"The Virtual Librarian" by Theodore Rockwell

"The Virtual Librarian, a new novel by Theodore Rockwell, is a surprising departure from the previous books of the award-winning author of "The Rickover Effect" and "Creating the New World." One of the departures is that initial promotion efforts will be carried out in "Second Life" (SL), a thriving virtual community in which ten million people buy virtual real estate, build virtual houses and businesses, pay off (real) mortgages, raise (virtual) pets and have love affairs. "Where better to find potential readers of a book on a virtual librarian?" asks Rockwell"

JISC Collections' Publisher Workshop

JISC Collections' Publisher Workshop: Meeting the challenges faced by the universities and maximising the take-up of your product - 29 November 2007 - London, UK

Veropedia

"Veropedia is a collaborative effort by a group of Wikipedians to collect the best of Wikipedia's content, clean it up, vet it, and save it for all time. These articles are stable and cannot be edited, The result is a quality stable version that can be trusted by students, teachers, and anyone else who is looking for top-notch, reliable information"

22nd Annual AIIP Conference

22nd Annual Association of Independent Information Professionals Conference - April 30 to May 4 2008 - Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Latanya Jenkins selected as the RUSA 2008 Emerging Leader

Latanya N. Jenkins, visiting assistant professor of Library Science, Diversity Fellow, Archives and Special Collection, Purdue University, West Lafayette (Ind.), has been selected as the 2008 Emerging Leader of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA)

LingoZ

"LingoZ - an online community building the world's largest dictionary. You can look up more than 4,500,000 terms, vote for definitions, post comments or add your own terms, definitions and glossaries, and meet people from all over the globe interested in translation and language"

Digital Futures: from digitization to delivery

Digital Futures focuses on the creation, delivery and preservation of digital resources from cultural and memory institutions. Lasting five days, Digital Futures is aimed at managers and other practitioners from the library, museum, heritage and cultural sectors looking to understand the strategic and management issues of developing digital resources from digitisation to delivery - 7-11 April 2008, London, UK

ProQuest's Colonial State Papers now available

"ProQuest's Colonial State Papers are now available. Through a partnership with The National Archives in the UK, ProQuest is offering digital access to Colonial State Papers. Up until now, researchers wishing to study these documents in full colour have had to visit The National Archives. This exciting new project vastly improves access to these valuable hand-written materials, offering new insight into British trade, history and overseas expansion between the 16th and 18th centuries"

Communicating Astronomy with the Public

The first issue of the Communicating Astronomy with the Public Journal, a free peer-reviewed journal for astronomy communicators, is online

This Week in LibraryBlogLand

This Week in LibraryBlogLand - week ending October 28, 2007

The InfoToday Blog at Internet Librarian

The InfoToday Blog is reporting on the Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, California

Carnival of the Infosciences #82

Carnival of the Infosciences #82 hosted by Young Librarian. Previous Carnivals can be found here

UNESCO launches new Literacy Portal

"In support of its efforts to achieve global literacy, UNESCO has launched its new Literacy Portal. The Portal consolidates UNESCO's literacy programme and serves as a gateway to sharing information on projects and activities all around the world. The Portal aims to enhance UNESCO's coordination of Education for All (EFA), the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) and the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), a 10-year global strategic framework for achieving UNLD goals"

LILAC 2008

LILAC 2008: The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference will take place on March 17-19 at Liverpool John Moores University, England

The Philadelphia Neighborhoods: Histories, Plans and Futures

"The Philadelphia Neighborhoods: Histories, Plans and Futures creates a web presentation of the full content of 86 neighborhood planning surveys prepared and published by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission between 1946 and 1990. These reports contain descriptions of current conditions of housing stock; population trends; property turnover; public transportation; community activity. Recommendations are made for future action. The project will facilitate university and public research on Philadelphia's architectural and social environment by providing access to a body of material whose content is of current and future interest but whose printed format is ephemeral and subject to physical deterioration and loss"

First Monday - October 2007

First Monday - Volume 12, Number 10, 1 October 2007 now available

WILU 2008

The 37th Annual Workshop on Instruction in Library Use will be held at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada from May 14-16, 2008

Ezclopedia

"Ezclopedia is an online, knowledge sharing website that provides a better alternative for qualified individuals to share their knowledge and provide free, reliable, trustworthy information and get the credit and revenue sharing they deserve for their sincere, knowledgeable efforts"

Germany's Library of the Year

A small, closed-to-the-public library at a prison in Münster, in west-central Germany, has received the national Library of the Year award

London Transport Museum re-opens 22 November 2007

"The London Transport Museum re-opens 22 November 2007 after a two year, GBP22 million refurbishment and redesign project. It will tell the story of the development of London, its transport systems and the people who travelled and worked on them over the last 200 years. As well as exploring the past, the new Museum will also look at future transport developments and how transport has shaped five other world cities - Delhi, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo. Stunning new galleries will feature original artworks and advertising posters, and explore the extraordinary design heritage of London's transport system, as well as London transport at war and the expansion of the capital through the development of the London Underground"

ACRL Women's Studies Section Achievement Awards

The Women's Studies Section awards are given annually to honor distinguished academic librarians who have made outstanding contributions to women's studies through accomplishments and service to the profession. The awards recognize those who have made long-standing contributions to the field during a career (the Career Achievement award) and those who have made significant one-time contributions (the Significant Achievement award). The deadline for the 2008 awards is December 7, 2007

Information Law for Information Professionals

Information Law for Information Professionals: What you need to know about Copyright, Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Accessibility and Disability Discrimination Laws - 19 February 2008 - London, UK

WOWIO

"WOWIO opened on the World Wide Web in August 2006 endeavoring to dramatically expand access to important written works by eliminating the economic, geographic, and logistical barriers of readers while also ensuring that content owners are fairly compensated. WOWIO is today the only source where readers can legally download high-quality copyrighted ebooks from leading publishers for free. Readers have access to a wide range of offerings, including works of classic literature, college textbooks, comic books, and popular fiction and non-fiction titles. WOWIO is a privately owned company with headquarters in York, Pennsylvania, and engineering operations in Houston, Texas"

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Song Titles. Answers here.

