The Distant Librarian

No place for state in our hard drives?

U of Calgary affiliate Kris Kotarski has a thought-provoking op-ed in the Calgary Herald about the Copyright/DRM debate that's about to be reborn here in Canada. 

"Simply put, if society settles on laws enforcing copyright provisions such as a ban on breaking DRM locks on CDs and DVDs, or taking down SIM locks on cellular phones (both part of last year's Bill C-61), there will be no way to credibly enforce them without an intrusive government monitoring scheme."

LJ Webcast Archives

I haven't had a chance to listen to/watch them myself, and am bookmarking them here as much for my use as yours, but two recent webcasts in the Returning the Researcher to the Library series are now archived at the LJ website:

• Webcast: Returning the Researcher to the Library: Building ROI through Discovery
• Webcast: Returning the Researcher to the Library: Understanding the Next Gen user

Looks like this is scheduled to be a 4-part series.

ALA Conference 2009: Ubiquity of Mobiles Greatly To Affect Libraries

Library Journal reports, "Libraries had better prepare for an explosion in the capacity of mobile devices as well as the transformative increase in user capacity and expectations. This was the message conveyed by a panel yesterday at the American Library Association's (ALA) Annual Conference on Libraries and Mobile Devices: Public Policy Considerations."

7 Things You Should Know About Microblogging

The latest in the Educause 7 Things You Should Know About... series covers Microblogging (aka Twitter).

Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content—which could be text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media—on the Internet. Microblogging offers a portable communication mode that feels organic and spontaneous to many and has captured the public imagination. Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and politicians (or their publicists) microblog about concert dates, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules. A wide and growing range of add-on tools enables sophisticated updates and interaction with other applications, and the resulting profusion of functionality is helping to define new possibilities for this type of communication.

Wikipedia in the catalogue?

Image via Wikipedia

I learned from Eric Rumsey that the State Library of Kansas includes Wikipedia articles in their OPAC.  Here are some examples: http://topekalibraries.info/search/awikimedia. About 15 minutes later I saw that Aaron Schmidt posted on the DCPL Labs site that in a recent survey 88% "of people responded that they prefer the content from Wikipedia in the Catalog."  This is news to me - is this a fairly common thing these days?  Would our cataloguing department kill me if I suggested it? :-)

Many libraries are lending Kindles

While we wait to see if BYU will reinstate their Kindle lending program, take a look at the list of libraries that are still lending them put together by iReaderreview.  I's not just a list; there's a fair bit of supporting content in the post.

Kindle, Libraries

Handheld Librarian Online

From the conference website:

More people than ever are using mobile devices for a wide variety of purposes including communication, internet access, text messaging, and entertainment. It is important that libraries provide services on these devices as use increases.

The first ever Handheld Librarian Online on July 30, 2009 is the place to learn about these and other topics related to using wireless and hand held devices in your library.  The program, sponsored by Alliance Library System, LearningTimes and Infoquest, will include a variety of ways to collaborate, network and learn from a great group of experts in the field.  In addition to live interactive webcasts, we will have a collection of available resources, discussions boards, and access to the recording  of all live events for one year after the conference.

Registration is $49 USD for an individual or $89 USD for two or more people logged in from 1 computer.

Brigham Young Library Tests Kindle as ILL Alternative

Gerrit van Dyk, Document Delivery Services Manager at Brigham Young University, blogs about their new initiative to loan Kindles to faculty members instead of trying to obtain new material via ILL.  You can also read a brief article about this at Library Journal.

Kindle, ILL, BYU

Do you love books or do you love reading?

Ann Kirschner has a thought-provoking piece in the Chronicle describing how she read a 1,000 page novel across four different formats; paperback, audiobook, iPhone and Kindle.  You might be surprised at what she decided was the best format, at least for her.  As an aside, I'm now reading my fourth book in the Stanza iPhone application. I love the fact that it's always with me, and I can change the font and lighting depending on my situation.

The Google Wave Highlight Reel

Gina Trapani at Smarterware has a great post where she's chopped out the highlights of an 80-minute presentation showcasing Google Wave.  Now you can see what's particularly cool with this future tool in less than 8 minutes.

Citations your way - beta test SiteCite

Andrew Pasterfield, one of our library programmers, has built a tool for himself that you might also find useful.  Site Cite allows you to bookmark websites with a URL of your choosing, so you can recite it to another person w/o having to look it up.  As long as you can remember the URL of the service (http://sitecite.net) your username and the short tag you gave the page, you can tell someone the site to visit from memory.  Once you've used it a few times all you'll really need to remember is the tag.  "Hey, go check out the latest information about the Perigrine falcons that nest near the library at sitecite.net/ppival/falcons"

It's got a nifty autocomplete feature that'll help you discover tags you've already used- as you begin to tag something it'll let you know if you've tagged anything else with those starting letters.

Definitely a beta right now - many features still to come according to the amusing FAQ.  Needs a bookmarklet or Firefox extension before I'll consistently use it, but I can see the potential.  Check it out!

Registration and program for Internet Librarian 2009

The program for Internet Librarian 2009 is now available, as is registration.  The opening keynote is to be given by Vint Cerf!

After taking a year (or two?) off, I'll be back this year, presenting a screencasting workshop on Sunday morning.  Dates of the conference (held in Monterey, CA) are October 26-28, with two days of workshops available on the 24th and 25th.  Following my prediction about this being the year of the mobile library, there's a whole track on Tuesday dedicated to Mobile Trends and Practices.

Digi-Man and Interrobangs

Another winning episode of the CBC Spark podcast.  Episode 79 talks with Seamus Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto about digital preservation, and I also learned about the interrobang (‽).

Here's a goofy non-library example of the importance of digital preservation:

More on Libraries and eBooks

Following up on my earlier post about licensing issues around ebooks and libraries, Sue at No Shelf Required discusses the same Teleread post: Is it possible to donate an eBook to the library?  In the  comments,  Dan D'Agostino mentions he's got a new blog on his (collection development librarian) perspective of eBook reader technology at e-Book Reader News (on e-book readers, mobile devices, and the ebook publishing world).  Subscribed.

First Impressions

I finally got around to reading a couple of posts I'd squirreled away, and they turn out to be somewhat related.

Brian Mathews posts about 5 next-gen library catalogs and 5 students: their initial impressions.  Important to us here at the UofC as we continue to beta test Summon.  While admittedly not scientific, there are definitely things to note here.

And Sol at the Federated Search Blog posts What do you call that thing? Wondering if there's a solid mostly-universal term for those "things" we search that hold content.  Research Databases?  Sources?  E-resources?  Doesn't seem to be a consensus out there, unfortunately.  Last summer during a site redesign I changed the tab on our library site from "Research Databases" to "Online Resources", and the single biggest complaint over the first month was that folks couldn't find what they were looking for because the new terminology somehow didn't mean what the old terminology meant to them.