I’ve been chitchatting with Simon as he’s been compiling and data-cleaning his set of LoC authority records. He’s at ALA now, and the data has been released into the wild. There’s something that warms my little librarian heart getting to read raw MARC on my own little laptop. Try it yourself!
friday night short link list
Here in the frozen north Friday nights can often be a time to cook a big meal and curl up with a book and/or laptop while people in more populated areas do whatever people in more populated areas do. Here are a few of the things I have been reading this evening.
- Testing the THOMAS Beta by Peggy Garvin – no RSS feeds, but the beta does seem to have some new useful features and an improved search.
- Help for Librarians Receiving Law Enforcement Requests Revisited by Don Wood, ALAOIF whose blog is really worth reading
- Surveying non-users, Sarah Houghton-Jan points to a library who is trying to figure out who is NOT using their library. I did a little bit of this during National Library week. I set up a library card sign-up table outside of Wal-Mart and met a LOT of non-library users. The main reason people didn’t go back to the library? Fines, especially for younger patrons.
- ALA Read Write Connect. Not sure why this is a wiki, exactly, but it’s a great starting point for all of ALA’s newish bloggish and social content. There is a lot more than you would think!
- Library Director Quits – Cites WiFi Dangers – I have mixed feelings about this. I’m not sure how you accept a job if you are extremely sensitive to electromagnetic radiation and don’t think to inquire whether there is an active WiFi network. I’m also not convinced by the downloadable Word documents that are provided on the Council on Wireless Technology Impacts’ science page
paradise lost, in the form of an OPAC
“This think piece tells why the online library catalog fell from grace and why new directions pertaining to cataloging simplification and primary sources will not attract people back to the online catalog.”
libraries and DRM
The Listening Post blog over at Wired has an interesting little post about libraries that use Overdrive to “check out” digital content. The content only plays on Windows machines and comes with Digital Rights Management that tries to prevent copying and using materials past its built in due date. More interesting is the comments where people debate whether using DRM in cases like this is actually completely appropriate, or a totally unnecessary inconvenience to library patrons. [del.net]
oops, I’m not at midwinter
Forgot to mention, I’m not going to Midwinter which by my estimations (and Flickr photostream) is already in progress. This is the first ALA in a long time where I haven’t had a professional responsibility to be there and so even though Seattle is the city of my dreams, I’m staying home and working with my group of librarians instead. None of them are going to ALA either. After a crazying but fun year of travel last year I decided that staying home for a few months was a little higher on my priority list than getting to Midwinter. I’ll be at Annual where I’ll be on a panel with Eric Alterman, talking about blogs. Hope to see you there, if not before!