Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in digital, Google and OCLC.
OCLC and Google Inc. have signed an agreement to exchange data that will facilitate the discovery of library collections through Google search services.Under terms of the agreement, OCLC member libraries participating in the Google Book Search™ program, which makes the full text of more than one million books searchable, may share their WorldCat-derived MARC records with Google to better facilitate discovery of library collections through Google. Google will link from Google Book Search to WorldCat.org, which will drive traffic to library OPACs and other library services. Google will share data and links to digitized books with OCLC, which will make it possible for OCLC to represent the digitized collections of OCLC member libraries in WorldCat.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Library of Congress and audiobooks.
Blind people across the US fear they may lose access to free audiobooks because of a budget shortfall at the Library of Congress which operates the service. The National Library needs an extra $19.1m (£9.5m) a year to transfer its collection of audiobooks from antiquated tape cassettes to the latest digital format using flash technology. But Congress is expected to grant only $12.5m (£6.25m) a year, which will delay completion of the project until 2013 and could cut the production of new audiobooks.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in libraries, environment, green and design.
Two leading library magazines have recognized Appalachian State University’s Carol Grotnes Belk Library and Information Commons for its green architecture. The April edition of American Libraries included the Library among 27 facilities spotlighted in its “2008 Library Design Showcase.” The libraries featured were said to “demonstrate a commitment to making a beautiful space that serves both the community and the planet.” Prior to American Libraries, Belk Library was included in last December’s issue of Library Journal which highlighted 21 academic buildings at 168 public library projects in an article titled “Going, Going, Green.” Belk Library and Information Commons opened in summer 2005. It has 221,000 square feet, making it about 50 percent larger than the 1960s structure it replaced.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in consumers and Cuba.
Cubans are getting wired. The island’s communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time recently, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro. A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780 (euro505). While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.
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Rudolf Hulshof-Schmidt writes: “The vast majority of caped and masked superheroes are either scientists or socialites (or both, in the case of Tony [Iron Man] Stark), identities that lend themselves to flexible hours and personal fortunes. But where are the librarians? Surely information professionals deserve their place in the pursuit of truth and justice. And we are there, if in somewhat smaller numbers. Certainly the most famous costumed librarian is Barbara Gordon (right). By day the librarian daughter of Gotham City’s police commissioner, by night Barbara donned cape and cowl as Batgirl.”
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Joy Piedmont identifies 18 movies where significant scenes play out in a library, from Desk Set (1957) to Jumper (2008). In The Mummy (1999), she writes: “We first glimpse librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) in a less than adventurous moment, but her reaction after toppling several bookcases (‘oops!’) reveals her sense of fun.”.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in education and virtual worlds.
Cory Ondrejka, the co-founder of the virtual world Second Life who is now a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, said in a speech today that virtual worlds are here to stay, and that professors are among the most active pioneers. “In my view the academy has been blazing the trail of adoption of virtual worlds far more than gamers or industry,” said Mr. Ondrejka, who spoke at a conference at Case Western Reserve University called Collaboration Technology and Engaging the Campus 2008.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Second Life and virtual worlds.
Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in “Second Life.” A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world. But Edd is different. His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out “Second Life” is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It’s also a frontier in AI research because it’s a controllable environment where testing intelligent creations is easier.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in libraries and Second Life.
Not the whole of congress, but one person in particular - Republican congressman Mark Kirk. This is the same man who is targeting social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, but not content with going after them, he has now tried to drum up support for his cause by bringing Second Life in to the argument. Kirk is a Republican congressman seeking re-election next year. He is the man behind a bill known as the Deleting Online Predators Act. This bill basically takes the stance that all social networking sites are havens for pedophiles and children need protecting from the danger at all costs.
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Telecommuting, which once seemed impractical for librarians, is swiftly becoming a viable option for employees in both technical services and public services. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by May 2004, 20.7 million people regularly worked from home at least once per week as part of their primary job. This number represented 15 percent of total nonagricultural employment—and 30 percent of managerial/professional positions. Societal changes such as increased commuting time, rising numbers of dual working-parents, and an explosion of technology that facilitates remote work have fueled both the desirability and the feasibility of alternative work arrangements. Traditionally, librarians have been tethered to a facility either because their public service role demands face-to-face interaction or because they work with materials housed in the building. As collection formats and service mechanisms change, however, librarians may be poised to take advantage of more flexible scheduling arrangements.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in technology, trends and cloud computing.
