Information Literacy in Academic Libraries Workshop

7th Annual Augustana Information Literacy in Academic Libraries Workshop - Presenter is Lisa Hinchliffe, Head, Undergraduate Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - December 10, 2007 - University of Alberta, Camrose, Alberta, Canada

New issue of the Partnership Journal now available

Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research - Vol 2, No 1 (2007) is now available

Persistence of Memory Conference 2007

Persistence of Memory: Stewardship of Digital Assets: A conference on digital preservation for librarians, archivists, museum professionals, information technology professionals, and administrators responsible for managing and preserving digital resources - November 28-29, 2007 - Seattle, WA, USA

Ovid partners with Springer Science+Business Media to expand E-Book offerings

Ovid Technologies has announced that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Springer Science+Business Media to offer more than 800 electronic medical and health sciences books from Springer on its e-books platform, Books@Ovid

Apple announces iTunes U on the iTunes Store

"Apple had announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT. "iTunes U makes it easy for anyone to access amazing educational material from many of the country’s most respected colleges and universities," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes"

LITA Electronic Resources Management Interest Group

"The purpose of the LITA/ALCTS Electronic Resources Management Interest Group is to promote and enable the exchange of information and discussion among librarians, publishers, electronic resource management system vendors and related service organizations concerning issues related to the management of electronic resources. The group will assist in developing appropriate and responsive systems and standards by fostering open and collaborative discussions and implementation issues"

The European Journal of Legal Studies

"The European Journal of Legal Studies is managed by the researchers of the Law Department of the European University Institute. The Journal is rooted in and reflects the EUI's uniquely cosmopolitan academic environment, which gathers together scholars from across Europe and beyond, facilitating a fruitful interaction of legal traditions, cultures and ideas. In this spirit, the creation of the EJLS is conceived as une aventure humaine undertaken by EUI researchers who wish to participate in the enhancement of a European sphere of legal research" - First issue now available online as open access

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - May 31, 2007

Information literacy in Higher Education

Information literacy in Higher Education - this one-day course offers librarians in higher education the opportunity to stand back and consider where they are now with information literacy and to discuss options for enhancing their practice, including the most effective ways of using virtual learning environments - 27 November 2007 - London, UK

"The Road to Jerusalem" is published by The Library of Congress

"Published by the Library of Congress in association with University of Pennsylvania Press, The Road to Jerusalem: Pilgrimage and Travel in the Age of Discovery is a ground-breaking work of scholarship that constructs a historical narrative around the Library's rich collection of early modern printed books on travel. Author F. Thomas Noonan's research in this collection sparked this reexamination of an essential component of European history and culture. The text traces the history of early modern pilgrimage to Jerusalem in light of the history of early modern travel in general - travel that was itself renewed and colored by such cultural twists and turns as the Renaissance and the Reformation"

CLIR Issues - Number 57

CLIR Issues - Number 57 May/June 2007 - is now available from the Council on Library and Information Resources

Google Librarian Newsletter May 2007

Google Librarian Newsletter May 2007 issue now available

U.S. Senate confirms President’s nominees to National Museum and Library Services Board

"The U.S. Senate confirmed three presidential nominees to serve as members of the National Museum and Library Services Board May 25, 2007. The board advises the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal agency that is the primary source of federal support for the nation's museums and libraries."

Cites & Insights 7:7 (Mid-June 2007)

Cites & Insights 7:7 (Mid-June 2007) is now available for downloading

Planet Cataloging

Planet Cataloging is an automatically-generated aggregation of blogs related to cataloging and metadata

LLRX.com May 29, 2007 update

LLRX.com May 29, 2007 update is now online. LLRX.com is a unique, free Web journal dedicated to providing legal, library, IT/IS, marketing and administrative professionals with the most up-to-date information on a wide range of Internet research and technology-related issues, applications, resources and tools, since 1996

ALA and Scholastic Library Publishing announce 2008 National Library Week Grant

Libraries across the United States are invited to apply for the $5,000 Scholastic Library Publishing National Library Week Grant, which will be awarded to a single library for the best public awareness campaign incorporating the 2008 National Library Week theme, "Join the circle of knowledge @ your library®"

Royal Academy of Music innovates with new online music encyclopaedia

"NetworkedPlanet has announced an order for its TMCore information management solution from the Royal Academy of Music to power its new online multi-dimensional music index - the RAMline. The platform will provide an intelligent navigation system for what has the potential to become the largest and most comprehensive online music resource on the internet, linking profiles, discographies, performances and musical compositions of any artist or genre. The TMCore topic map engine will make it easy for users - initially academics and Academy students and in the future, music enthusiasts worldwide - to locate and browse over 100,000 individual in-house and external resources, such as sound clips, images, websites, and details of live performances"

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 151

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 151 - June 2007 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University, is now available

The Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2007 winners

The winners of The Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2007 have been announced

British History Timeline

British History Timeline - "Explore all of British history, from the Neolithic to the present day, with this easy-to-use interactive timeline. Browse hundreds of key events and discover how the past has shaped the world we live in today" From The BBC

Medical History of British India

The Medical History of British India: Disease Prevention and Public Health collection at the National Library of Scotland consists of official publications varying from short reports to multi-volume histories related to disease, public health and medical research between circa 1850 to 1920. These publications are historical sources for a period which witnessed the transition from a humoral to a biochemical tradition, which was based on laboratorial science and document the important breakthroughs in bacteriology, parasitology and the developments of vaccines in a colonial context

Winner of Emerald MLS Student Best Paper Award announced

Emerald Group Publishing has announced the winner of the first annual Emerald MLS Student Best Paper Award. Mari Beth Slade from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, is the 2007 winner for her paper titled "Compete or Collaborate? Resource Sharing in Corporate Libraries". Ms. Slade will receive a check for $1,200 toward a student membership in the American Library Association, conference registration to the ALA Annual Conference in Washington DC, and travel-related expenses

Tyldesley Diary Press Statement

From The British Library: The Monday 14 May edition of The Times carried a story headed: "How British Library allowed 300-year-old diary to be ruined". The story reported that Peter J Tyldesley, a descendant of Thomas Tyldesley the diary's author (and a solicitor and consultant for the Law Commission) had deposited the diary (1712-14) with the British Library. When Mr Tyldesley went to collect the diary, he found that its original binding had been removed and replaced, and that its pages had been disfigured with stains..."

Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data

Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data: the report from the second open meeting of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control , May 9, 2007

UKeiG Awards: Call for Nominations

UKeiG is now seeking nominations for these two prestigious awards, presented annually at the November Online information Meeting in London. Both awards are sponsored by Sage Publications and both honour achievement in the broad field of information management. The UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award is presented for an outstanding contribution to the narrower field of information retrieval, while the UKeiG Jason Farradane Award recognises brilliant work in information science. The deadline for both awards is Friday 14 September 2007

Registry of Digital Masters

DLF and OCLC have announced the second release of the Registry of Digital Masters Record Creation Guidelines. Created by a DLF/OCLC working group, the guidelines are to be used when creating metadata for born digital or to be digitized materials that have been digitized according to standards and best practices with the intention of including the metadata in the Registry of Digital Masters. The Registry is available through OCLC WorldCat

Information: Interactions and Impact

Booking is still open for the i3 ("i-cubed") international conference to be held at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, 25-28 June 2007. This conference is concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the interaction between people and information and how this interaction can bring about change in individuals, organisations, communities and society. It should be of interest to researchers and practitioners with an interest in information behaviour, information literacy and impact of information

GreyNet Award 2007

Todd A. Chavez, Anna H. Perrault, and Pete Reehling; University of South Florida and Courtney Crummett; National Library of Medicine, USA are co-recipients of the GreyNet Award 2007. This award is in recognition for their contribution to the field of grey literature over the past year

Free access blocked by unawareness and librarians

Charles Mkoka for SciDev.Net writes: "African scientists are making increased use of online scientific journals but many are still not aware of free access, according to a study. Researchers also warned that slow Internet connections and librarians' control over passwords is hindering what access there is..."

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

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

1. In the nursery rhyme, "Jack and Jill went up the hill" to fetch what?
2. In the nursery rhyme "Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross", the fine lady has rings on her fingers and what on her toes?
3. In the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", how many blackbirds were baked in a pie?
4. In the nursery rhyme about Peter Piper, what was it that Peter Piper picked?
5. In the nursery rhyme about the Lion and the Unicorn fighting for the crown, which animal beat the other?
6. The nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" is actually a riddle about what?
7. In the nursery rhyme about Old Mother Goose, she would ride through the air on a very fine...what?
8. Ella Fitzgerald gave Chick Webb's big band a hit song in 1938 with her swing version of which nursery rhyme?
9. In the nursery rhyme, Thursday's child has...what?
10.There may be a link between the title of the 1959 film "Some Like It Hot" and a particular nursery rhyme. In the nursery rhyme, what is the thing that some like hot?

UgcDb launches User-Generated Content Database

UgcDb is the one stop location for bio and profile information on all the content creators, actors, and others helping to produce user-generated content

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - May 24, 2007

Elsevier launches The Clinics on ScienceDirect

Elsevier has announced the addition of 56 prestigious titles from The Clinics to its premier electronic platform, ScienceDirect. The Clinics span a variety of subjects within the health sciences, ranging from pediatrics to surgery. Among the 56 titles to be launched are: Medical Clinics of North America; Pediatric Clinics of North America; Surgical Clinics of North America; Radiologic Clinics of North America

Digital Preservation Challenge

DigitalPreservationEurope has announced the first international Digital Preservation Challenge. "The challenge invites participants to overcome the barriers hindering access to six digital objects. Each object is accompanied by a highly abstracted scenario based on real-life situations. These scenarios are intended to make the challenge more accessible to participants from all backgrounds while not trivialising the serious nature of the digital preservation challenges facing society. Winners will be announced on 18 September 2007 at the European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries Conference Dinner. The winning entry will receive a cheque for 3000 Euros"

Evidence-based information practice: a user-friendly approach

Evidence-based information practice: a user-friendly approach - "What does evidence based practice mean? Are we doing it already? How can we use some simple tools and techniques to improve our use of research? These and other questions will be covered in this one-day introduction to evidence-based practice, using on examples drawn from practical experience - 20 October 2007 - London, UK

Handling enquiries: the basics

Handling enquiries: the basics - "Presented by the author of the leading textbook on enquiry handling, this one-day course will reassure you that there are techniques you can use to tackle any enquiry, even if you know nothing about the subject or the information sources available to answer it" - 30 October 2007 - London, UK

Interlending and document supply in the Web 2.0 environment

Interlending and document supply in the Web 2.0 environment: "In the creative and innovative environment of Web 2.0 there is great potential integrating e-content with hard copy collections within the library catalogue. This could eventually result in self-service document delivery and interlibrary loans by the end-users using Open URLs and authentication software" - 21 November 2007 - London, UK

Asian Development Bank launches online version of Statistical Database System

Asian Development Bank has launched the online version of its Statistical Database System, a key database of social, economic and financial indicators of its developing member countries.The database, developed and maintained by ADB's Economics and Research Department, contains data from 1988 onwards and will be a major resource and analytical tool for policymakers, academics, researchers and journalists interested in issues and challenges facing Asia and the Pacific

Ancestry.com puts 90 million war records online

Ancestry.com has unveiled more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975. The site also has the names of 3.5 million U.S. soldiers killed in action, including 2,000 who died in Iraq. The records, which can be accessed free until the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner-of-war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records, among others

Final UKSG Report on Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain

"In 2006 the UKSG commissioned a research study to identify the new relationships and information exchange requrements between publishers, resolver software and knowledge base suppliers, subscription agents and librarians to maximise the benefit of OpenURL linking. The final report and recommendations are now freely available"

FreePint Newsletter 230

FreePint Newsletter 230 - 24 May, 2007 - now available

7th Annual E-resource Workshop

7th Annual E-resource Workshop: "Black Cats & Broken Links: Dispelling E-resource Superstitions" - July 20, 2007 - Mitchell Memorial Library, Mississippi State University, USA

LADL 2007

LADL 2007 - Workshop on "Cross-Media and Personalized Learning Applications on top of Digital Libraries" - 20 September 2007 - Budapest, Hungary

20th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers from ProQuest CSA now complete

"ProQuest CSA has completed the digitisation of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers from 1979-2004. Now, all papers from 1801 to the present day are available. The digitisation of over 200 years of parliamentary papers - 187,809 individual papers containing over 9.5 million pages - has greatly enhanced the availability of these vital, fascinating documents, and unlocked new opportunities for researchers"

Biblio Tech Review - May 2007

The May 2007 issue of Biblio Tech Review is now available

3rd Clinical Librarian Conference

3rd Clinical Librarian Conference: What Now, Where Next? Current practice & future developments in Clinical Librarianship - 11-12 June 2007 - St William's College, York, UK

New Technology Connections portal from IEEE

"The IEEE New Technology Connections Portal provides visitors with an overview of key emerging technologies supported by the New Technologies Directions committee, and a list of resources to obtain additional information. Each featured technology includes a general description, upcoming conferences, news articles, technical papers, related standards, professional organizations, and academic programs"

Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web

Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web by Tara Calishain "makes researching more efficient and rewarding for anyone for whom the Web is an indispensable tool - academics, journalists, scientists, and professionals, as well as bloggers, genealogists, and hobbyists. She does so by teaching the latest techniques for building automated information-gathering systems. As an alternative to the typical one-time search for information, Tara demonstrates how readers can use RSS feeds, page monitoring tools, and other software to set up information streams of many different data types - from text to multimedia to conversations - for capture and review

