New version of Copac released

A New version of Copac has been released, the main change being that searches are now carried out both on Copac and on the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) at the British Library

Europeana

"Van Gogh's down at heel boots were the first thing to appear on the test website of the European digital library today. The website, branded Europeana, will break new ground by bringing together millions of digitised resources from Europe's archives, museums, libraries and audio visual collections through a single portal. The site model was previewed at a conference in Frankfurt last week to holders of digital content, including curators, archivists, publishers and librarians. They were shown how a user would be able to use sophisticated browsing and searching to find paintings, photographs, objects, books, newspapers, archival records, films and sound that have been digitised by Europe's heritage organisations"

DS and Axiell Library Group announce development initiative

DS has entered into a joint research agreement with Axiell Library Group. Development effort will focus on Library 2.0 content management and portal platforms, building next-generation user interfaces to complement each company's library technology

Free electronic editions from HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins Publishers has announced a variety of online promotions to allow consumers exclusive sampling of its books. In the 'Full Access' Program, a select number of titles can be seen in their entirety for a limited time; in the 'Sneak Peek' Program, readers will be able to view 20% of many new titles two weeks before their on sale date; and the remaining titles in the digital warehouse are now available for 20% viewing after the on sale date in the 'Browse Inside' Program

Watch-it! tutorials

Watch-it! tutorials are instructional and informative videos, complete with an audio track from Charles Sturt University Library, Australia

MassCat Consortium chooses Koha ZOOM

LibLime has announced that MassCat, a resource sharing network for over 100 libraries in Massachusetts, has selected the Koha ZOOM for their next integrated library system and union catalog. MassCat is a multi-type library consortium with membership consisting of school, medical, historical, special, academic and public libraries

2008 Stonewall Book awards

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table of the American Library Association has announced the winners of the 2008 Stonewall Book Awards. Ellis Avery, author of "The Teahouse Fire," published by Riverhead Books, is the winner of the Barbara Gittings Book Award in Literature, and Mark Doty, author of "Dog Years: A Memoir," pubished by HarperCollins Publishers, is the winner of the Israel Fishman Book Award for Nonfiction

CrossRef Citation Plugin

CrossRef Citation Plugin - "A WordPress plugin that allows blog entry authors to search CrossRef's metadata using full or partial citations and then insert the formatted and DOI-linked citation into their blog posting along with COINs metadata"

1.8 million pages of U.S. case law available now for developers

Creative Commons and Public.Resource.Org have announced that the first revision of a substantial corpus of U.S. federal case law is available for download by developers. The files are all clearly marked with the new Creative Commons CCØ label, indicating that the contents are Works of the United States Government and are thus free of copyright or other restrictions for their dissemination and reuse. The release covers all U.S. Supreme Court decisions and all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 on. The release is equivalent to 1,858 volumes of case law in book form, a stack of books 348 feet tall

CLA 63rd Annual Conference and Trade Show

The Canadian Library Association 63rd Annual Conference and Trade Show - May 21-24, 2008 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

2007 PSP Awards for Excellence from APA

The Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers has announced the winners of 2007 PSP Awards for Excellence in 30 categories

Public Library Association 2008 award winners

The Public Library Association has announced the winners of eight awards, honoring the best in public library service and innovation

ACRL Podcast: 2008 Vice-President/ President Elect candidates talk

In this podcast, College & Research Libraries News editor-in-chief David Free interviews Lori Goetsch of Kansas State University and Janice Simmons-Welburn of Marquette University, 2008 candidates for ACRL Vice-President/President Elect

Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites

Libraries & the Mega-Internet Sites presents data from more than 120 academic, special and public libraries about how they use and relate to the mega-internet sites such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, and others - Primary Research Group, February 2008

Ranking of repositories

"The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities has been updated with data collected during January 2008. The main new service offered is the Ranking of Repositories that presents the best 200 ones of the world. The best ranked are three largest thematic Open Access deposits: Arxiv, dedicated to physics and related sciences; RePEc, a big effort being made by the economic science world; and E-LIS committed to Library and Information Sciences and Documentation"

Booktagger

Booktagger is an online bookshelf application to list the books you've read and to share them with others

2008 Dublin Book Festival

"Organised by CLÉ - Irish Book Publishers' Association, the Dublin Book Festival will take place 7 to 9 March in Dublin's City Hall. Come and celebrate the best of contemporary Irish publishing and writing in a very warm, welcome and festive environment! The theme of this year's festival is 'Debuts and New Beginnings.' We will have new work debuted from both established and new authors as well as readings and discussions on the theme including talks and readings by some of Ireland's leading literary luminaries including: Joseph O'Connor, Dermot Bolger, John Montague, Cathy Kelly, Margaret Mac Curtain and many others. The festival is free and all events are open to the public"

