Featured Link

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

Friday, October 31, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Hallowe'en. Answers here.

Today (31 October) is Hallowe'en, when some people think particularly about ghouls, witches, devils, and other frightening things. This brainteaser is about Hallowe'en, witches, and other things that people associate with this subject.

Questions:
1. Which vegetable is most often used to make a Hallowe'en lantern by placing a candle in the hollowed-out centre, and carving a face in the rind?
2. What is the word for a male witch, sorcerer, wizard, or demon?
3. What time of the day or night is "the witching hour"?
4. What is the word for a group or gathering of witches?
5. What is "trick or treat"?
6. In children's stories, what do witches usually ride on?
7. When talking about witches or sorcerers, what is a "familiar"?
8. Was British legislation against witchcraft abolished in 1751, 1851 or 1951?
9. Which 1953 historical drama by the US playwright Arthur Miller is about the witchcraft hysteria that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692?
10. What title did the 17th-century Englishman Matthew Hopkins give himself as a merciless persecutor of suspected witches?

Uncontrolled Vocabulary #61 - Define successful

Uncontrolled Vocabulary #61 is now available for download. Topics:

Internet Librarian 2008
HOWTO give a good presentation (walking paper)
A Side Effect of Social Networks I Hadn't Anticipated (Pegasus Librarian)
Reflections on Internet Librarian 2008 (Travelin' Librarian)

Library and Archives Canada brings Canadian content to Flickr and YouTube

"Library and Archives Canada has announced that a selection of digital images related to Irish-Canadian documentary heritage have been made available for the first time on Flickr.com, a popular photo-sharing community. As part of the pilot project, this November 2008 a number of video presentations will be added to YouTube.com, a popular video-sharing community. Both online communities allow for commenting, sharing, and tagging of content"

Call for applicants: Winnemore Dissertation Fellowships

Applications for Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities' Spring 2009 Winnemore Digital Humanities Dissertation Fellowship are now being accepted. Intended for students whose dissertations engage the intersections between new media and the traditional concerns of the Arts and Humanities, the Winnemore Fellowship will provide a stipend of $9,570, plus full benefits and tuition remission up to five credits

2008 Whiting Writers' Awards

The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation has named ten recipients of the 2008 Whiting Writers' Awards. The awards, which are $50,000 each, totaling $500,000, have been given annually since 1985 to writers of exceptional talent and promise in early career. Since its inception, the program has awarded more than $6 million to 240 poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, and playwrights

Why Public Libraries Close Webinar

Why Public Libraries Close Webinar - "If you are interested in understanding why libraries close, preventing library closure, or how GIS can be used in library research, then this webinar is for you" - November 13 at 12PM Pacific, 3PM Eastern

Wiley-Blackwell and Pittcon launch new webinar series

Wiley-Blackwell, publisher of Analytical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical and Food Science publications and Pittcon have struck an agreement to combine their information resources to produce four webinars in 2008-2009 as the kickoff to the new Wiley-Blackwell/Pittcon Webinar Series. The webinars are hour-long web-based seminars delivered to a global audience of scientists on a specific topic of interest. Initial plans include coverage of two horizontal application topics, e.g. chromatography and spectroscopy, and two industry-specific topics such as food analysis and pharmaceutical analysis

Thursday, October 30, 2008

YouTube Channel for RSC Scotland North and East

JISC RSC Scotland North and East have produced a number of useful videos, available to view on YouTube. The channel includes demonstrations of a number of assistive technologies and more mainstream technologies, as well as an introduction to the Access Apps selection of portable applications

Talis Engage

Talis Engage - "By providing information about clubs, societies, organisation and self help groups, Local Authorities and Libraries play an important role in developing community cohesion. However, managing comprehensive details which improve the quality of life of the community can be a daunting task. Talis offer a solution that enables citizens to easily create, organise, publish and find details of events, organisations and groups"

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 30, 2008

Author's Rights, Tout de Suite

"Author's Rights, Tout de Suite, by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., the latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of this topic though liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites"

Ontario Time Machine

The Ontario Time Machine is dedicated to student learning and the discovery of Ontario's early documentary heritage. The site is designed to support the Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum expectations for student and teacher learning activities. The OTM is for students in Grades 7 and 8 studying history from 1759 to World War I. The OTM was developed by a partnership among the Toronto Public Library, the Hamilton Public Library and the Kingston Frontenac Public Library with funding provided in part by the Ontario Ministry of Culture Library Strategic Development Fund

EBSCO Publishing acquires NISC, Inc.

"EBSCO has purchased NISC, Inc., which provides refined subject area databases, many of which are currently available on EBSCOhost. NISC databases include Family & Society Studies Worldwide, Gender Studies Database, Woman's Studies International, and Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide. Many of the databases acquired from NISC are already available on EBSCOhost and several others will soon migrate to the EBSCOhost platform"

Wiley-Blackwell to publish the Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry

Wiley-Blackwell has announced a new agreement to publish the Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry on behalf of Heterocorporation. Wiley-Blackwell will assume publishing responsibilities beginning with Volume 46, Issue 1, in January 2009

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

CAB Abstracts to include full text

"From 1 January 2009 CABI's life sciences bibliographic database, CAB Abstracts, will include full text content that was previously available only through a separate subscription. The full text inclusion means that over 36,000 journal articles, reports and conference papers will be available to anyone with a CAB Abstracts subscription"

Christian Science Monitor to cease daily print publication, goes online only

In 2009, the Christian Science Monitor will become the first nationally circulated newspaper to replace its daily print edition with its website; the 100 year-old news organization will also offer subscribers weekly print and daily e-mail editions

OECD Factbook 2008: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics

OECD Factbook 2008: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics is now available online

Authors, publishers, and Google reach landmark settlement

From the Google Press Center: "The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), and Google today announced a groundbreaking settlement agreement on behalf of a broad class of authors and publishers worldwide that would expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the U.S. from the collections of a number of major U.S. libraries participating in Google Book Search. The agreement, reached after two years of negotiations, would resolve a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors and the Authors Guild, as well as a separate lawsuit filed by five large publishers as representatives of the AAP's membership. The class action is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form, by significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web. The agreement acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works"

Global Network Initiative launched

"A diverse coalition of leading Internet companies, major human rights and free press organizations, investors and academics have launched the Global Network Initiative to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in information and communications technologies. CDT and Business for Social Responsibility co-facilitated an 18-month effort by these groups to craft the key documents underlying this effort. The documents provide guidance for companies, NGOs, investors, academics and others working together to resist efforts by governments that seek to enlist companies in acts of censorship and surveillance that violate international standards. The documents also provide specific implementation commitments and outline a framework for accountability and learning."

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

IS&T Archiving 2009 Call for Papers

IS&T has announced the Archiving 2009 Call for Papers. The deadline for submitting presentation abstracts for Archiving 2009, to be held May 4-7, 2009 in Arlington, VA., is December 21, 2008

CLA / ACB 2009 National Conference - Call for Proposals

The Call for Proposals deadline for CLA/ACB 2009 in Montreal is November 3rd, 2008. Any individual or group is eligible to submit a proposal for a Program, Poster or Peer Reviewed Session and these submissions form more than 90% of the conference programming. The conference will be held Friday, May 29 to Monday, June 1, 2009

CALIBER-2009

CALIBER-2009 (Convention on Automation of Libraries in Education and Research Institutions) is an annual convention, organised by INFLIBNET Centre in collaboration with different universities. The CALIBER 2009 is 16th CALIBER in the series and 7th International CALIBER which will be held in collaboration with Pondichery University during 25-27 February 2009 in Pondichery, Tamil Nadu, India

Rose Book-Collecting Prize

"Cambridge University Library is offering students the chance to win GBP500 by building their own book collections. The Rose Book-Collecting Prize was endowed in 2006 and is believed to be the first of its kind offered by any European university. As well as the GBP500 prize money, the winner will be offered 10 years' free membership of the Friends of Cambridge University Library. He or she will also be entered into the prestigious US-based Fine Books and Collections Magazine Book-Collecting Championship, which has a first prize of $2,500 presented at a prize-giving ceremony in the USA. This championship was won in 2007 by Cambridge's first Rose Book-Collecting Prize winner, David Butterfield (Christ's), with his collection 'Landmarks of Classical scholarship'. David collected $2,500, an all-expenses-paid trip to Seattle, and $1,000 for the University Library"

