bye bye bloglines

Posted on by jessamyn

Bloglines is shutting down on October 1st. End ofan era, I remember that it was the first site I could use to see who was actually reading my site via RSS. And Vox.com is also shutting down at the end of the month. I transferred my content there, such as it was to a typepad blog which has been a long series of tech support conversations. I’m curious actually where those domains will even point to a month or two from now.

And I get a lot of library news from the pretty disparate fields of Twitter and print magazines. I’ve been reading Computers in Libraries‘ latest issue [Donna Ekhart and I share a column there] about social technology and enjoying it. Wishing more of the content was online and linkable. And Twitter just this afternoon has pointed me to some great blog posts like this one by Dale Askey about Yale’s new University Librarian and his utter lack of librarian-type qualifications. Strong stuff, and well put.

I’ll continue to use NetNewsWire (for all Mac devices) as my RSS reader, being slightly behind but not buried, as usual, and want to put in a plug for Sage, the Firefox plug in, for those who don’t want to hop on the Google Reader train. It’s a great time to be in the information management business. Thanks Bloglines, you had a good run.

new Q&A site for librarians? What about the old site?

Posted on by jessamyn

A few folks have been buzzing about the proposal over on Stack Exchange to build a stack overflow-type site for library Q&A stuff. I was wondering about this, since we already have Unshelved Answers. A little Googling and I figured out that the software they’re using won’t be available to them after 4/11 [irony!], so they’re trying to get people together to support a hosted model. Go vote!

show us the numbers re: new librarian jobs

Posted on by jessamyn

If the numbers are there, I’d like to see them. Otherwise this speculation about the graying of the profession doesn’t really seem to be fact-based.

“ALA, along with some meilleur casino en ligne français is still promoting the idea that we are approaching a librarian shortage and cannot possibly train enough people to continue on the grand tradition of librarianship. This information was suspect a couple years ago, and considering the state if libraries right now–academic, public and special– it’s a damn lie.” [via @librarianmer]

OED no longer “in print”?

Posted on by jessamyn

The Third Edition is a mutation. It is weightless, taking its shape in the digital realm. To keyboard it, Oxford hired a team of 150 typists in Florida for 18 months. (That was before the verb keyboard had even found its way in, as Simpson points out; not to mention the verb outsource.) No one can say for sure whether OED3 will ever be published in paper and ink. By the point of decision, not before 20 years or so from now, it will have doubled in size yet again. In the meantime, it is materializing before the world’s eyes, bit by bit, on line. It is a thoroughgoing revision of the entire text, expected to cost around $55 million, involving a permanent staff of 70 plus hundreds of freelancers, consultants, and volunteers in Oxford and around the world. Whereas the Second Edition just added new words and new usages to the original entries, the current project is researching and revising from scratch-preserving the history, but aiming at a more coherent whole.

The new Oxford English Dictionary, currently 28% completed, is expected to be done in approximately ten years. There’s been a bit of hubub in the news lately because when asked if they’re going to publish the newest version on paper, the response was “I don’t think so.” which was clarified with a statement saying that the completion was still a decade off and “a decision on format will be taken at that point.” Makes sense right? I’d love an OED that was keyword searchable even though I will always have fond feelings for the 20 volume set that I rescued from a dumpster [discarded because it could not be sold, thank you my unnamed librarian accomplice!]. In the short-but-growing discussion on MetaFilter, someone mentions that what are really precious are the original plates used to print the first edition. Simon Winchester tells a story about those plates in an Author’s Note to his book The Professor and the Madman. I am personally more interested in the Vault of Failed Words.