LISFeeds -- Expanded Views

It's Not Too Late...I Love My Librarian Award

2010-09-02T19:15:02+00:00

Nominations for 2010 stay open through September 20. Nominate your librarian (or yourself?) for the third year of the Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award! From this page, you can nominate a school librarian, public librarian or university librarian.

Here's the page for promotional tools (tweets, etc.) and here are handsome badges for your website, such as the one below.

Up to ten winners will be selected this year and receive a $5,000 cash award, a plaque and $500 travel stipend to attend an awards reception in New York hosted by The New York Times. In addition, a plaque will be given to each award winner’s library.

The award is administered by the American Library Association with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York and The New York Times.

Join us on Facebook for updates on the award throughout the nomination process. You can read about last year's winners here.

The Master's Degree Misperception

2010-09-02T18:47:02+00:00

“I didn’t know you needed a master’s degree to be a librarian.”

If you haven’t experienced this statement firsthand, you’ve certainly read about it. It is the notion that what we are doing as a career, a calling, and an occupation requires an advanced degree of study. It’s an image issue that pops up for the public librarian on a fairly regular basis. And, like it or not, it is here to stick with public librarians for a long time.

Once upon a time, there was no degree requirement to become a librarian. Anyone with a degree could be a librarian; it was simply a matter of learning the collection, the classification system, and the established policies and procedures of the library. With the advent of the MLS and MLIS programs, this has created a new layer of requirements for budding librarians but has not been accompanied by a shift in duties and workload. On any given day, I can be standing at the circulation desk side-by-side with a support staff member doing the same thing that they are doing. So long as this arrangement exists, the perception that librarianship does not require an advanced degree will continue to taint the image of the profession.

(Two things to note before I continue: first, that this is certainly not the full limit or extent of my job duties. If there is a line of people waiting to check out, I’ll step out and lend a hand. It’s good business, it’s a good show of support for my fellow staff member, and it’s a nice reminder about that aspect of the library experience. Budget tightening measures have also reduced our staffing numbers so that there isn’t another staff member around or on the desk to help out. Second, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a librarian doing these tasks. However, I’d like to imagine that I got an advanced degree so that checking out books would be a once in a while thing, not a regular gig.)

It is a disservice to the education, to the degree, and to the profession when the bulk of a librarian’s daily tasks could be performed by someone with a GED. It does not take a master’s degree to place a hold on a book, clear a copier, push in chairs, tell people they are being loud, shelve items, or other similar tasks. When librarians are seen doing this and then told there is an advanced degree requirement, there is a reasoning dissonance that occurs in the outside observer.

Our professional focus should be on the management and organization of materials; these are the things for which we are schooled and trained to do. So, this leads me to a question: how can we separate the MLS from the paraprofessional? Should the profession insist on a greater separation of duties? Should we surrender the reference desk over to the paraprofessional and adopt “research hours” where we can sit down with people who have actual reference questions? What needs to change in how we approach the job in the context of the library?

Author’s note: I’m not ignorant of the fact that this post will not apply to some libraries that have a smaller staff; nor that there will be times when there is a crossover of duties between librarians and paraprofessionals. I’m simply saying that this will continue to be an image problem so long as it is found in the majority of public libraries around the country.

AndyW

September 8 is International Literacy Day

2010-09-02T17:24:31+00:00

International Literacy Day, traditionally observed annually on September 8, focuses attention on worldwide literacy needs. More than 780 million of the world’s adults (nearly two-thirds of whom are women) do not know how to read or write, and between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education.

Celebrate International Literacy Day by joining IRA on either September 7 or September 8 for webinars on Building Support for Effective Reading Instruction featuring IRA President Patricia Edwards, Richard Carson (Rotary Representative to the OAS) and Instructor Judy Backlund (IRA member and Rotary Club President). The webinar will be held twice, so choose the time that works best for you!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010 from 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. EST
This is a virtual event. Go to this URL to join the Tuesday webinar...or

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 from 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. EST
This is a virtual event. Go to this URL to join the Wednesday webinar.

Other live events, fact sheets, celebration ideas and award certificates can be found at the IRA Website.

Compromising Twitter's OAuth security system

2010-09-02T17:01:19+00:00

"By using the consumer key and consumer secret key from a popular third-party Twitter application, a spammer can make it harder for Twitter to lock out all of his spam accounts at once without also locking out a large number of legitimate users of the compromised application."