Amnesty International Report 2007

Amnesty International Report 2007 documents human rights issues of concern to Amnesty International during 2006

SIP and Share: The blog of the Specialist Information Professionals of South Australia

"SIP (Specialist Information Professionals) is a South Australian group affiliated with ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association). This is a professional blog designed to engage in discussion with all professionals - in metropolitan and regional areas, from a large to a one-person work environment, whatever type of specialist services you provide - to share information, project, tips, personal experiences, in a relaxed informal environment"

Ghent University Library joins Google

"Ghent University has announced that it has joined Google's Library Project. Working in partnership, Google will digitize the Booktower's out-of-copyright books – bringing some of the greatest works of Dutch and French literature to millions of people globally. As one of Belgium's largest libraries, the Ghent University Library will greatly increase the number of Dutch and French-language books available through the Google Book Search Library Project. Through this partnership, hundreds and thousands of books will be added to the program, from well-loved classics to rare and special collections previously only available to those able to consult the library's stacks"

Amazon.com purchases Brilliance audio

Amazon.com Inc. has purchased Brilliance Audio Inc. Amazon officials and Brilliance President Michael Snodgrass jointly announced the sale this morning from Brilliance's company headquarters. Terms of the sale were not disclosed

HFSP Journal

The HFSP Journal aims to publish high quality, innovative interdisciplinary basic research at the frontier of biology over a wide range of organizational levels (from the molecular level to population biology) using principles strategies or technologies from the more quantitative disciplines (e.g. physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, or informatics)

Research Remix

Research Remix is a new blog on data sharing and reuse from Heather Piwowar

The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians

Todd Gilman, librarian for literature in English at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library, writes: "Last fall, when I wrote about why many academic librarians feel unappreciated on their campuses, I pointed to their relationships with professors as a major culprit. Yet it also has to be said that many of us librarians are our own (or one another's) worst enemies and that if we were more adept at working together, we could improve our lives and those of our colleagues..."

JISCPAS welcomes Google decision on essay writing services

The JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service has welcomed the announcement by Google to ban advertisements by essay writing services, saying its decision was an 'important' and a 'responsible' one. Will Murray, JISCPAS Service Director said: 'This is an important decision for national and institutional attempts to support academic integrity in the UK. We welcome this move and hope that along with other measures being taken across the sector it will send a further signal that cheat sites and essay writing services which encourage students to pass the work of others off as their own have no place in education and nothing to offer students.'

DailyLit delivers books via email and RSS

DailyLit, a service that allows users to read entire books via email and RSS installments, has announced its formal launch. DailyLit currently offers over 370 classic and contemporary titles, which can be subscribed to and read in their entirety free of charge

Shortlist for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance

The shortlist for the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance has been announced

Minerva at the California State Archives

Minerva gives descriptive details of all types of records stored in the California State Archives, from maps and court cases to legislative papers and photographs. Minerva replaces a paper-based recordkeeping system and is updated almost daily with the latest information about the Archives' collections

How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library

How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library - a new book by Phil Bradley, published by Facet Publishing, UK

Google to digitise 800,000 books at Mysore varsity

"At least 800,000 books and manuscripts, including India's first political treaties the "Arthasastra" written in the 4th century B.C. by Kautilya, that are lying in Mysore University in Karnataka, will be digitised by Google. "Written in both papers and palm leaves, there are around 100,000 manuscripts in our library, some dating back to the eighth century. The effort is to restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge," said J. Shashidhara Prasad, vice chancellor of the university"

Get the Most Impact from the OPAC

Get the Most Impact from the OPAC - June 5, 2007 - Penn State Great Valley Campus, Malvern, PA

Biotechnology for Biofuels

Biotechnology for Biofuels - a new open access journal launching in summer 2007

American Bible Society Library celebrates 190th anniversary

"In honor of its 190th anniversary, the American Bible Society Library will exhibit historically significant Scriptures and letters from American Bible Society founders and notable American figures. The Library documents the involvement of significant early American leaders with the Bible Society. In addition to housing and maintaining the largest collection of Scriptures in the Western Hemisphere, the Library is recognized internationally for its collection of historic Bibles. The exhibit will run for two months starting May 16 at the Library Education and Exhibit Center at the American Bible Society headquarters, 1865 Broadway in New York City"

Information Today bloggers head for SLA

"The Information Today blog team is gearing up for SLA's 2007 conference in Denver. We will be bringing you the highlights of this event, from the opening keynote by Al Gore to the closing keynote by Scott Adams, and everything in between. The ITI bloggers for SLA 2007 will be Barb Brynko, Paula Hane, Don Hawkins, Dick Kaser, and Marydee Ojala"

DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) Conference

DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) Conference - 29 June 2007 - Vilnius, Lithuania

Walt Crawford seeking employment

From his blog: "Ever thought you or one of the groups you work for or with could use a Walt Crawford? Here's your chance. The RLG-OCLC transition will be complete in September. I've received a termination notice from OCLC, effective September 30, 2007. I'm interested in exploring new possibilities. For now I'm trying not to narrow the options too much. The basics: A new position could start any time after October 15, 2007 (possibly earlier). January to April 2008 might be ideal as a starting date, but earlier or later is quite possible..."

LITA announces 2007 scholarship winners

The Library and Information Technology Association, a division of the American Library Association, sponsors scholarships jointly with three other organizations: Informata.com, LSSI and OCLC, Inc. The scholarships are for master's level study, with an emphasis on library technology and/or automation, at a library school accredited by the ALA

Action for Archives

"Action for Archives is the The Museums, Libraries and Archives Partnership's new national programme of practical support and development for archives. It is made up of regional and national strands. Action for Archives will implement a coordinated and consistent approach to developing England's archives. This programme will provide us with evidence to call for greater investment in archives by government and other funders"

London Literature Festival

"Southbank Centre is the home of live literature in London and the UK's foremost venue for spoken word, literature and poetry, hosting readings, debates and events throughout the year. This summer we launch the London Literature Festival, a two-week festival of literature, ideas, creative writing and performance, taking place across our unique site"

2007 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Book shortlist

"The shortlist for the 2007 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Book has been unveiled. There are three wonderful books in each age-category. The winners will be voted for by children in schools, libraries and bookclubs across Scotland over the coming months and will be announced in November"

Eclipse

Eclipse is a free on-line archive focusing on digital facsimiles of the most radical small-press writing from the last quarter century. Eclipse also publishes carefully selected new works of book-length conceptual unity - University of Utah

Free Culture National Conference 2007

Free Culture National Conference 2007 - May 26 - Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

University of Iowa College of Dentistry, class photo boards from 1883-1967

"In celebration of the 125th anniversary of the University of Iowa College of Dentistry, class photo boards from 1883-1967 were digitally photographed prior to their preservation and archiving by the University of Iowa Libraries. Part of the preservation process included removal of individual photographs, which were then scanned by the Digital Library Services department and added to CONTENTdm as compound objects, meaning that the entire class photoboard is viewable as well as high resolution individual student and faculty photos"

Global-e, a Global Studies Journal

Global-e: a Global Studies Journal - Vol 1, No 1 (2007) now available

Cardiff University catalogue loaded onto Copac

Copac states: "We have completed loading the catalogue of Cardiff University onto Copac. The Cardiff catalogue gives access to details of their diverse collections including the European Documentation Centre, United Nations collection, and European Union collection. Cardiff University merged with the University of Wales College of Medicine in 2004 and as a result the catalogue incorporates the holdings of a range of medical libraries including many NHS Hospital libraries in Wales. Live location information is available for Cardiff, so you can check the Copac Local Holdings display to see if items held by Cardiff are currently on-loan etc."