Taking Liberties: the struggle for Britain's freedoms and rights

"We take our rights for granted. Free speech. A free press. The rule of law. The power to vote in those who make the laws and spend our taxes. And the power to vote them out. These rights didn't simply happen. They were hard won, the product of hundreds of years of debate, struggle, bloodshed and war. Many people died for them: heroes, villains, and some who were both. Nor are these rights ours forever. They can be changed or removed, and at various times in our history, they have been. The British Library's forthcoming free exhibition Taking Liberties: the struggle for Britain's freedoms and rights uncovers the roots of British democracy over a period of more than 900 years. 31 October 2008 to 1 March 2009"

Monday, October 27, 2008

ABC-CLIO eZine - October 2008

The October 2008 issue of the ABC-CLIO eZine is now available online

Digital Futures: from digitization to delivery

"Led by experts of international renown, 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" Sydney, Australia 2 to 6 February 2009 and London, UK 27 April to 1 May 2009

7th IFLA International Marketing Award

IFLA Management and Marketing Section in collaboration with Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. invites proposals for the 7th IFLA International Marketing Award 2009, in recognition of the best marketing project in any kind of library throughout the world. The Award winner will receive airfare, lodging and registration for the 2009 IFLA General Conference and Council in Milan, Italy, as well as a cash award of US$ 1,000 which must be used to further the marketing efforts of the recognized organization

EDUCAUSE Review November/December 2008

EDUCAUSE Review November/December 2008, Volume 43, Number 6, now available online

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #45

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #45 : "This week's episode brings a discussion involving Stephen, Blake, and Mike Meloni in Australia. The topic discussed was Internet censorship in one particular part of the Anglosphere. Considering the decisions of the US Supreme Court in recent years to apply wholly alien legal principles from abroad in the US, something like this happening in one part of the Anglosphere may flow outward. A commentary is also presented in regards to two recent stories on LISNews.". Previous Podcasts can be found here

AALL Spectrum - November 2008

AALL Spectrum - November 2008 is now available from the American Association of Law Libraries

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Between the Covers: Women's Magazines and their Readers

"Between the Covers charts the evolution of women's magazines from the 17th century to the present day, showcasing some of the most influential and innovative titles and telling the stories behind their success. Sections devoted to love and relationships, fashion and beauty, house and home, and the wider world, reveal how magazines have responded to women's changing aspirations, addressing their new concerns and social roles. You can also view a specially commissioned film capturing the voices and opinions of contemporary magazine readers in East London, as well as listening to the gossip behind the scenes from those who worked on the magazines" 1 November 2008 to 1 April 2009 - Women's Library, London, UK

Saturday, October 25, 2008

United Nations Law Collection

"Through an arrangement with the United Nations, HeinOnline has introduced its latest addition, the United Nations Law Collection, offering you digital access to exact reproductions of the major United Nations law publications"

Free Thinking Festival 2008

BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival is back in Liverpool, UK, from 31 October to 2 November 2008, with conversation, film, performance, drama and debate about the ideas that are changing the world

LISjobs.com launches new website

Visitors to LISjobs.com will notice a new look and feel as the newly-redesigned site launches. The redesign brings LISjobs.com in line with current web standards and adds new content and features

German libraries hold thousands of looted volumes

"Hundreds of thousands of book stolen by the Nazis are still in German libraries. A few librarians are acting like detectives, searching for the books and hoping to return them to the former owners or their families. However, many libraries have shown little interest in the troubling legacy tucked away on their shelves" - SPIEGELnet

Library Connect - October 2008

Library Connect Volume 6, No 4, October 2008 is now available from Elsevier

'Outstanding ICT initiative of the year' 2008 winner announced

An initiative that has created a wealth of openly available multimedia content won the JISC/Times Higher Award. University of Westminster lecturer Russell Stannard received the award from Sir Ron Cooke, Chair of JISC, for his websites which build upon pioneering work using video to mark students' work. Using screen recording software, Stannard recorded himself walking through various Web 2.0 technologies with a voice-over, which were then uploaded to a newly-created website. The site quickly proved popular and rapidly built into a bank of over 30 videos

RSA Conference Europe 2008

RSA Conference Europe 2008: the most comprehensive forum in information security - 27-29 October 2008 - London, UK

State Papers Online 1509-1714

"State Papers Online, 1509-1714, is a groundbreaking new online resource for the study of Early Modern Britain and Europe. By reuniting State Papers Domestic and Foreign with the Registers of the Privy Council and State Papers in the British Library, the collection creates a new backbone for research and teaching in politics, government, social economic and religious history. The project benefits from a close partnership with The National Archives, London and draws upon the expertise of an Advisory Board of academics. State Papers Online, 1509-1714 reproduces the original historical manuscripts in facsimile linking each manuscript to its corresponding fully-searchable Calendar entry. By overcoming the challenge of matching an individual Calendar entry to the original Paper, State Papers Online 1509-1714 marks an enormous advance in historical research. State Papers Online, 1509-1714 will be published in four cross-searchable parts. Part I is due for release in November 2008, followed by Part II in March 2009"

Friday, October 24, 2008

FreePint Newsletter 263

FreePint Newsletter 263 - 23 October, 2008 now available

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

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

1. What did Shakespeare call "The green-eyed monster"?
2. If "John Bull" symbolises England, which character symbolises the United States?
3. Which two symbols or numbers are used in a binary system?
4. Which English rock band (1976-1985) was founded by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones?
5. On which sea are the ports of Odessa and Sebastopol?
6. If an Australian said he was using "Rafferty's rules", what would he mean?
7. Which legendary Indian heroine was the daughter of Powhatan?
8. In the game of chess, does a bishop move in straight lines or diagonally across the board?
9. Which instrument was played by Django Reinhardt?
10. Which small, landlocked, independent republic lies in the Apennine Mountains, inland from the Italian Adriatic town of Rimini?

Credo Reference partners with BCR

"Credo Reference has announced that they are partnering with BCR to provide its services to member libraries. With the new agreement, member institutions have the option of purchasing their choice of Credo Unlimited, Credo 250 or Credo 100 at a discount. BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) is a multistate, nonprofit network of academic, research, school, public and special libraries that provides members with training, products, discounts and consultation expertise. BCR understands the unique challenges of libraries in this technology-driven era, and brings them together for greater success by expanding their knowledge, reach and power. Both individual libraries and state library systems can join the network. Current member states include Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming as well as members located in additional states"

Mashed Libraries UK 2008

Mashed Libraries UK 2008 - "This informal event is a chance to meet others involved in Library Technology and related fields such as metadata, search, etc. Inspired by the Mashed Museums event, the day will give the opportunity for you to discuss ideas, share visions, and hopefully actually develop some stuff" - 27 November 2008 - London, UK

MedlinePlus turns 10 years old

"MedlinePlus, the popular, consumer-friendly health Web site produced by the National Library of Medicine, is celebrating 10 years of bringing trusted health information to people across the country (USA) and around the world. Nearly 500 million people in more than 200 countries have turned to MedlinePlus for accurate, up-to-date information since its launch on October 22, 1998. The site, now available in English and Spanish, receives about 12 million visitors each month and is approaching one billion page views a year. MedlinePlus routinely is recognized as one of the best places on the Web to go for health information. It has received numerous mentions in the media, including NBC's 'Today Show,' Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal, and it consistently ranks highest among government news sites in the American Customer Satisfaction Index"

Alan Bennett donates his literary archive to the Bodleian Library

"The author and playwright Alan Bennett is presenting his papers as a gift to the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. This remarkable and comprehensive archive comprises materials, letters, and manuscripts relating to a distinguished literary career which began with the revue Beyond the Fringe in 1960 and has spanned nearly five decades. The archive includes original manuscripts, typescripts, handwritten notes and drafts for all Bennett’s stage and television plays, including the plays written for the National Theatre, the autobiographical collections Writing Home (1994) and Untold Stories (2005) plus the manuscripts of his novellas and short-stories, the latest being The Uncommon Reader (2007). What will also come to the Bodleian in due course are Bennett’s annotated editions of his published writings, together with letters and other materials arising from his own marginal notes and afterthoughts. There are also diaries in an unbroken series from 1974 onwards, only a small selection of which has so far been published" - Bodleian Library