The Reuters News Screener

"The Reuters News Screener lets you treat the news as a sortable data set, helping you pinpoint stories of interest quickly. With a quick glance, the News Screener shows you over 100 of the latest headlines in a number of different categories"

Confronting the Future

Confronting the Future: organising and managing information in the Web 2.0 age - 5 March 2008 - University College London, UK

University of Ulster to restore historic Derry and Raphoe Library

"Over 5,000 volumes in the historic Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Library are to be restored and their contents made available to the public. The unique University of Ulster conservation and outreach initiative - funded by a grant of GBP500,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund - will take three and a half years to complete"

O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference 2008

O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference 2008 "explores what's at stake for the future of publishing for people who are passionate about books and book publishing. Most publishers know that next steps are needed - TOC helps them take the plunge and connect with the right ideas, tools, and innovators. The conference will emphasize practical/tactical information and knowledge transfer so that attendees come away armed with skills to lead change within their own organizations" - 11-13 February 2008 - New York, NY, USA

Nine more volumes of State Papers, Colonial live

Nine more volumes of the State Papers, Colonial are now live. The first years of the eighteenth century, up to the death of Queen Anne, are now covered. From British History Online

New journals from Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press has announced the following new journals:

Cardiovasuclar Research
European Journal of Echocardiography
German History
Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases

Handbook for Information Literacy Teaching

Handbook for Information Literacy Teaching from Cardiff University (UK) covers key topics such as Lesson Planning, Delivery, Evaluation and Assessment and also includes examples of teaching materials. The Handbook was written by a group of subject librarians to support colleagues in the delivery of information literacy teaching within Information Services

DLF Spring Forum 2008

DLF Spring Forum 2008 - 28-30 April, 2008 - Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Gizmos, Gadgets and Good Reads...

Gizmos, Gadgets and Good Reads: Getting to Grips with Future Library Services for Visually Impaired Customers will consider what's new in digital technology, including downloads, how to reach out to your sight impaired readers and the potential for working together with Adult Care to deliver future services and information - 1 April 2008 - Hucclecote Centre, Gloucester, UK

FreePint News - February 2008

FreePint News - February 2008 is now available online

Darien Library Blogs

Darien Library Blogs - a list of blogs written by staff at the Darien Library in Connecticut, USA

The Wise Guide - February 2008

The Wise Guide - monthly portal to the many resources available from the U.S. Library of Congress - February 2008 now available

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - September 2007

Library of Congress Information Bulletin - Vol. 66, No. 9 - September 2007 - is now available online

Bellwether journals now on MetaPress

Bellwether journals are no longer being updated via Ingenta. Instead, they are available from their new MetaPress-hosted web-site

Library of Congress receives books from Window of China Project

The Library of Congress has begun to receive donated books from the National Library of China through the Window of China Project. Founded in 2006, the Window of China Project donates books to national libraries and other institutions around the world. Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum and Yan Xiandong of the National Library of China signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2008 to formalize the project. According to the agreement, the National Library of China will donate approximately 3,000 publications to the Library of Congress over the course of the project, which lasts through 2010

LoudLit.org

"LoudLit.org is committed to delivering public domain literature paired with high quality audio performances. We pair together great literature and accompanying audio. Putting the text and audio together, readers can learn spelling, punctuation and paragraph structure by listening and reading masterpieces of the written word. Read and listen via your web browser or on your mp3 player"

Amsterdam World Book Capital: Copyright symposium

"Amsterdam will be World Book Capital from 23 April 2008 to 22 April 2009. UNESCO honoured the Dutch capital with this title in recognition of the programme organised by the professional Dutch book sector and literary world, thus ensuring broad support. The international symposium The Book in the Internet Era: Copyright and the Future for Authors, Publishers and Libraries will take place on the eve of this exceptional year-long event"

Most Borrowed Authors list

"After a four year reign as the 'Queen of library lending', Jacqueline Wilson has been narrowly beaten into second place by US thriller writer James Patterson in the Most Borrowed Authors list. According to the latest annual figures on library lending released by Public Lending Right (PLR), titles by James Patterson were lent over 1.5 million times between July 2006 and June 2007. Aside from Jacqueline Wilson in second place, Patterson's nearest adult fiction rivals are novelists Josephine Cox, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel and Ian Rankin"