Plan for nationwide free wireless broadband finally shot down

2010-09-02T16:57:40+00:00

"In our last post on this subject, we urged the FCC to make a decision about this idea one way or another, and now the agency has. "

LISWire: National Bureau of Economic Research Content Available through EBSCO Discovery Service™

2010-09-02T15:58:08+00:00

~ Working Papers, Conference Papers and Monographs from NBER Accessible via EBSCO Discovery Service™ ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — September 2, 2010 — EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) customers will have access to content from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)—expanding the list of information accessible from within the discovery service.

Due to a recent agreement with NBER, EBSCO Discovery Service, from EBSCO Publishing, now indexes more than 20,000 working papers, conference papers and monographs published by the NBER since 1920. NBER is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. Content in NBER is developed with a focus on four types of empirical research: developing new statistical measurements, estimating quantitative models of economic behavior, assessing the economic effects of public policies, and projecting the effects of alternative policy proposals.

This robust content from NBER teamed with other comprehensive collections of metadata from the best content sources make EDS the most comprehensive service for searching the complete full text of journal articles and other sources. NBER joins Baker & Taylor, the British Library’s Electronic Table of Contents File (ETOC), NewsBank, Readex, LexisNexis, Alexander Street Press, Web of Science (for mutual customers) and many others.

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.

The Base Index for EBSCO Discovery Service forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library’s collection.

The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world’s foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, today the EDS Base Index provides metadata for nearly 50,000 magazines & journals, approximately 825,000 CDs & DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 100 million newspaper articles, more than 20,000 conference proceedings and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources from various source-types.

About EBSCO Publishing
EBSCO Publishing is the world’s premier database aggregator, offering a suite of nearly 300 full-text and secondary research databases. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals, magazines, books, monographs, reports and various other publication types from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). The company’s product lines include proprietary databases such as Academic Search™, Business Source®, CINAHL®, DynaMed™, Literary Reference Center™, MasterFILE™, NoveList®, SocINDEX™ and SPORTDiscus™ as well as dozens of leading licensed databases such as ATLA Religion Database™, EconLit, INSPEC®, MEDLINE®, MLA International Bibliography, The Philosopher’s Index™, PsycARTICLES® and PsycINFO®. Databases are powered by EBSCOhost®, the most-used for-fee electronic resource in libraries around the world.

EBSCO is the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service™ a core collection of locally-indexed metadata creating a unified index of an institution’s resources within a single, customizable search point providing everything the researcher needs in one place—fast, simple access to the library’s full text content, deeper indexing and more full-text searching of more journals and magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com, or contact: information@ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.
###
For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Manager
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com

Eat the Director's Brain: Zombies Attack The Collingswood Public Library!

2010-09-02T14:55:42+00:00

“Eat the Director’s Brain”: The Second Annual Collingswood Book Festival 5K Race to Raise Money for the Collingswood Public Library’s Teen Area

Of Two Minds About Books

2010-09-02T05:18:27+00:00

Auriane and Sebastien de Halleux are at sharp odds over “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” but not about the plot. The problem is that she prefers the book version, while he reads it on his iPad. And in this literary dispute, the couple says, it’s ne’er the twain shall meet.

Full article in the NYT

U.S. delays Web traffic rules by seeking more comment | Reuters

2010-09-02T05:11:30+00:00

"Democrats are afraid that Republicans will portray any FCC action to voters as an attempt by President Barack Obama and his party to control and regulate the Internet, analysts have said."

LISWire: Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor To Edit "Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales"

2010-09-02T02:30:01+00:00

(Calgary, Alberta) EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing is delighted to announce that Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor will be the editors for "Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales", to be publishing October, 2011.

This edition of the award winning series of original Canadian Speculative Fiction comes with a twist and touch of whimsy.

"We've decided to do something different with Tesseracts Fifteen." said Brian Hades, owner of the EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing imprint. "This volume will focus on Young Adult Speculative Fiction - which can include science fiction, fantasy, and horror. However submissions must appeal to the YA audience and be PG-14 in content. As usual, Tesseracts Fifteen is open to both short fiction and poetry submissions."

Each Tesseracts anthology since volume one (1985) has featured editors hand picked for each particular volume. For this volume, Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor have agreed to co-edit.

"We seek wonder and astonishment." said the editors. "Stories that engage the imagination, inspire dreams, and leave hope in their wake." Both Czerneda and MacGregor want all Canadian speculative fiction writers to "write what will become the classics for a new generation of readers, to be remembered, fondly, for years to come."

"I'm honoured to be part of the remarkable Tesseracts anthology series." says Czernada on her website, "I’m especially pleased by EDGE’s enthusiasm for the first-ever YA version. This will be a blast from start to finish."