BMJ Health Intelligence

BMJ Health Intelligence is an authoritative source of public health information, bringing together the latest evidence, data, local projects, policies, targets and guidelines into a single, web-based resource. BMJ Health Intelligence is a powerful research tool, providing the evidence and data that is needed to help develop new and more effective interventions for public health. It also has enormous value as a training resource

Free access to the Lyell Collection

Free access to the Lyell Collection May 17-June 18, 2007 - "The Lyell Collection, created to mark the Geological Society of London's 200th anniversary in 2007, represents one of the largest integrated collections of online Earth science literature available. Bringing together Journal of the Geological Society, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, Special Publications and key book series on a single electronic platform, the Lyell Collection is a unique resource for researcher and student alike"

Cites & Insights - June 2007

Cites & Insights 7:6 (June 2007) is now available for downloading

Xrefer Reference Update

Xrefer Reference Update - Volume 5, Issue 1, May 2007 now available

Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2007

Emerald Group Publishing has announced the winners of the 2007 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence

viaLibri launches "Quick Query" one-stop library search tool

viaLibri has launched its new "Quick Query" library search tool. 'This unique and powerful feature allows internet users to search multiple online library catalogues from a single web page using one simple form'

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: How Did They Get Those Names?. Answers here

1. Why was Chico Marx given the nickname "Chico"?
2. Stalin adopted his name from a Russian word meaning what?
3. Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian soprano who took her surname in honour of her birthplace, which was what?
4. Where did the writer Mark Twain get his name from?
5. Comedian Eric Morecambe got his surname from where?
6. Writer Rebecca West took her name from the heroine of which play?
7. The Siberian monk Rasputin got his nickname from his fellow villagers, and he lived up to his nickname until the end. What did it mean?
8. The writer George Orwell took his surname from something in Suffolk. Was it a town, a well or a river?
9. The spy Mata Hari got her name from a Malay expression meaning "eye of the day". Did it mean the dawn, a daisy or the sun?
10. The English novelist and dramatist Clemence Dane took her pen-name from what?

ProQuest CSA teams up with LexisNexis to add selected serial set content to HeritageQuest Online

ProQuest CSA and LexisNexis are working together to add valuable genealogical data from the LexisNexis U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection to HeritageQuest Online. The addition of the Private Relief Actions and Memorials and Petitions from the LexisNexis Serial Set collection serves the growing genealogy and local history segment of the public library market

Scopus launches Scopus Custom Data

Scopus has announced the launch of its new product Scopus Custom Data. Research agencies, institutions and government bodies will now be able to order customized datasets in XML format for large-scale research performance analysis. It will empower them to make well-informed, unbiased resource allocation and policy making decisions

British Library Centre for Conservation

The new British Library Centre for Conservation provides a world-class facility for all aspects of book conservation including education and training, as well as state-of-the art technical facilities for the nation's Sound Archive, enabling unrivalled standards of care for the Library's priceless collections

CAPL blog

The Canadian Association of Public Librarians now has a blog

The Darwin Correspondence Project

The Darwin Correspondence Project - The main feature of the site is an Online Database with the complete, searchable, texts of around 5,000 letters written by and to Charles Darwin up to the year 1865. This includes all the surviving letters from the Beagle voyage, online for the first time, and all the letters from the years around the publication of "Origin of species" in 1859

University of Lausanne and Google make thousands of French books available online

The Library of the University of Lausanne has announced that it is the latest partner to join the Google Book Search Library Project

The Hollywood Librarian

The premiere of The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film will take place in Washington, D.C. on Friday, June 22nd during the ALA Conference. All librarians are welcome to attend this free event, it is not limited to conference attendees. The venue will be the Washington Convention Center, Hall D, where doors will open at 7:30 p.m. with a red carpet walk. The film premiere begins at 8:00 p.m. Other links:

The Hollywood Librarian Trailer
Behind the Scenes of The Hollywood Librarian
The Hollywood Librarian - Original Score

Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990

The UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections has selected and digitized 5,124 of the more than three million images contained in the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News photographic archives. The photographs chronicle the history and growth of Los Angeles from the 1920s to 1990. This collection of digitized images is made available online by the UCLA Digital Library to assist a wide variety of researchers, including scholars, educators, students, writers, filmmakers, urban planners, community activists, librarians, and members of the general public

SLA School Librarian of the Year Award

Ingrid Hopson of George Abbot School, Guildford, is SLA's School Librarian of the Year 2007. The judges' comments included: "Ingrid is an outstanding librarian, bursting with ideas, an instigator of change who asks difficult questions and stimulates teachers. Her contribution to the life of the school is massive."

BookSwim is launched

BookSwim book rental service. For $15 to $20 per month, the company will send your top five book choices. Return three books in a prepaid envelope, and your next three choices will be mailed to you

JISC Inform 17

JISC Inform 17, Spring 2007 - Making connections: meeting the needs of the education and research community

National Library of Scotland selects GlassHouse for Digital Library Initiative

"GlassHouse Technologies has announced that it had been selected by The National Library of Scotland to provide consultancy in the design and implementation of a new storage infrastructure as part of a project to build its digital library. The Digital NLS initiative involves making the Library's collections available online by digitising its archives, collecting born-digital publications and preserving this irreplaceable collection in perpetuity"

Federal Libraries Wiki

Federal Libraries Wiki - Co-hosted by the ALA Washington Office and COL Subcommittee on Federal Libraries. "This public wiki is established as a central place to post information and inquiries about rumored closings and threats to federal libraries. Participants posting to this wiki will, hopefully, have verified the posted information and will update entries as new information becomes available. ALA cannot verify each of these public postings as the contributions develop"

Emerald InTouch

"Emerald InTouch is a personal web space and hosting service that supports learning, networking and collaboration. Built upon the Elgg learning landscape system, InTouch places a range of collaborative technologies and social networking tools in one simple, easy-to-use, secure space"

