Featured Link

Featured Link: World Book Trade (e-books, awards, videos)

Monday, November 28, 2005

Oxford Journals to publish two 'Briefing' titles from 2006

Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press, has announced the purchase of two titles from Henry Stewart Publications, Briefings in Bioinformatics, and Briefings in Functional Genomics and Proteomics. The Briefings titles join Oxford's leading collection of Life Science titles from 2006

Library Books Shipping Tool

Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Library Association (CLA), with the assistance of the Association pour la science et les techniques de la documentation (ASTED), have introduced the Library Books Shipping Tool, an online application designed specifically with libraries in mind. For eligible libraries, it is a fast and convenient way to prepare and pay for your library book shipments in Canada

Lincoln Book Festival

The Lincoln Book Festival has been awarded 60,000 pounds over the next three years by the Arts Council. Organisers said the funding will be used to develop the audience with events targeted at youth groups, sport and cultural diversity

Web Citation Index

Thomson Scientific has announced the launch of Web Citation Index: the multidisciplinary citation index of scholarly content from institutional and subject-based repositories. Web Citation Index transcends the capabilities of traditional Web search engines, providing users with a robust citation-based discovery vehicle for preprints, technical reports, dissertations, proceedings, and other gray literature. It is the result of a collaborative program between Thomson Scientific, NEC Laboratories America (NEC), and seven major institutions: Australian National University, California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, the Max Planck Society, Monash University, University of Rochester, and NASA Langley

Research Information Network

The Research Information Network (RIN) is a new organization, established for an initial three-year period, with 3 million pounds of funding, by a consortium of UK sponsors: the four Higher Education funding bodies, the three National Libraries, and the eight Research Councils. Its mission is to lead and co-ordinate new developments in the collaborative provision of research information for the benefit of researchers in the UK

Information Today is blogging Online Information 2005

Information Today is blogging the Online Information 2005 conference, being held in London, UK November 29-December 1

Saturday, November 26, 2005

British Library Direct hits 5000 registered user mark

The British Library's recently-launched online document supply service, British Library Direct, has just signed up its 5000th registered user, just five months after going live in June. The service, which provides complete resource-discovery-to-delivery access to millions of research articles in the Library's collections, now serves customers in some 138 countries ranging from Korea (North and South) to Christmas Island

Swets and SUSHI

Swets has announced that, working as part of the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI), it is the first subscription agent to have successfully completed integration tests of their Electronic Resource Management statistics with two ILS vendors, Innovative Interfaces and Ex Libris. The Statistics transferred in these tests were all compliant with the internationally recognized COUNTER format

Exact Editions

Exact Editions is a web-based distribution and marketing company working for the world's best consumer magazines. Exact Editions has built a scaleable technology platform which replicates and aggregates exact copies of printed magazines and periodicals for web distribution and reliable searching

What's New at OECD - Librarian's Edition

What's New at OECD - Librarian's Edition - November 2005 is now avialable

Open Canada Digitization Initiative

Open Canada Digitization Initiative - Leaders of Canada's major research libraries held a national summit at Emerald Lake, BC, November 1-3, 2005. The summit outlined plans for online access to Canada's recorded heritage. At the conclusion the participants declared their commitment to a coordinated and sustained program to digitize Canada's information and knowledge resources, with 2006 as the catalyst year

Friday, November 25, 2005

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: General Knowledge. Answers here

1. Who played "Mr Bean" on television and in a film?
2. Was the Berlin Wall built in 1948, 1953 or 1961?
3. On which African river is the Kariba Dam: is it the Nile, the Zambezi or the Congo?
4. Which 1976 film, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, was based on the Watergate scandal?
5. Mary O'Brien is the real name of which British singer who died in Los Angeles in 1999?
6. Which British author wrote the novels "A Town Like Alice" and "On the Beach," both set in Australia?
7. Which country used to be called East Pakistan?
8. The Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) marked the end of a war between Russia and which country?
9. Which player led the 1984 and 1992 U. S. Olympic basketball teams to gold medals?
10. What is the meaning of the word "defenestration?"

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 135

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 135 - December 2005 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University, is now available

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Free Pint Newsletter 195

Free Pint Newsletter 195 - 24 November 2005 - now available

8th International Bielefeld Conference 2006

8th International Bielefeld Conference 2006: Academic Library and Information Services: New Paradigms for the Digital Age - 7-9 February 2006 - Bielefeld, Germany - Full programme now available

Elsevier and Science Press launch joint translation center in China

Elsevier and Science Press have launched a joint translation center to reciprocally promote books and journals in the Chinese and international markets. The joint translation center's first selection will include key Elsevier book and major reference work titles to be released in the Chinese market, and Science Press English language book titles to be introduced internationally by January 2006. On the journal side, a selection of STM journals, which are currently produced by Science Press as printed editions, will be jointly published and distributed in both print and ScienceDirect versions