Rock's Backpages Podcast

"Listen to a Podcast which provides an introduction to Rock's Backpages, including its main features and benefits for education as well as sample interviews. Rock's Backpages is an online database of rock music writing, with material dating from the early 1960s to the present day. The library of articles includes reviews, interviews and features, which are fully searchable and presented in full-text. The database also includes Mp3 audio files of original artist interviews, which are available for the first time"

New blog: Librarian, Uncensored

Librarian, Uncensored - dedicated to matters Intellectual Freedom-related, from Lisa Guidarini, Adult Program Coordinator, Algonquin Area Public Library District

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 167

Internet Resources Newsletter - Issue 167 - November 2008 - edited by Roddy MacLeod, Heriot-Watt University, is now available

Libri - September 2008

Libri - International Journal of Libraries and Information Services - Volume 58, Number 3, September 2008 - Online issue available to subscribers. Libri makes full-text articles available online without subscription one year after publication

ACRL announces Midwinter workshops

ACRL is offering three professional development workshops in conjunction with the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver. Registration is now open for the January 23 workshops

New blog: The Green Library

"The Green Library blog is devoted to documenting significant activities, events, literature, and projects that focus on ' ... increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources - energy, water, and materials - while reducing building impacts on human health and the environment during the building's lifecycle, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal' of and by libraries"

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Free access to The Diabetes Educators during National Diabetes Awareness Month

The Diabetes Educator, the leading journal for diabetes educators, will have free online access during National Diabetes Awareness Month in November. TDE is published by SAGE on behalf of the American Association of Diabetes Educators

Embracing the future: Embedding digital repositories in the University of London

Embracing the future: Embedding digital repositories in the University of London - "Digital repositories can help Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to develop coherent and coordinated approaches to capture, identify, store and retrieve intellectual assets such as datasets, course material and research papers. With the advances of technology, an increasing number of Higher Education Institutions are implementing digital repositories. The leadership of these institutions, however, has been concerned about the awareness of and commitment to repositories, and their sustainability in the future. This study informs a consortium of thirteen London institutions with an assessment of current awareness and attitudes of stakeholders regarding digital repositories in three case study institutions. The report identifies drivers for, and barriers to, the embedding of digital repositories in institutional strategy. The findings therefore should be of use to decision-makers involved in the development of digital repositories. Our approach was entirely based on consultations with specific groups of stakeholders in three institutions through interviews with specific individuals"

Flat World Knowledge gets more financing

"Flat World Knowledge, a year-old company that plans to publish free open source college textbooks, has received $700,000 in new financing, bringing total investment in the startup to $1.4 million. The company has also announced a number of new appointments, including that of former Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Newcomb to its board of advisors"

arXiv passes the half-million article milestone

"Reinforcing its place in the scientific community, the arXiv repository at Cornell University Library reached a new milestone in October 2008. Half a million e-print postings - research articles published online – now reside in arXiv, which is free and available to the public. arXiv is the primary daily information source for hundreds of thousands of researchers in many areas of physics and related fields. Its users include the world's most prominent researchers in science, including 53 Physics Nobel Laureates, 31 Fields Medalists and 55 MacArthur Fellows, as well as people in countries with limited access to scientific materials. The famously reclusive Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman posted the proof for the 100-year-old Poincare Conjecture solely in arXiv"

Bibliotheque nationale de France to add records to WorldCat

OCLC and Bibliotheque nationale de France have signed a letter of intent to work cooperatively to add records from the French national library to OCLC's WorldCat

Survey of Assessment Practices in Higher Education

Primary Research Group has published The Survey of Assessment Practices in Higher Education which presents results from an assessment benchmarking study with more than 80 participants. The study presents data on college assessment efforts, including but not limited to: the size, budget and scope college assessment offices, salaries for assessment officers, number of employees working on assessment issues in and out of assessment offices, the use of standardized testing, types of tests used, use and type of remedial courses, use of incentives to take standardized assessment tests, use of instructor evaluation questionnaires and other methods of instructor evaluation, impact of assessment on merit-based pay, tenure and other personnel decisions; methods for evaluating adjunct and regular faculty; level of faculty involvement in assessment; impact of curriculum changes, use of survey software in assessment, use of assessment consultants, seminars and other services - and many other aspects of college assessment programs and policies

Book scanners: compare and contrast

"For those considering large scale book digitisation, and the purchase of a book scanner, this brief report will help consider the pros and cons of some of the main book scanners currently available on the market. Julian Ball, the author of the report, attended an event at the Munich Digitisation Centre (18-10 June 2008) where four vendors exhibited and demonstrated their scanners: Qidenus, Kirtas, Treventus and 4DigitalBooks. The report lists basic specifications for each scanner, contact details and personal observations on the various products"

JAIRO : Japanese Institutional Repositories Online

The National Institute of Informatics, Japan, has launched JAIRO: Japanese Institutional Repositories Online. JAIRO allows federated searching of Japanese institutional repositories. It currently includes 84 repositories containing around 540,000 items

First exclusive e-book out from St. Martin's Press

"An environmental action plan for the next U.S. president to consider has resulted in the release of St. Martin's first exclusive e-book title. The 100 Day Action Plan to Save the Planet by William Becker will be available in a number of e-book formats beginning today priced at $9.95. A spokesperson for SMP said that since the book deals with protecting the environment, the publisher and author determined releasing the title as an e-book would be the most environmentally-friendly approach. In the book, Becker, the executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, offers a number of steps the president-elect can take to begin to reverse the negative impact of climate change"

The Spoken Word: British Writers and American Writers

"On 23 October 2008, the British Library releases two new additions to its popular series of literary spoken word CDs, featuring many previously unpublished recordings of great British and American writers, including Virginia Woolf, Noel Coward, Harold Pinter, Daphne du Maurier, E M Forster, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, P G Wodehouse, Doris Lessing, J G Ballard, John le Carré, William Golding, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, F Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Raymond Chandler, Eugene O'Neill, Toni Morrison, William S Burroughs, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison and Gore Vidal"

Video: LITA National Forum: Technology and Community

A video review of the Library and Information Technology Association's 2008 National Forum, Technology and Community: Building the Techno Community Library, held October 17-19 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Included are general session speakers Michael Porter and Tim Spalding, session presenters Dinah Sanders and Nicholas Schiller, Conference Chair Dale Poulter, and LITA President Andrew Pace

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

base line - October 2008

base line is an official publication of the American Library Association's Map and Geography Round Table (MAGERT). The purpose of base line is to provide current information on cartographic materials, other publications of interest to map and geography librarians, meetings, related governmental activities, and map librarianship - Volume 29 Number 5 October 2008 is now available

ACRL Podcast: Peter Hernon on Assessment

In this podcast, ACRL 14th National Conference invited speaker and 2008 ACRL Academic/ Research Librarian of the Year Peter Hernon talks with Virtual Conference Committee Co-Chair Scott Walter about assessment in academic libraries

Edison Fellowships from British Library 2009

The Edison Fellowships are designed to encourage scholarship devoted to the history of recordings of classical music and music in performance through creating the conditions for concentrated use of the Library's collections of recordings. The British Library is offering on a competitive basis an Edison Visiting Fellowship between September 2009 and August 2010

HEC - National Digital Library, Pakistan

HEC - National Digital Library: a programme to provide researchers within public and private universities in Pakistan and non-profit research and development organizations with access to international scholarly literature based on electronic (online) delivery,providing access to high quality, peer-reviewed journals, databases, articles and e-Books across a wide range of disciplines

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

PEER – Publishing and the Ecology of European Research

"PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), supported by the European Union, will investigate the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The project is a collaboration between publishers, repositories and researchers and will last from 2008 to 2011"

Oxford Journals partner with WALDO

"Oxford Journals has announced that they have signed an agreement with the Westchester Academic Library Director's Organization (WALDO) to enable many more US researchers to access the Oxford Journals Collection. WALDO's agreement with Oxford Journals gives their 500 participating institutions in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Vermont the option to subscribe at a specially discounted price to a package of around 200 peer-reviewed titles"

Thomson Reuters releases ISI Web of Knowledge and EndNote Web in Chinese

"The Scientific business of Thomson Reuters has announced that ISI Web of Knowledge and EndNote Web are now available in Simplified Chinese. The user-friendly interface provides every step, from research and analysis to submission and publishing, in the local language"