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Julie Czerneda is a Canadian author and editor whose first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger, was published in 1997 by DAW Books. Since then, Julie has produced over a dozen more novels, edited fifteen anthologies, and written numerous short stories. Her work has won awards, consistently made bestseller lists, and garnered praise from readers and reviewers around the world.

Susan MacGregor has been an editor with On Spec magazine since 1991. Her published work has appeared in On Spec, Northern Frights, and other magazines. In 1998 her anthology Divine Realms was published through the Ravenstone imprint of Turnstone Books. Her most recent book The ABC’s of How NOT to Write Speculative Fiction was published in 2006 by the Copper Pig Writer’s Society, and is the basis for a number of workshops offered by On Spec magazine. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her studying Spanish and dancing flamenco. She lives in Edmonton.

ABOUT THE TESSERACTS SERIES

The first Tesseracts anthology was edited by Judith Merril. Since its publication in 1985, 240 authors/editors/translators and guests have written 483 pieces of Canadian speculative fiction, fantasy and horror for this series. Some of Canada's best known speculative fiction writers have been published within the pages of these volumes - including Margaret Atwood, William Gibson , Robert J. Sawyer, and Elisabeth Vonarburg (to name a few). Tesseracts Fifteen is the sixteenth volume in the series. The entire series includes Tesseracts One through Fifteen, and Tesseracts Q, which features translations of works by some of Canada's top francophone writers of science fiction and fantasy. "Tesseracts Fourteen: Strange Canadian Stories", edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory will be released in October, 2010. Tesseracts Fourteen features innovative short stories and poetry by 23 of Canada’s finest speculative fiction writers.

How To Open a New Book

2010-09-01T22:01:46+00:00

How To Open a New Book

...a document with historical significance? Found via The Dusty Bookshelf in Manhattan, KS.

Discarded Books Questioned

2010-09-01T19:43:22+00:00

Here we go again. Library Director Mary Markwalter of the Mason City IA Public Library said Wednesday some library books were tossed into a Dumpster by mistake — but most of the discarded items were part of the normal “weeding out” process.

She was talking about the discovery Tuesday of dozens of books that had been thrown into a dumpster at the Madison Early Childhood Center -- the temporary quarters of the library’s archives.

The discarded items included city directories and books published fairly recently.

“I know it’s hard for the public to understand, but all libraries go through weeding-out periods, and, when you’re moving, that’s a good time to do it,” she said.

The library has been in temporary quarters for a year but will re-open in October. The moving process is under way now.

“Normally, we find a home for the books or put them in a public place for sale or to give away,” said Markwalter. “We did that when we were moving things out of the old library. But we have no place to do it now.” Full story here.

Some MA School Libraries to Open...Sans Librarians

2010-09-01T18:26:06+00:00

The Bridgewater and Raynham (MA) middle school librarians won’t be getting their jobs back, but the schools’ libraries will remain open.

That was the word from school officials at the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 25. School Committee member Gordon Luciano said after the meeting the decision of the administration to use proctors instead of librarians at the middle schools this year is final and does not need a vote by the school board.

The school committee could have chosen to override the decision, he said. But there was no discussion of possible alternatives and there were no motions by committee members to take a different route.

The school committee meeting was the last before the beginning of school on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

Last year, Bridgewater Middle School and Raynham Middle School each had one full-time librarian. But this year, the funding for those positions was eliminated. Story from the Bridgewater Independent.

Google butterfingers slip jazz hands bug into Gmail • The Register

2010-09-01T17:00:58+00:00

"However – embarrassingly for Mountain View – the bug is only found when a Gmail account is viewed via Google’s Chrome. It doesn’t show up in Firefox or other browsers."

Hurricane Resources

2010-09-01T16:13:27+00:00

With Hurricane Earl getting set to hit the eastern coast of the United States and with hurricane season hardly over, it is appropriate to consider some available resources out there.

The audio of National Hurricane Center's storm briefings are being released on-demand in podcast form. You can subscribe using this link in your podcatcher: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/audio/index_podcast.xml

NOAA's tracking portal for Earl is located here: http://www.noaawatch.gov/2010/tc_at07.php

A list of all National Hurricane Center RSS feeds, including updates with rich data on storms in progress like Earl, can be found here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutrss.shtml

Widgets if you would like to integrate such into your library's own web pages can be found here: http://www.noaawatch.gov/widgets/

» Network Neutrality is Engaged in the California Senate Race - Big Government

2010-09-01T15:56:35+00:00

"News broke just before the weekend that California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina opposes the absurd notion known as Internet Network Neutrality (NN)."