ArchiveGrid

ArchiveGrid will be the ultimate destination for searching through family histories, political papers, and historical records held in archives around the world. Hundreds of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Scholars searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week - November 23, 2005

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Harper Collins goes green

Harper Collins has adopted a new paper purchasing policy which commits the company towards phasing out paper from ancient and endangered forests and towards ancient forest friendly solutions like recycled and FSC certified paper for all of its books. HarperCollins has worked with the Greenpeace Book Campaign to develop this policy

Public Broadcasters, Museums, and Libraries to hold Videoconference on Collaboration

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute for Museum and Library Services have announced that the Partnership for a Nation of Learners will sponsor a national/local Community Collaboration Videoconference. The videoconference is designed to introduce the ideas behind the Partnership for a Nation of Learners initiative, including why collaboration is a critical skill in a changing information environment; discuss the PNL program, and its grant and professional development resources; and help local groups begin to talk about how they might work together to solve pressing needs in their communities - November 30, 2006

eyetoeye: IngentaConnect library newsletter

eyetoeye: IngentaConnect library newsletter - Issue 17 - November 2005 is now available

HigherEd BlogCon

HigherEd BlogCon aims to bring together in a single Web space many of the leading players who are transforming academe with their use of the new tools of the Social Web. Modelled after Global PR Blog Week 2.0, Higher Ed BlogCon will focus on the use of blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, vblogs and other digital tools in a range of areas in academe - April 2006

NetLibrary reaches 100,000-title milestone

NetLibrary, a division of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., and a leading platform for full-text digital content in libraries worldwide, has achieved a ground-breaking milestone in the eContent industry. NetLibrary is the first eContent platform to offer academic, public, special and school library users access to more than 100,000 full-text eBook and eAudiobook titles

Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki

The Biz Wiki is a collection of business information resources available through Ohio University Libraries. It is designed to assist business researchers in finding the best resources for their projects or topics. The Biz Wiki contains articles about business reference books, databases, websites, and other research guides. Nearly all of the resources will only be available to current members of the Ohio University community, as many of the resources are subscription databases or local reference resources

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Wall Street Journal Online - LexisNexis alliance

A new arrangement between The Wall Street Journal Online and LexisNexis has been announced. It will launch in January 2006. Under the agreement, LexisNexis will become the exclusive distributor of enterprise subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal Online to law firms in North America

Open Road 2006 Conference: Challenges and possibilities

Open Road 2006 Conference: Challenges and possibilities will address the challenges and possibilities of providing access to and development of content and web services within the multilingual environment by engaging the audience in plenary sessions, workshops and round table discussions - 6-7 February 2006 - Victoria, Australia

CLEONet announced

CLEONet is an online clearinghouse for community legal education in Ontario. It is a project of Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO), and is funded by The Law Foundation of Ontario

World Digital Library to be created

The Library of Congress is launching a campaign to create the World Digital Library, an online collection of rare books, manuscripts, maps, posters, stamps and other materials from its holdings and those of other national libraries that would be freely accessible for viewing by anyone, anywhere with Internet access - Washington Post

SciPolicy now available via open access

SciPolicy, The Journal of Science and Health Policy, has announced that, as a public service, all of its articles are now free and open access on-line. The move is prompted by a recent ten-fold increase in demands on its already busy website for articles related to its Amicus Currie filing in Federal Court (Kitzmiller, et al v Dover Area School District and school Board) opposing government mandates to teach of intelligent design in public schools and the Science Wars controversies

LISTA database free to all Interested in Libraries and Librarianship

EBSCO Publishing is now providing the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database as a free resource to anyone interested in libraries and information management. This world-class bibliographic database provides coverage on subjects such as librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Delivered via the EBSCOhost platform, LISTA indexes more than 600 periodicals plus books, research reports, and proceedings. With coverage dating back to the mid-1960s, it is the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science

Monday, November 21, 2005

Turpion Journal Archive 1958 - 1995

Turpion has comprehensively digitized its journal archive dating back to the first English translation volumes. The archive is produced with the cooperation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics Publishing, London Mathematical Society, The Royal Society of Chemistry, the British Library, and American Institute of Physics, American Mathematical Society. The archive contains full-text articles of top-level research in physics, mathematics and chemistry. These journals played a central role in the development of Russian basic science, containing some of the best articles by prominent authors

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Open Educational Resources portal

A new Web initiative launched at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), will connect anyone with Internet access and the desire to learn to a world of free, high-quality open educational materials. The Development Gateway Foundation's Open Educational Resources portal aims to equalize access to education and help people in developing countries improve their chances for a better life. The portal features free course materials and other educational content offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Chinese Open Resources for Education and other institutions around the world. The initiative is launched in partnership by the Development Gateway Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Webology

Webology, a scholarly journal in English devoted to the various fields of Library and Information Science and serves as a forum for discussion and experimentation - Volume 2, Number 3, 2005 is now available