2008 National Best Books Awards (USA)

The finalsts of the 2008 National Best Books Awards, sponsored by USABookNews.com, have been announced

UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960

"The UK incoming passenger lists for 1878 to 1960 (series BT 26) have been launched online by Ancestry.co.uk. Digitised in partnership with The National Archives, the records contain information on both immigrants and tourists who arrived in the UK by boat before the onset of commercial flights. Millions of Britons will find they have an ancestor listed in the collection, many of whom fared perilous sea voyages to reach British shores"

Monday, October 20, 2008

55th Jane Addams Children's Book Awards winners

The winners of the 55th Jane Addams Children's Book Awards have been announced

UFO sightings, 1986 - 1992

"These files contain reported sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) between 1986 and 1992. Highlights include the near collision of a passenger jet and UFO in Kent and the pilots of a US Air Force jet being ordered to shoot down a UFO over East Anglia. This is the second batch of UFO files released to the National Archives by the Ministry of Defence - the first installment was released in May 2008. They contain a wealth of information for anyone interested in the subject. UFO expert Dr David Clarke also provides a videocast guide to the information contained in the files"

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #44

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #44 : "This week's episode brings an interview cross continents about censorship. The censorship case happens to be happening in Australia. An anti-censorship activist, Michael Meloni, was interviewed about the matter as inquiries to the Australian government department concerned went unanswered. Electronic Frontiers Australia has presented online a background review of the issue". Previous Podcasts can be found here

Swindon's GBP10m library opens

BBC - "A new library which cost GBP10m and was completed within its two years deadline is opening in Wiltshire, UK. The Central Library in Swindon contains 77,000 books and more than 60 free-to-use computers and will be open to the public on Sundays. The library is attached to the back of the old Victorian Town Hall. It has solar-powered water heating. It has a cafe and a central courtyard which will be open on dry days for visitors to sit, read and relax"

Byzantium 330-1453

"This ambitious exhibition, a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and the Benaki Museum in Athens, provides a grand-scale survey of 1,000 years of history. Highlighting the splendours of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantium 330-1453 will incorporate over 300 objects. Some of the works have never been displayed in public before"

JISC Podcast: Updates on the SCA

"The Strategic Content Alliance works with public sector bodies across the UK to develop a framework to share and access information. The SCA is currently running a series of workshops in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to incorporate the regional challenges into this framework. In this podcast Rebecca O'Brien catches up with Stuart Dempster, Director of the SCA, about the alliance's achievements and what the next steps will be"

E-Science Talking Points for ARL Deans and Directors

The Association of Research Libraries has released E-Science Talking Points for ARL Deans and Directors

New release of Social Theory

Alexander Street Press has announced release 7 of Social Theory. "The collection now contains over 90,000 pages of works from such leading social theorists as Baudrillard, Comte, Durkheim, Foucault, Hegel, Nietzsche, de Tocqueville, Weber, and others. This new release features 36 new titles from Habermas, Balibar, and Adorno to name a few. In addition to the numerous authors and works available in Social Theory, the collection allows you to perform in depth searches and compare the various approaches to simple and complex social issues"

The LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund

The LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund supports librarians who are facing financial difficulty due to discrimination or because they have taken a stand in support of intellectual freedom. In this video, trustees describe the fund, and why it's needed

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The tenth Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute

"The tenth Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute (NELI) will be held in Emerald Lake, British Columbia, from February 26 to March 3, 2009. The Institute's mission is to assist professional librarians to develop, strengthen, and exercise their leadership skills so that they may be better equipped to formulate, articulate, and achieve the future changes required by libraries into the 21st century. Based on the premise of experiential learning, the Institute includes group and individual exercises, as well as the opportunity to learn in conversation with mentors, who have been chosen for their own leadership skills, and who will be participating as volunteers"

BMJ Group Institutional Newsletter - October 2008

The October 2008 issue of the BMJ Group Institutional Newsletter is now available

Forbidden Fruit conference proceedings now available

"Forbidden Fruit: The Censorship of Literature and Information for Young People was a two day conference held in Southport,UK in June 2008. This collection of papers from the conference will be of interest to teachers, school and public librarians, publishers, and other professionals involved in the provision of literature and information resources for young people, as well as to researchers and students. The proceedings draw together some of the latest research in this area from a number of fields, including librarianship, education, literature, and linguistics. The topics covered include translations and adaptations, pre-censorship by authors, publishers
and editors, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans) materials, and the views of young people themselves. The proceedings are available as an e-book and in a printed version"

Emerald EarlyCite

"EarlyCite is Emerald's online, pre-publication service that enables customers to access journal articles prior to official publication. Papers will be made available at least three months and, in some cases, as much as one year before they appear in the hard copy and final online journal issue. A phenomenon of academic journal publishing is that articles can often be held in a queue, awaiting publication for many months until an issue becomes available"

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - April 2008

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - Vol. 67, No 4 - April 2008 - is now available online

Australia-Asia Literary Award longlist

The longlist for the Australia-Asia Literary Award has been announced:

* J.M. Coetzee - Diary of a Bad Year
* Matthew Condon - The Trout Opera
* Michelle De Krester - The Lost Dog
* Ceridwen Dovey - Blood Kin
* Rodney Hall - Love without Hope
* Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
* Mireille Juchau - Burning In
* David Malouf - The Complete Stories
* Alex Miller - Landscape of Farewell
* Haruki Murakami - After Dark (Translator: Jay Rubin)
* Indra Sinha - Animal's People
* Janette Turner Hospital - Orpheus Lost

Winner announced November 21, 2008

2008 North Carolina Archives Week

2008 North Carolina Archives Week - "A Statewide Celebration of the People and Places that Preserve Memories" - October 20-26, 2008

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Penguin Group and Ingram Digital announce new global e-Book and downloadable audio book agreement

"Penguin Group and Ingram Digital have announced a global agreement for the hosting, management and distribution of e-book and downloadable audio book titles. Ingram Digital will become the digital repository for Penguin Group e-book and downloadable audio book titles in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Ingram Digital's asset management solution, CoreSource, will now host, manage and distribute approximately 11,000 Penguin Group titles in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, with many more to be added in 2009. Penguin will further employ Ingram Digital's Retail Solutions to manage e-book and downloadable audio book fulfillment to Penguin Group websites in North America and the U.K"

Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700 via Project Muse

Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700, published by University of Tennessee, is now available via Project Muse

Podcast: Merchant Navy Service Records

"Was your ancestor one of the hundreds of thousands of men who served in the Merchant Navy, keeping Britain fed and watered? This talk looks at the Merchant Navy records held at The UK National Archives and how to use them"

Library Juice Press books now available in Canada and the UK

Canadian and UK readers who've wanted to buy Library Juice Press books domestically now can, through Chapters, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.co.uk

CILIP Training Directory 2009

The CILIP Training Directory 2009 is now available for download

Friday, October 17, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Technology. Answers here.

"Credo Reference is continually adding new reference sources to its database. One of these is Routledge's 'Encyclopedia of 20th Century Technology'. All this week's questions can be answered from this source"

1. In recording television, what does the abbreviation "DVD" stand for?
2. In a fax machine, what is "fax" short for?
3. Wind is essentailly the movement of substantial air masses from regions of low pressure to regions of high pressure. True or false?
4. What kind of engine was perfected by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1883?
5. What is the modern name of the dam on the Colorado River originally called the Boulder Dam?
6. What was the name of the electronic ping-pong game devised by Al Alcorn and Nolan Bushnell and released as an arcade game in 1972 and a home version in 1975?
7. Which restaurant chain originated in 1948 at San Bernadino, California, when two brothers called Richard and Maurice created the Speedee Service System?
8. Which computer company was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak?
9. What is the popular name for what are technically called "surfactants"?
10. What was the title of the first CinemaScope film, issued in 1953?