1. The southernmost point of a long peninsula in Scotland gave its name to this No. 1 single in 1977 by Paul McCartney, who owns property there.
2. This reflective song sung by Christina Aguilera appeared on the soundtrack for the Disney animated film "Mulan".
3. This dreamy song was a worldwide hit for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics in 1983.
4. Jamie Cullum sang this song about enduring amorousness on the soundtrack of "Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason" in 2004.
5. Jennifer Lopez topped the UK singles charts in 2005 with this correct song.
6. This bird was an instrumental hit for Fleetwood Mac in 1968.
7. Justin Timberlake suggested a flood of tears in this 2002 hit single.
8. This ornithological home was Weather Report's best-known number.
9. This poisonous song by Britney Spears was Choice Music Single for 2004.
10. This Bruce Springsteen song was a hot hit for the Pointer Sisters in 1978.

Getting the Most Out of Your Institutional Repository: Gathering Content and Building Use

The National Information Standards Organization and PALINET will host a forum on Getting the Most Out of Your Institutional Repository: Gathering Content and Building Use, to be held December 3 at the National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD. This one-day event asks library and information service providers to think about how to take advantage of an organization's repository once it is implemented

OvidSP

"Ovid, has announced the release of OvidSP, its new electronic information search platform. OvidSP is the next step in the evolution of Ovid's two existing platforms, Ovid Web Gateway and SilverPlatter WEBSPIRS, and is designed to make searching high-quality scholarly and professional content faster, simpler, and more efficient for all users, from novice searchers to expert power users. All Ovid customers will be able to access the new platform beginning October 25, 2007"

Nominations for the 2008 Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award sought

Nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes the contribution of a library leader who has demonstrated exceptional service to ALCTS and its areas of interest (acquisitions, cataloging and classification, collection management and development, preservation and reformatting, and serials). Deadline is December 1, 2007

CartaLens

"National Geographic Maps and MetaCarta, Inc.have announced CartaLens, an innovative geospatial digital asset management solution for georeferencing, managing, retrieving and delivering digital assets"

Library of Congress collaborates with Xerox

"As part of the Library of Congress's mission to ensure that America's history and heritage are available and accessible for generations to come, the Library of Congress and Xerox Corporation are working together on a project to develop better ways to store, preserve and access treasured digital images. The collection includes such images as a panorama of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, a photograph of Abraham Lincoln taken four days before he was assassinated and a picture of the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk"

2007 Whiting Writers' Awards

"The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation has named ten recipients of the 2007 Whiting Writers' Awards. The awards, which are now $50,000 each, totaling $500,000, have been given annually since 1985 to emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $5 million to 230 poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, and playwrights. Among the past recipients who have achieved acclaim and prominence in their field are Jonathan Franzen, Sarah Ruhl, William T. Vollmann, Colson Whitehead, Jorie Graham, Kim Edwards, Z Z Packer, Denis Johnson, Tobias Wolff, Michael Cunningham, Lydia Davis, and Jeffrey Eugenides"

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 25, 2007

Kansas Memory

"Kansas Memory has been created by the Kansas State Historical Society to share its historical collections via the Internet. It supports the mission of the Society - to identify, collect, preserve, interpret, and disseminate materials and information pertaining to Kansas history in order to assist the public in understanding, appreciating, and caring for the heritage of Kansas. Kansas Memory provides a very tangible means of fulfilling the vision of the KSHS, which is to enrich people's lives by connecting them to the past"

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 156

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 156 - November 2007 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University, is now available

Emerald announces new publications

Emerald Group Publishing Limited has announced the acquisition of four new publications:

Social Responsibility Journal
Social Enterprise Journal
Tourism Review
International Journal of Development Issues

30th European Conference on Information Retrieval

30th European Conference on Information Retrieval - 30 March to 3 April, 2008 - Glasgow, Scotland

Survey: Academic Library Website Benchmarks

Primary Research Group is planning to publish a survey of academic library websites. This survey is restricted to college libraries, including 2-year, 4-year and university websites, and is open to the academic libraries of all countries. The survey should be taken by the library website webmaster or other individual knowledgeable about the day to day workings of the college website. Participants receive a free PDF copy of the estimated 100-page report

FreePint Newsletter 240

FreePint Newsletter 240 - 25 October, 2007 - now available

2007 Samuel Pepys Award

"A ground-breaking study of one of English history's great turning points - the political crisis that led to the overthrow of King Charles 1 - has won The 2007 Samuel Pepys Award. John Adamson's The Noble Revolt, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, won huge critical acclaim when it was published earlier this year..."

Crime Scene Edinburgh: 20 Years of Rankin and Rebus

"A major new exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of the first Inspector Rebus novel opens this week at the National Library of Scotland. Opening on Wednesday 24 October, Crime Scene Edinburgh is a timely retrospective on the career of the great detective and his creator, Ian Rankin. The exhibition at the National Library of Scotland comes in the wake of the release last month of Exit Music, the final Rebus novel, and marks a sort of homecoming for both author and detective: Ian Rankin wrote much the first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses, in the Library's reading rooms, where he divided his time between fiction writing and work on his PhD thesis on Dame Muriel Spark"

Pronetos

"Pronetos is the social network for scholars. It is a home for University Faculty, Graduate Students, and Research Professionals of every academic discipline who want to be recognized as leaders in their field. Pronetos gives you a platform to network and collaborate with your colleagues all over the world. With Pronetos you have a forum for building ideas, a place to keep up with the latest trends and topics in your field, and the ability to nurture your professional legacy"

WorldCat Link Manager: New name, new features

"OCLC has an updated OpenURL link resolver with a new name: WorldCat Link Manager. Formerly known as 1Cate, WorldCat Link Manager allows users to link from an article citation to the full-text version of the article. The new name reflects the gradual merging of WorldCat data into Link Manager's knowledgebase (and vice versa), as well as the increasing integration that users can expect between Link Manager and WorldCat. The new name coincides with the addition of several user-requested enhancements"

JISC Inform 19 - Autumn 2007

JISC Inform 19 - Autumn 2007. Featuring a look at the revamped Go-Geo!, a portal project that links a wide range of geographically related resources; Alice Gugan on the ways the research community is using advanced data visualisation techniques to aid their work; an overview of the Student Expectations Survey, a vital research project undertaken by Ipsos MORI and commissioned by JISC; and a look at Open Source Software's place in the HE and FE world

Library of Congress partners with British, Canadian and Australian National Libraries on RDA implementation

