The Library of Congress has decided to put those burning questions to rest. Why are they archiving Twitter? What’s going to be included in the archive? And what is the Library going to do with all of that information anyway? Can we access it? Read their FAQ and find out.
The podcasts from IIF2010 are now online at: http://www.nla.gov.au/podcasts/innovative-ideas-forum.html
Check out these very cute videos from Sesame Street characters Cookie Monster and Bert which use Google’s ubiquitous search engine to look for some of their favourite things.
Buy it here
Check out this new short and a bit over positive article Are Libraries Dying? about ebooks and their potential impact on Libraries.
In particular the reference list is excellent and will give you a good idea of the arguments on this subject. In particular this one, are we screwed?
Check this little cat guy out… testing the usability of the new ipad…
The National Library’s Innovative Ideas Forum is currently on. Check out the website and follow the Tweets at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/innovative-ideas-forum/2010/web.html
The podcasts for those of us who miss it in person will be online later.
The Library of Congress have just announced that they are going to archive Twitter, and they used their own Twitter stream to make their original announcement. Starting with its inception in 2006 and with around 50 million tweets being added daily to the Twitterverse, that’s a lot of ground to cover!
Following a recent call for fellows to investigate issues related to social media, Facebook has revealed their successful fellowship candidates. The fellows will investigate issues such as
crowdsourced online help, the structure of networks, information disclosure, online advertising and data analysis.
One of the successful fellows, Parmit Chilana, is currently working towards her PhD in information science, having already gained her master’s degree in library and information science. Parmit will investigate ways of of utilising crowdsourcing as a means to supply in-built support for web applications.
“… public libraries provide equitable access to information of all kinds. With information comes knowledge and the possibility to learn and achieve, the opportunity to work and advance, and the power to participate in the democratic process.”
It is Library Week in the US of A. Check out the publicity resources here.
Neil Gaiman is featured as he is the honorary chair of the Week.
Listen to him speak the profoundest wisdom ….
“Libraries are as important as anything gets”
And then as you listen you can picture him in his personal Library here.
Last week, Liam Wyatt, the British Museum‘s first ever volunteer Wikipedian in residence, gave a presentation at the National Library discussing some of the recommendations from last year’s Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums & Wikimedia conference, held at the Australian War Memorial. Liam raised some very interesting points in regards to ownership, usage, Creative Commons licensing and copyright of digitised materials held in cultural institutions, as well as talking about the ways that volunteers can play a valuable role in contributing to an institution’s projects, something which this blog has previously touched upon. If you couldn’t get to the NLA last week to see the presentation in person, or want to be reminded of the things that Liam covered, check it out here.
In an office environment, you can’t escape distractions. The phone rings or someone comes to tap you on the shoulder and ask you a question, or you have to dash to a meeting or presentation. Over at Big Think, Jason Fried is wondering why the current workplaces are “optimized for interruptions”. Good question … find out more about what he has to say and how he thinks some of this can be overcome by watching his video here.
You may wonder why Malcolm McLaren should appear in a library blog. The answer is, though he was famous for many things sartorial and musical he also promoted himself as Mayor of London in 2000, with a policy of selling alcohol in public libraries.
There are numberous ways of finding out what’s new at your library – looking on the new acquisitions shelf, through circulation lists or updates on the library’s blog, or by talking to your nearest friendly librarian.
But have you ever wondered about what kinds of things are being added to WorldCat? Now, every 8 seconds, you can see the latest things as they’re added!
How do you know if you’re product is easy to use? Simple: grab the nearest 2 and a half year old and find out.
Whatever - formerly New Technologies for Libraries Blog 