I did some email back and forth with Brian Kenny from School Library Journal last month when I was trying ot find back issues of their content online. I incorrectly assumed that because I couldn’t find it, it wasn’t there. He took the time to set me straight. Now he’s written an editorial for SLJ asking ALA why more of their content isn’t freely available online, drawing the same conclusion I have “[L]ibrarians are the most vocal advocates for open access to journal content—except, apparently, when it’s their own publications.”
Tag: slj
personal improvement projects and some links
So, I’m officially on a vacation which means I’m tootling around Portland Oregon visiting libraries and seeing friends. I am pleased to report that I am liking this vacation business and will endeavor to do more of it. My project as I mentioned earlier was to stay caught up on RSS feeds because I was starting to become one of those “who’s got time for all this?” people which was simply unacceptable. To that end, I used some stuck-in-airport time to cull down my list of RSS feeds I was following — deleting blogs that haven’t updated since 2005, removing blogs whose feeds have moved — and make sure everything I was following I was actually reading. I suggest you take some time to do the same. For the record, I follow about 150 feeds total. That includes friends, family, librarians, a few music blogs and some MetaFilter-work stuff. My next project is to catch up on all the music that needs listening to.
I have a short list of links to make sure I mention and then I’m all set and “caught up” in whatever that means for someone like me. I hope your Summer is treating you well.
- School Library Journal is doing a 23 Things project and have opened it up so that anyone who wants to can follow along and learn about 2.0 tools a little at a time.
- Brian Herzog links to an OMG-ish news story discussing the availability of R rated movies in the public library and what their library’s response has been.
- Erin Blackwell has written a very loving obit for Celeste West, one of the editors of the original Revolting Librarians.
- Molly Kleinman sent along a great post from the lute (librarians use technology every day) blog giving tutorials about how to use the command line.
some more open source ubuntu help for libraries
School Library Journal this month has a test drive of Edubuntu — the Ubuntu distribution that was created for use in classrooms.
When I installed Edubuntu on three different generations of laptops, each with different wireless cards, I was astounded at how easy it was. In every case, the first thing Edubuntu did was sniff the wireless card, install it, and hop right onto the Net. Plus, every display was configured and sized just right, every touch pad and sound card functioned, hardware just worked.
Jim Mann is the Technology Coordinator at the Greene County Public Library in Xenia Ohio. I met him when I was in Ohio last spring. He has created a series of very professional videos on YouTube on how to use Eudbuntu in libraries to maximize the hardware you have especially with old and outdated computers. These videos are very easy to understand and super clear.
We’re going to show you how to turn a pile of junk into useful inexpensive literally free computers that you can use in your library or that you can use with a public service group or with a school.