Chmoogle - Chemistry Search Engine

eMolecules, Inc. has announced the launch of Chmoogle. Chmoogle's mission is to discover, curate and index all of the public chemical information in the world, and make it available to the public. Chmoogle distinguishes itself by extremely fast searches, an appealing presentation of results, and high-quality chemical drawings

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Before Gaming: Celebrating Las Vegas' Centennial 1905-2005

Before Gaming: Celebrating Las Vegas' Centennial 1905-2005 - The UNLV Libraries has designed a concise collection of digital photographs that feature some of the earliest pictures available of Las Vegas. Many of these 37 photographs are from the private collections of families who arrived in Las Vegas around the time of its incorporation in 1905: Helen Stewart, Walter Bracken, William Ferron, Ed Von Tobel, and Fred and Maurine Wilson. A short narrative is provided to assist in browsing the collection, and/or the digital exhibit can be searched by prearranged topics

Looking At: Jazz, America's Art Form

The American Library Association Public Programs Office and National Video Resources, in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center, are accepting grant applications from libraries that are interested in hosting Looking At: Jazz, America's Art Form, a new film viewing and discussion series. Applications are now available and must be received by February 10, 2006. The National Endowment for the Humanities provides support for the series

2005 Governor General’s Literary Awards

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the names of the winners of the 2005 Governor General's Literary Awards, in English and in French, in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, children’s literature (text and illustration) and translation

Friday, November 18, 2005

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: Railways and Railroads. Answers here

1. What is the name for a railway that runs on a single rail?
2. What kind of railway equipment is named after its American originator, George M. Pullman?
3. Which children's novel about railways was written by E. Nesbit in 1906?
4. In which city was the world's first urban underground railway built in 1863?
5. Nakhodka in the Russian Far East is the eastern terminus of which famous railway?
6. What was the nickname for the American railway engineer John Luther Jones, who saved the passengers when his train crashed?
7. Who invented the first successful steam locomotive in 1814 and constructed the first railway to carry passengers, the Stockton and Darlington Railway?
8. On the subject of railways, what kind of thing was a "Bradshaw?"
9. Name the locomotive, designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, which took the world steam traction speed record in July 1938.
10. In which city on the Pacific Coast does the Canadian Pacific Railway terminate?

Readex partners with Dartmouth College Library

Readex has announced that it has partnered with Dartmouth College Library to digitize directly from its renowned holdings of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers. Rather than creating digital images from microform editions, Readex is digitizing from the original print volumes of these essential government publications, housed in Dartmouth College's Baker-Berry Library. These digital editions are part of the Readex Archive of Americana, a Web-based family of historical collections containing books, broadsides, newspapers, government publications and more

THOMAS new look and easier navigation

The THOMAS congressional-information Web site, available free from the Library of Congress, has a new look, with features that improve site navigation and make it easier for users to quickly find the information they are looking for

2006 EBSCOhost and EBSCOadmin Enhancements

EBSCOhost and EBSCOadmin have announced enhancements to their services for 2006

Canadian federal government databases accessible through the Internet

The 3rd edition of the bibliography of online Canadian federal government databases is now available. This edition lists 377 databases publicly accessible on Government of Canada Web sites. Some of these databases require user registration

The Eduserv Chest Data Messenger

The Eduserv Chest Data Messenger - 17 November 2005 - now available

UCSB digitizes and places online 5000 cylinder recordings

The Department of Special Collections at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Davidson Library recently placed online, with free access, over 5000 sound recordings as part of its Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Wiley InterScience Newsletter

Wiley InterScience Newsletter - Volume 1, Issue 7, November 2005 now available

Quintura Search

Quintura Inc. has announced the release of its Web search software, Quintura Search 1.0 beta designed to help users find relevant information on the Web easier and faster

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship - Number 44, Fall 2005 - is now available

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week - November 17, 2005

Discovering Dickens - Stanford University

Discovering Dickens - Stanford University - community reading project focusing on the works of Charles Dickens. Features archived editions of Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and Hard Times

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Google Print re-named

Google Print is now known as Google Book Search

Chooselaw.com announces free legal content feeds

Chooselaw.com, the legal website of the people, for the people, and by the people, has announced that it will be offering use of its legal content for other websites, via RSS and Javascript based feeds absolutely free of charge. This feature allows a multitude of users such as lawyers, law students, businessman, as well as the general public to have access to an immense wealth of useful and practice information acquired and produced by Chooslaw.com

EBSCO Publishing website updated

EBSCO Publishing has announced the launch of its newly revised database home page

Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice

Oxford University Press has announced the launch of a new Intellectual Property journal. The Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, (JIPLP) will publish peer-reviewed research across the full range of substantive IP topics, including practice-related matters such as litigation; enforcement; drafting and transactions; and relevant aspects of related subjects such as competition and world trade law

Joan Didion wins National Book Award

Joan Didion, whose memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking" is quickly becoming a classic portrait of grief, has won the National Book Award for nonfiction

