Bib Control WG

Interesting people involved in the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. And some are taking notes. E.g., Karen Coyle and Lorcan Dempsey. Others--not necessarily in attendance--are also following the story, e.g., Karen Schneider , ALA TechSource , Talis. Karen Coyle has also posted a more integrated version of her notes from the first session.


The current discussions on RDA and OPAC 2.0 are closely related. Karen Coyle, Diane Hilman, Jonathan Rochkind, and Paul Wiess have posted their Framework for a Bibliographic Future on the FutureLib wiki.

CCDA is currently discussing the RDA "Scope and Structure" document, on which Paul has commented "There are a number of misuses of DCAM and the Metadata Framework, the major ones of which are raised below. It seems that JSC is not sufficiently familiar with the models it hopes to take advantage of. " DCAM is the Dublin Core Abstract Model. Diane Hillman has posted her notes from the second session ("Scope and Structures") at the LITA Blog.

"Many Eyes" data visualizations

This service from IBM allows anyone to use current datasets or upload new ones and create interesting visualizations. One featured example is a Proto-/Indo-European language tree. Cf. Google GapMinder and Swivel. I think the site's been slashdotted though (i.e., 3/6/07), since I can't seem to view anything.; On 3/13/07 Eric Lease Morgan cited a MARC record tag cloud he created with a set of 14,000 bibliographic records of new books, "but most of the content ... is administrative and does not lend itself [to] discovery".

DST 2007

DST used to start on first Sunday of April (e.g., April 1, 2007) and end last Sunday of October (e.g., Oct. 28, 2007). Now it begins second sunday of March (e.g., March 11, 2007) and ends first Sunday of November (e.g., nov. 4, 2007).

Need to update Microsoft OS and Palm

Japanese Language (MIT OpenCourseware)

MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) includes several Japanese languages classes, e.g., Beginning Japanese I

Dublin Core in flickr

woodyevans.com » toolkit 2: using what we’ve got: metadata for flickr

Web applications with CGI (IBM)

Abstract from Peter Seebach article: "Writing local Web applications can be quick, easy, and efficient for solving specific Intranet problems. Understand why a Web browser is sometimes a better interface than a GUI application, and when a CGI script may be the simplest and most elegant solution.

"Gold" at the AMNH

I enjoyed visiting the exhibition on gold a few weeks ago at the American Museum of Natural History. Learned some interesting facts, e.g.: 60 tractor trailers would contain all the gold in the world extracted so far (152,000 metric tons); and the Aztec word for gold is teocuitlatl (lit. "excrement of the gods"). Also, "A one-foot square cube is about the size of one ton of pure gold." And "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds the world's largest accumulation of monetary gold. Only a small portion belongs to the U.S. government. The bank serves as guardian for it, as well as the gold monetary reserves of approximately 60 foreign governments, central banks and international organizations. The vault is 25 meters (80 feet) beneath the street and holds $147 billion worth of gold bullion. The bedrock of Manhattan was one of the few foundations strong enough to support the weight of the vault, its door and the gold inside."

Dan Chudnov on openURL

Dan Chudnov interview with John Udell on OpenURL, context-sensitive linking, and digital archiving. Follows a related interview Udell had with Tony Hammond.

Problem dates back to world of print ... academic research requires that readers be able to consult sources, and easily verify results and claims. Hence enforced consistency of style manuals and authority files. In networked environment, openURL provides consistent citations formats. Mentions ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) work on impact factor by Eugene Garfield. Also DOIs from CNRI Handle System

Unlike DOIs, URLs are not succinct numbers, but rather more like canned queries, e.g., http with name-value pairs. Effectiveness in identifying target resource highly dependent on robust metadata.

Dan mentions dspace project he contributed to at MIT, initially designed to offer stable URL for self-archiving authors, and open access publishing. Now working on metasearch tool called "LibraryFind" at Oregon State University.

OhioLink has O-Link sytem, provides text string citation type.

COinS: way to specifiy openurl in HTML span tag. Packages query in openURL style, but without resolver. Context object is part of openURL specifying metadata package to sent over wire. Requires companion piece of software something like greasemonkey on user end. Similar to microformats. OpenlyInformatics has COinS generator. There are also blog plugins, and structured blogging tools.

OCLC has OpenURL Resolver Registry, records from over 1,000 institutions. Dan has worked with OCLC to assemble database of bookmarklets, greasemonkey, etc., scripts. Can be obtained and distributed on campus.

Once COinS formed, appears as href anchor links, binds to resolver for ones own institution, the icon for which should appear for browser.

Adventures of ACTION ITEM!

The Adventures of ACTION ITEM!, a superhero who's mastered the art and jargon of business meetings, but can't actually save anyone.

"Library Porn" in Chronicle of Higher Education

Professor of English Thomas H. Benton confesses his addiction to Library Porn (e.g., pictures of finely-crafted bookshelves) in the Feb. 16 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. Picked up by LISNews

NETSL 2007: "Re-Imagining Technical Services"

NETSL (New England Technical Services Librarians) 2007 Spring Conference Program featuring Diane Dates Casey and Daniel Joudrey to take place Friday April 13, 2007, in Worcester Mass.

Court Decisions Cite Wikipedia

At the SCOPA forum last week (featuring motivational speaker Jessica McWade), Blair Kauffman mentioned growing use of Wikipedia in court decisions (including those by Richard Posner on US Court of Appeals). I just bumped into a New York Times article and LIS News posting that address this. According to the Times piece, "More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)"

Jon's visit

NYC

Check room availability at Hotel Newton. Oops, no vacancies. Days Inn? Check AJAXed NYC subway map (very slow) and best stops for Natural History Musuem (1 or 9 to W. 79th) and Birdland (1, 2, or 3 to Times Sq., then S, then 2 blcks N to 44th) and hotel (1, 2, or 3 to 96th). Sunday night at Birdland is Chico O'Farrill Big Band, led by Arturo O'Farrill. See review in New York Sun.

Loreley

Home http://www.recipesfromhome.com/

Dumont http://dumontrestaurant.com/

Dresslers http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/dressler/index.html

Prune http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=2526

Bonita (a bit cheaper, but good) http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/restaurants/archives/2005/03/_bonita.html

Back in New Haven ...

Check out Info New Haven.

Now that Kahn Building is restored and reopened, need to visit the Yale Art Gallery (T-Sa, 10-5). Also, Criterion Theater, Center for British Art (current exhibit: Howard Hodgkin), Peabody Museum, worth visiting.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station worth visiting? No special events on top. Some reports published on their web site. Receive soil samples for pH analysis. Not sure what else they do. Open 8:30-4:30 M-F, but closed Mon., Feb. 12th, for Lincoln's BD.

NSDL Registry Project

Dianne Hillman, et al., have an interesting conference paper, A Metadata Registry from Vocabularies UP: The NSDL Registry Project, available at arxiv.org.

Open Standards Symposium at Yale

Yale Information Society Project's Open Standards International Symposium will take place Feb. 3, 2007 at the Yale Law School. Check the conference wiki for more details.