Let’s say that you’re Intel, and you spent $5.5 billion in capital expenditures in 2007, much of it on the 45nm transition, and all of it for the purpose of beating rivals at delivering performance-per-watt increases across a range of market segments that spans the computing spectrum from servers to ultraportable devices. What, then, are you supposed to think about Web 2.0, the resurgence of the thin client model, and the popular “cloud computing” notion that users should be able to do almost all of their work and play with nothing but a simple Web browser (maybe running on an ARM-powered web tablet)? Judging by the comments of some of the Intel folks in the recent Directions Symposium, the chipmaker thinks it stinks
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For a second consecutive year, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s award-winning And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book about two male penguins caring for an orphaned egg, tops the list of ALA’s 10 Most Challenged Books of 2007. Three books are new to the list: Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes; The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman; and TTYL, by Lauren Myracle.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in technology and politics.
Find out where Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain stand on key technology issues, such as privacy, net neutrality, stem cell research, and biofuels.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in knowledge management.
Knowledge management has changed so much over the last decade, it would be handy to know what to expect in coming months to help develop the most effective strategies. Louise Druce asks Larry Prusak, founder of the Institute for Knowledge Management, for his thoughts on what the future holds for KM. One of the major achievements of KM in recent years has been getting knowledge into the discourse and discussions of organisations, according to seasoned expert Larry Prusak. But it’s only half the battle – simply holding on to it is not enough if firms want to survive in the future. Prusak is probably most well-known as the founder of the Institute for Knowledge Management, a global consortium of member organisations self-tasked with advancing KM through action research. He currently co-directs a knowledge research program at Babson College, where he is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence, but extensive work as a researcher and consultant has also meant he has seen a fair few changes to KM in his time.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in demographics and social networking.
A new study across a wide range of social networks sheds more insight into the ways men and women approach these service. As it turns out, women are more likely to be in it for the socializing, while men are more likely to use these sites for business. Social web search company Rapleaf performed a study of over 30 million users across sites like Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, LiveJournal, MySpace, Flickr, and more. Each user included in the study had at least one friend on one of these services, and Rapleaf broke its results down according to the number of connections users had: “Social Networkers” have 1-100 friends, “Connectors” have 100-1,000 friends, “Super Connectors” have 1,000-10,000 friends, and “Uber Connectors” have 10,000 friends or more.
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Jason Kuhl is the manager of St. Louis County (Mo.) Library’s Cliff Cave branch. He’s been working in the library system for eight years and agreed to answer questions about the experiences, challenges, and rewards of being a public librarian
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Close to half of all people in the UK will be members of a social networking site within four years, a new report indicates. The study found that the UK has the highest number of users in Europe who are members of sites such as MySpace and Facebook. At least 9.6 million people in the UK use these sites and that is expected to increase to 27.1 million by 2012. The report by Datamonitor, an independent market analyst, predicts that the UK will see healthy growth in numbers in Europe over the next five years. The growth is not only being driven by the young, but increasingly, older people are showing interest in social networking.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in mobile/cell phones and education.
Amid concerns that cellphones in class distract from the educational experience, this brief article offers a checklist of ways cellphones can assist learning in the classroom, with links to the new technologies that make such assistance possible.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in children, books and reading.
Children have welcomed the Harry Potter books in recent years like free ice cream in the cafeteria, but the largest survey ever of youthful reading in the United States by Renaissance Learning revealed May 5 that none of J.K. Rowling’s phenomenally popular books has been able to dislodge the works of longtime favorites Dr. Seuss, E.B. White, Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, and Harper Lee as the most read.
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Read the full report What Kids Are Reading here
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in libraries and collections.
To feed the need to weed, NYPL senior librarian and self-described weeding “life coach” Lauren Lampasone provides a simple guide on what reference materials to toss and what to keep, as well as advice on mentally preparing to let go.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Pew Research, technology and writing.