Shortwave Central: Arguments for keeping VOA Greenville site continue

2010-09-01T15:52:28+00:00

"We have one advantage over the Internet — no one can stop us"

India says will ask Google and Skype for data access | Reuters

2010-09-01T15:51:59+00:00

"Analysts see no easy fix to the standoff as RIM says it has no way of intercepting the data that countries want to access. RIM has denied media reports that say it provided unique wireless services or access to any one country."

US undergrads crash NASA satellite into Arctic • The Register

2010-09-01T15:49:44+00:00

"Having got all that could be got from the now largely purposeless spacecraft in terms of engineering tests etc, NASA decided to decommission the ICESat and use its remaining manoeuvring fuel to send it down into the atmosphere."

Pro-Taliban mullah broadcasts illegally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

2010-09-01T15:49:04+00:00

"Swabi District alone has seven illegal FM stations, a senior government official in the district who requested anonymity said. "

N Korea accuses S Korea of blocking access to Twitter

2010-09-01T15:47:52+00:00

"North Korea accused The South today of blocking its people from accessing online social-networking sites launched by the North."

Amazon seeking to launch TV, movie subscriber service: WSJ

2010-09-01T15:47:13+00:00

"The service would be viewable on the Internet or through devices such as Web-connected TVs or Xbox 360 videogame consoles that play television shows and movies Amazon already sells on an individual basis, the newspaper said. "

One in Four Lap Dancers Has a College Degree - Lemondrop.com

2010-09-01T15:45:01+00:00

"Most dancers made between $37,000 and $74,000 annually -- and women with arts degrees who suddenly realize that ceramics degree isn't good for much also reported turning to private dancing for money. "

AT&T: Net rules must allow 'paid prioritization' | Politics and Law - CNET News

2010-09-01T15:35:19+00:00

"But the designers of the protocols that make up the modern Internet had something a bit more ambitious in mind. In the late 1990s, the Internet Engineering Task Force revised those standards to allow network operators to assign up to 64 different traffic 'classes,' meaning priority levels. "

Operation Medical Libraries in War Torn Afghanistan

2010-09-01T12:41:15+00:00

The New York Times reports on the growth of 'Operation Medical Libraries', an effort to restock Afghanistan’s hospitals, clinics and universities with medical textbooks. It began modestly in 2007 with a plea for books from a U.C.L.A. medical graduate serving in the Army and has since been embraced by 30 universities and hospitals, more than a dozen professional organizations and scores of individual doctors and nurses.

Nearly three decades of war and religious extremism have devastated medical libraries and crippled the educational system for doctors, nurses and other health professionals. Factions of the Taliban singled out medical texts for destruction, military medical personnel say, because anatomical depictions of the human body were considered blasphemous.

“They not only burned the books, but they sent monitors into the classroom to make sure there were no drawings of the human body on the blackboard,” said Valerie Walker, director of the Medical Alumni Association of UCLA.

By Ms. Walker’s estimate, 27,000 medical texts have reached Afghanistan through Operation Medical Libraries, but she adds that the number is probably much higher. Donors can contribute directly by visiting the project’s Web site, to find a military volunteer’s address, then shipping the books on their own.

E-books in a Correctional Setting: a niche market

2010-09-01T03:11:50+00:00

Excerpt from article at Corrections.com

I immediately saw the advantage of e-books in the prison setting. If each inmate could have a library of over 1,000 titles in one small e-book reader, it would cut down on hiding contraband among the books (such as sandpaper to erase their uniform logo), remove the unsanitary habit of reading books in the rest-room, cut down on repairing books (averaging 20% or over 1,200 books destroyed each year), free up space by limiting the 3 X 8 foot long bookshelves that only hold 640 books for 100 inmates in each unit, encourage struggling readers to listen to a book while reading the text on the screen, and, finally, allow anyone to increase the size of the font so LARGE PRINT will never be limited to a few titles!

Full article

Order in The Library! On-Line Game

2010-08-31T19:46:31+00:00

Via RT@shannonmmiller (Shannon Miller of the Van Meter, IA Library), check out Order in the Library...an online game using the Dewey Decimal system.

There are three games you can play; the sorting game, the shelving game and the reordering game. There's even a Spanish version. Go to it!

Itinerant Poetry Librarian Next Headed to Boston

2010-08-31T19:29:42+00:00

For four years, Sara Wingate Gray has been traveling the globe carrying a library of “lost and forgotten poetry” with her wherever she goes, and this week she is bringing the books to Jamaica Plain.

Through a character known as “the itinerant poetry librarian” she has devoted most of her days to finding bars, parks, pizza parlors and coffee shops in diverse locales—Romania, Washington DC, the Czech Republic, San Francisco—where she can set up shop.