First Workshop on Web Scale Infrastructures for Semantic Mashup, Search and Retrieval

First Workshop on Web Scale Infrastructures for Semantic Mashup, Search and Retrieval - co-located with the First IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing - September 17-19, 2007 - Irvine, California

Google begins move to universal search

"Google Inc. has announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. The company also introduced an updated homepage design and several new navigation features that make it faster and easier for users to find the information they are looking for"

NextSpace - April 2007

NextSpace: The OCLC Newsletter - No. 6, April 2007, is now available

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - May 17, 2007

Royal Society prize for science books winner announced

"Daniel Gilbert's pursuit of the scientific basis of happiness has won him the Royal Society prize for science books. "Stumbling on Happiness" draws on psychology and neuroscience, as well as personal experience, to take the reader through the various ways people attempt to make themselves happy. Finding happiness is an underlying desire for most of us but how to achieve and sustain it often proves problematic. Gilbert uses science to show that it is not always through conventional routes that we find happiness"

Scheme aims to get boys reading

From The BBC: "Secondary schools in England are being given free books for their library, in an attempt to get teenage boys reading. Schools will be able to select 20 books from a Department for Education and Skills list drawn up by librarians. The collection includes classic novels such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and factual books like Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything

Diplomats agree to transfer Nazi archive

From Yahoo! News: "Diplomats from 11 countries agreed Tuesday to bypass legal obstacles and begin distributing electronic copies of documents from a secretive Nazi archive, making them available to Holocaust researchers for the first time in more than a half century. The decision was meant to avoid further delays in allowing Holocaust survivors to find their own stories and family histories, and for historians to seek new insights into Europe's darkest period"

The National Library of Australia and WorldCat

"The National Library of Australia has negotiated an agreement on behalf of Australian libraries which gives access to WorldCat, the world's largest bibliographic database with over one billion items from 11,000 libraries worldwide. The collaborative services agreement has been negotiated between the National Library and the Online Computer Library Centre which manages the WorldCat database"

Southwell Workhouse and Poor Law Union Papers now available online

The National Archives and The National Trust are launching a new online resource for general, family, and local historians, which brings to life the conditions of a Victorian workhouse. For the first time you can view these previously long forgotten records online and piece together history from a time when Britain was the workshop of the world! The digitised records form part of the underused and poorly catalogued 'poor law union correspondence', from the huge Ministry of Health archive held at The National Archives in Kew, covering the period 1834 to 1871. They provide fascinating and vivid details of the sometimes sad and gruesome lives of the local poor people in north Nottinghamshire

Of Real and Digital Libraries by Roy Tennant

Of Real and Digital Libraries by Roy Tennant- "I arrived by chance in Jackson County, OR, the day after its 15 libraries were shut down on April 6. I was visiting Ashland, OR, with my family, home to the world-renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival and also to Southern Oregon University, which has a 93-acre park for a city of 21,500 people. The town has many civic and cultural amenities. Except now, that list doesn't include libraries. An election for a three-year property tax was to be held May 15. How Jackson County ended up without library service, especially after recently building new facilities, is a long story, too long for this column...." Library Journal

Informa has acquired Datamonitor

The Boards of Informa and Datamonitor have announced that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended offer for Datamonitor by Informa Acquisitions at a price of 650 pence per Datamonitor Share in cash, valuing the fully diluted ordinary share capital of Datamonitor at approximately GBP502m

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day marks the anniversary of the signature of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union - 17 May 2007

D-Lib Magazine May/June 2007

D-Lib Magazine May/June 2007 is now available

Carnival of the Infosciences #71

Carnival of the Infosciences #71 hosted by Confessions of a Science Librarian. Previous Carnivals can be found here

Marshall Cavendish Excellence in Library Programming Award named

The Calgary Public Library, Alberta, Canada, has been chosen from among 29 entries to receive the 2007 Marshall Cavendish Excellence in Library Programming Award from the American Library Association. The winning project, "It’s Not a Crime to Read," pairs libraries, schools, and police officers in an effort to encourage at-risk children to read. It also develops positive collaboration between librarians and teachers. The award, consisting of a $2000 cash prize and a plaque, will be presented at an award ceremony during the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC, in June

Archives North East

The North East of England has become the first region in the country to bring together the information held by all of its archives in one place. In a pioneering move, Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) North East has launched Archives North East, which allows anyone who logs on to work with an experienced member of archive staff from the comfort of their own home

Copyright.com re-vamped

"Copyright Clearance Center Inc., a provider of text-licensing solutions, has released a complete redesign and enhancements to its website, copyright.com"

The Lulu Blooker Prize 2007 winners announced

The winners of The Lulu Blooker Prize 2007 have been announced

SIGIR Forum - June 2007

SIGIR Forum - June 2007, Volume 41 Number 1, now available online

"Your Archives" now open for contributions

Your Archives is a ground-breaking new resource, which has recently been launched as part of The National Archives' online services. It is a virtual community of record users where people can share their knowledge of archival sources held by The National Archives and by other archives throughout the UK

Library Camp NYC

The William & Anita Newman Library at Baruch College is sponsoring Library Camp NYC, which will be held on August 14, 2007 in the college's conference facilities in the Vertical Campus building. This is a free conference

Audio: "Libraries Enter the Digital Age"

Libraries Enter the Digital Age from National Public Radio - "Several organizations are working to digitize and make available online all the information that might be hiding on the shelves of libraries around the world. Leaders in the digital libraries community talk about how they intend to go about putting every book published online. Features: Brewster Kahle, digital librarian; director and co-founder, The Internet Archive; Michael S. Hart, founder, Project Gutenberg; Michael Keller, Stanford Library Librarian

Lord Rix: JISC digitisation project will "save and celebrate theatre history"

A new JISC-funded digital resource which will capture and preserve important resources from the history of theatre is, says Lord Rix, "destined to become a resource of national and international importance." The comments are made in a new podcast which features speeches from the launch of the East London theatre archive earlier this month and exclusive interviews with Lord Rix - the former actor-manager Brian Rix, now Chancellor of the University of East London - and Roland Muldoon, theatre pioneer with the New Variety group at the Hackney Empire

American History Magazines & Journals

American History Magazines & Journals - Browsable list of journals and magazines currently in publication on American history

Library of Congress joins Science.gov Alliance

"The Library of Congress recently joined the Science.gov Alliance. The nation's oldest federal cultural institution and largest library in the world, the LOC serves as the research arm of Congress with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The addition brings the Science.gov Alliance membership to 17 organizations. Currently in its fourth generation, Science.gov provides search of more than 50 million pages of science information with just one query, and is a gateway to over 1,800 scientific Web sites and 30 deep Web databases

Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar

The 29th Annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar: A Seminar for Booksellers, Librarians, and Collectors - August 5-10, 2007, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, immediately following the Denver Antiquarian Book Fair