When you were a teen, did you consider those notes you passed in class “writing?” Probably not. And according to a new Pew report, more than half of teens that are text-messaging at school don’t consider that “writing” either. No surprise, girls (ages 12-17) are much more prolific communicators than boys. Gotta love this quote from one of the older boys : “If it wasn’t for girls, we wouldn’t be talking on the phone or using IM or anything else like that.” For YA librarians already committed to high level programming and services , the new report from the Pew/Internet and American Life Project, “Teens, Technology and Writing,” will validate much of what you do. If your library is developing or reviewing its teen services, it provides strong support for placing programs that encourage writing at the foundation of its strategy.
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Read the Teens, Technology and Writing here
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in peer review.
“If it’s wrong” is the big if, the question that plagues librarians and teachers today. Of course, the information you see online might be right—in one study, published in Nature, Wikipedia was found to be only slightly less reliable than Encyclopedia Britannica. But without peer review, it’s so easy to be wrong, and for your wrongness to become the top Google hit on a subject, and for your wrongness to be repeated by other people who think it’s right, until everyone decides that it’s raining in Phoenix….
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in web sites and gaming.
This site (originally compiled as part of the Pinball Pasture site in the mid-1990s) is “a comprehensive, searchable listing of virtually every pinball machine ever commercially made. It is an ad free, popup free, registration free resource. [The site does] not buy or sell games.” Listings include details such as the pinball machine’s manufacturer, machine type, notable features, images, and user ratings and comments. Also provides a glossary, player guide, and other supplementary material.
Internet Pinball Database website
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in education and web sites.
Collection of online tutorials for small businesses. “In general, the courses are all self-paced and should take about 30 minutes to complete. Most of the courses require a brief online registration.” Topics include planning, management, finance and accounting, marketing and advertising, government contracting, risk management and cyber security, e-commerce, international trade, federal tax training, and retirement. Some material also available in Spanish. From the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Small Business Administration Online Courses website
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in demographics and research.
US Hispanic-American Internet users are more likely to spend time online than watching TV, according to a February 2008 comScore Media Metrix survey conducted on behalf of Terra Networks USA. While 50% of the Hispanic-American Internet users surveyed said they spent at least one hour per day watching television, 56% said they spend at least one hour per day online.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in search and Google.
Some eight out of ten web searches conducted in Europe in March were carried out using Google, new figures have shown. Digital research firm comScore reported that over 19 billion searches were carried out on Google in March, making up a total of 79 per cent of Europe’s entire search market. “With nearly 80 percent of all searches conducted in March, Google is far and away the leading search property in Europe,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president of comScore.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Google, mapping and Microsoft.
Microsoft will launch Worldwide Telescope, a tool for exploring images of the night sky, by the end of May, free to anyone who wants to use it, Microsoft’s chairman said recently. Worldwide Telescope is software that allows people to gaze at the universe through the data collected by telescopes all around the world — and above it: there’s even data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in video and digital.
Logo has launched the world’s largest library on online video aimed at the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. LOGOonline.com is now home to more than 1,200 video clips, spanning an array of programming genres.
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Logo online website
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in digital and trends.
Pope Benedict will text message thousands of young Catholics on their mobile phones during World Youth Day in Sydney in July, hoping going digital will help him connect better with a younger audience. The Pope will text daily messages of inspiration and hope during the six-day Sydney event while digital prayer walls will be erected at event sites and the church will set up a Catholic social networking Web site akin to a Catholic Facebook.
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The Library of Congress is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, members of Congress use the library for research, but next to them, in the Main Reading Room, are the Americans who elected them. Anyone 18 or older with a Library of Congress library card can use any of the 22 reading rooms and access its 650 miles of bookshelves.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in books and collections.
Imagine owning a copy of Galileo’s 1632 book, Dialogo di Galileo Galilei (Galileo’s Dialogue), challenging the traditional thinking that the universe revolves around the earth. At the time, the book and its concepts were so controversial, that Galileo was convicted of heresy in 1633 and the book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Or perhaps a first-edition, autographed copy of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is a more suitable choice for your own personal library? These books and more will be made available to the public, beginning this fall, through a unique partnership between Canada’s McMaster University Library and U.S.-based companies Kirtas Technologies, Inc. and Lulu.com.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in digital and collections.