"Four national libraries have joined forces to implement a new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital environment in which libraries now operate. The Library of Congress, the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia have agreed on a coordinated implementation of RDA: Resource Description and Access, the successor to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. These national libraries, together with representatives from professional library associations in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, are members of the Committee of Principals which oversees the work of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA, which is responsible for developing RDA"

2007 Quill Award Winners

The winners of the 2007 Quill Awards have been announced

Humanities Research Network

The Social Science Research Network has announce the creation of the Humanities Research Network. HRN will provide a world-wide, online community for research in all areas of Humanities, following the model of the other subject matter networks within SSRN

IATUL 2007 presentations available

IATUL 2007: Global Access to Science - Scientific Publishing for the Future - 11-14 June, 2007 - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. Presentations now available

OCLC releases new international research study

OCLC has released the third in a series of reports that scan the information landscape to provide data, analyses and opinions about users' behaviors and expectations in today's networked world: Sharing, Privacy and Trust in Our Networked World

"Opportunity Online" hardware grants from Gates Foundation

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced $8.3 million in grants to help public libraries in 10 states provide quality access to computers and the Internet. The new "Opportunity Online" hardware grants are for public libraries serving communities with high concentrations of poverty and that are at risk of having outdated technology. Libraries must provide matching funds to be eligible for the grants. These required local funds are expected to total $4.75 million. This is the first of three rounds of Opportunity Online hardware grants. More than 1,000 library branches in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wyoming are eligible for grants in this round"

Bringing people together at the library: Rural Libraries as Place

Bringing people together at the library: Rural Libraries as Place - "webinar" from Web Junction - October 25 2007 at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET

Newspapers Digitisation Project: British Newspapers 1800-1900

"The 19th Century British Library Newspaper Website, managed by Gale, was launched on 22 October 2007, with 1,000,000 pages of content. It is available to all Further and Higher Education UK institutions free of charge, thanks to funding from JISC, as part of its GBP22 million digitisation programme. Only HE and FE institutions can sign up for this unique resource at present"

British Library press releases RSS feed

The British Library has established an RSS feed for its press releases

Movers & Shakers 2008 nominations

"The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. Our seventh annual Movers & Shakers supplement will profile 50-plus up-and-coming individuals from across the United States and Canada who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers & Shakers 2008 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead. Deadline for submissions is November 15, 2007"

This Week in LibraryBlogLand

This Week in LibraryBlogLand - week ending October 21, 2007

Directory of Experimental Library Tools Sites

Ken Varnum of RSS4Lib states: "I've started compiling a list of 'library labs' - web sites where libraries of all kinds publicize their experimental, 'beta,' or trial services."

A century of parliamentary papers made available online

"Through an innovative public/private cooperative publishing model, ProQuest is partnering with JISC, The British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service (BOPCRIS) at the University of Southampton, the British Library, and the University of Cambridge to make available the Eighteenth Century Parliamentary Papers free of charge to universities, colleges and research councils in the UK"

Haematologica/The Hematology Journal now online

The Ferrata Storti Foundation and European Hematology Association have announced that the full text of the Haematologica/The Hematology Journal is now available online

New Libraries on SUNCAT

Two new libraries have recently been added to SUNCAT: the University of Dundee and the Royal College of Music. SUNCAT now contains serials' holdings information for 66 UK research libraries

E-learning seminar series 2007/08

"The UK Centre for Legal Education will be offering an e-learning seminar series from 2007-08. The aim of the series is to provide four one day seminars which will deliver stimulating and challenging presentations and encourage dialogue on four key themes. The focus will be on emerging technologies and how e-learning can be embedded and integrated into modules within the law curriculum. The series will be of particular interest to law academics, educational developers and learning technologists. The seminars will be free standing and discounts will be given for attendance at more than one event"

BibSonomy

BibSonomy is a system for sharing bookmarks and lists of literature from the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group of the University of Kassel, Germany

A-LIEP 2007

A-LIEP 2007 - 2nd International Conference on Asia-Pacific Library & Information Education & Practice: Advancing Library and Information Education in Asian Countries: Convergence and Cooperation in Information and Communication Sciences - Taipei, Taiwan - 23-24 November 2007

Ingenta Research Award

The Ingenta Research Award is given annually by the Library Research Round Table of the American Library Association to support research projects about acquisition, use, and preservation of digital information. All submissions must reach ALA on or before Thursday, January 31, 2008

LOEX of the West 2008

The call for proposals for LOEX of the West 2008, Las Vegas, Jun 4-6, 2008 is now open. Deadline for submission of proposals is Nov 30, 2007. This library user education conference brings together librarians from across the North American continent to share and discuss techniques, research and ideas in the realm of information literacy. This year's theme is "Hit the jackpot: successful experimentation and innovation in instruction."

Credo Reference adds ALA Editions titles

Credo Reference has signed an agreement with ALA Editions, the publishing arm of the American Library Association, to integrate two popular library and information science titles into the Credo General Reference collection

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large: 7:12 (November 2007)

Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large: 7:12 (November 2007) is now available for downloading

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007 - December 3-6 - Chicago, IL, USA

Libraries Going Open!

Libraries Going Open! - This movie, produced by AG Total Media, was commissioned by Internet Archive for the 2007 Open Content Alliance meeting held on October 17, 2007

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Sea Creatures. Answers here.

1. Is the sea anemone an animal or a plant?
2. The dolphin is a kind of whale. Is this true or false?
3. Which creature is being described here: "Any of numerous species of small fishes with a head and body shaped like the head and neck of a horse"?
4. How many legs do crabs have: six, eight or ten?
5. Which creature is being described here: "Any of various marine crustaceans of the subclass Cirripedia that, as adults, live attached to rocks, ship bottoms, etc."?
6. What kind of whale is also called an orca?
7. What is the word for young seals?
8. What are the only mammals to have adapted to living entirely in water?
9. Which swimming animal is also known as the sea hog?
10. When talking about sea creatures, what is a scrod?