3rd International Digital Curation Conference presentations

3rd International Digital Curation Conference: Curating our Digital Scientific Heritage: a Global Collaborative Challenge - 12-13 December 2007 - Washington, DC, USA. Presentations now available for downloading

ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the digital divide

ALT-C 2008: the 15th International Conference of the Association for Learning Technology - 9-11 September 2008 - University of Leeds, UK

BMC Medical Genomics

BMC Medical Genomics is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of functional genomics, genome structure, genome-scale population genetics, epigenomics, proteomics, systems analysis, and pharmacogenomics in relation to human health and disease

ACRL Award Winners

ACRL has announced the following 2008 award recipients:

ACRL DLS Haworth Press Distance Learning Librarian Conference Sponsorship Award: Harvey Gover

ACRL/EBSS Distinguished Librarian: John William Collins III

ACRL/IS Miriam Dudley Instruction Librarian Award: Craig Gibson

ACRL Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship Award: Donghua Tao

ACRL Samuel Lazerow Fellowship: Ping Situ and Shuyong Jiang

Marta Lange/CQ Press Award Winner: Lisa Norberg

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Famous Women. Answers here.

1. American actress who rocketed to stardom as the astronaut Ellen Ripley in the 1979 movie "Alien".
2. French singer, born in Paris, she became a street singer at the age of 15. She was nicknamed "the kid sparrow" by a night-club owner in 1935. She was famous for such songs as "Non, je ne regrette rien" and "Milord".
3. American author of nine autobiographical novels about growing up on the frontier in the 1870s and 1880s, starting with "Little House in the Big Woods".
4. New Zealand soprano born into a Maori background and adopted by a couple in Gisborne, who gave her a first name which is the Maori word for Bell.
5. German tennis player, seven times winner of the women's singles title at Wimbledon. She has also won many doubles competitions with Gabriela Sabatini.
6. 19th-century novelist who adopted a male pen-name and wrote such books as "Adam Bede" and "Middlemarch".
7. American country singer born in Locust Ridge, Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children of a mountain farmer.
8. British zoologist who gained fame for her research on chimpanzees in the wild, having conducted the longest continuous field study of wild animals in their natural environment.
9. American civil rights protester and activist who was imprisoned in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.
10. Portuguese-born painter who has been living in Britain since 1976. Her works include "The Cadet and his Sister" and "The Policeman's Daughter".

Biblio Tech Review - February 2008

The February 2008 issue of Biblio Tech Review is now available

PublicDomainReprints.org

PublicDomainReprints.org - an experimental non-commercial project to archive and re-publish public domain works

TLA 2008 program now available

TLA 2008 - The Texas Library Association Conference - April 15-18 - Dallas, TX. Program now available

BMJ Group Institutional Newsletter - February 2008

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

Gojaba.com

"Gojaba.com is a marketplace for used, rare and out of print books that connects booklovers with independent sellers. Buyers can find signed books, first editions or simply used books in a few seconds and buy them from booksellers around the world. Booksellers can promote their business by listing and selling books on Gojaba.com. Gojaba.com launched in January 2008 in Sweden and Russia and plans to expand further within the next few months."

The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008

"The BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is the richest non fiction prize in the UK, worth GBP30,000 to the winner. Sponsored by BBC FOUR, the prize aims to reward the best of non-fiction and is open to authors of all non-fiction books in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. BBC FOUR televise the awards ceremony and feature complementary programming on the channel - forming a key part of their commitment to diverse, intelligent and culturally enriching programmes"

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - February 2008

The World Almanac E-Newsletter - Volume 08, Number 02 - February 2008 is now available

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - February 7, 2008

Find love at the Library....

Valentine's Day Single Mingle - British Library - 13 February 2008 - The British Library presents a relaxed and fun open house for single people on 13 February, as part of its popular series of 'Mingles'. The event offers the chance to meet like-minded others and to enjoy the Library's galleries, temporary exhibitions and some special treats laid on for the occasion

C&RL News - February 2008

C&RL News - February 2008 is now available from ACRL

Drop Everything And Read (DEAR)

National DEAR Day is a special reading celebration to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority. It is celebrated on April 12th

East Renfrewshire libraries on Facebook

"East Renfrewshire has become the first local authority in the UK to use Facebook to publicise its libraries and sports centres. All 10 libraries in the area now have Facebook pages which contain information about opening times and facilities. Users can also interact with staff or contribute to discussion boards"