"Earth"

"Earth - this exquisite limited edition atlas takes cartography to a new level. For the map enthusiast, the collector, the armchair traveller, or for those who enjoy luxury, this beautiful leather-bound edition is a 'must-have' for the library. Only 3,000 copies of this highly prized volume will be printed. Highly detailed maps, produced by a team of international cartographers, are the foundation of this book. Each of the countries of the world is also described and illustrated in detail, with focus on the geography, history, culture, and unique features"

Wellcome Trust Book Prize

"The Wellcome Trust Book Prize is open to outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health, illness or medicine. The GBP25,000 annual award, created by the Wellcome Trust, is the first of its kind to bring together the traditionally diverse fields of medicine and literature"

MLibrary and Creative Commons Licenses

"The University of Michigan Library has decided to adopt Creative Common Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses for all works created by the Library for which the Regents of the University of Michigan hold the copyrights. These works include bibliographies, research guides, lesson plans, and technology tutorials. We believe that the adoption of Creative Commons licenses is perfectly aligned with our mission, "to contribute to the common good by collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, and sharing the record of human knowledge." University Librarian Paul Courant said, "Using Creative Commons licenses is another way the University Library can act on its commitment to the public good. By marking our copyrighted content as available for reuse, we offer the University community and the public a rich set of educational resources free from traditional permissions barriers.""

New blog: AL Inside Scoop

AL Inside Scoop is the blog for American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association

No login required for "American Libraries"

"Login is no longer required to view the current issue of American Libraries online or to view the archives, which date back to the January 2003 issue"

Thursday, October 16, 2008

FreePint News - October 2008

FreePint News - October 2008 is now available online

Ohio Web Library

"The Ohio Web Library is an evolving collection of thousands of online publications and research resources. The Ohio Web Library includes: popular magazines, trade publications, scholarly research journals, newspapers from Ohio and the nation, encyclopedias, dictionaries, speeches, poems, plays, maps, satellite images of Ohio, and more. The Ohio Web Library supports quality education, a skilled workforce, business growth, and lifelong learning in Ohio"

Primary Source - October 2008

Primary Source - October 2008 issue now available from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, DC, USA

Free Greening Libraries Conference

Greening Libraries ==> Greener Communities - October 31, 2008 - Bronx, NY, USA

International DJ via Exact Editions

International DJ is now available online via Exact Editions

DailyLit launches books from AMACOM

DailyLit has announced that books from AMACOM, the American Management Association, are now available

Geograph British Isles releases 1 millionth image

"The Geograph British Isles project, which aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometer of Great Britain and Ireland, has announced that they have recieved their 1 millionth image submission. All images are licensed under a CC BY-SA license, meaning the images can be shared and reused as long as the author(s) are properly attributed and any derivative works are shared under the same license"

2008 National Book Award finalists

The finalists for the 2008 National Book Award have been announced:


2008 National Book Awards Announcement from National Book Foundation on Vimeo.

Fiction
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Scribner)
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)
Marilynne Robinson, Home (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Salvatore Scibona, The End (Graywolf Press)

Non-fiction
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Alfred A. Knopf)
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
(W.W. Norton & Company)
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday)
Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives (Penguin)
Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order (Harcourt)

Poetry
Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Louisiana State University Press)
Richard Howard, Without Saying (Turtle Point Press)
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press)

Young people's literature
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Alfred A. Knopf)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

U.S. film crew makes documentary about Latvian libraries

"A U.S. film crew has been working in Latvia for two weeks already, shooting material for a documentary about the development of public libraries in Latvia within the "Tresais teva dels" project, as Kaspars Ruklis from the government agency Kulturas informacijas sistemas informed LETA. The film is being shot for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which plans to show the film to librarians and library administrators from many countries where similar projects could be implemented"

Scotland's Information

"Scotland's Information is a service for identifying, locating, and accessing the content of Scotland's archive, library and museum collections. The service is maintained by the Scottish Library and Information Council. The service was developed by the Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde"

Rowman & Littlefield launches massive ebook program

"Rowman and Littlefield has announced the launch of an ambitious program to provide 'all of its frontlist and selected backlist' titles as ebooks, with the ultimate goal of having a stable of 10,000 electronic titles available for sale in 24 months. The program includes Rowman & Littlefield's sister imprints, Scarecrow Press, AltaMira Press, and Lexington Books"

6th Elsevier Nordic Librarian Forum

6th Elsevier Nordic Librarian Forum: Valuing scholarly information - 6-7 November 2008 - Helsinki, Finland

Textile Technology Complete new from EBSCO Publishing

"Textile Technology Complete, a new full-text database from EBSCO Publishing, is now available. The database provides extensive coverage of the scientific and technological aspects of textile production and processing"

Global Health Archive now available from EBSCO Publishing

"Global Health Archive, produced by CABI, is now accessible on EBSCOhost. It includes more than 800,000 records and provides information on public health, tropical & communicable diseases, nutrition, helminthology, entomology, and mycology. The archive is comprised of six printed abstract journals produced between 1910 and 1972. Global Health Archive is a companion to Global Health, a public health database with more than 1.2 million records, and which has long been available via EBSCOhost. Together they provide a global picture of international public health research, both past and present"

Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

"The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA, has announced its official launch in conjunction with an OA Day celebration hosted by the Wellcome Trust in London. The mission of OASPA is to support and represent the interests of Open Access (OA) journals publishers globally in all scientific, technical, and scholarly disciplines through an exchange of information, setting of industry standards, advancing business and publishing models, advocating for gold OA journals publishing, education and the promotion of innovation"

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008 - 22-23 October 2008 - Stockholm, Sweden

The British Library's Strategy 2008 - 2011

"This is the culmination of work over several months during which we have identified the challenges which a great research library faces in the digital age and which will drive our plans for development over the next three years. The new strategy focuses on what we consider to be our most significant priorities going forward. It reflects the British Library's position as a successful public sector institution which underpins UK research competitiveness, supports UK business and provides a range of innovative services for the general public"

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008 winner

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008 winner is Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

MetaPress and Woodhead Publishing partnership

"MetaPress has announce a new partnership agreement with Woodhead Publishing Limited, based in the United Kingdom. According to the agreement, MetaPress will develop and host a multitiered e-book platform for Woodhead Publishing to be completed before July 2009. The new platform, which will consist of a primary site and several subject-specific sites, is needed to accommodate the substantial growth that Woodhead Publishing has experienced surrounding e-book publications"

Today is Open Access Day

"October 14, 2008 is the world's first Open Access Day. The founding partners are SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science. Open Access Day will help to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public"

Jisc Podcast: Student Learning Experience

"Supporting the student's learning experience is key to helping students find their full potential and enhance the quality of their learning. Working with partners, JISC is looking to guide future developments in this area and from October 2008 will be running a series of national workshops. These workshops will discuss the issues around supporting the student learning experience to help institutions and services devise their own strategic responses to supporting learners. In this podcast Rebecca O'Brien talk to Helen Beetham, a consultant supporting the learning experience work at JISC"

Internet for Image Searching

Internet for Image Searching is a new, free online tutorial to help staff and students in universities and colleges to find digital images for their learning and teaching. The emphasis of the tutorial is on finding copyright cleared images which are available free; facilitating quick, hassle-free access to a vast range of online photographs and other visual resources. This tutorial has been created by TASI - the JISC Advisory Service for digital media, and Intute as part of the Virtual Training Suite, with funding from the Higher Education Academy/JISC Collaboration Initiative

Cites & Insights 8:11 (November 2008)

Cites & Insights 8:11 (November 2008) is now available for downloading

First Monday - October 2008

First Monday - Volume 13, Number 10, 6 October 2008 now available

British Library acquires major Ted Hughes archive

"The British Library has acquired an important archive of one of the most influential literary figures of post war Britain, the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes (1930 –1998). The collection comprises over 220 files and boxes of manuscripts, letters, journals, personal diaries and ephemera, and offers an invaluable resource for researchers in all areas of Hughes's prolific and wide-ranging career over more than forty years"

Jean Auel wins French award

Portland author Jean Auel has been named an Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters by the French Minister of Culture and Communication. Auel is the author of "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and four other novels in the Earth's Children series. The books are set in the Dordogne region of South-West France and are heavily researched novels that follow the adventures of Neaderthal and Cro-Magnon peoples. They have sold at least 34 million copies worldwide

C&RL News - October 2008

C&RL News Volume 69, No. 9, October 2008 is now available from ACRL

Public Library Buildings Awards 2009

The Public Libraries Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (The Library Council) have announced the categories of The Public Library Buildings Awards UK and Republic of Ireland 2009 at their annual conference in Liverpool

HathiTrust launched

"HathiTrust makes the digitized collections of some of the nation's (United States) great research libraries available for all. HathiTrust was initially conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the University of California system, and the University of Virginia to establish a repository for those universities to archive and share their digitized collections. HathiTrust will quickly expand to include additional partners and to provide those partners with an easy means to archive their digital content"