University of Oxford signs with VTLS

VTLS Inc. has announced that Oxford University Library Services has chosen VIRTUA as the preferred library management system for the University of Oxford and its member libraries. There are approximately fifteen million items held within the libraries at Oxford, including one million maps, one million musical scores and 1.5 million manuscripts. The system will initially be used to manage 5.4 million bibliographic records associated with 8.7 million items. VTLS will carry out customized development of the system to support an average of c. 9,000 closed-stack delivery requests per week

Rhaptos 1.5 software released

Rhaptos is the code name for the software developed and used by the Connexions project. This software allows students to access a wealth of educational material on the Internet. It also enables authors and instructors to create and organize educational material into modules, which they can select and assemble into collections that are customized to meet their teaching and learning needs

Archive-it

The Internet Archive's new subscription service, Archive-it, allows any user to create, manage and search their own web archive through a web interface without any technical expertise required. Archive-it can be used to archive an institution's own web site, or build collections of up to one hundred web sites. Through a web based interface users can create web collections, catalogue the websites associated with a collection, archive websites in the collection, monitor the archiving process, search and browse the collection when complete, and administer access to these collections. In addition, the service will support collaborative collections, where curators at separate organizations can create and share collections

Science.gov 3.0

Science.gov 3.0 will make your search results more relevant than ever. While Version 2.0 introduced relevancy ranking to the search of government science databases and Web sites, Science.gov 3.0 will take relevancy ranking a step further

The Future of the Digital Commons

MIT World has posted a video of the September 22 forum, The Future of the Digital Commons, with Nancy Kranich, Former President, American Library Association; Ann Wolpert, Director, MIT Libraries; and Steven Pinker, Harvard University

What I Wish I Had Known by Roy Tennant

What I Wish I Had Known by Roy Tennant - It has been many years since I left library school. Suffice it to say that I remember the days of using 300 bps acoustic coupler modems to search Dialog databases with an impenetrable syntax that defies description. Now, in middle age, I'm looking back from this Google-rules world and wondering what I wish I had known in those early days... - Library Journal, November 15, 2005

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Xrefer named to 2005 "EContent 100"

Xrefer has been named one of the 2005 "100 companies that matter most" in the digital content industry by EContent Magazine. The EContent list is compiled by the editors of EContent and Information Today, Inc., in collaboration with the most respected editors and reviewers covering the digital content universe. The EContent 100 list is available in the December print issue of EContent and online at www.econtentmag.com

wjm western journal of medicine back archive

The BMJ Publishing Group and PubMed Central have announced that the full text of wjm western journal of medicine is now available online on PMC. wjm ceased publication in September 2002. However, by re-issuing this resource online at PMC, you have a second chance to access content from 1974 to 2002

Infusions Training Programme 2005

Infusions, an information skills training organisation based in Scotland, is offering a number of one-day training courses for public library staff. These courses have been designed to meet the continuing professional development requirements of public library staff, and equip staff with the kind of advanced skills identified in the "Building the New Library Network" report. The courses reflect the Advanced roles described in the report, and were delivered as part of the NOF Advanced training for public library staff programme throughout the UK

Whitbread Book Awards 2005 shortlists announced

Whitbread has announced the shortlists for the Whitbread Book Awards 2005 in the Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book Award categories

D-Lib Magazine November 2005

D-Lib Magazine November 2005 is now available

EDINA Newsline November 2005

EDINA Newsline November 2005, Volume 10, Issue 3, now available online

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

LookSmart and RLG partner

RLG has announced a partnership with LookSmart. The partnership will bring RLG's Trove.net, a database containing over 209,000 rare and unusual images, to LookSmart's users through FindArticles, LookSmart's dynamic search vehicle for free and premium content on the web

Coming Up Taller award nominations

The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, has announced the 2006 Coming Up Taller nomination application. By honoring excellence in after-school and out-of-school arts and humanities programs for young people, the Coming Up Taller Awards promote a creative, engaged, skilled, and confident generation of young people. Deadline is January 30, 2006

DASER 2 Summit

DASER 2 Summit - Open Access and Institutional Repositories - 2-4 December 2005 - University of Maryland, College Park, MD

New York Times announces winners of the 2005 Librarian Awards

The New York Times has announced the names of the 27 winners of the 2005 New York Times Librarian Awards

Monday, November 14, 2005

eWell-Being Awards

SustainIT's eWell-Being Awards are the UK's only national Awards that identify and promote social, economic and environmental benefits of Information and Communication Technologies. Now in its fourth year, the Awards aim to:

Showcase best practice to stimulate the application of technology for social and environmental benefits.
Examine and promote emerging technologies, where they have the potential to provide environmental and social benefits.
Raise awareness of the benefitcal and inspirational uses of ICT.