Call for Papers: Educating The Web-Generation

Call for Papers: Educating The Web-Generation - This workshop focuses on the fundamental (computational) education of future generations whose lives will more and more be influenced by an enormous potential for technology and furthermore by a hard competition in a global world - November 2-5, 2007 - California, USA

Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation

Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation is an online survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. The study team is interested in hearing from all bloggers on their perceptions on digital preservation in relation to their own blogging activities, as well as the blogosphere in general

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - January/February 2007

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - January/February 2007 - Vol. 66, No. 1-2, now available online

Thomson to sell Thomson Learning higher education assets

"The Thomson Corporation has announced that it has signed definitive agreements with funds advised by Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners under which such funds will acquire the higher education, careers and library reference assets of Thomson Learning, and a consortium of funds advised by OMERS and Apax will acquire Nelson Canada, for a combined total value of approximately $7.75 billion in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions"

Presentations from "Who needs libraries anyway?" now available

Presentations from "Who needs libraries anyway?", 30 April 2007 - London, UK, are now available

WorldCat xISBN service enhances search results

The WorldCat xISBN service, the OCLC service that supplies International Standard Book Numbers associated with individual intellectual works represented in the WorldCat database, is now available for commercial and high-use applications

Info@UK April 2007

Info@UK April 2007, is now available from The British Council

Neal Wyatt elected RUSA president for 2008-2009

Neal Wyatt has been elected president of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association, for the 2008-2009 term. Wyatt will become RUSA president-elect in July 2007 and will assume the RUSA presidency in July 2008

Ann M. Martin elected AASL president 2008-2009

Ann M. Martin, educational specialist in Library Information Service for the Henrico County Public Schools (Va.), was elected president-elect of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) in the 2007 election. Martin will serve as president-elect starting in July 2007, and will assume the AASL presidency at the end of the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

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

1. A Dutch artist who was virtually self-taught. In an attack of madness, he cut off part of his ear. His paintings include "Starry Night" and "Sunflowers".
2. US songwriter, a self-taught pianist and musician, who wrote many popular songs including "Georgia on My Mind" and "Stardust". His real first name was Hoagland.
3. English composer who was self-taught. His "Enigma Variations" brought him lasting fame and he also wrote "The Dream of Gerontius", the "Pomp and Circumstance Marches" and "Falstaff".
4. US scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, writer, printer, and publisher. After two years at school he was apprenticed to a printer at the age of 12, being self-taught from that time. He helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
5. Canadian jazz pianist, composer and arranger, whose collaborations with Miles Davis, starting in the late 1940s, led to the emergence of the "cool jazz" style. His real name was Ian Ernest Gilmore Green.
6. American rock star who was self-taught on piano, guitar, bass and drums. He had child roles in "The Cosby Show" and his albums included "Are You Gonna Go My Way" and "Circus".
7. US primitive painter, entirely self-taught. She only turned seriously to painting at the age of 67 after a life as a farmer's wife.
8. Catalan cellist, composer, and conductor. He was largely self-taught, and he was an outspoken critic of fascism who openly defied Franco.
9. French painter who claimed to have painted nothing before 1863, and was self-taught. His childlike intuitive style endeared him to the Surrealists, and his works included "Tropical Storm with Tiger".
10. American musician and self-taught virtuoso on the harmonica. He wrote the music for the film "Genevieve" and his autobiography was entitled "It Ain't Necessarily So"

Ariadne - Issue 51, April 2007

Ariadne - Issue 51, April 2007 is now available. Ariadne is targeted principally at information science professionals in academia, and also to interested lay people both in and beyond the Higher Education community. Its main geographic focus is the UK, but it is widely read in the US and worldwide

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - May 10, 2007

IMLServices awards almost $5 million for critical conservation

Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Ph.D., Director of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, has announced the 65 museum recipients of the 2007 Conservation Project Support grants totaling $4.9 million. The grant program, which began in 1984, helps museums identify conservation needs and priorities and perform activities to ensure the safekeeping of its collections. Today, Heritage Preservation also announced participants of their IMLS-supported Conservation Assessment Program

Organising the future: classification in the 21st Century

Organising the future: classification in the 21st Century - An afternoon in which to explore the issues concerning classification in the 21st Century. From the structure of a faceted scheme, and how this can aid the processes of both classification and retrieval, to the practical issues involved in reclassifying a library - 7 June 2007 - Oxford, UK

Desch elected ASCLA president for 2008-2009

Carol Ann Desch, coordinator of Statewide Library Services and director of the Division of Library Development, New York State Library, Albany, has been elected president of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, a division of the American Library Association, for the 2008-2009 term. Desch will become ASCLA president-elect in July 2007, and will assume the ASCLA presidency in July 2008

The 5th International Conference on the Book

The 5th International Conference on the Book - 20-22 October 2007 - Madrid, Spain

Computers in Libraries 2007 presentation links

Presentations given at Computers in Libraries 2007 are now available

Encyclopedia of Life

"Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity"

Dundee Literary Festival

The University of Dundee is to launch a new, two-day literary festival this summer, sponsored by the Apex Hotel and held in partnership with its local branch of Borders. Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson have been lined up as the headline draws for the event, which will run on 21 and 22 June

ALPSP, AAP/PSP and STM issue White Paper on academic use of journal content

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) together with the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP/PSP) and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) have issued a White Paper laying out general terms for the appropriate balancing of rights for academic journal publishing

Simon & Schuster, TurnHere unveil online video initiative

"Simon & Schuster and TurnHere have signed an agreement to launch a book-centric internet video channel to promote Simon & Schuster authors and their new releases. The companies will produce videos with in-depth information on featured books and authors as well as sneak previews of upcoming titles. The channel, called Bookvideos.tv, will launch in early June, and will be hosted at a major online video site and will be cross promoted and linked to numerous sites across the web." From Televisionpoint.com

The 2007 Publishing Triangle Award winners

The winners of The 2007 Publishing Triangle Award have been announced

eIFL.net newsletter

The eIFL.net newsletter - No. 27, May/June 2007, is now available. eIFL.net is a not-for-profit organisation that supports and advocates for the wide availability of electronic resources by library users in transitional and developing countries

WorldCat Local live at University of Washington Libraries

"The University of Washington Libraries is the first to pilot WorldCat Local, a new service that builds on WorldCat.org to allow Web access to the world's richest database for discovery of materials held in libraries. The goal of the pilot is to provide users with a single search and request service that covers the University of Washington Libraries, Summit libraries (most academic libraries in Washington and Oregon), WorldCat and a selection of article citations—all through one catalog"

ICTRP Search Portal from The World Health Organization

The World Health Organization has launched a new web site that will enable researchers, health practitioners, consumers, journal editors and reporters to search more easily and quickly for information on clinical trials. The site works as an entry point or portal into multiple, high quality clinical trial registers with a global search function