Inspec Direct

The Institution of Engineering and Technology has announced the forthcoming launch of Inspec Direct, a new web-based version of the Inspec Database that will be available directly from the IET

Scitopia.Org out of beta

Scitopia.org, a free, federated search portal created by science and technology societies, removed its beta label, marking the official launch of its service

UNESCO and Library of Congress sign agreement for World Digital Library

UNESCO and the US Library of Congress will join forces to build a World Digital Library, following the signing of an agreement by Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, and the Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 17 October, 2007

Max Planck Society terminates licensing contract with Springer publishing house

"Following several fruitless rounds of talks the Max Planck Society (MPG) has, effective January 1, 2008, terminated the online contract with the Springer publishing house which for eight years now has given all institutes electronic access to some 1,200 scientific journals. The analysis of user statistics and comparisons with other important publishing houses had shown that Springer was charging twice the amount the MPG still considered justifiable for access to the journals, the Society declared. "And that 'justifiable' rate is still higher than comparable offers of other major publishing houses," a spokesman of the Max Planck Digital Library told heise online"

LIBRES - September 2007

The September 2007 issue of LIBRES, the international refereed electronic journal devoted to new research in Library and Information Science, is now available

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - October 2007

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - Volume 07, Number 10 - October 2007 is now available

The Online Library of Liberty

The Online Library of Liberty is "provided in order to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals by making freely available on the internet the classic texts in the classical liberal and free market traditions"

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 18, 2007

Open Source Metasearch by Roy Tennant

"Software that searches multiple remote sources and merges the results for the user has been available for several years. Whether called federated searching, cross-database searching, or metasearching, it aims to make it as easy as possible for library users to find what they want from many different sources. Now, joining several commercial offerings in this space is a free, open source solution: LibraryFind" - more in Library Journal, October 15, 2007. More LJ articles from Roy Tennant

Institute of Museum and Library Services Leadership Lecture

IMLS will present the first annual IMLS Leadership Lecture, Power, leadership, strategic communications, and the future of libraries and museums, by Robert L. Dilenschneider, megatrends thinker and internationally recognized public relations expert - October 23, 2007

Darwin200

Darwin200 plans to celebrate the impact that Darwin's ideas about evolution, as well as his approach to the understanding of the natural world and his outstanding example as a scientist, continue to have on our lives. The celebrations are centred on Darwin's 200th birthday in February 2009, but will begin in July 2008 by commemorating 150 years since Darwin first presented his theory to fellow scientists. Darwin200 events will build up to November 2009, which is the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

Free access to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online

Free access to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online is available until October 21, 2007

Journal of Electronic Publishing - Fall 2007

Journal of Electronic Publishing: a forum for research and discussion about contemporary publishing practices, and the impact of those practices upon users - volume 10 issue 3 - Fall 2007 is now available

Carnival of the Infosciences #81

Carnival of the Infosciences #81 hosted by Filipino Librarian. Previous Carnivals can be found here

Podcast: Promoting open access - how JISC is supporting the development of repositories

"Repositories are being established and developed across the UK to help make research papers and other resources freely available to all who want to use them. In this podcast, JISC programme manager Andy McGregor speaks with Philip Pothen about the recent developments in this area and how JISC's work is beginning to impact on further and higher education"

Information Research - October 2007

Information Research - Volume 12 No 4 - October 2007 - now available online

Wiley-Blackwell to publish Journal of Forensic Nursing

Wiley-Blackwell has announced that it has been selected by the International Association of Forensic Nurses to publish the Journal of Forensic Nursing in 2008

AASL launches collaboration with PBS

The American Association of School Librarians, a division of the American Library Association, is collaborating with the Public Broadcasting Service to feature select articles from the Knowledge Quest, AASL's official journal, on the PBS Teachers Web site

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007 winner

Anne Enright is the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007

Knowledge for Business

Knowledge for Business: Finding free resources for you and your users - January 17 2008 - University of East London, Docklands Campus, London, UK

Transformational technologies: Web 2.0 in the library environment

Transformational technologies: Web 2.0 in the library environment - 2 November 2007 - Glasgow Metropolitan College, Scotland

BMJ Group Librarian Newsletter - October 2007

BMJ Group Librarian Newsletter - October 2007 issue now available

Charting Their Journeys: Explorers Record the Americas, 1500-1900

"From the search for a new trade route to the Orient to the race for a lunar landing, explorers have charted their journeys in wonderfully pictorial maps. What were the explorers' impressions? What experiences and observations prompted the explorers to record them on maps and charts? Who knew what, when? Join Ed Redmond, Geography and Map Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress, as we glimpse these journeys to the Americas through the eyes of those who lived them. Brought to you by the Digital Reference Team of the Library of Congress" - October 17, 2007 beginning at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist

The shortlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize has been announced

Celebrating Tibet at The Library of Congress

"The Congressional Gold Medal - the U.S.A.'s highest civilian honor - will be given by the U.S. Congress to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet on October 17. The award recognizes the Dalai Lama's advocacy of religious harmony, nonviolence and human rights throughout the world. In honor of the occasion, the Library of Congress will present Celebrating Tibet: A special display on the occasion of the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Comprising 40 Tibetan items, the display will be on view from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday, October 16-19, in the Asian Reading Room, located in Room 150 of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C."

Scandinavian Journal of Food & Nutrition moves to open access

Co-Action Publishing has announced that a contract signed with the Swedish Nutrition Foundation will guarantee that Food & Nutrition Research (formerly Scandinavian Journal of Food & Nutrition) will publish all content Open Access, free of subscription fees, as of January 2008

This Week in LibraryBlogLand

This Week in LibraryBlogLand - week ending October 15, 2007

Daily Mail/Transworld First Novel competition shortlist

The shortlist for the Daily Mail/Transworld First Novel competition has been announced. Following the launch of the nationwide competition in March, 820 novels were sent in by budding writers of which six have been shortlisted. The judges are in the process of selecting the winner of the competition. The winner, who will be announced at the end of October will receive a GBP30,000 publishing contract with Transworld, to be published by Bantam in April next year

Lego Your Library: Social Software and Web 2.0 Building Blocks

Lego Your Library: Social Software and Web 2.0 Building Blocks with Geoffrey Harder and Kenton Good - Web Conference - October 16, 2007 - Developed for the Education Institute by Darlene Fichter's Northern Lights Internet Solutions, Inc. in Saskatchewan

Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award

The Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished Librarian Award is an annual award sponsored by OCLC for practitioners who have made outstanding contributions in the area of interlibrary loan. The award consists of $2,000 and a citation and is presented at the STARS ILL Discussion Group meeting at the ALA annual conference. Nominations are due December 15 2007