Closing Date - Friday 2 December 2005

Inspec Archive - Science Abstracts 1898-1968 now available via EBSCO

EBSCO Publishing has announced the availability of the new Inspec Archive - Science Abstracts 1898-1968 database via EBSCOhost. Inspec Archive is an essential complement to the existing Inspec database and vital for all institutions that have research needs in the areas of any programs in engineering, physics, computer science or scientific & technical fields

Emerald Librarian Toolkit

Emerald Group Publishing, has launched the Emerald Librarian Toolkit, a series of free guides which will enable librarians to better market the electronic full text, reviews and abstracts to their faculty and student user base, to encourage optimum use of services. The toolkit comprises modules ranging from training users to monitoring usage and promoting Emerald within the institution

Sunday, November 13, 2005

IMLS makes award to OCLC

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has made a $399,197 award to OCLC Online Computer Library Center, in conjunction with the J. Paul Getty Trust, to plan and co-host the 2006 and 2007 Web-Wise Conferences on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World

Museums and the Web 2006

Museums and the Web 2006: exploring the on-line presentation of cultural and heritage content across institutions and around the world - March 22-25, 2006 - Albuquerque, New Mexico

Saturday, November 12, 2005

2006 Inderscience Journals Catalogue

The 2006 Inderscience Journals Catalogue is now available giving details of the 170 journals they publish in Engineering, Computing/ICT and Technology; Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development; Management and Business Administration; Healthcare, Sport and Leisure

E-MmITS Autumn/Winter available

The Autumn/Winter issue of E-MmITS, the electronic newsletter of the Multimedia and Information Technology Group Scotland, is now available

Biblio Tech Review

The November 2005 issue of Biblio Tech Review is now available

Friday, November 11, 2005

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: Games. Answers here.

1. How many players take part in a game of solitaire?
2. What is the name for the children's game in which a visible object is guessed from the initial letter of its name?
3. In the game of darts, how many points are scored with a "double top?"
4. In the game of cat's cradle, what substance is transferred from the hands of one player to another?
5. What is the name for the children's game in which players hop or jump through a pattern of numbered spaces to retrieve a thrown object?
6. What is the name for the game in which players try to flick small flat discs into a cup using larger discs?
7. In tenpin bowling, how many times can a bowler play in each frame?
8. What is the name for the game, similar to bowls and popular in France, played on rough ground, in which the players try to hit a small metal ball with larger balls?
9. How many balls are used in the game of snooker?
10. What is the name for the game in which a two-headed top is balanced and spun on a string stretched between two sticks?

Globalisation, Education, Information and libraries

Globalisation, Education, Information and libraries - This event focuses on the possible future for libraries in the United Kingdom under new global trade rules - 2 December 2005 - Swansea University, Wales

Springer Science+Business Media acquires Current Medicine Group

Springer Science+Business Media has acquired the Current Medicine Group, a leading publisher for the healthcare community

OA Librarian

OA Librarian is a blog designed to gather together major search sources for freely available information in library and information science

Web 2.0: Building the New Library

Web 2.0: Building the New Library - Paul Miller explores some of the recent buzz around the concept of 'Web 2.0' and asks what it means for libraries and related organisations - From Ariadne

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Free Pint Newsletter 194

Free Pint Newsletter 194 - 19 November 2005 - now available

The Virtual Reference Desk

The Virtual Reference Desk has announced that it has set up a public blog for participants at its 7th annual reference conference being held on November 14-15, 2005 in San Francisco, CA

David Bergen wind Giller Prize

David Bergen has been named the 2005 winner of The Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada's premier literary prize for fiction, for his novel The Time In Between, published by McClelland & Stewart

Abebooks.com has acquired BookFinder.com

Abebooks.com has acquired BookFinder.com. The acquisition unites two pioneering independent forces in Internet bookselling. Both companies are privately owned and profitable. Both companies were initially developed in 1996, support independent booksellers, and share the same mission of making online book buying easy

British Crimewriters Association Golden Dagger Awards

The winners of the British Crimewriters Association Golden Dagger Awards for 2005 have been announced

CLIR Issues - Number 48

CLIR Issues - Number 48 November/December 2005 - is now available from the Council on Library and Information Resources

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

User Interfaces for Physical Spaces

User Interfaces for Physical Spaces - MAYA Design and the IA Institute present an exclusive one-day workshop for information architects. Complex information environments aren't always online. Libraries are the original information-rich public domains. So when one of the world's first public libraries called in building architects to renovate their historic facilities, they also called in information architects from MAYA Design to renovate their information space - 12 December 2005

Info@UK Issue 56

Info@UK Issue 56, November 2005, is now available from The British Council

Google to join library session

The Online Information blog has announced that Google will be joining the Future of the Library session on Tuesday 29 November, 11.15-12.45. J.L. Needham, Strategic Development Manager, Google, will be commenting on Michael Gorman, Elisabeth Niggemann and Glenda Myer's presentations in light of the Google Print and Google Scholar project

Dickens book sales boosted by TV

Sales of Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House have risen in the wake of the BBC's star-studded TV adaptation. More than 5,000 copies have been sold in the last four weeks, according to industry tracker Nielsen Bookscan - BBC