On Tuesday, May 6, 2008, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein submitted a report, entitled The Founders Online, to the Committees on Appropriations of the U.S. Congress. This report is the National Archives response to concerns raised by the Committees that the complete papers of America’s Founding Fathers are not available online. The Founders Online is a plan for providing online access, within a reasonable timeframe, to researchers, students and the general public. The report is available electronically at the National Archives website. In announcing the completion of the report, Professor Weinstein said, “We feel this plan would provide scholars and the public access to the best available versions of the complete papers; it would also protect the longstanding interests of the publishers and host organizations which along with the Federal government have invested great resources in the past four decades. Most importantly, it would build a monument to the Founders of our nation in their own words.”
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Google and design.
The Official Google Blog writes, “Late in 2007, our User Experience (UX) group—which does user interface design, visual design, user research, web development, and user interface writing—set out to articulate the principles that ought to guide Google designs worldwide. What are the fundamentals that all Google designers and researchers accept? Which approaches to design are particularly “Googley”? How can we encourage teams throughout Google to dream big and make smart design decisions? A small team gathered to discuss these questions and define the Googley Design Principles”
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in blogs, television and trends.
How a wunderkind producer, seven tabloid-ready stars, an army of bloggers, and a nation of texting tweenagers are changing the way we watch television.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in demographics, education and copyright.
A spike in notices of alleged copyright violations on campuses prompts speculation that record companies are targeting future, not actual, breaches.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in business intelligence.
Many companies see the need for effective communication for business intelligence professionals, but they often fail to provide the opportunities to focus on the skills required to achieve it.
Darren was furious! Bob had committed to finishing the business requirements by Tuesday, and as of Thursday, it still wasn’t done. In their meeting with their CFO and her staff, the financial analysts had specifically requested the reports for the Board meeting on the first of December. Darren was dependent on Bob so he could complete the reports that were due on Monday. So, Darren did what many competent business intelligence professionals do; he vented to a third person on the team, Ron.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in gaming.
The massive success of the Nintendo Wii proved the appeal of motion-controlled gaming. Now Softkinetic, a company based in Belgium, is working to let video-game players use a wider range of more-natural movements to control the on-screen action. Softkinetic’s software is meant to work with depth-sensing cameras, which can be used to determine a player’s body position and motions. “You don’t need a controller in your hand,” says CEO Michel Tombroff. “You don’t need to wear a special outfit. You just come in front of the camera in your living room, and you start playing by moving your entire body.”
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in spam.
One e-mail security company estimates that spam, initially a nuisance, now makes up 95% of all e-mail. In 2004, Bill Gates predicted the spam problem would be solved in two years. Four years later, there’s more spam than ever, though many end users only see a fraction of what’s out there because of the diligence of their e-mail service providers.
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in Wikipedia.
A literary agent has sued the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia contributors over negative remarks, but Wikimedia argues it’s not liable for user-generated content. Barbara Bauer recently filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court claiming that the Wikimedia Foundation is liable for postings that called her one of the “Dumbest of the twenty worst” agents, who has “no documented sales at all.” Wikimedia filed for a motion to dismiss the case, saying that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and state free speech laws, gives it immunity against such lawsuits. The federal communications law states that owners and operators of interactive sites cannot be held liable for user comments
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Published by rwatstein May 4th, 2008
in demographics, education and economics.
A teacher tries to shush her young students, telling them to be “as quiet as a mouse.” The familiar idiom sounds harmless, but it might carry a different meaning for children whose families can’t afford garbage service. Their home could be plagued with rats. If they live in a shelter, with disruptive bed checks throughout the night, children often come to school sleep-deprived. Uncertain of where they’ll be living the next week and traumatized by aspects of homelessness, impoverished students and their parents might view education strikingly different than middle-class families.