This week, Wingate Gray’s traveling library is open in the Greater Boston Area, including two upcoming dates in Jamaica Plain. On Wed., Sept. 1 she will be at Forest Hills Cemetery from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. On Friday, Sept. 3, she will be at the Brendan Behan Pub 378 Centre St. from 4p.m. to 7 p.m.

The selections at Forest Hills will be focused on the theme of “dead poets,” Wingate Gray told the Gazette in an Aug. 31 interview at the Jamaica Plain Gazette offices. She said she is not sure what the theme of the Behan library will be, “I can guess it will have something to do with drunkenness and rock & roll,” she said.

The poetry library “is a real library,” Wingate Gray said. “The point is to remind people of the importance of free public libraries.” For updates, including upcoming library dates, see http://twitter.com/librarian.

Operational Miscellany

2010-08-31T17:55:11+00:00

I. Connectivity Problems

The upload of LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #118

took an unusual path. Due to complications arising relative to throughput provided by Time Warner Cable for cable broadband, alternative uploading methodology was required. This unfortunately caused the actual audio payload to go up first before the show notes could be added. Using the normal Time Warner Cable connection resulted in time-outs attempting to upload to the LISNews Drupal implementation.

How did this work? Frankly a Nokia E71x smartphone with access to GPRS data service from AT&T (not the same as 3G and definitely slower) was the transport layer for uploading. In terms of client software, Opera Mobile was used on the handset. Cut and paste into Opera Mobile was not conveniently available to paste the prepared show post text.

Even though the GPRS throughput was slow and 3G service on AT&T is not offered locally, the measured speed still outstripped the cable modem. This was not an optimal way to publish an episode. Circumstances of the communications failure are being investigated.

II. OhioLinuxFest 2010

Apparently I will be speaking there soon. There is at least one other presentation I would like to observe while there.

III. Scheduling interviews

In light of the Atlantic hurricane season being active, work is underway to get interview subjects relative to disaster response who can speak to how soon one should help send relief supplies to fellow librarians after an event.

IV. Carriage Inquiries

Radio carriage inquiries have been mailed to WIUP, WCUC, WBWC, and 95bFM. No replies have been received yet.

The Secret Life of a Toronto Librarian

2010-08-31T16:42:34+00:00

In March of 1969, Joseph Pannell repeatedly shot a (correction) Chicago beat cop, Terrence Knox; three bullets hit Knox resulting in permanent damage to his arm. Knox is now asking that authorities not let Pannell back into Canada where his family resides.

Pannell was arrested and faced charges but skipped bail in 1973 and spent the next 31 years hiding out under an assumed name in Canada. Going by the name Douglas Gary Freeman, Pannell married a Canadian woman, raised four children and worked as a librarian for many years in Toronto.

A check of a fingerprint database led Chicago police to Pannell’s Canadian home in 2004. Pannell fought extradition for several years before agreeing to a plea bargain that saw him spend 30 days in prison, pay a $250,00 fine to a Chicago charity and spend two years on probation. With his probation now up, Pannell asked to return to Canada.

But the union representing the workers at the Toronto Public Library where Pannell was employed asked that their former colleague be allowed back into Canada. Mr. Pannell is a former member of the Black Panthers.

"Mr. Freeman poses no threat to anyone in Canada, and the United States government has posed no objection to his returning to Canada,” wrote union local president Brendan Haley. “We are requesting that you exercise your discretion in this matter, on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, to grant Gary Freeman a temporary resident permit that will allow him to be reunited with his Canadian wife and children."

Toronto Sun reports.

Franzen's New Novel Freedom

2010-08-31T15:23:33+00:00

Did you enjoy the last Ron Charles video book review? Here's the new one...on Jonathan Franzen's new and highly anticipated title, Freedom.

Washington Post review.

LISWire: Grant MacEwan University Chooses EBSCO Discovery Service™

2010-08-31T15:10:13+00:00

~ Familiarity with EBSCOhost® Platform, Strong Content Coverage and the Ability to Grow Leads Grant MacEwan University to choose EBSCO Discovery Service™ ~

IPSWICH, Mass. —August 31, 2010 —Grant MacEwan University (MacEwan) has selected EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) as its library discovery solution. As a long time EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) customer, MacEwan was confident that EBSCO's familiar interface and deep content coverage would provide a strong foundation upon which to launch its new discovery service.