U.S. National Institutes of Health launches extensive Open-Access dataset of genetic and clinical data

"The National Institutes of Health is launching one of the most extensive collections of genetic and clinical data ever made freely available to researchers worldwide. Called SHARe (SNP Health Association Resource), the Web-based dataset enables qualified researchers to access a wealth of data from large population-based studies, starting with the landmark Framingham Heart Study. Funded by the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, SHARe will accelerate discoveries linking genes and health, thereby advancing scientists' understanding of the causes and prevention of cardiovascular disease and other disorders"

Informa Healthcare catalogue

The Informa Healthcare catalogue is now available online

Information for Social Change Number 25

Information for Social Change Number 25 - Summer 2007 - Special issue on Libraries and Information in Conflict Situations

2nd edition of Citing Medicine available

"Citing Medicine, from The National Library of Medicine, provides assistance to authors in compiling lists of references for their publications, to editors in revising such lists, to publishers in setting reference standards for their authors and editors, and to librarians and others in formatting bibliographic citations"

Patient drug information available from PubMed

"Starting October 12, 2007, some PubMed users will see links to a drug information resource on over two million citations. PubMed's AbstractPlus display format includes links to "Patient Drug Information" from MedMaster; a publication of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and a new monograph on the NCBI Bookshelf"

BSI British Standards joins CrossRef

"CrossRef has announced that BSI British Standards has joined as a new CrossRef member. As a member, subject to the creation of an appropriate protocol, BSI will be able to register standards with CrossRef and implement interlinking with other scholarly and scientific publications"

Library of Congress receives collection of oral histories from prominent African Americans

The National Visionary Leadership Project has donated more than 200 original videotaped interviews from prominent African Americans to the Library of Congress. These oral histories, housed in the American Folklife Center, are the seed of what will be an open collection that will grow in the coming years

Ethics & Global Politics

"Ethics & Global Politics is an Open Access, peer reviewed scholarly journal published by Co-Action Publishing with support from the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, Sweden. Ethics & Global Politics looks to foster theoretical contributions to the study of global politics by providing a forum for presenting novel ways of understanding and conceptualizing the global political challenges the world faces today"

Blackwell Book Services now a WorldCat Selection service partner

"WorldCat Selection subscribers can now receive notification records for Blackwell Book Services materials within the WorldCat Selection interface. WorldCat Selection, based on ITSO CUL (Integrated Tool for Selection and Ordering at Cornell University Library) software, allows selectors of library materials to view new title data from multiple materials vendors in one central, comprehensive system"

The Medieval Flower Book

From The British Library: The Medieval Flower Book By Celia Fisher - "Medieval manuscripts abound with exquisite depictions of flowers and plants; bright blossoms are scattered across intricately decorated borders and golden ivy leaves trail over the painted pages. This sumptuously illustrated A to Z guide to medieval botany takes a closer look at 100 major varieties of flowers and plants that appear within the centuries-old pages of these manuscripts - from acanthus, anemones and apples to violets, vines and wallflowers. Containing 140 images reproduced from the British Library's outstanding collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts, this beautifully illustrated new title examines each variety and provides intriguing explanation of their uses, history and symbolism" - Publication date: 24 October 2007

2008 British Columbia Library Conference

2008 British Columbia Library Conference: "Off the Shelf and Out of the Box: Creativity in Libraries" - April 17-19, 2008 - Richmond, British Columbia, Canada

ICIKM 08

ICIKM 08: International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management - March 24-29 2008 - Kathmandu, Nepal

Yale University Press adds digital content to OCLC NetLibrary

Yale University Press is adding digital content to NetLibrary. Notable books in the Yale University Press collection include Ali Allawi's The Occupation of Iraq, E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World, the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the Annotated Shakespeare, the Lamar Series in Western History, the Annals of Communism series, Yale University Press Health and Wellness series, upcoming Yale Drama Series titles, and upcoming Cecile and Theodore Margellos World Republic of Letters series titles

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Verse and Worse. Answers here.

1. Does "blank verse" usually have rhymes?
2. Who popularised limericks in his 1846 "Book of Nonsense" - was it Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll or Spike Milligan?
3. Does a limerick contain four, five, or six lines?
4. What kind of poem is an elegy, like Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"?
5. The commonest unit or foot in English verse has one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. What name is given to this unit?
6. How many lines are there in a quatrain?
7. What is the name for the type of poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, of which the following is an example?
Sir Christopher Wren
Said, I am going to dine with some men.
If anybody calls
Say I am designing St Paul's.
8. What kind of poem would be a cento?
9. What is macaronic verse?
10. Does a dactyl contain two, three, or four syllables?

Video Journal of Conference Presentations

"The Video Journal of Conference Presentations is a new kind of scientific journal dedicated to archiving conference presentations and providing citation information for them. The journal is built on the idea that conference presentations can have great impact on scientific development over the long term"

Leila Books adding records to WorldCat

OCLC has announced that Leila Books is participating in OCLC's Vendor Record Contribution Program, a way for vendors to contribute descriptive metadata for their materials to WorldCat as early as possible in the publishing cycle in order to make it easier for librarians to catalog their newest acquisitions

Doris Lessing takes Nobel Prize for Literature

"The Nobel Prize for Literature has been won this year by the British author, Doris Lessing. Lessing, who is only the 11th women to win literature's most prestigious prize in its 106-year history, is best known for her 1962 post-modern feminist masterpiece, The Golden Notebook" - The Guardian

bepress 2008 Prices and News

The Berkeley Electronic Press has announced that prices for each of its peer-reviewed electronic journals will be unchanged in 2008, and will remain at 2007 levels. As in all previous years, no journal costs more than $500

Oxford Journals Update for Librarians: Issue 1 2007

Oxford Journals Update for Librarians: Issue 1 2007 is now available online

2007 London Book Festival adds new categories

"The 2007 London Book Festival will accept poetry submissions and art/photography books for its annual program celebrating books that deserve greater recognition from the international publishing community. The 2007 London Book Festival will also consider published, self-published and independent publisher non-fiction, fiction, children's books, teenage, how-to, audio/spoken word, comics/graphic novels, e-books, wild card (anything goes!), science fiction, romance and biography/autobiographical works"

Thomson Scientific extends patent data, functionality of INPADOC

"Thomson Scientific has announced that the INPADOC/Patent Family and Legal Status database on Dialog has been enhanced with an extended content set, additional search capabilities and more comprehensive results for patent searchers"