Monday, October 13, 2008

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #43

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #43 : "This episode breaks away from the usual mold. With so many events coming up, the team put together a bit of a calendar of upcoming events. The next few weeks may be busy in areas that impact the IT infrastructure of libraries. There also seems to be quite a few elections coming up that might be of interest". Previous Podcasts can be found here

80 years of the Oxford English Dictionary

"To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the publication of the last fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928, we are offering a special price for the printed edition of the OED. The magnificent 20-volume printed set is now available at the special offer price of just GBP450 until 31 January 2009, or for US customers, $895"

John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society

John Seely Brown Symposium on Technology and Society - Featured Speaker: Brewster Kahle - Topic: 'The Closing of Library Services... The Opening of Library Services' - Time: 3 p.m. October 22, 2008 - University of Michigan

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Renaissance Quarterly now published by University of Chicago Press

The Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press and The Renaissance Society of America have announced their new partnership to publish Renaissance Quarterly. The first issue under the new partnership will be volume 62 (March 2009)

Journal of Dental Biomechanics

SAGE-Hindawi has announced the launch of the Journal of Dental Biomechanics, the second open access title to be launched in the joint collaboration between SAGE and the Hindawi Publishing Corporation

Information Skills Community of Practice

"ISCOP is the Information Skills Community Of Practice and is supported through the National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR) Project. ISCOP brings together people who share a passion for the advancement of information literacy. Members of ISCOP can share news, experiences, learning resources and discuss ideas. ISCOP is open to all NDLR partners. The learning resources in the NDLR can be used by ISCOP members and contributions of resources are strongly encouraged"

British Library's Endangered Archives Programme - call for grant applications

The Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library is now accepting applications for the next round of funding. Detailed information on the timetable, criteria, eligibility and procedures for applying for a grant is available on the Programme's website. The deadline for receipt of preliminary grant applications is 7 November 2008

Scottish Libraries on Twitter

"The Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and CILIP in Scotland (CILIPS) have just introduced Twitter to their suite of Web 2.0 services. Twitter is a micro-blogging website that allows users to send very short posts (or tweets) as updates on current activities. SLIC and CILIPS aim to use this service as an additional communication tool, allowing members and other interested professionals using Twitter to get instant updates on the activity of both organisations"

Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award Winner

Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award Winner is "The Outlander" by Gil Adamson

Biblio Tech Review - October 2008

The October 2008 issue of Biblio Tech Review is now available

Enlighten

Enlighten is the University of Glasgow's institutional repository service and includes published material by members of the University of Glasgow, including peer-reviewed journal articles, published conference papers, books and book chapters

3rd SLIC FE Conference

Sharing Vision, Planning Practice: 3rd SLIC FE Conference - 28 November 2008 - Edinburgh, Scotland

Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and the American Heart Association have announced that the full text of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics is now available online

Economics and usage of digital libraries: byting the bullet

From the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library comes Economics and usage of digital libraries: byting the bullet / Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason and Wendy Pradt Lougee, editors

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Information Scotland survey launched

"CILIP in Scotland (CILIPS) has launched a consultation over the future development of the Information Scotland journal. An online readership survey will be running from 10 October until 21 November to support this process. The survey will assist CILIPS in reviewing Information Scotland and its role in the organisation’s overall communication strategy"

ASIST Bulletin - October/November 2008

ASIST Bulletin for October/November 2008 is now available from the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Arctic Anthropology via Project Muse

Arctic Anthropology, published by University of Wisconsin Press, is now available via Project Muse

Library 2.0 Gang Podcast: October 2008: Financial Crisis or an opportunity?

Library 2.0 Gang Podcast: October 2008: "Unless you have been living under a stone for the last few months, the turmoil in the world financial markets can not have escaped your notice, but how will this, and the inevitable recession that we are heading in towards, influence libraries and their suppliers?

Is the library world insulated from it? Does it mean that open source become more popular because it is perceived to be cheaper, or less because there will be less funding for those involved? Does it mean that pressure to purchase add-on components as against full systems will increase? What pressures will there be on the vendors both traditional and open source? Does this mean that libraries will become more or less significant in their communities? Is this an opportunity or a crisis or both?

Joining gang members Marshall Breeding and Carl Grant to discuss this, our guest this month is Talis CEO and avid Bloomberg watcher, Dave Errington.

The conclusion seems to be that it is definitely a crisis for the world economies, but this first recession in an online world could be an opportunity for libraries if they are willing to grasp it. Take a listen and see if you agree.

During the conversation Carl references a Chronicle of Higher Education, Tech Therapy, podcast about the culture clash between librarians and IT in the academic environment"

Friday, October 10, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Detectives on Screen. Answers here.

1. Which actor played detectives Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade in films, including "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)?
2. Which curmudgeonly opera-loving detective chief inspector of the Thames Valley Police was played on television by John Thaw from 1987 to 2000?
3. Which dishevelled one-eyed Italian-American police lieutenant was played on television in the 1970s by Peter Falk?
4. Which elderly spinster detective was played on film by Margaret Rutherford and on television by Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan?
5. Who played Jessica Fletcher in the television crime series "Murder, She Wrote"?
6. In which 1971 "blaxploitation" crime film did Richard Roundtree play a private eye who found himself at odds with a racketeer?
7. Which Belgian detective was played on cinema or televison screens at various times by Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, Ian Holm and David Suchet?
8. Who directed the 1974 film "Chinatown" in which Jack Nicholson played a private detective in 1930s Los Angeles?
9. Which 1986 film starred Sean Connery as an English Franciscan seeking the serial murderer of several monks?
10. Which actor played a drunken Sherlock Holmes in the 1988 film "Without a Clue"?

Text a Librarian

"Text a Librarian is an easy to use text messaging solution that enables libraries to set up cost-effective SMS reference services"

October Early Reviewer books at LibraryThing

The October batch of Early Reviewer books is now available at LibraryThing. There are 1,670 copies of 55 books available this month

Renee D. Chapman Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Technical Services Law Librarianship

This award is "presented to an individual or group in recognition of extended and sustained distinguished service to technical services law librarianship and to the American Association of Law Libraries. Honorees may be recognized for achievement in a particular area of technical services, for service to the Association, or for outstanding contributions to the professional literature. These achievements may include, but need not be limited to, the publishing, presenting, or sharing of innovative techniques or research, analysis, or commentary; or developing software, hardware, or other mechanisms that significantly enhance access to law library materials and collections. These contributions may be applied in the functional areas of processing, preservation, or technical services administration. Contributions may also consist of service to TS-SIS as a whole. The deadline for nominations is February 1 2009"

JISC Attitudinal Survey 2008: Head and Senior Learning and Librarian Staff

"An annual survey conducted on behalf of JISC by the JISC Monitoring Unit at the University of Kent, shows that senior academic librarians believe that managing and promoting e-resources and e-content will be their main challenges over the next few years"

Innovations in Online Information - Brighton, UK

Innovations in Online Information - This 3 day course introduces attendees to some of the latest developments in online information services and technologies and is aimed at library and information professionals wishing to extend and update their skills in this field. Attendees have the option of completing an assessment and earning credits towards a postgraduate award in information management - 1-3 December 2008 - Brighton, UK
Watch this video for more information:

video

The 2009 Alison Northover Bursary

"The CILIP University, College & Research Group is proud to invite applications for the 2009 Alison Northover Conference Bursary. This GBP750 bursary is awarded to commemorate the contribution to librarianship made by Alison Northover, Deputy Head of Reader Services in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and committee member and Treasurer of the University, College and Research Group of what was then the Library Association. Alison died aged 48 in July 1997. She was committed to professional development, both for herself and for others"

Thursday, October 09, 2008

FreePint Newsletter 262

FreePint Newsletter 262 - 9 October, 2008 now available

SirsiDynix Institute Web Seminar: October 22 2008

SirsiDynix Institute Web Seminar: "Taming Technolust: Planning in a Hyperlinked World" presented by Michael Stephens - October 22 2008

Podcast: Victorian Women Prisoners

This talk, from the UK National Archives, looks at a series of records of women prisoners dating from 1853 to 1887 - records of females released early on licence. It also focuses on particular individuals in order to tell their tales, and illustrate the depth of information available