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The Web 2.0 “buzz” starts with new technologies such as virtual worlds, cell phones and handheld devices that offer 24/7 web access, tagging, social networks, and blogs and brings together various web capabilities in unique combinations (known as “mashing”—such as maps that also include the latest real estate property assessments). But Web 2.0 is about much more than the technology—it’s about a change in focus to participation, user control, sharing, openness, and networking. Pulled together, these technologies are a “parallel information universe” next to our own universe. This parallel universe provides us with constant feedback, resources, monitoring, information, connections, education, and interaction. It can be individualized and personalized, and we can interact individually or collectively with it. The key for libraries is that this is a parallel information universe. Libraries—as institutions founded on meeting people’s information needs—need to take the lead in this parallel information universe. Some libraries are diving in already, but the library world as a whole must engage with these developments and determine how we can use them to meet our users’ information needs better.
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In a deed of superheroic proportions, an anonymous donor has given the Library of Congress the original artwork by Steve Ditko for Marvel Comics’ “Amazing Fantasy #15″ — the comic book that introduced Spider-Man in August 1962. This unique set of drawings for 24 pages features the story of the origin of Spider-Man along with three other short stories — also written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko — for the same issue: “The Bell-Ringer,” “Man in the Mummy Case” and “There Are Martians Among Us”
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Published by rwatstein May 4th, 2008
in libraries, library services and books.
Neil Hollands writes: “Libraries need to recognize book group readers as one of their core audiences, a population that deserves extra-mile service. Here’s my list of 25 ways that a library can support book groups. Consider adding one or two of the practices from this list to your repertoire.”
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In a dimly lit back room on the second level of the University of Michigan library’s book-shelving department, Courtney Mitchel helps a giant desktop machine digest a rare, centuries-old Bible. Mitchel is among hundreds of librarians from Minnesota to England making digital versions of the most fragile of the books to be included in Google Book Search. The manual scanning is much slower than Google’s normal process.
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Published by rwatstein May 4th, 2008
in books.
The Telegraph presents its selection of history’s most notable cult writing. What is a cult book? Cult books include some of the most cringe-making collections of bilge ever collected between hard covers. But they also include many of the key texts of modern feminism; some of the best journalism and memoirs; and some of the most entrancing and original novels in the canon. In compiling their list, the editors were looking for the sort of book that people wear like a leather jacket or carry around like a totem.
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In the first of a series of reports related to technology access in U.S. public libraries, the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Research & Statistics (ORS) is drawing attention to challenges and opportunities related to available bandwidth for patron Internet access and online library services. The issues brief draws from national data published in the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study (www.ala.org/plinternetfunding).“Internet Connectivity in U.S. Public Libraries” describes the range of Internet services public libraries broker on behalf of their users – including homework help, audio, video and digital reference; connectivity rates; wireless availability; and the diverse challenges faced by urban, suburban and rural libraries in being able to improve Internet connectivity to their communities through the library. The document also links to related research on bandwidth in the United States.
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Read the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study here
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The other day, I was engaged in a uniquely modern task: sifting frantically through thousands of bookmarks. I had promised my editor that I’d send in a cool idea for my next column. So I was trolling through the thousands of news tips and blog posts I’d archived using services like del.icio.us. But I was drowning; I’d saved so much that I could no longer find the really good stuff. What I needed was some help — an assistant to do some sifting for me.
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Published by rwatstein May 4th, 2008
in innovation, technology and hardware.
Jennifer L. DeLeo writes: “Specialized features like LED backlighting and ergonomic design have become the standard in today’s keyboards, which means that there’s plenty of room for a new crop of strange keyboards to emerge into the peripheral scene. For the past week, I’ve hunted down the most unusual and ridiculous keyboards—and I came pretty close to Ctrl+Alt+Deleting some of them from my head.” At right is the orbiTouch Keyless Ergonomic Keyboard for those with repetitive strain injury, which allows the use of hands and arms instead of fingers to type.
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Published by rwatstein May 4th, 2008
in education, environment and green.
The Sierra Club selected the top ten most environmentally friendly colleges and universities in the country. Results are based on clean-energy purchases, green-building policies, bike facilities, food served in dorms, recognition by environmental organizations, among other factors. Arizona State University, Bowdoin College, Carleton College, Emory University, and Northern Arizona University received honorable mention for their efforts.
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