FreePint Newsletter 239

FreePint Newsletter 239 - 11 October, 2007 - now available

British Library selects Nexsan as storage backbone for large-scale digital archiving project

"Nexsan Technologies has announced that its SATABeast disk-based storage arrays have been selected by the British Library. The Nexsan systems will serve as the storage backbone for the library's ongoing digitalisation project aimed at providing secure online access to 300TB of the nation's most treasured published archives both past and present"

Queen Elizabeth II: A Portrait in Stamps

"Since her accession to the throne in 1952, the Queen's image on UK and Commonwealth stamps has become one of the most familiar icons of all time - recognisable by people all over the world. This new book, jointly published by Royal Mail and the British Library to coincide with Her Majesty's diamond wedding anniversary, celebrates the key events in the life of the Queen and the British royal family through the hundreds of stamps produced during her reign, from the 1950s to the present day"

ALADN 2008 Conference

The web site for the ALADN 2008 Conference is now live. The conference will be held June 1-4 in Austin, Texas, USA

2007 National Book Awards finalists

"The 20 Finalists for the 2007 National Book Awards represent extraordinary writing from both established and debut authors. To be eligible for a 2007 National Book Award, a book must have been published in the United States between December 1, 2006 and November 30, 2007 and must have been written by a United States citizen"

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 11, 2007

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology - October/November 2007 now available

HarperCollins launches site for new authors

"HarperCollins UK is launching a community website intended to find and nurture new authors online. Authonomy will initially be rolled out by HCUK in early 2008, with the intention of it becoming a global programme in the future. The site will connect unpublished authors with readers, and will allow anyone to participate. Readers will be able to support their favourite manuscripts, with HC guaranteeing to consider the most popular for publication. HC anticipates that many of the readers will be industry professionals looking for new talent" - The Bookseller

SAGE content now available to Calis members

SAGE and the China Academic Library and Information System have signed a one-year agreement to provide electronic access to over 450 journals starting in January 2008

Features added to CONTENTdm for digital collection management

"OCLC has added new features and functionality to CONTENTdm, the leading digital collection management software for libraries and other cultural heritage institutions, to make it easy for libraries to manage and access documents in Portable Document Format (PDF) and integrate digital collection growth into their current cataloging workflows"

DCC/DPE/DRIVER/Nestor Joint Workshop

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC), Digital Preservation Europe (DPE), Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER), and Network of Expertise in Long-Term Storage of Digital Resources (nestor) will be delivering a joint workshop on the long-term curation of scientific and scholarly digital repository content. This event will be held at Humboldt University in Berlin on 27-28 November 2007. This event is being organised as a follow-up to the 2005 DCC workshop on long-term curation within digital repositories which was held in Cambridge, UK

Digital Archive Fever

Digital Archive Fever: CHArt 2007 Conference - November 8-9, 2007 - London, UK

Web2forDev - Participatory Web for Development

Web2ForDev 2007 was the first conference devoted to exploring the ways in which international development stakeholders can take advantage of the technical and organizational opportunities provided by Web 2.0 methods, approaches and applications. Conference presentations/ lecture videos now available online

Balisage: The Markup Conference

"Balisage is designed to meet the needs of markup theoreticians and practitioners who are pushing the boundaries of the field. It's all about the markup: how to create it; what it means; hierarchies and overlap; modeling; taxonomies; transformation; query, searching, and retrieval; presentation and accessibility; making systems that make markup dance (or dance faster to a different tune in a smaller space) - in short, changing the world and the web through the power of marked-up information" - August 12–15, 2008, Montreal, Canada

BookStore Discovery from MPS Technologies

"To enable publishers to leverage their content in a rapidly proliferating e-environment, MPS Technologies has unveiled BookStore Discovery, a tool to enable publishers to make their book content discoverable and accessible to the widest possible audience. At the same time, it allows publishers to retain control of the content and continue to use the payment process on their website which helps enhance the user experience and build reader interest online, resulting in increased sales"

DoctorPortal from Elsevier

"Elsevier has announced the launch of DoctorPortal, an online repository of the most current medical information. DoctorPortal is advertiser-supported and based around enhanced online versions of the respected and freely available Doctor and Hospital Doctor magazines. Aimed at the UK's 150,000 primary and secondary care doctors DoctorPortal promises to be the news source for UK doctors"

Oxford Language Dictionaries Online

"Oxford Language Dictionaries Online provides you with authoritative, up-to-date translations of all the words and phrases you need, plus a wealth of tools and resources to help you learn and use language more effectively"

The IWR Professional of the Year

"Are you an outstanding information professional? Do you know one, or does a member of your team deserve the highest accolade? If the answer is yes, then nominate yourself or your colleague for the IWR Information Professional of the Year Award 2007. The award, which has been presented by this title for the last seven years, offers recognition for the individual who has made the most outstanding contribution to the profession in the last 12 months"

Talis Insight 2007

Talis Insight 2007 - Inspiration for Change - November 6-7, 2007 - Birmingham, UK

Robert Hooke, Britain's Leonardo, papers go online

"The papers of Robert Hooke, a 17th century scientist hailed as Britain's answer to Leonardo, have gone on line so that his pioneering work can now be appreciated by a global audience. Hooke (1635-1703), the first professional scientist, was always desperate for publicity and now, three centuries after Sir Isaac Newton allegedly tried to erase him from history, his papers have been made available on the internet by the Royal Society, London"

Swets acquires ScholarlyStats from MPS Technologies

"Swets extends its extensive product line through acquisition of the award winning ScholarlyStats, continuing its strategic focus on providing the ultimate portfolio of services for libraries worldwide"

U.S. Copyright Office announces customized email subscription services

"The U.S. Copyright Office has announced that it has implemented a new email subscription service to make it easier to receive messages on the topics that interest you. This service is an expansion and replacement of the existing NewsNet newsletter"

Frankfurt Book Fair 2007

Frankfurt Book Fair 2007 - October 10-14 - Frankfurt, Germany

Information Tomorrow edited by Rachel Singer Gordon

"In Information Tomorrow, Rachel Singer Gordon brings together 20 of today's leading thinkers on the intersections between libraries and technology. They address various ways in which new technologies influence librarians' actions and goals and offer ideas for using technology to meet patrons where they are. The result is an engaging, wide-ranging, and sometimes provocative discussion for systems librarians, library IT workers, library managers and administrators, and anyone working with or interested in technology in libraries"

October is National Medical Librarians Month

"Medical Library Association created the National Medical Librarians Month observance to raise awareness of the important role of the health information professional. Patients and those in the health care community need the specialized services that medical librarians provide now more than ever before..."