Oxford University Library Services go live with Primo

"Ex Libris Group has announced that the SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) one-stop search and delivery solution, powered by Ex Libris' Primo, has gone live at Oxford University. Using this new online integrated search service, users can access the library's major information resources, regardless of type, format, or location, and receive enriched results quickly. By enabling SOLO users to cross-search selective databases via a unified interface, Primo facilitates the discovery of interdisciplinary resources at the Bodleian, University, and College libraries"

New blog: In the Library with the Lead Pipe

"In addition to essays by its founders, In the Library with the Lead Pipe will feature articles by guests representing special libraries and archives, as well as educators, administrators, library support staff, and community members"

Electronic Resources & Libraries 2009 Conference

ER&L 2009 provides a forum for information professionals to explore ideas, trends, and technologies related to electronic resources and digital services - February 9-12, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA, USA

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog update

The October 8, 2008 edition of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog from Charles W. Bailey, Jr. is now available

Upcoming Webinar: Latinos and Public Library Perceptions

Upcoming Webinar: Latinos and Public Library Perceptions: join Laura Staley, Senior Community Manager at WebJunction and report authors: Harry Pachon, Ph.D., President Tomas Rivera Policy Institute and Ed Flores, doctoral student and Tomas Rivera Policy Institute Research Fellow for an up-close look at the report findings - October 14, 2008, 12:00 PM Central Time

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor winner

Larry Doyle wins the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor his book I Love You Beth Cooper

Springer to acquire BioMed Central Group

Springer Science+Business Media has reached an agreement to acquire BioMed Central Group, the leading global open access publisher. BioMed Central was launched in May 2000 as an independent publishing house committed to providing free access to peer-reviewed research in the biological and medical sciences. BMC is the largest open access provider in the world with over 180 peer-reviewed journals. BioMed Central's flagship journals include Journal of Biology, BMC Biology, BMC Medicine, Malaria Journal, BMC Bioinformatics and Genome Biology. BioMed Central has revenues of approximately EUR 15 million per year. The company is based in London, with a second office in Liverpool, and has approximately 150 employees. Derk Haank, CEO of Springer Science+Business Media said: 'This acquisition reinforces the fact that we see open access publishing as a sustainable part of STM publishing, and not an ideological crusade. We have gained considerable positive experience since starting Springer Open Choice in 2004, and BioMed Central's activities are complementary to what we are doing. Additionally, this acquisition strengthens Springer's position in the life sciences and biomedicine, and will allow us to offer societies a greater range of publishing options."

National School Library Day

2008 will mark the 6th anniversary of National School Library Day to be celebrated on the fourth Monday in October - this year NSLD will be on October 27, 2008 - Canadian Association for School Libraries

ACRL 14th National Conference Library School Student Scholarships

ACRL 14th National Conference Library School Student Scholarships - To provide opportunities for library school students to participate in an ACRL professional development experience and to learn more about current issues and developments in academic and research libraries. Ten scholarships will be awarded. Each will include complimentary registration (a $95 value), and $600 stipend to attend the ACRL 2009 14th National Conference, March 12-15, 2009 in Seattle, WA. The total value of each scholarship is $695

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

HeinOnline Update - September 2008

HeinOnline Update - September 2008 is now available

UK National Year of Reading Competition

"The UK National Year of Reading, working with London 2012, is launching a nationwide photography project for schools and young people. Celebrating the power of the written word in our everyday lives, The National Year of Reading is looking for classes and individuals (ages 13-19) to send pictures of the words and signs that they best feel represent their local area and what it means to be British. The best images will feature on Get Set, the London 2012 education website, which will act as a huge 'welcome sign' to visitors ahead of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The top prize will be a school visit from an Olympic athlete. The closing date is 20.12.08. This is a campaign to involve and engage young people right across the country with the Olympics and their values - please ensure that you underline that this is not just a London-centric event"

science@cambridge

"Science@cambridge aims to draw users into a virtual library space giving them immediate access to electronic information from their desktop, tools to help them navigate through the vast number of sources available, as well as on-line real-time help from library subject-experts. This development acknowledges that for many of those working in contemporary science the library is now largely a 'virtual resource'. Science@cambridge will increase access to and knowledge of scientific electronic resources. It will help users discover, search across and improve the use of science e-resources, generally and within discipline specific areas. Science@cambridge has been developed with the generous support of the Arcadia Trust"

Georgia Archives Month 2008

"The purpose of Georgia Archives Month 2008 is to celebrate the value of Georgia's historical records, publicize the many ways historical records enrich our lives, and recognize those who maintain our communities' historical records. This is the ideal time to call attention to your organization or local government and its work in preserving Georgia's documentary heritage" - Society of Georgia Archivists, USA

Oxbridge lectures play on iTunes

From the BBC - Oxford and Cambridge University are to make lectures by leading academics available through iTunes. Cambridge says it will bring the work of its Nobel prize-winning academics in reach of a much wider public. Oxford University says it will publish 150 hours of video and audio material of lectures and ideas from "world-leading thinkers". These are the latest UK universities to provide free education content through the online downloading software. A spokeswoman for Cambridge University says the idea is to "lift the veil" on the university, using iTunes to put lectures and talks from its experts into the public domain

wCOMLIS 2008

wCOMLIS 2008 - The 2008 World Congress of Muslim Librarians and Information Scientists - 25-27 November 2008 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Ancient papyrus documents to be available online

"A Duke University-led research team will use an $814,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop collaborative online editing tools for ancient documents preserved on papyrus. The new electronic editing environment, when completed, will enable scholars - regardless of their location - to research, retrieve and display ancient texts, supplementary data and digital images of papyri. The research team is led by Duke professor Joshua Sosin and university librarian Deborah Jakubs"

AAA creates "Open Access" to Anthropological Research

"In a groundbreaking move aimed at facilitating greater access for the global social science and anthropological communities to 86 years of classic, historic research articles, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association has announced that it will provide, free of charge, unrestricted content previously published in two if its flagship publications - American Anthropologist and Anthropology News. The initiative, among the first of its kind in the humanities- and social science-based publishing environment and made in coordination with publishing partner Wiley-Blackwell, will provide access to these materials for the purposes of personal, educational and other non-commercial uses after a thirty-five year period. Starting in 2009, content published from 1888 to 1973, will be available through AnthroSource, the premier online resource serving the research, teaching, and professional needs of anthropologists. Previously, this information was only available via AAA association membership, subscription or on a so-called 'pay per view' basis"

Berkshire Encyclopedia of China

"The Berkshire Encyclopedia of China offers authoritative articles from well-known scholars in China as well as in the West, and it has been compiled with strict rules about balance and objectivity by a publisher committed to providing truly global perspectives that will empower 21st-century students, global citizens, and leaders in business and government"

Monday, October 06, 2008

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #42

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast - Episode #42 : "This week's installment of this news magazine brings three pieces. The first is a bit of reporting on the Steve Jobs heart attack hoax. Following that there is a commentary on librarians and politics. Before the zeitgeist review that shifted to the episode's end, we also have a look at simple steps toward e-mail security". Previous Podcasts can be found here

ELAG 2009 - New Tools of the Trade

ELAG 2009 - New Tools of the Trade - Web 2.0, social networking applications, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, facetted searching, semantic linking and digital documents are just some of the new developments that are rapidly changing the systems environment in libraries and what users expect from the systems that they use. To respond to these challenges, systems librarians and developers need to "re-tool": they need to discover and master new ways of developing and applying informatics to solve information problems. These tools include new environments, software, protocols and standards but also new formats, procedures and techniques. What kinds of tools are important and will deliver real benefits to users? What do system librarians need to master in for the future? What kind of experience have libraries had with these new developments? - 22-24 April 2009 - Bratislava, Slovakia

Tackling the Preservation Challenge: Practical Steps for Repository Managers

DPC/RSP/DCC/JISC Workshop - Tackling the Preservation Challenge: Practical Steps for Repository Managers - 12 December 2008 - London, UK

Sunday, October 05, 2008

DLF Fall Forum 2008 program

DLF Fall Forum 2008 - 12-14 November 2008 - Providence, Rhode Island, USA - Full program now available

NationMaster makes available correlating tools on countries of the world

"NationMaster.com, the world's largest online statistical database for country comparisons, has announced free access to their correlation tools. This service allows the user to compare any two statistics (out of a database of over 5,700) in order to shed new light on information highly-useful to journalists, writers, professors and the general public. Correlations can therefore be used to inform debates on crime, politics, education, poverty and so on"