Two years ago MacEwan was looking for a federated search system that would provide a single search interface for students. However, during the planning process, discovery tools eclipsed federated search as MacEwan's preferred option. Grant MacEwan University's Coordinator of Library Technology, Gordon Bertrand, says the university’s experience with EBSCO was a deciding factor. “We went in with a high-level of confidence in EBSCO’s ability to deliver content and make Grant MacEwan’s existing electronic resources accessible in an easy to use platform with strong support and development. As students, faculty and staff were already familiar with the EBSCO interface, MacEwan felt the integration of EBSCO's EDS service could be accomplished in a timely and efficient manner with the least impact upon its users.”

Bertrand says MacEwan envisions EDS as a living project that will be capable of responding to the changing needs of the university moving forward. “EDS is a flexible tool and EBSCO is responsive to our needs. We know there is a demand for a more efficient search experience for the user and EDS allows us to provide a one stop search experience".

The university is offering a number of resources in EDS via EBSCOhost Integrated Search™ (EHIS) a complement to EBSCO Discovery Service which extends the discovery experience to external resources that are not made available for local harvesting. MacEwan is also taking advantage of a number of the customizability options available within EDS to include value-added features such as widgets to Lib Guides, Meebo chat and RSS feeds.

About EBSCO Publishing
EBSCO Publishing is the world’s premier database aggregator, offering a suite of more than 300 full-text and secondary research databases. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals, magazines, books, monographs, reports and various other publication types from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). The company’s product lines include proprietary databases such as Academic Search™, Business Source®, CINAHL®, DynaMed™, Literary Reference Center™, MasterFILE™, NoveList®, SocINDEX™ and SPORTDiscus™ as well as dozens of leading licensed databases such as ATLA Religion Database™, EconLit, Inspec®, MEDLINE®, MLA International Bibliography, The Philosopher’s Index™, PsycARTICLES® and PsycINFO®. Databases are powered by EBSCOhost®, the most-used for-fee electronic resource in libraries around the world. EBSCO is the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service™ a core collection of locally-indexed metadata creating a unified index of an institution’s resources within a single, customizable search point providing everything the researcher needs in one place—fast, simple access to the library’s full text content, deeper indexing and more full-text searching of more journals and magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com, or contact: information@ebscohost.com.

EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.
###
For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Manager
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com

A Very Old Library Celebrates

2010-08-31T12:30:37+00:00

The library was established by Bucks County PA farmers who combined their finances to order books from Philadelphia and from England.

Steeped in history, the private Newtown Library was founded on Aug. 9, 1760. Ben Franklin would be proud of the library. In fact, his picture is the focal point of the library’s historic signboard.

Sunday September 12 will mark the grand finale event of the Newtown Library Company’s 250th anniversary celebration. Music will waft through the air and historic characters will mingle with the crowd.
“It’s going to be an old-fashioned Sunday afternoon event,” said Karolyn Fisher, librarian of the Newtown Library Company.

Dubbed the “250th Birthday Bash,” the event will feature appearances by several historical figures, including William Penn, Ben Franklin, Edward Hicks and Beulah Twining. Bucks Local News.

Help Build The Most Comprehensive List Of Library Blogs Ever

2010-08-31T11:34:05+00:00

Walt Crawford is looking for a few more good blogs....

Check this page — Liblogs 2010 (with exclusions) — DRAFT. Use your browser’s Find function to check the name. (The list is in alphabetic order, but it’s idiot alpha order, with a few “A ” entries and a lot of “The ” entries. And, of course, cute punctuation can change sorting.)

If You Have Candidates…

Add a comment [NOT here at LISNews], with the blog name and URL–but give the URL as text, not as a link (omit the http://), and don’t combine the blog name with a link. (Why not? Because, particularly if you have more than one, it will cause Spam Karma 2 to flag it as spam–and with more than 100 spamments today, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sort through all the spam looking for legit posts.)
Or send me email, waltcrawford at gmail dot com, using the same rules.

At Bookstore, Even Non-Buyers Regret Its End

2010-08-31T05:57:55+00:00

On Monday afternoon, Jai Cha walked out of the Barnes & Noble at 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan as he does nearly every week — without a book.

“I’m just killing time,” said Mr. Cha, a 30-year-old lawyer, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. “I’ve been coming here to read Bill Simmons’s ‘Book of Basketball,’ about a chapter at a time.”

He might have to hurry. Barnes & Noble announced on Monday that at the end of January it would close the store, a four-story space across the street from Lincoln Center that has been a neighborhood landmark since it opened nearly 15 years ago.

Full story in the NYT

San Jose Lesbians and feminists mourn loss of Sisterspirit

2010-08-31T01:23:20+00:00

San Jose Lesbian and feminists mourn loss of Sisterspirit

Bookstore beloved of Lesbian and feminists to close. Online bookstores and the acceptance of Gay literature in chain bookstores are blamed.