New GBP29m Bodleian Library halted

From The BBC: "Controversial plans for a new Bodleian Library in Oxford are now on hold because critics say the new scheme will spoil the city's world-famous skyline. Fourteen councillors have successfully petitioned for the plans to be debated at a meeting next month"

Smart Libraries Newsletter - October 2007

Smart Libraries Newsletter by Marshall Breeding and Tom Peters: Delivering hard data and innovative insights about the world of library technology, every month - October 2007 issue now available

AALL Spectrum - September/October 2007

AALL Spectrum - Volume 12 No. 1, September/October 2007 now available

Maney Publishing launches two new E-journal collections for 2008

"Maney Publishing is expanding its MORE (Maney Online Research E-journals) range with two new collections: Archaeology and Heritage and Language and Literature. These e-journal collections will allow educational institutions, libraries, consultancies and societies to access journal content online in packages highly specific to their subject area"

A quick tour of Amazon.com's new remodel

A quick tour of Amazon.com's new remodel

ERIC using Find in a Library feature

"Individuals who search ERIC may notice a Find in a Library link in search results. ERIC is partnering with OCLC to leverage WorldCat to provide users with a link from ERIC records to electronic and print resources available in libraries"

InfoBits - September 2007

The September 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

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

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

1. Name a state of the USA that begins with the letter "A".
2. Which famous jungle character was the son of Lord Greystoke and his wife Alice?
3. Tabasco is a kind of sauce, named after a state in which country?
4. Who wrote the books "The Sun Also Rises" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls"?
5. The Gobi Desert spreads across two countries. Name one of them.
6. Music is written on a framework of lines and spaces called a staff or stave. How many lines are there in a normal staff or stave?
7. Which German-born actress starred in the films "The Blue Angel" and "Destry Rides Again"?
8. The Nikkei index or Nikkei average indicates the relative prices of stocks and shares on the stock exchange in which city?
9. Is Amman the capital of Iran, Iraq or Jordan?
10. Where is mother-of-pearl found naturally?

Biblio Tech Review - October 2007

The October 2007 issue of Biblio Tech Review is now available

Open Repositories 2008

Open Repositories 2008: the Third International Conference on Open Repositories - April 1-4, 2008 - Southampton, UK

31 new journals added to T&F's iOpenAccess option

"Taylor & Francis has announced that their iOpenAccess option has been extended to cover 31 journals in environmental and agricultural sciences, behavioural sciences and development studies. This is in addition to the 175 journals from T&F's Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics portfolios, 7 behavioural science journals from Psychology Press, and medical and bioscience journals from Informa Healthcare"

PCG unveils research into the evolution of renewals trends over the last four years

"Publishers Communication Group has recently published its latest research report: an analysis of journal renewal trends in the scholarly information sector over the last four years"

Emerald Backfiles

"To commemorate its 40th anniversary, Emerald Group Publishing Limited has been working with the British Library to digitize the full archive of its journals collection in business, management, library and information services, materials science and engineering. From early 2008, the Emerald Backfiles will be available online for the first time, providing users with direct access to historical articles in a fully searchable format. With a collection that dates back to the nineteenth century, Emerald Backfiles form an interesting and important record for business and management scholars and social historians alike. The extended archive will help to fill collection gaps, reduce shelf space and provide access to articles that have never before been published electronically"

Thomson Scientific launches Enterprise Alert Manager

"Thomson Scientific has announced the launch of Enterprise Alert Manager, an integrated RSS management and collaboration solution designed to simplify information distribution across an organization by allowing for easy deployment while reducing email load and network strain. It also helps centralize content management, including managing users' credentials for password protected content. With Enterprise Alert Manager, information managers can access, manage and deliver information from any RSS-based source, including Dialog, the Internet and internal, proprietary content. Enterprise Alert Manager also provides the ability to enhance content with editorial reviews, tag records with separate categories, customize information feeds for specific constituencies and provide users access to RSS content feeds via email, web browsers, portals, intranets, desktop applications and mobile devices"

1957-2007: Sputnik and the Space Race

1957-2007: Sputnik and the Space Race - A Guide to Selected Resources - Science Reference Section, Science, Technology and Business Division, Library of Congress

40th Guardian Children's fiction prize winner

"A wholefood shop owner from Wales has won the 40th Guardian Children's fiction prize with her first novel. Jenny Valentine, 37, scooped the GBP1,500 prize with Finding Violet Park, the story of a "friendship" forged beyond the grave between a teenage boy and the elderly woman whose ashes he discovers abandoned in a taxi office"

The Wise Guide - September 2007

The Wise Guide - monthly portal to the many resources available from the U.S. Library of Congress - September 2007 now available

A new look for Go-Geo!

"The place to discover geospatial information and services for those in education and research, has a new look. Users visiting Go-Geo! will find a new map-driven quick data search and a dedicated section for metadata resources, including information about metadata workshops, links to standards and support documentation for users wishing to create geospatial metadata using the Go-Geo! Metadata Editor tool"

Carnival of the Infosciences #80

Carnival of the Infosciences #80 hosted by Connecting Librarian. Previous Carnivals can be found here

Access 2007 full program

The full program for Access 2007, being held in Victoria, Canada, October 11-13, 2007, is now available

Spirit and Intent: Understanding Aboriginal Treaties

"Visitors to Ottawa will not want to miss the new temporary exhibition at Library and Archives Canada, Spirit and Intent: Understanding Aboriginal Treaties. Open to the public at 395 Wellington Street from September 24, 2007 to March 24, 2008, the exhibition features a large selection of treaty documents and artifacts dating from the 1600s to the 1990s. Discover some of our country's most important heritage records and gain insight into the voices, values and visions behind these agreements"

Turkestan Album

From The Library of Congress: "The Turkestanskii Al'bom (Turkestan Album) provides a visual survey of Central Asia from the perspective of the Russian imperial government that took control of the area in the 1850s and 1860s. About 1,200 photographs, with some architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps, are arranged in four parts"