NewsFilm Online

"NewsFilm Online is a JISC-funded service comprising a selection of news stories and programme scripts from the ITN/Reuters archives - some 3,000 hours of footage; c. 60,000 stories. Video playback and downloading are available to staff and students at subscribing UK universities and colleges"

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Caribbean Studies via Project Muse

Caribbean Studies, published by the Institute of Caribbean Studies, is now available at Project Muse

Podcast: Railway staff records

"Historian Bruno Derrick guides us through how to trace those ancestors who worked on the railways during the Victorian era, both at home and abroad. Discussing the extensive collection of railway staff records held at The UK National Archives, this talk looks at various company records, accident records and railway magazines and offers advice on the best ways to approach and use these resources"

National Library of Wales digitisation plan

From the BBC: ""A GBP20m project has begun to digitise the National Library of Wales so that much of it is available online. The lengthy project eventually aims to make as many of the National Library of Wales' books, art works, and documents as possible viewable on the internet. Sound files, photographs and newspapers at the library in Aberystwyth will also be scanned in. About 200,000 items are already online, including the Black Book of Carmarthen, the oldest surviving Welsh book"

Enriching Digital Resources

"Enriching Digital Resources is a strand of the Digitisation Programme. Totalling an investment of just under GBP2 million, it is aimed at developing the range and quality of digital resources available to the JISC community by digitising analogue collections and enhancing existing digital collections for use in learning, teaching and research. The programme runs from October 2008 to September 2009, and funds 25 projects that address specific priorities of the JISC Digitisation Strategy. The programme also responds to the JISC 2007 Digitisation Conference and the key issues it suggested needed tackled, such as reintegrating the user and building a connected mass of content"

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative

Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative - "a collaborative effort by US federal agencies formed as a group in 2007 to define common guidelines, methods, and practices to digitize historical content in a sustainable manner"

Copac adds Chetham's Library

"Chetham's Library was founded in 1653 and is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world. It holds more than 100,000 volumes of printed books, of which 60,000 were published before 1851. These include rich collections of sixteenth and seventeenth-century printed works, periodicals, broadsides and other ephemera, with strong collections in theology, history, law, medicine, and science"

New timelines on British History Online

"British History Online has introduced an expanded set of timelines. Covering eight periods from 1509 to 1714, these bring together under thematic headings part of the range and variety of sources available on British History Online. The sets of suggestions for each topic would be particularly suitable as an introduction for undergraduates to the use of primary sources, and the analysis of how such sources may complement, modify or contradict one another. Further expansion of the timelines is planned for the coming months"

Browse Alexander Street Collections for Free

From Alexander Street Press: "Many of our online collections can be accessed and browsed without a subscription. See what the interface looks like, get a sense of what the collection can do - all without requesting a trial or having library access. You won't be prompted to log in until you try to access a document."

CLA Canadian Library Month 2008

The Canadian Library Association / Association canadienne des bibliothèques has announced that October has been designated as Canadian Library Month. The idea for a month dedicated to library and information services in Canada was developed by library partners from across the country to help raise public awareness of the valuable role that libraries play in the lives of Canadians

Friday, October 03, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Non-Fiction. Answers here.

1. Who was "the founder of psychoanalysis", who published "The Interpretation of Dreams" in 1900?
2. Who wrote the 1988 book "A Brief History of Time" which gave a popular account of cosmology and became an international best-seller?
3. Who wrote a famous diary about her time in hiding in a sealed-off room during the German occupation of Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944?
4. Who expressed in "The Origin of Species" the theory of evolution which resulted from his discoveries while naturalist on board the "Beagle"?
5. Which American economist wrote the books "The Affluent Society", "The New Industrial State" and "Economics and the Public Purpose"?
6. James Boswell's masterpiece is his 1791 biography of which other writer?
7. Who wrote the autobiographical narrative "Walden: or, Life in the Woods", published in 1854, describing a two-year period when he retired from the town of Concord to live alone?
8. What was the title of James Watson's 1968 book describing the discovery of the DNA structure?
9. Who wrote the historical work "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", published between 1776 and 1788?
10. Which French author wrote "The Second Sex" (1949) which overturned thinking on women's sexuality and social position?

2008-2009 Edition of U.S. Government Manual now online

"The 2008-2009 edition of the United States Government Manual is now available on GPO Access. As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies; international organizations in which the United States participates; and boards, commissions, and committees. The Manual begins with reprints of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution"

This Glittering Library

The National Library of Ireland is to host This Glittering Library, a loan exhibition of material from the Edward Worth Library in Dublin. The exhibition, curated by Dr Elizabethann Boran of the Worth Library, will open in the Main Building of the National Library on Monday 13 October and run until Saturday 29 November

Thursday, October 02, 2008

William Hill Sports Book Of The Year 2008 longlist

The longlist for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year 2008 has been announced:

Paul Canoville - Black and Blue (Headline)
John Carlin - Playing the Enemy (Atlantic)
Janie Hampton - The Austerity Olympics [London 1948] (Aurum)
Rebecca Jenkins - The First London Olympics 1908 (Piatkus)
Richard Moore - Heroes, Villains and Velodromes (Harper)
Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Harvill Secker)
Musa Okwonga - A Cultured Left Foot (Duckworth)
Rowan Simons - Bamboo Goalposts (Macmillan)
Ed Smith - What Sport Tells Us About Life (Penguin)
Jackie Stewart - Winning is not enough (Headline)
Marcus Trescothick - Coming back to me: The Autobiography (Harper)
Jeremy Whittle - Bad Blood (Yellow Jersey)
Jonathan Wilson - Inverting the Pyramid (Orion)

The Short-list will be announced on BBC Radio 5 Live by Chairman of the Judging Panel, John Gaustad, on the Simon Mayo show on Thursday, October 30. The winner will also be announced live on the programme on Monday, November 24.

Judging Panel: John Inverdale; Danny Kelly; Hugh McIlvanney; Alyson Rudd.

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, October 2008

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, October 2008: Fairs and Circus - "This month, to coincide with the Big Draw and all things round, we focus on two of the collections held at the National Fairground Archive in Sheffield. There are photos from the collections and also links to selected websites and a brief bibliography."

Information Today October 2008 issues

The October 2008 issues of Computers in Libraries, Information Today, and Searcher, are now available

US library card registration reaches all-time high

Public libraries are busier than ever - and now there are numbers that explain why. A new poll from Harris Interactive for the American Library Association confirms that in-person visits are up 10 percent, compared with a 2006 ALA survey

National Poetry Day 2008

"National Poetry Day 2008 is on Thursday October 9. This year our theme is WORK of all kinds - from classroom to factory floor, from building site to office cubicle. The biggest and best part of National Poetry Day is the nationwide celebration that happens in pubs, libraries, schools, workplaces and in your own home"

Oxford DNB October 2008 update

The October 2008 update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is now available

Chelsea Pensioners' records and Military Attestation Papers to go online

The UK National Archives is working with findmypast.com to scan and place online two important series of records: WO 97 (Royal Hospital Chelsea: Soldiers Service Documents 1760-1913) and WO 96 (War Office: Militia Attestation Papers 1806-1915). The aim is to have all the records online by 2011

Survival Tips and Stories: Expanding the Library's Services in Times of Disaster

Survival Tips and Stories: Expanding the Library's Services in Times of Disaster - MLA's Educational Webcast - Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. CT

Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2009

Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) 2009 - 25-30 May 2009 - Dubrovnik and Zadar, Croatia

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - October 2, 2008

The Lloyd L. Gaines Digital Collection

The University of Missouri Law Library has put together a digital collection that sheds light on the landmark civil rights case, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (precurser to Brown v. Board of Education). The Lloyd L. Gaines Digital Collection "seeks to illuminate Lloyd Gaines' life, document his pioneering pursuit of true equal rights to a legal education, and memorialize the long overdue, posthumous recognition of his personal sacrifice in the advancement of civil rights"

IMLS honors 10 museums and libraries for outstanding community service

"Five museums and five libraries have won the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service (USA), the nation's highest honor for institutions that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. The National Medals are presented to 10 institutions every year by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in coordination with the White House"

Time Out City Guides via Exact Editions

"Time Out City Guides digital editions feature live links from the page text: click a web or email address to open it directly. Click a phone number to make the call right away - particularly handy for travellers with iPhones"