(Sorry to censor, but this site's spam filter wouldn't accept this submission otherwise.)

Presidential Library Smack Down

2010-08-30T22:27:37+00:00

Hawaii...or Illinois? (some might suggest elsewhere...)

The Honolulu Star Advertiser reports that Hawaii has an early lead in pitching the islands as the future home of President Barack Obama's library, museum and think tank. However yet another Illinois-Hawaii smack-down is brewing over where it will actually end up.

The Hawaii Legislature has sent the White House a joint resolution that it passed last session urging Obama to pick Hawaii as the site for his library. Officials at the University of Hawaii are creating working groups in the next few weeks that will study a wide variety of issues, including finding a suitable site for the complex, designing it, deciding how to best manage the archives, designing museum exhibits and learning how best to create a related academic program and research center.

And on Sunday a Hawaii delegation led by Reed Dasenbrock, UH vice chancellor for academic affairs, will fly to Washington, D.C., to meet with the head of the presidential library division of the National Archives and to Little Rock, Ark., to meet with the director of the Clinton Presidential Center and the Clinton Foundation.

LISWire: The C.G. Jung Institute of San Fransisco Partners with ByWater Solutions for Koha Support and Implementation

2010-08-30T16:06:46+00:00

August 30th, 2010
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.com

The C.G. Jung Institute of San Fransisco Partners with ByWater Solutions for Koha Support and Implementation

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company, announced today that the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, CA. has partnered with them for the implementation and support of their official Koha integrated library system installation.

ByWater Solutions will provide the Virginia Allan Detloff Library with a full Koha Installation, data migration, customization of their staff and public interface, 24/7 comprehensive support, and hosting services.

Marianne Morgan of the Virginia Allan Detloff Library saw Koha as "an attractive option for having an affordable web enabled catalog for our users." When asked why she chose ByWater for the library's support needs, Marianne replied: "Several libraries in our local consortium have moved to Koha with ByWater recently, and all have had an excellent experience with them."

Brendan Gallagher, CEO of ByWater stated: "We are delighted to have the opportunity to partner with the staff of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco for their Koha migration. By adopting Koha in their library, the C.G. Jung Institute is bringing enhanced functionality and greater support for the staff and patrons. "

The Virginia Allan Detloff Library is targeted to go live by the end of 2010.

About the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco:
Analytical psychology is the theoretical foundation for Jungian analysis, a healing practice that serves the basic human need for psychological consciousness and growth.

The C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco was founded to advance a viewpoint vital to the conscious, ethical practice and utilization of analytical psychology and to disseminate knowledge central to that end.

The Institute trains psychotherapists to become Jungian analysts and maintains a collegial society to provide continuing education and ethical review for member analysts. It offers education and information to other professionals and the general public and promotes research about Jungian analysis and psychotherapy. It maintains the Virginia Allan Detloff Library and the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism as educational resources.
The Institute recognizes that the potential of wholeness and individuation depends on psychological development that in turn is supported or hampered by collective attitudes and laws. With this understanding, the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco supports in principle efforts that promote universal human rights. For more information please visit: www.sfjung.org

About Koha:
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies--XHTML, CSS and Javascript--making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit
www.koha-community.org

About ByWater Solutions:
With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, support options and development of enterprise class open-source library systems. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: www.bywatersolutions.com

A Look Back at the History of Print and Publishing (or It's Always Been a Tough Business)

2010-08-30T15:17:49+00:00

Change of pace from the more frequent 'death of print' stories here on LISNews.

This one's about the birth of print; a discussion of the newly published book by Andrew Pettegree, "The Book in the Renaissance" with Tom Scocca of Slate and the Boston Globe.

In the beginning, before there was such a thing as a Gutenberg Bible, Johannes Gutenberg laid out his rows of metal type and brushed them with ink and, using the mechanism that would change the world, produced an ordinary little schoolbook. It was probably an edition of a fourth-century grammar text by Aelius Donatus, some 28 pages long. Only a few fragments of the printed sheets survive, because no one thought the book was worth keeping.

“Now had he kept to that, doing grammars...it probably would all have been well,” said Andrew Pettegree, a professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews and author of “The Book in the Renaissance,” the story of the birth of print. Instead, Gutenberg was bent on making a grand statement, an edition of Scripture that would cost half as much as a house and would live through the ages. In the end, struggling for capital to support the Bible project, Gutenberg was forced out of his own print shop by his business partner, Johann Fust.

The article continues in a question and answer format here.