Oxford University Library goes live with SFX

Ex Libris (UK) has announced that the SFX link resolver is now operational at the Oxford University Library Services. The OULS has introduced SFX to manage the university's e-collection - consisting of over 22,500 e-journals and an extensive collection of e-books

Forward Prize for Poetry winner

Sean O'Brien has become the first person to win the prestigious Forward Prize for Poetry three times. O'Brien, 55, from Newcastle, was awarded the GBP10,000 prize for best collection for The Drowned Book. A professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, he has won the Forward Prize for Poetry twice before, in 1995 and 2001 - BBC

First issue of PMC Physics A available

PMC Physics A is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes articles on high-energy & nuclear physics, cosmology, gravity & astroparticle physics and also the instrumentation & data analysis of results in these areas

Dioscuri - the modular emulator

"Dioscuri is an x86 computer hardware emulator written in Java. It is designed by the digital preservation community to ensure documents and programs from the past can still be accessed in the future. Dioscuri version 0.2.0 is out now This release is capable of running various versions of MS-DOS, FreeDOS 0.9 Beta (included in package) and ELKS (Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset)"

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #114

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #114 - October 2 2007 is now available

Wiley InterScience Library Newsletter - September 2007

Wiley InterScience Library Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 5, September 2007 is now available

Back issues of Oral Tradition now available

"All back issues of Oral Tradition, from volume one, number one (1986) to the present are now available online, open-access, and free of charge"

2007 Oregon Book Awards finalists

The finalists for the 2007 Oregon Book Awards have been announced. Winners will be announced at the 21st Annual Oregon Book Awards ceremony, which will take place on December 2, 2007 at the Portland Art Museum

The Reader Digital Book from Sony

"The Reader Digital Book provides a new way to experience reading. It boasts an impressive 6-inch display utilizing breakthrough e Ink technology that's almost paper-like, making it easy to read even in bright sunshine. In addition, the screen allows for high contrast and high resolution, with a near 180 degree viewing angle. The text can also be magnified for readers with impaired vision"

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 4, 2007

University of California, Berkeley launches YouTube channel

"Further expanding public access to its intellectual riches through the most popular Web destinations, the University of California, Berkeley, has announced that it is making entire course lectures and special events available, free of charge, on YouTube. UC Berkeley is the first university to make videos of full courses available through YouTube. Visitors to the site can view more than 300 hours of videotaped courses and events. Topics range from bioengineering, to peace and conflict studies, to "Physics for Future Presidents," the title of a popular campus course. Building on its initial offerings, UC Berkeley will continue to expand the catalog of videos available on YouTube"

NetLibrary reaches 150,000-title milestone

"NetLibrary achieved a ground-breaking milestone September 20: it became the first eContent provider to offer 150,000 full-text eBook and eAudiobook titles to academic, public, special and school library users. The 150,000th title to go live was ECOhouse: A Design Guide by Sue Roaf, Manuel Fuentes and Stephanie Thomas, published by Elsevier (2007)"

DigitalPreservationEurope newsletter - September 2007

DigitalPreservationEurope newsletter - Issue 2, September 2007, has been released

National Energy Research Database

National Energy Research Database - compiles academic studies, technical reports, and research articles from the government and nonprofit groups into a single, searchable database dedicated to renewable energy

Introduction to EU information

Introduction to EU information: intended for librarians in public and academic libraries, this course will help you avoid common myths and misunderstandings about the EU and direct you to reliable sources of information - 8 October, 2007 - Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Konstanz Workshop on Information Literacy

Konstanz Workshop on Information Literacy - 8-9 November 2007 - Konstanz, Germany

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, October 2007

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, October 2007: Betty Boothroyd: "This month we look at Betty Boothroyd. Baroness Boothroyd of Sandwell is well known for having been the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons in the UK, a position she held from 1992 until her retirement in 2000"

The Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge - 2008

The Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge - 8th Annual Conference - May 17-20, 2008 - Timberline Lodge, one hour east of Portland, on the slope of Mt. Hood. Proposals are due December 30, 2007

New titles from Medknow Publications

Medknow Publications, a fully open access publisher of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, has added 12 new titles, for a total title list of 45

Information Today - October 2007 issues

The October 2007 issues of Computers in Libraries, Information Today, and Searcher, are now available

J-Link from Justis

"J-Link is a legal research tool that finds recognised legal references on any web page and automatically creates links to information in JustCite - all at the click of a button"

NOZA announces free foundation grant searching for nonprofits

"NOZA, Inc. has announced free access to its extensive database of foundation grants. NOZA's webservice is used by nonprofits and others to research the philanthropic history of prospective donors. NOZA's foundation grant searching service is a free version of its flagship prospect research service, a searchable database of over 25 million records of donations made by private individuals and companies to U.S. based nonprofits. Users can search NOZA's 825,412 foundation grant records free of charge, and without registering on the site"

JISC infoNet launches information management resource

"JISC infoNet has launched a resource to support the management of all types of internal information. The Information Management infoKit is based upon the well established principle of the information lifecycle which provides a consistent framework for good information management practice"

Creative Commons launches third annual fundraising campaign

"The goals of the 2007 campaign are to raise at least $500,000 and to highlight the Creative Commons community - the people dedicated to expanding the depth, breadth, and impact of free digital culture"

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

The Penguin Group is teaming with Amazon.com and Hewlett Packard for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Under the scheme, which runs to 5 November, contestants from 20 countries can submit unpublished manuscripts of English-language novels to Amazon, which will assign a small group of its top-rated online reviewers to evaluate 5,000-word excerpts and narrow the field to 1,000

Papers Past from National Library of New Zealand has been updated and improved

"Papers Past is one of the National Library's most popular digital collections. It contains more than one million pages of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals published between 1839 and 1915"

Reminder: Banned Books Week 2007

Banned Books Week 2007 - September 29-October 6, 2007 - "First observed in 1982, Banned Books Week reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. The event is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Library of Congress Center for the Book"

Birmingham City Council launches UK's first openly accessible free information zone

Birmingham City Council has launched what is believed to be the UK's first openly accessible free information zone, in a partnership with BT. Called birminghamfiz, the project enables people in the city centre with Wi-Fi enabled laptops, mobile phones, hand-held computers and gaming devices free access to information and services from the city council