Readex eNewsletter - Spring 2008

Readex eNewsletter - Volume 3, Issue 1 - Spring 2008 now available

Audio Publishers Association announces Audies nominees

The Audio Publishers Association has announced the nominees for its annual Audies awards. Winners to be announced May 30, 2008

One million digitized books at The University of Michigan Library

"The University of Michigan's University Library has just put the millionth book from its collection on-line. That's one million out of the 7.5 million volumes in the library's current holdings"

A Lessig Library at Exact Editions

Exact Editions now provides open access to a Lessig mini-library, an account with 3 of Professor Lawrence Lessig's published books in it

Shortlist for the 2008 CILIP / LiS Libraries Change Lives Award announced

A local community TV scheme to provide training, equipment for media projects, from photography, journalism and film making, a local volunteer scheme which supports the work of library staff giving additional and enriched services to customers in a wider community, a project providing courses to enable adults with learning disabilities to make use of mainstream services are all in the running for the 2008 CILIP/LiS Libraries Change Lives Award

THATCamp at George Mason University

Short for 'The Humanities and Technology Camp', THATCamp is a BarCamp-style, user-generated 'unconference' on digital humanities. THATCamp is organized and hosted by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Digital Campus, and THATPodcast - May 31-June 1, 2008

Eye-to-Eye - February 2008

Eye-to-Eye - the Ingenta publisher newsletter - Issue 20, February 2008 now available

Penguin Books archive to be studied and catalogued online

"Established in 1935 by Bristol-born Allen Lane, Penguin Books quickly grew to be one of the most recognisable and well-loved publishers in Britain. The early series of sixpence paperbacks, designed to fill a gap in the market for good quality literature at reasonable prices, were incredibly successful and set a new yardstick for publishing. Now, the company's archive of more than 2,300 boxes of letters, notes and other papers, housed at Bristol University Library's Special Collections, is to be studied and catalogued online"

INSOURCE 2008

INSOURCE 2008: a conference on Professional Information Resources - February 5-6 2008 - Prague, Czech Republic

Jewish Book Week 2008

Jewish Book Week 2008 - 23 February to 2 March 2008 - Royal National Hotel, Bedford Way, London, UK

The Libraries Agency

"The Libraries Agency has launched a new website, offering a range of services to libraries, from marketing and promotion to income generation. David Lindley, formerly Sales and Marketing Director of Books for Students, and until December last year Marketing and Communications Manager for Coutts Information Services, has relaunched the Agency with a network of talented creatives who will be able to bring new ideas and fresh thinking to the library sector. 'The concept behind the Agency,' says David Lindley, 'is to harness the experience of creative people who can bridge the space between the commercial sector and public service culture, and at the same time recognise and mobilise the talent that already sits inside library organisations that just needs to find its voice'"

The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times added to ProQuest Historical Newspapers

"The Irish Times (1859-2007) and The Weekly Irish Times (1865-1950) will be the first Irish titles to join ProQuest Historical Newspapers. More than 147 years of continuous coverage from the only independent newspaper in Ireland will now be searchable for the first time. The ability to cross-search the archives of two major Irish newspapers with ProQuest's existing U.S. and British historical newspapers provides researchers with additional distinct perspectives on key international events, such as the 1916 Easter Uprising and formation of the Republic of Ireland, the repercussions of the Irish Potato Famine, World Wars I and II, and the War in Iraq. Researchers will be able to compare news, political cartoons, and editorials about the same events in Irish, U.S., and British newspapers"

Podcast: The open access argument is won

"A petition organised by JISC, European partners and SPARC Europe attracted nearly 25,000 signatures in 2007, including a number of Nobel Prize winners, as well as more than 800 education and research organisations. SPARC Europe's director David Prosser talks about what the petition achieved and why he thinks the open access argument has finally been won"

New season of Step Up to the Plate @ your library begins

"ALA and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum are teaming up to promote season three of Step Up to the Plate @ your library. This year, it's a whole new 'ball game,' celebrating the 100th anniversary of the song 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game.' Librarians can visit the program Web site to register for free promotional tools to help promote the program locally. Tools include program logos in both English and Spanish and a toolkit that includes sample press materials and programming ideas"

RSS tutorial from University College Dublin Library

"An RSS tutorial created by library staff is now available on the UCD library website. The tutorial shows the basic steps to creating an account with a Web-based RSS feed reader, and how to subscribe to a sample RSS feed. Links to further information are included at the end of the presentation"

