 2Nicholson Baker asks in this week's New Yorker, "Can the Kindle really improve on the book?" His answer, so far, seems to be "not yet." The Vizplex electronic paper is less legible than print, and DRM constraints are especially problematic: "Kindle books aren't transferable. You can't give them away or lend them or sell them. You can't print them. They are closed clumps of digital code that only Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-66912298285743384362009-07-30T16:46:00.004-04:002009-08-21T10:31:23.992-04:00"Semantic Interoperability of Linked Data" (Conference)Another potentially great conference, "Semantic Interoperability of Linked Data," is now open for registration. The program will "explore the conceptual and practical issues in breaking the constraints of data silos and connecting pieces of data, information, and knowledge. Metadata is a key to these processes supporting publishing and interlinking structured data on the Semantic Web." Takes Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-75603913373998116122009-07-29T09:29:00.006-04:002009-08-21T10:31:23.993-04:00Code4Lib 2010Code4Lib 2010 is Monday February 22nd through Thursday February 25th at the Renaissance Asheville Hotel in Asheville, NC (compare air fares). There's a conference planning Google Group and a wiki page for signing up as a volunteer. I volunteered to help with documentation and selecting a keynote speaker.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-1770496264732579412009-07-28T08:32:00.002-04:002009-07-28T08:48:11.641-04:00TouchTable geodata visualizerMy dad shared this link to a Wired Science demo of the very cool $59K Touchtable, a flat-panel, wide-format, high-resolution, touch-sensitive screen, combining satellite imagery with other data sets, navigable with iPhone-like finger movements. Danny Hillis and others at applied minds did the initial development work.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5980383.post-59557364471092558222009-07-10T14:24:00.005-04:002009-07-16T20:58:57.222-04:00Fun with METSSee notes at CMS Web Log Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03156952487644470814noreply@blogger.com0