Copyright in the Digital Age: An Update

The American Library Association has announced a national teleconference and Webcast on copyright in the digital age. The program titled Copyright in the Digital Age: An Update, will take place on June 1, from 12 to 2 p.m. EST

University of Louisville Libraries has launched Digital Collections

The University of Louisville Libraries has launched Digital Collections which provides online access to digital versions of selected materials from University of Louisville archives, special collections, and other campus units. This growing resource will include rare and unique images, documents, and oral histories that are freely available for educational and research purposes

Library PressDisplay

"Library PressDisplay is a web-based portal which provides anyone, from the casual reader to the formal researcher, access to over 300 newspapers and magazines from more then 60 countries in 35 languages"

Torture archives at University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota's Center for Bioethics and Human Rights Center have created a comprehensive archive of government documents describing medical operations in U.S. prisoner of war facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The archive's purpose is to enable scholars, journalists, policymakers and interested citizens to study and understand the medical operations in these prisons. It contains more than 60,000 pages of indexed White House and Defense Department policies, prison medical records, autopsy reports, criminal investigations, sworn witness statements and e-mails involving the Armed Forces and the FBI

Love Libraries Award 2007

The Love Libraries Award, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, UK, will identify and recognise library services that are doing exceptional work in attracting teenagers and young people under 25 to use the library, and bringing them back time and time again. Love Libraries is searching for libraries that are demonstrating innovation in services for these age groups, and encouraging them to use the library to make a positive contribution to their lives. The winning library service will receive a Love Libraries Award Trophy as well as GBP2000 in prize money towards the project

New titles added to Xreferplus

The following new titles have recently been added to Xreferplus:

The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style
The Chronology of American Literature, Houghton Mifflin
The Wisden Archive of Cricketers' Lives

SirsiDynix Institute Web Seminar

SirsiDynix Institute Web Seminar - Teen Second Life: Library Services in a 3D world - May 22, 2007 - Presented by Kelly Czarnecki, Technology Education Librarian for teens and youth, ImaginOn, the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - May 2007

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - Volume 07, Number 5 — May 2007 is now available

EDUCAUSE Quarterly

EDUCAUSE Quarterly - Volume 30, Number 2, 2007 is now available

Sara Jaffarian Award winner

The American Library Association Public Programs Office has announced that the Central Elementary School Library in Wilmette, Ill., is the inaugural winner of the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming. Central Elementary School Library will receive a plaque recognizing the achievement, a cash award of $4,000, and inclusion of the winning program in a national training session for model humanities programs

Vatican Library to close for three years

The 559-year-old Vatican Library will close for urgent repairs July 14 and not reopen until September 2010. Vatican officials made the announcement, which came as a surprise to scholars and historians, April 26, emphasizing that the work was needed to safeguard some 72,000 manuscripts housed in an underground bunker built only 25 years ago. From American Libraries

PublicationsList.org

"Publicationslist.org makes it simple for you to set up and maintain a professional web page listing your publications, with links to online versions (PDF/HTML), abstracts, import and export to standard citation file formats"

IMLS and NEA Announce Third Deadline for the Big Read

"The Institute of Museum and Library Services, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, announces the third deadline for the Big Read program. The purpose of the Big Read is to revitalize the role of literature in American popular culture. Grants ranging from $5,000 - $20,000 are available to encourage local communities to inspire literary reading through the Big Read program"

Civil Rights Resource Guide

"The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material related to civil rights, including photographs, documents, and sound recordings. This guide compiles links to civil-rights resources throughout the Library of Congress Web site. In addition, it provides links to external Web sites focusing on civil rights and a bibliography containing selections for both general and younger readers"

Library of Congress to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month

"With a national theme of 'The American Jewish Experience: Celebrating Religious Pluralism, Cultural Diversity and Commitment to American Civic Culture,' the second annual Jewish American Heritage Month will be celebrated by the Library of Congress with public lectures and a new Web presentation"

WebJunction releases Blended Learning Guide

WebJunction, OCLC's online community where library staff share ideas and use online resources to help them in their work, has released a Blended Learning Guide that mixes online and in-person training methods to offer libraries new approaches to library staff instruction

InfoBits - April 2007

The April 2007 issue of InfoBits, the information and instructional technology newsletter from the Information Technology Services at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is now available online

Managing new and emerging library technologies: skills for the 21st Century

Managing new and emerging library technologies: skills for the 21st Century - This event is aim for anyone interested in the 21st century information and library skills and how future trends is shaping our careers and the way work - 13 June 2007 - Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK

AASL selects 2007 awards recipients

The American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association, has announced the 2007 recipients of its annual awards

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

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

1. Which Australian TV soap opera is set in Ramsay Street in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough (which is almost an anagram of the show's title).
2. Who wrote seven children's books about a fictional land called Narnia?
3. Who wrote the comic novel "Puckoon" about a fictional Irish village?
4. Llareggub was the fictional setting for which "play for voices" written by Dylan Thomas?
5. Nutopia was the fictional setting of the album "Mind Games" by which performer?
6. In which of his novels did Evelyn Waugh write about the Whispering Glades Memorial Park?
7. Name the fictional English cathedral city featured in the Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope.
8. Which novelist wrote about Blunderstone, Coketown, Dullborough and Eatanswill?
9. Name the outrageous girls' school created in cartoons by Ronald Searle.
10. The fictional Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha provided the setting for many of the best-known works of which American novelist?

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #109

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #109 - May 2 2007 is now available

NRC-CISTI and MyiLibrary launch new eBook Loans service

"The National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) and MyiLibrary, the market leading eBook aggregator, have partnered to launch an innovative new service called eBook Loans, an electronic twist on the traditional library-interlending model. With the click of a mouse, eBook Loans offer instant access to tens of thousands of electronic books from major scholarly publishers, including Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Blackwell and Springer"

Ex Libris launches the Primo Discovery and Delivery Solution

The Ex Libris Group has announced that the Company's Primo unified solution for the discovery and delivery of library resources, regardless of format and location, is now in general release. "Addressing the expectations of today's library users for quick, easy, and effective searching and retrieval, Primo is the first step toward a new architecture of library information systems"

Science Tracer Bullet: Kitchen Gardens

Science Tracer Bullet: Kitchen Gardens - "The focus of this guide is on the practicalities and history of kitchen gardening. Not intended to be a comprehensive bibliography, this Tracer Bullet is designed, as the name of the series implies,to put the reader "on target." Related Tracer Bullet and Resource Guide titles include Gardening and Container Gardening. From The Library of Congress

The Arthur C. Clarke Award winner announced

Nova Swing by M. John Harrison and published by Gollancz is the winner of this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, the UK's premier prize for science fiction literature