Books to Talk About from World Book Day

"World Book Day has revealed its top ten Books to Talk About. The shortlist was selected through an online poll, which saw over 300 book lovers debate the 'talkability' merits of a list of 100 titles and select a shortlist of ten titles. Voting will continue throughout February, with the winning author to be announced on World Book Day (6th March), and to receive a prize of GBP5000"

Library Lovers Day - 14th February 2008 - Australia

"For centuries February 14 has been known as Valentine's Day, a time beloved of romantics. Now a new era has begun with Library Lovers everywhere claiming the day for the objects of their special affection - Australia's libraries"

What's New @ IEEE in Libraries

What's New @ IEEE in Libraries - January 30, 2008 now available from The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

NewGenLib is now open source

NewGenLib, a NEW GENeration LIBrary automation and networking solution from India for the developing world, is now open source

Harvard Theatrum Catalogorum

"The Harvard Theatrum Catalogorum was launched in 2007 by Ann Blair, Morgan Sonderegger, and Adam Beaver as a scholarly resource for the Early Modernist community. In its first edition, it collates library catalogs from every major European country. In future editions, it will expand to include the Americas"

Searching the Internet: Google and Beyond

Searching the Internet: Google and Beyond - presented by Karen Blakeman - 16 May 2008 - Liverpool, UK

London Metropolitan University East End Archive: The Paul Trevor Collection

"Academics and artists at London Metropolitan University worked with photographer Paul Trevor to make a selection of his images of East London digitally available to artists, students and researchers. The Collection includes 500 images (chosen from a total of 120,000) of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s, a period of rapid social and physical change"

NISO Digital Preservation Forum

NISO Digital Preservation Forum: Planning Today for Tomorrow's Resources - March 14, 2008 - Washington, DC, USA

The Electronic Supply Chain - Turning Potential into Reality

The Electronic Supply Chain - Turning Potential into Reality - National Acquisitions Group Seminar - Spring 2008 - United Kingdom

Electric Connections 2008: collaborating on content

Electric Connections 2008: collaborating on content - 11 March 2008 - Edinburgh, Scotland

IAML(UK & Irl) Annual Study Weekend 2008

The International Association of Music Libraries, Archives & Documentation Centres United Kingdom and Ireland Branch will hold its 2008 Annual Study Weekend from 11 to 14 April at the University of Kent, Canterbury campus

Book Publishing Strategies for Associations and Societies

ALPSP Seminar: Book Publishing Strategies for Associations and Societies - 13 March 2008 - London, UK

World Book Capital 2010 nominations

"The Selection Committee for the World Book Capital is calling for nominations for the World Book Capital 2010. The complete applications, duly substantiated, including a cover or support letter from the mayor of the candidate-city and drafted in one of UNESCO's official languages (French, English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic or Chinese), should reach UNESCO no later than Monday 31 March 2008"

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, February 2008

Archives Hub Collections of the Month, February 2008: From Pulp to Print: Records of the Papermaking Industry. "Papermaking was established in Britain in the late fifteenth century. This month we highlight descriptions for the records of mill owners and mill workers, paper merchants, printers and publishers. There are also links to selected websites and a brief bibliography"

Exhibition: Words Out of Place

"A literary exhibition with a difference opened on 1 February at the National Library of Scotland. The Library's exhibition hall will be transformed for a month by the installation of a ruined cottage with hand carved stones, poetry printed on slates, giant maps of Edinburgh, and a 6ft boat suspended from the ceiling. The collection forms Words Out of Place, a new exhibition of visual art inspired by the Library's collections

Russia Looks at America: The View to 1917

Online version of a 1988 publication by Robert V. Allen (1923-1991), the Russian/Soviet Area Specialist in the European Division at the Library of Congress for thirty years, from 1955 until his retirement in 1985

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #118

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #118 - February 2 2008 is now available

Oxford Music Online

"Oxford Music Online is an innovative new gateway that offers users the ability, for the first time ever, to access and cross-search the vast resources of Oxford's music reference in one location. Now available at Oxford Music Online is Colin Larkin's landmark Encyclopedia of Popular Music - online for the first time by popular demand. The most comprehensive reference work devoted exclusively to popular music, the Encyclopedia is the authoritative biographical encyclopedia of rock, pop, and jazz artists, covering popular music from 1900 to the present. It is exhaustive, meticulous, authoritative — and incredibly fun to read"

