‘puters

what’s with OPACs lately? an article by Andrew Pace

I have always enjoyed Andrew Pace’s writing and his Technically Speaking column in American Libraries. This month he talks a little bit about the awkward acronym that reflects the awkward systems that are OPACs.

I have not found a patron who is satisfied with any answer as to why a web search engine can return relevant results from four billion full-text websites faster than an OPAC can return a randomly sorted hitlist from one million surrogate records; nor should any patron be satisfied with even a bona fide answer to that question.

just a cite… just a cite… the citeulike

Posted on 13Feb05 by jessamyn

I’ve been helping my law student boyfriend deal with looking at citation/bibliography software that will do Bluebook formatting, so I was primed and interested to see CiteULike which is a tool for maintaining a del.icio.us-like citation database for academic articles that you find online. Haven’t used it yet, looks intriguing in a taggish sort of way. [nothing]

digital divide up close and personal

Posted on 10Feb05 by jessamyn

Check me out! There’s an article this week in my alternative weekly about my email class and technology in general in Vermont’s libraries.

[P]roviding free Internet access and tech support to patrons in a rural state is a real challenge; what Vermont libraries offer varies wildly from town to town. The kind of training users receive depends entirely on who’s behind the desk when they ask for help. And poorer communities — which need this access and support the most — are still often least likely to have it, despite grant funding

good and bad web design, let’s be honest here

Posted on 10Feb05 by jessamyn

Erica Olsen astutely and succinctly puts her finger on it. A lot of library web sites suck. If they’re not flat out ugly, they’re deficient in other ways like usability, accessibility, poorly customized templates or just plain old lack of updates. They ignore conventional widsom about web design standards and fail to use clear page titles, citeable URLs, coherent navigational structures and, amazingly, meta tags. They have bad, or severely lacking, search capabilities. I’m not sure why this is true, and libraries certainly aren’t the only profession so afflicted but we are one that should know better. Erica’s not all snark though, she also includes a list of examples of good design in a subsequent post.

putting the RFID into aFRaID

Posted on 10Feb05 by jessamyn

Berkeley Public Library is going RFID in order to reduce theft and worker injuries. The outlay of cash comes at a time when the library can ill-afford it. From what I’ve been hearing, this will cost roughly 50 cents a book and has also been the impetus for a massive weeding campaign where books not deemed wirth a fifty cent RFID tag are being tossed.

The library has slashed its books and materials budget by 25 percent and has been scrambling to raise funds to recover about $300,000 for books by June. What’s more, 15 staff positions have been left vacant, and up to a dozen people could be laid off in the coming fiscal year, Griffin said. Additionally, library hours have been reduced by 16 hours weekly at the central library and 12 hours a week at the four branches.