I have a dream. And it could be easily enough achieved I guess. I would love to have a few ebook readers to loan out to my users. I know of a few libraries that offer Kindles in circulation, like Texas A&M and Princeton. Penn State and Sony recently announced a project where Sony donated [...]
ACRL has just approved the formation of a new Health Science Special Interest Group. The Interest Group will be added to the dues renewal starting in September.
However, there is an existing Google Group. There will also be a meeting at ALA Chicago, in the ACRL Suite. If you are interested (even if not a ALA/ACRL [...]
I linked a few months ago to a flash mob at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. More recently, several hundreds of students tried to enter the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga library during finals week. Two nights ago, it the was the William T. Young Library at the University of Kentucky to be visited by, [...]
In a report on a USF study, that I found a little disheartening, it was concluded that, while college students do use social media, they don’t use Twitter much and remain unaware of its use for business/professional purposes.
So, they use it to connect with friends, but couldn’t care less about businesses, brands or organizations [...]
The Internet Resources column in the April issue of C&RL News (vol. 70, no. 4) offers a useful list of resources to help academic librarians with the research component of their workload. The column, by Laurie L. Putnam, is entitled Professional Writing and Publishing: Resources for Librarians.
OCLC and Ebsco have announced an agreement that makes it possible for libraries that subscribe to both WorldCat Local and EBSCOhost services to provide their users with online access to the full text of electronic content.
My system has a WorldCat Local beta installation (and several Ebsco products). Users who have tried the beta have really [...]
An interesting list of tips, apps, and resources for teachers on Twitter (100 of them). May be more geared toward K-12 but still some good ideas for the higher ed crowd.
I’m playing with the idea of a session for my faculty.
Steve Ostrem at Library Journal wrote a nice article on how librarians can use Google Book Search for reference, research and collection development.
Particularly interesting, and new, is the “popular passages” search, the subject headings, the ability to clip and paste from public-domain works and the personalization options now offered via “My Library” with a [...]
Today, March 24th, is Ada Lovelace Day. It is an international day that wants to draw attention to women excelling in technology.
I would like to highlight two women here that I admire for their technological skills. I also have the pleasure of knowing them personally and, bonus, they’re librarians!
Jill Hurst-Wahl is an expert on [...]
Brian C Gray shared this morning that the IEEE Xplore database reached two million documents this month.
The two millionth article loaded into IEEE Xplore is “Intelligent Packet Dropping for Optimal Energy-Delay Tradeoffs in Wireless Downlinks,” by Michael J. Neely from the University of Southern California. It appears in the March issue of IEEE Transactions on [...]
I have seen two examples recently of libraries reaching out to their users to gather their comments.
Concordia University Libraries, in Montréal, Qué is using a web form (?) to gather comments and publishes responses via a blog. Questions/comments and answers are coming at a good clip. The Libraries administration actually uses the comments to improve [...]
The American Institute of Architects selected eight recipients for the 2009 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards. For each winning library, I tried to link to the website and to project details, via the architects’ sites and/or via the Architectural Record, if available.
Arabian Library, Scottsdale Public Library, Scottsdale, Arizona
richard+bauer architecture, LLC
about the project
C.V. Starr East Asian [...]
A little late, but interesting reading, ARL published mid-February a statement to publishers regarding research libraries and the global economic crisis. The document lists a few of the effects the economic crisis has on research libraries:
current and future -possibly permanent -budget cuts
cancellation of ongoing commitments
bigger preference of electronic over print
shortening of “long tail” collection development
changes [...]
McGraw-Hill announced a major revision of its Digital Engineering Library. The new site will be called AccessEngineering and the URL (http://accessengineeringlibrary.com) will be activated March 9th 2009.
The new site will offer new features and enhancements, including:
New graphical user interface: state-of-the art functionality streamlines access to content and reader
New taxonomy book view: the website is [...]
Brian Scott Mathews over at The Ubiquitous Librarian made some very interesting looking into the underground market for academic materials via illegal file sharing sites like bit torrent. Apparently, his fictional research brought up big time reference titles like the CRC handbooks, the entire Referex engineering e-book collection, Harvard Business Cases, textbooks and tutti quanti. [...]
As the first USF librarian at the Lakeland campus (now Polytechnic), I opened the USF Polytechnic Library in January 2007 and have developed its various services.
I've held positions as information broker, Internet consultant and academic librarian in Canada, the US and Europe.
A blogger since 2001, I've created and maintained several sites in, and outside, of the biblioblogosphere.
I'm active in SLA, and currently serve as Chair of the Information Technology Division.