Oxford Journals launches Contemporary Women's Writing

"Contemporary Women's Writing critically assesses writing by women authors who have published approximately from 1970 to the present. The journal aims to reflect retrospectively on developments throughout the period, to survey the variety of contemporary work, and to anticipate the new and provocative in women's writing"

African American History Month 2008 - The Library of Congress

African American History Month 2008 - The Library of Congress - This year's theme: Carter G. Woodson and the Origins of Multiculturalism

HeinOnline Update - January 2008

HeinOnline Update - January 2008 is now available

Nature India

"Nature India is a one-stop site for information on Indian science. The website, serving the scientific community of the world's largest democracy, provides information on jobs, events, the best research and science news from India. Through in-depth features and commentaries, leading members of the scientific community, scientists and journalists reflect on contemporary issues affecting Indian science. It also provides free access to some handpicked premium content from various NPG journals"

NetLibrary announces agreements with 21 international publishers

NetLibrary has announced agreements with 21 leading publishers that will add thousands of new eBooks and eAudiobooks to NetLibrary's growing catalog of more than 160,000 titles

Resource of the Month from Ovid - February 2008

"Each month, Ovid's Resource of the Month program allows you to "test drive" different products for free. This month's resource: Evidence-Based Medicine Reviews (EBMR)

RUSA Notable Books Council releases 2008 list

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has compiled its year 2008 list of outstanding books for the general reader. These titles have been selected for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge and for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Word Histories and Mysteries. Answers here.

1. Which word for "slices of bread with a filling" comes from the title of the English nobleman John Montagu, who liked to eat without leaving the gaming table?
2. Which European plant has an old English name which means "day's eye"?
3. What kind of cotton trousers get their name from the Italian city of Genoa?
4. What exclamation is derived from a Greek word meaning "I have found it", which was supposedly shouted by Archimedes when he discovered that a body displaces its own volume when immersed in water?
5. Hamburgers get their name from the city of Hamburg - true or false?
6. Which piece of equipment used by painters has a name which comes from a Dutch word meaning "ass" or "donkey"?
7. Which English word is a shortened form of "usquebaugh", which English borrowed from Gaelic, meaning "water of life"?
8. What type of headache gets its name from a Greek word meaning "pain on one side of the head or face"?
9. The chemical element uranium was named in honour of the discovery of the planet Uranus - true or false?
10. Which word coined by Horace Walpole means "the faculty of making fortuitous and unexpeced discoveries by accident"?

The decibel Penguin prize for new writers

The decibel Penguin prize for new writers is a collaboration between decibel, an Arts Council England initiative dedicated to promoting diversity in the arts, and Penguin Books. The winning stories will published in a Penguin Anthology in November 2008. The competition calls for non-fiction entries between 400 and 4000 words in length, on the experience of having a mixed heritage, whether it's the author's own experience or the experience of another person. Entries are welcome from any UK residents. There is no age limit for the authors, although they must not have had a full-length book published. The closing date for entries is 7 April 2008

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week

Librarians' Internet Index - New This Week - January 31, 2008

Podcast: Meeting the winners of the Times Higher ICT award

"For the first time last year JISC sponsored one of the Times Higher Awards for Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year. In this podcast for Inform Plus, Philip Pothen meets the winners of the award and discovers why the judges found their initiative quite so innovative and imaginative"

JISC Collections and SAGE agreement

A new agreement between JISC Collections and SAGE will allow staff, students and researchers in universities and colleges in the UK access to SAGE's eReference collection

2008 The Art Fund Prize longlist

The longlist for the 2008 The Art Fund Prize has been announced. The purpose of The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries is to recognize and stimulate originality and excellence in museums and galleries in the UK, and increase public appreciation and enjoyment of all they have to offer. A single award of GBP100,000 is presented to a museum or gallery whose entry, in the opinion of the judges, best meets the Prize criteria through a project completed or mainly undertaken in the previous calendar year

New sources for the City of London from British History Online

Two new sources for the City of London are now live. H.T. Riley's 'Memorials of London and London life', being extracts from the early archives, is available alongside the Calendar of the Letter Books on which it draws. For the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the index to the Remembrancia (1878) is also live

REaD ALERT from Booklist Online

"Booklist Online's REaD ALERT, sent on the same day that the latest issue of Booklist magazine is published online, features quick links to a hand-picked selection of book reviews, features and special web-only content from Booklist Online. It also includes original content by Keir Graff, editor of REaD ALERT and Booklist Online senior editor, such as tantalizing quotes from reviews and a particular slant on what's coming up"