Dialog Choice Pricing

Dialog has announced that it is now offering its Dialog Choice pricing plan, featuring unlimited access to key research databases at fixed annual rates, to academic institutions worldwide. With Dialog Choice, graduate schools, universities and other academic institutions now can provide their faculty, students and researchers with direct, desktop access to high-value databases of scientific, technical and medical research, as well as news, business intelligence and other current awareness content, aggregated by Dialog from leading information publishers

International Learned Journals Seminar

22nd International Learned Journals Seminar: The new publishers - 31 March 2006 - London, UK

Enhanced access to College & Research Libraries

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has announced that its scholarly research journal College & Research Libraries is available free of charge in PDF format on the ACRL website six months after publication. Retrospective issues now are available through volume 58 (1997).

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Access 2005 presentations now available

Presentations given at Access 2005 - October 17-19, 2005 - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, are now available

The Reference Interview

The Reference Interview from RUSA is a comprehensive course focusing on the methods of evaluating reference service, behavioral aspects of reference service, and the different types of questions that can be used to help patrons identify what they need. Using images, audio, and video, this in-depth educational approach covers everything from the approachability of the librarian to how to follow up with a patron. Scheduled chat sessions will model interviewing techniques using sample dialogues - February 6-April 6, 2006

Monday, November 07, 2005

Xrefer signs Omnigraphics as Publishing Partner

Xrefer has announced that it has signed an agreement with Omnigraphics to add the Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary 3rd Edition (©2005) to Xreferplus' Ready-Reference service

NGITS 2006

NGITS 2006 - The 6th Workshop on Next Generation Information Technologies and Systems - July 4-6, 2006 - Kibbutz Shefayim, Israel

Aslib training

Aslib is now listing its training courses for November and December 2005

Siemens develops printable, low-cost, disposable video display

Siemens has announced a new colour display screen that can be printed onto paper or cardboard and is thin, flexible, and affordable enough to be included in books, magazines, labels, tickets, instructions, multimedia games embedded in the breakfast cereal box and a host of other traditionally "dumb" media...

The World Almanac E-Newsletter

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - Volume 05, Number 11 — November 2005 is now available

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Designing for Scent: Why Stinky Sites Work

Designing for Scent: Why Stinky Sites Work by Darlene Fichter - Researchers at Xerox Park (Palo Alto Research Center) have found that humans find information on the Web by following the "scent" of information just like blood hounds on the hunt for their prey. Write so that your site has a strong scent and draws people towards the information they need. Learn trigger words that build strong, sweet smelling trails, and avoid common pitfalls that lead users astray or that cause them to lose the scent. Take home tips to make your site "stinky" and to spot areas to improve - This is a one hour audio conference with Web-based visuals supported by a handout. There will be a 35-45 minute presentation and 15-25 minutes for co-browsing, analyzing sites and questions - Tuesday, November 8

ECDL 2006

The 10th ECDL will be held in Alicante, Spain, in September 2006. The ECDL has become the major European conference on digital libraries, and associated technical, practical, and social issues, gathering researchers, developers, content providers and users in the field. Contributions and participation are welcome from scholars, researchers, developers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines from all parts of the world. Submissions are invited for full or short papers, posters, demonstrations, panels, tutorials and workshops

KMWorld & Intranets Conference and Exhibition

The 9th annual KMWorld & Intranets Conference and Exhibition will be held on November 15-17, 2005 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, in San Jose, California

OAses Open Access Toolbar

OAses, a toolbar for Internet Explorer, is designed to make internet searching easier for students, academicians and scientists. OAses searches many open access resources, free databases, and search engines. The toolbar is free to download and use, easy to install, and requires no registration

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Promoting Library Services Using Blogs and RSS (Live Online)

Promoting Library Services Using Blogs and RSS (Live Online). At the end of this two-day course, participants will be able to:

Define terms relating to blogging and RSS.
Evaluate blogs based on features, design elements and content.
Build a blog from the ground up.
Edit your blog using basic HTML.
Create and use and aggregated news feed (RSS).

A SOLINET E-cademy workshop - November and December, 2005

DSpace User Group Meeting, Bergen 2006

The University of Bergen has announced that it will host a two day DSpace User Group Meeting on 20 and 21 April 2006. The meeting will primarily be concerned with technology and processes that have been developed to embed DSpace into institutional systems, and the different roles that DSpace has found in this environment, beyond purely that of an Institutional Repository platform. In addition important general developments will be presented, and there will be tutorials for both technical and non-technical DSpace users

London Disability Network for Archives, Libraries and Museums - Launch Event

London Disability Network for Archives, Libraries and Museums Launch Event and Consultation Session - Monday 5th December 2005 - The Women's Library, London, UK - The aim of the Disability Network is to provide a regional forum where archive, library and museum staff, customers, policy-makers and experts in the field of access and inclusion can meet together to discuss ways to improve access to the heritage sector for disabled people