Reference Librarians, They're Out There

2010-08-30T14:40:18+00:00

Freed from their desks, reference librarians at the Orland Park IL Public Library have taken to the aisles to help patrons find the answers they need.

"We're out there looking for them," said Diane Srebro, assistant head of adult services. She asks a patron if he needs help as she makes the rounds with a HP Tablet as part of the new 'Ask Me' campaign.

The program began in the spring to enhance customer service for library patrons.

Armed with laptop computers and sporting "Ask Me" buttons, the librarians are fielding about 200 questions a month from the floor, Srebro said. All told, the reference desk averages about 3,000 reference questions a month.

"Technology has freed us from the reference desk," Srebro said. "It's part of our strategic plan for the adult services area." Southtown Star.

Mockingjay Stamping at Wellesley Free Library

2010-08-30T13:37:01+00:00

Wicked Local reports : Fans of “The Hunger Games” are invited to a very special event with Suzanne Collins, author of “The Hunger Games” trilogy, on Aug. 31 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington St. in Wellesley, MA.

Because Collins is hoping to meet as many readers as possible, and because of an existing hand strain, the event will begin promptly at 6 p.m. with a very brief reading and then move to a unique “book-stamping” in celebration of the release of the final book in the trilogy, “Mockingjay.” The stamp will be used throughout her fall 2010 tour. There will be no actual signing at this event. In order to meet as many readers as possible, Collins will stamp a maximum of one book per customer and will not be able to personalize any books. Photographs are allowed, but in the interest of time, attendees may not individually “pose” with Collins.

What do you think of authors as celebrities? Is it a good thing?

Words and Drink: To Help Repair The Children's Section

2010-08-30T13:27:47+00:00

Stonington CT - Shortly after this spring's flooding caused about $50,000 of damage to the Stonington Free Library's children's section, Peter Brown and his wife, Alexandra Stoddard, were talking to Dog Watch Cafe owner David Eck about how they could help.

Brown, a trial lawyer, decided that he would donate 1,000 copies of his new book, "Figure it Out," to the effort. On Sunday anyone who donated $25 to the library received a signed copy and a free drink at the Dog Watch.

The event was a hit as hundreds made donations to the library during a daylong event at the restaurant, which overlooks Stonington Harbor.

"This has just been a phenomenal success," said Stoddard, an author of books including "Living a Beautiful Life: 500 Ways to Add Elegance, Order, Beauty and Joy to Every Day of Your Life."

LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #118

2010-08-30T04:45:04+00:00

Ed Driscoll » ‘David Brooks: Be More Like Germany’

2010-08-28T14:58:06+00:00

"The American stimulus package was supposed to create a 'summer of recovery,' according to Obama administration officials. Job growth was supposed to be surging at up to 500,000 a month. Instead, the U.S. economy is scuffling along.

"The German economy, on the other hand, is growing at a sizzling (and obviously unsustainable) 9 percent annual rate. Unemployment in Germany has come down to pre-crisis levels."

Clearwire plans pay-as-you go service | Reuters

2010-08-28T14:55:57+00:00

"Clearwire Corp said on Friday that it is planning a pay-as-you-go service, representing a new customer segment for the high-speed wireless service provider."

Because That Whole Free-Speech-on-the-Internet Thing Was Just Keeping Us Down Too Long - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

2010-08-28T14:55:24+00:00

"The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that a California marketing company had settled charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees write and post positive reviews of clients' games in the Apple iTunes Store, without disclosing that they were being paid to do so."

The 'Recovery Summer' has been found! -- In Germany | Washington Examiner

2010-08-28T14:54:37+00:00

"Largely as a result, in my view, Germany has a genuine 'Recovery Summer' in progress. We don't, and we won't, as long as this administration continues down its current path."

Ed Driscoll » ‘Lost Decade? Here We Come!’

2010-08-28T14:52:58+00:00

"I think there‘s something new happening in terms of the economy, at least the perception of it, and that is a return of fear."

» California Tax Enthusiasts Target eBay Sellers - Big Government

2010-08-28T14:52:20+00:00

"Those familiar with one proposal floated this week say it would exempt from the requirement to collect and pay out California sales tax retailers who advertise with or market through California-based websites and who have not sold $10,000 or more worth of goods in aggregate to Californians during the prior 12 months.

"However, even in a rough economy, experts say many small businesses who sell through California-based eBay could exceed that threshold."

Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks: ZaReason Terra HD

2010-08-28T14:48:14+00:00

"Oh yeah, I always see people comment on blogs where Linux-laptop vendors are mentioned that they wish there was a company in their country selling these. Guess what? ZaReason ships internationally!"