The Distant Librarian

Survey of the biblioblogosphere

Are you a librarian who blogs?  Meredith is trying to answer some questions Walt didn't ask - why not take a moment to fill out her survey?

Re-syndication: sidebar updates and more

Library Clips posts a nice list of tools that can help you embed your RSS feed in another page (think Blackboard or WebCT or whatever...)  The only one of these I've personally played with is Feed2JS, and I've been really happy with that one.

Link: Library clips :: Re-syndication: sidebar updates and more :: May :: 2005.

Call for contributors #2 - J. of Lib & Info Services in Distance Learning

It's that time again - what may become my quarterly call to see if any gentle readers would like to contribute to the eServices in Libraries column for the Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning.

I have several ideas for topics, but am also interested in you bringing your own ideas to the column.  It's a quarterly publication, which gives us a challenge in that whatever we write about won't hit print for several months.

Information about the journal can be found here, and the last three tables of contents (PDF), which show what was covered in this column in those issues, can be found here, here, and here.  Just to give you a flavor for what's already been covered...

Are you interested?  If so, please drop me an email at ppival@ucalgary.ca

Thanks,  hope to hear from you!

RSS to Email wrapup

Last month I posted about and got some really good feedback and suggestions on an RSS to email solution.  I just wanted to wrap that up here for those of you who don't get the comments.  The two best solutions seem to be RSSFwd and Rmail, both of which, with a minor amount of HTML coding, allow one to embed a single box on one's blog where the user can enter an email address and forever more receive every post as an email.  Also improved since our initial peek is Bot a blog, which now offers snippits of the post in the email instead of simply a link letting you know some content had changed.

With Rmail you'll get an email with the updated post within an hour.  I believe RSSFwd does a batch job so there's a longer delay.  I plan to implement an Rmail subscription link for this blog as soon as I get around to it :-)

Using Blogdigger to create custom category RSS feeds

I love the Inkernets.  Just the other day I helped Richard with something, and now he goes and posts this.  I suspect it may have been Carolyn who put the category RSS bug in both our ears.  Freakishly coincidental is the fact that not 3 hours ago I was poking at Feedburner to see if I could get it to do this exact same thing!  (it can't).

Link: Science Library Pad: using Blogdigger to create custom category RSS feeds.

So here you go Carolyn, and anyone else who's interested in subscribing only to some of my categories.  Maybe you, Greg, who doesn't think of himself as one who'd be interested in distance education :-)

This is a great discovery Richard, thanks!

Update:  The RSS feeds for each category now appear in the sidebar to the right.  No way I can see to just get a feed button next to the categories at the top of the page, but if you scroll down you'll see the whole list repeated under the heading of Category Feeds.  I ran the Blogdigger feeds through Feedburner so I can see how many folks actually choose to subscribe to a category feed.  Let's see, I could subscribe to those feeds in Bloglines, then run a PubSub search alert feed on them, tag them in del.icio.us... What else could I run them through ;-)

RSS - Not with it yet?! (Bloglines)

A nice tutorial on basic Bloglines use made by Rich Hoeg at Honeywell with Macromedia Breeze.

RSS - Not with it yet?! (Bloglines)

Okay, if you're reading this blog, and have not started using a RSS feed reader to subscribe .... get with it!  The ability to customize searches and knowledge delivery to your own particular needs is a requirement for anyone who even remotely considers themself an "information worker".

Although I personally prefer FeedDemon for subscribing to RSS Feeds ... some of you may feel the $30 cost is too high.  Well, the Bloglines web based RSS feedreader service is free.  Here are some links to help you get started:

• Bloglines: Site | Tutorial

[via eContent]

Peter Binkley's Blogging! - Quaedam cuiusdam

Peter's the Digital Initiatives Technology Librarian up the road at the U of Alberta, and a guy who pops out with some really good ideas.  I have a suspicion he has lots more of these posted at random spots around the web, and look forward to the concatenation of them at this location.  I think you'll be well served to subscribe to this one - welcome Peter!
Link: Quaedam cuiusdam.

High school all over again

Hadn't heard of this site before so I went to see where I was ranked, fully expecting not even to be listed in the Library & Information Science category.  I started at the end (page 12) and worked my way forward.  Imagine my surprise when I found this blog on page two!  There are no comments associated with the ratings, and I've got to agree with Stephen that it's a little suspect, but I find your blog useful Stephen and voted you a 10, which brought you up  .02 in the rankings!

High school all over again 

This blog-ranking site brought back bad memories of social hierarchies that defined my high school life (and yours, too?) Would it be unethical for me to vote for my own blog?

[via Digital Reference]

Call for contributors - Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning

Hello reader!  (I'm kidding, I know there are at least three of you out there!)  I'm looking for your help.  I recently agreed to assume the editorship of the eServices in Libraries column for the Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, and I'm looking for contributors for the column. 

I have several ideas for topics, but am also interested in you bringing your own ideas to the column.  It's a quarterly publication, which gives us a challenge in that whatever we write about won't hit print for several months.

Information about the journal can be found here, and the last three tables of contents (PDF), which show what was covered in this column in those issues, can be found here, here, and here.  Just to give you a flavor for what's already been covered...

Are you interested?  If so, please drop me an email at ppival@ucalgary.ca

Thanks,  hope to hear from you!

Other Distant Librarians

While working on an article recently I scared up a few other blogs that are run by distance education librarians.  Just this morning another appeared thanks to a pubsub feed I have.  I thought you might be interested in these ones if you're reading mine.  Of course each of these are dedicated to a slightly different audience - not so much distance librarianship in general.  Still worth a look:

• REF:BLOG:SPOT  - actually "is the unofficial and experimental blog of the Research and Information Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries." but is coordinated by Sherri Vokey, the Remote Services Librarian at UNLV.  I knew Sherri briefly when she worked for the U of Winnipeg here in the Great White North.
• Distance Education Library Services - this is the one that just popped into my aggregator this morning, and I can't find any information about the author, other than the name "Samantha".  hey Samantha, can you drop me an email; I'd like to know who and where you are!  :-)
• Frequently Answered Questions - Rebecca Hedreen is the Distance Education Librarian at Southern Connecticut State University and runs this blog for her distance students.
• Distance Education Services at Atkins Library - maintained by Lisa T Nickel, Distance Education Librarian at J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
• And finallay, Ilene Frank is a distance reference librarian (who teaches courses such as Lib Services Distance Learning) at the U of South Florida, and writes the Librarian's Blog - not specifically geared towards distance librarianship, but if distance librarianship is your background, how can it avoid the subject? ;-)

So those are the five that I know about - can you leave a comment if you know of other blogs with a distance librarianship slant?

Library Lookup Bookmarklets - Frequently Answered Questions

Rebecca Hedreen, Distance Education Librarian at Southern Connecticut State University, has started a blog of Frequently Answered Questions for her students, and has a post about the new Library Lookup Bookmarklets that have been tweaked to search Worldcat through Google. The bookmarklet has been mentioned in several places this week, and Rebecca provides a few links in her post. On a related note, I was finally able to get the Library Lookup bookmarklet to work with our SIRSI catalogue, and will be prettying up my instruction page prior to releasing the bookmarklet to our collection development librarians.

I think I'll keep an eye on Rebecca's site - the blog format is a good one for FAQs.

Growing

I've had a blog with Blogger for a year now (wow, hadn't realized it was that long!) - it was a spot where I was basically collecting annotated bookmarks, and over the next few days I'll be bringing some posts over from there, hopefully with comments more specific to the scope of this blog.