Microsoft and the British Library work together

Microsoft and the British Library have announced a strategic partnership to digitise 25 million pages of content from the Library's collections in 2006, with a long term commitment to digitise still more in the future. They will work together to digitise around 100,000 out-of-copyright books and deliver search results for this content through the new MSN Book Search service help people find precisely what they're looking for on the web. MSN Search will launch an initial public beta offering next year

Open Source Software in Libraries

Open Source Software in Libraries. This workshop will provide structured opportunities for participants to experience how open source software can be used to implement many library-specific processes using open source software - February 17, 2006 - Texas

New website for NCLIS

The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) has announced the availability of a newly redesigned Commission Web site. The new site not only has a dramatically different appearance, it represents a major reorganization of the content and links. It is designed to help people find current and historical information about national information policy, dissemination of government information to the public, and news about the Commission and its initiative and activities

Friday, November 04, 2005

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: Isms. The suffix "-ism" is one of the commonest endings in English, usually describing some situation, activity, belief or habit. For example, "heroism" is the activity of a hero. From these definitions, try to identify ten words that all end with -ism. Answers here

1. A world religion that originated in ancient India, founded by the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.
2. The act of inducing hypnosis.
3. The act of criticizing, especially adversely.
4. Excessive drinking of alcohol which becomes addictive.
5. Staying away from work for no good reason.
6. Copying and publishing someone else's work as your own.
7. A word, phrase, or idiom characteristic of English as it is spoken in the United States.
8. The policy of extending, usually by conquest, the rule of a state over other countries or peoples.
9. Interest in and desire for money, possessions, etc., rather than spiritual or ethical values.
10. An individual animal or plant

ALA Poster Session 2006

Poster sessions will be presented on June 24, 25, and 26 at the New Orleans conference. Applications for presenting poster sessions for both US and International participants at the 2006 American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans are now being accepted. A web form application is available on the poster session website. The website also provides rules and guidelines for presenting poster sessions, helpful hints in applying, subject categories for sessions, frequently asked questions, and photos of sample poster sessions

eBooks Take the Ivory Tower

Webcast: Library Journal's URLearning Series: eBooks Take the Ivory Tower - November 15, 2005 - Program starts at 2 p.m. (EST)

OCLC PICA acquires FDI

OCLC PICA B.V. has announced that it has acquired the Fretwell-Downing Informatics Group

SPARC Open Access Newsletter

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #91 - November 2, 2005 is now available

ebrary launches OnDemand

ebrary has announced the availability of the ebrary OnDemand platform, which enables libraries and publishers to distribute their own PDF content online. ebrary OnDemand is powered by the ebrary Dynamic Content Platform (DCP) and features all of its functionality including the ebrary Reader software, designed to optimize online viewing by delivering documents to an end-user's desktop page-by-page, and InfoTools software, which integrates existing content databases and information on the Web

Google posts first books online

The first works scanned and put online as part of Google's controversial print project have been unveiled. Included in this opening swathe are many 19th Century works of American literature and history. The works were chosen because they are out of copyright and unaffected by legal action that led Google to briefly halt its digitisation project. Groups representing authors and publishers say the project amounts to copyright infringement. BBC

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index New This Week - November 3, 2005

Thursday, November 03, 2005

28th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2006)

28th European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2006) - 10-12 April 2006 - Imperial College, London. UK

IETF Journal

ISOC has announced the IETF Journal, a new Internet Society publication produced in cooperation with the Internet Engineering Task Force. The aim is to provide an easily understandable overview of what's happening in the world of Internet standards with a particular focus on the activities of the IETF Working Groups (WG). Each issue of the "IETF Journal" will highlight some of the hot issues being discussed in IETF meetings and in the IETF mailing lists. The first issue takes a look back at the recent 63rd meeting of the IETF in Paris

Cites & Insights 5:13

Cites & Insights 5:13 (Mid-Fall 2005) is now available for downloading

Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report

The Online Publishers Association has released its Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report covering Q1 and Q2 of 2005. The study, conducted by comScore Networks, determined that consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $987 million in the first half of 2005, an increase of 15.7 percent over the same period last year. For the first time ever, in Q2 of 2005, quarterly sales of content topped half a billion dollars

An Introduction to Creative Commons Licences

An Introduction to Creative Commons Licences - Creative Commons (CC) licences are a way to clarify the conditions of use of a work and avoid many of the problems current copyright laws pose. This half-day workshop is a basic introduction to Creative Commons and its implications for the information professional. Participants will look at the process of choosing a licence; then through discussion and group work will consider related issues and the role Creative Commons will play in the future - Various dates in 2005-2006

Licensing Digital Content

Licensing Digital Content - This course is aimed at contracts, rights & licensing, sales & marketing and library staff - 25 January 2006 -Said Business School, Oxford, UK

Guardian First Book Award 2005 shortlist

Guardian First Book Award 2005 shortlist has been announced

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology - Vol. 32, No. 1, October/November 2005, now available

British Librarian Bloggers

British Librarian Bloggers - Description: Are you a British librarian who is blogging? Meet other bloggers, discuss topics of mutual interest, swop tips and ideas on blogging. Ask/answer questions on blogging or just share thoughts and opinions. Please consider 'British','Librarian' and 'blogging' in their widest sense!. From Phil Bradley.