Email Britain from The British Library

The British Library is compiling a national record of British life by email, the first of its kind, to become a part of its permanent archives. The Email Britain website went live on 3 May 2007 and invites everyone in the UK to forward emails from their "in" or "sent" boxes which say something about their lives

Shortlist for the Diversity Awards announced

The Diversity Group of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has announced the shortlist for the Diversity Awards 2007. The Awards are made in two categories - organisational change, which recognises the work, which library and information organisations do to promote diversity, and personal achievement, which rewards the work of individuals

Library Plagiarism Policies: CLIP Note 37

"The Association of College and Research Libraries has announced the publication of Library Plagiarism Policies: CLIP Note 37, compiled by Vera Stepchyshyn and Robert S. Nelson of Long Island University in Brooklyn, N.Y. The publication is part of ACRL's College Libraries Section's College Library Information Packet Committee series. While the use of the librarian as a plagiarism prevention and detection resource is on the rise, the number of libraries that have formalized - through policy statements or other documents - the responsibilities of librarians is still relatively small. "CLIP Note 37" is a pragmatic resource for college libraries, faculty, staff, and administrators to use to develop policies on the prevention and detection of plagiarism"

JISC national e-Books observatory project

The JISC national e-Books observatory project will assess the impacts, observe behaviours, and develop new models to stimulate the e-books market

Knowledge Architecture: An Exploratory Workshop

Knowledge Architecture: An Exploratory Workshop - This interactive workshop blends presentation, discussion and practical exercises to consider the evolutionary stages involved in the transition from Information Architecture to Knowledge Architecture and to examine the most important tools and techniques involved. It presents a number of case studies and invites delegates to discuss the implications for information professionals, information managers, information architects, knowledge managers and knowledge workers alike - 22 May 2007, 19 September 2007, 11 December 2007 - London, UK

ALISS updating it website

ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) is in the process of updating it website

Carnival of the Infosciences #70

Carnival of the Infosciences #70 hosted by InfoSciPhi is now available

FreePint Newsletter 229

FreePint Newsletter 229 - 3 May, 2007 - now available

Traversing the Licensing Terrain

Traversing the Licensing Terrain: Emerging Issues and Innovative Solutions - June 11, 2007 - PALINET, Philadelphia, PA

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - May 3, 2007

The East London Theatre Archive

"The East London Theatre Archive will create an invaluable database of performing arts resources, from playbills and programmes to press cuttings and photographs. By creating around 15,000 digital objects, taken from East London theatres, the project will preserve unique endangered collections and make them accessible to an academic audience. The outcome will be a digitised collection full of rich potential for students and researchers across the country"

blinkx indexes PBS video content

blinkx, the world's largest video search engine, has announced that a wide array of PBS streaming video content will now be indexed and easily searchable at its website. blinkx users can find PBS' award-winning educational, news and public affairs streaming content online, and will be able to search a broad variety of documentaries and other popular PBS programs. They will also find an array of educational programming, including streaming content made for classroom learning

ChemSpider

ChemSpider is a chemistry search engine. It has been built with the intention of aggregating and indexing chemical structures and their associated information into a single searchable repository and making it available to everybody, at no charge. From ChemZoo Corporation

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, May 2007

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, May 2007: Are we there yet? - "This month we highlight cartography, with descriptions for collections of maps and the papers of mapmakers. Maps may of course be used for many purposes, from the sport of orienteering to charting new colonies, and with astronomical maps for surveying outer space, and even clinical charts for navigating inner space"

Yell.com launches homepage redesign

"Yell.com, the best place in the UK to find a business, shop or service online, has unveiled a new homepage - the latest development in its programme of continuous enhancement which has seen new mapping, search and site content capabilities implemented during the last six months"

Disease InfoSearch

Genetic Alliance has announced a new website feature, Disease InfoSearch, designed to help patients, care givers, health professionals, and others easily locate and navigate the vast array of information on genetic disorders that is available from the National Library of Medicine

Shaping Outcomes 2007 course offerings

"Shaping Outcomes, an online course on outcomes-based planning and evaluation, will be available free to museum and library professionals this summer and fall. The instructor-mediated course, which will help participants improve program designs and evaluations, was developed through a cooperative agreement between the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI)"

Computer Science Writer of the Year

"Paul Anderson, Technical Editor of JISC Technology and Standards Watch and author of its recent report on Web 2.0, has won the EPSRC's Computer Science Writer of the Year award. The competition, which was launched this year, has been organised by EPSRC in association with the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The aim of the competition is to show the impact of EPSRC-funded computer science research on society and people's everyday lives, and to highlight the human stories and scientific challenges involved

James Rettig elected ALA president for 2008-2009

James Rettig, University Librarian at the University of Richmond (Va.), has been elected president of the American Library Association for the 2008-2009 term, defeating Nancy Davenport, president, Nancy Davenport and Associates

Reference Service Press Award

C. Brandi Borman, team leader of Admissions, Admissions and Liaison Services, and Pamela Jane McKenzie, associate professor, Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, are the 2007 co-recipients of the Reference Service Press Award for the article, "Trying to Help without Getting in Their Faces: Public Library Staff Descriptions of Providing Consumer Health Information," presented by the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. The award, a plaque and US$2,500 donated by Reference Service Press, is given to the author of the most outstanding article published in Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ), RUSA's quarterly journal, during the preceding two-volume years

Reuters acquires ClearForest

"Reuters has entered into an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of ClearForest Ltd., a privately held provider of Text Analytics solutions, whose tagging platform and analytical products allow clients to derive precise business information from huge amounts of textual content"

Public Events at the Library of Congress

Public Events at the Library of Congress - May-August 2007 have been announced

The Third Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award

The Third Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award will be made in September 2007 at the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland. The prize is for 35,000 euros (approx US$42,500). Eligible books are those by living authors, published for the first time, in English anywhere in the world, between September 2006 and August 2007 (selecteds, collecteds or books containing stories published in a previous volume of stories by the author will not be eligible)

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 150

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 150 - May 2007 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University, is now available

Caine Prize for African Writing 2007 shorlist announced

The shortlist for the 2007 Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced

Massachusetts Library Association 2007 Conference

Massachusetts Library Association 2007 Conference - May 2-4, 2007 - Sturbridge, MA, USA

ARL: A Bimonthly Report

ARL: A Bimonthly Report, no. 251 (April 2007) is now available

The April 16 Archive

"The April 16 Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of the Virginia Tech tragedy of April 16, 2007. The archive is hosted on the Virginia Tech campus, and is curated by students, faculty, and staff. We welcome contributions from the greater Virginia Tech community and anyone who wants to share and reflect on these events"

This Week in LibraryBlogLand

This Week in LibraryBlogLand - week ending April 29, 2007

Collaborative Virtual Reference Symposium

Collaborative Virtual Reference Symposium - July 31-August 1, 2007 - Denver, CO, USA