NISO Newsline

NISO Newsline - November 2005- is now available

Public Information Films

Public Information Films - archived footage from the National Archives showcasing Britain's post-war history through public information film

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

ACRL at Midwinter

ACRL is offering four professional development workshops in San Antonio on January 20, 2006:

Assessing Information Literacy Outcomes.
Assessment in Academic Libraries: Using the ACRL Standards for Continuous Evaluation.
Creating a Marketing Plan for Your Academic and Research Library.
Combating the Culture of Copy: Information Literacy Interventions for Plagiarism.

NASIG 2006 Awards

The North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) has announced the beginning of its application cycle for 2006 grants, awards, and scholarships to be presented at the 21st Annual Conference in Denver, CO on May 4-7, 2006

UK Web Archive wants feedback

The UK Web Archive (UKWAC) is currently in the process of evaluating its activity after one year's successful operation. UKWAC is a consortium of six leading UK institutions, and is working collaboratively on a project to develop a test-bed for selective archiving of UK websites. It is looking for feedback from its user community about the experience of using the UKWAC archive. There is a feedback form on the website. Until 11 November, everyone who completes a form and returns it to us with their e-mail address will go into a draw for a 25 pounds Amazon voucher

ALISS News from Social Science Libraries and Projects

ALISS News from Social Science Libraries and Projects - November 2005 now available

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, November 2005

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, November 2005: Shaggy Dog Stories. Domesticated dogs have been living with us for at least 12,000 years, both as working dogs and as companions. During this time more than a hundred different breeds, from chihuahua to chow-chow, have been developed from the first tamed wolves. This month's collections feature writers, artists, and critics whose works were inspired by dogs. These range from poetry to science fiction, and from paintings to bindings

Information Today journals November/December 2005 issues

The November/December 2005 issues of Computers in Libraries, Information Today, and Searcher, are now available

Google restarts online books plan

Google is resuming its controversial project to digitise millions of books and make them searchable on the net. The search giant is pressing ahead with its plans despite growing legal pressure from publishers and authors. They object to what they say are violations of copyright. But in an apparent attempt to reassure critics, the search giant said on its blog that it would focus on books that were out of print or in the public domain - BBC

Internet Librarian 2005 presentations

Presentations given at Internet Librarian 2005 are now being made available

NSDL Metadata Registry

The NSDL Metadata Registry provides projects within the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) with the means to registry their metadata schemas (element/property sets) and schemes (controlled vocabularies) for purposes of discovery and reuse in support of metadata interoperability

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Town meeting for the UK LOCKSS Pilot Programme

Following the Call for Participation to libraries of UK Higher Education Institutions to participate in a UK LOCKSS Pilot Programme, a town meeting will be organised on 2 December 2005 to provide more information to the community - Institute of Physics, London

FOI: How are we doing?

UKeiG Meeting: FOI: How are we doing? : Implications for e-information and the information professional - The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester - 23 November 2005. The first 'FOI' year has seen the emergence of a series of new activities: new journals on freedom of information, records managers in high demand, courses on every aspect of FOI and tales of journalists aggressively testing the system to expose the cracks. This meeting focuses on the information and how it is handled

SwetsWise 4.0 released

Swets has announced the release of SwetsWise version 4.0. This release includes a new, modern look and feel to the SwetsWise user interface that is completely customisable. It has been developed around a dynamic design that implements a refined navigation menu and enhances the user-friendliness of the platform. Whilst retaining many of the visual motifs and designs that will be instantly recognisable to current customers, the updates have streamlined and simplified the interface in order to make navigation much easier for the customer

Turk-ANZAC Research Libraries

The First Turk-ANZAC Research Libraries Conference: Johnnies and Mehmets side by side: Collaborative application of technology in research and academic libraries which will be held 25-28 April 2006 at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale (Gallipoli), Turkey. The conference will bring together librarians, archivists, museologists, film and media artists and historians from Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Britain and Russia. Anyone with an interest in the history of Gallipoli, which lies at the heart of the history of three nations, or who may be involved with technology or the digitisation of information would be interested in attending this Conference

New York Academy of Sciences and Blackwell announce Science Publishing Partnership

Blackwell Publishing has announced that it has formed a publishing partnership with the New York Academy of Sciences. Under the agreement, Blackwell and the Academy will publish 28 volumes a year of the 182-year-old Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, beginning in January 2006. Each Annals volume contains reviews of leading-edge interdisciplinary subjects, based on presentations made at scientific conferences and workshops, organized by the Academy and other organizations, held around the world. There are currently over 1,000 Annals titles