I have enjoyed reading about presentations at the recent ALA annual conference. Of particular note for me are Owen Stephens’ extensive notes, available here. The ability for those who aren’t present at conferences to quickly catch up on essentials of what was discussed is, to me, hugely important and beneficial. I’m thankful for [...]

Few people are as good as Eric Lease Morgan at explaining technical things in a way that is easy for just about anyone to understand. Eric has been at this for a long time and has a rich history of innovative applications for libraries and I like the way that he is so passionate [...]

I was glad to see the Spring 2008 issue of The University of Chicago Library’s newsletter, LIBRA, published this afternoon. This publication’s official audience is University faculty, students, and staff but it always provides an interesting glimpse into the Library’s workings and initiatives for those not affiliated with the University. This latest issue [...]

The other day I finally had a look at a site that I knew about for a while but had never visited: The Virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisition Artifacts, maintained by a library school professor (I think, at the Univ. of South Carolina). I entered the library profession in 1992 so a [...]

I’m still getting used to corporate lingo and ways of doing things. Frankly I often try to suppress the instinct to roll my eyes with a lot of it because there is quite a bit of nonsense in it. Or else corporate types run around looking earnest and thinking they’re inventive by using [...]

Surely the news from last week about some Congressmen unfavorably comparing the Library of Congress to the likes of Wal-Mart and UPS was one of the stupidest things I have ever read. I was genuinely shocked by the level of ignorance and, well, stupidity…shown by Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), [...]

Scientists Use Google Widget to Improve Image Labeling on Wired Science
The article (linked above) is quite an interesting read.  I found it interesting when I read the words “cataloging” and “metadata” — in Wired Magazine, of all places!
The system developed by scientists at UC San Diego sounds practical and promising but…The reality is that [...]

Jay Datema posted a good writeup of his notes from the third meeting of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control yesterday. I read it with interest because I wasn’t able to connect to the live webcast the day before. This morning, I read Mark Lindner’s (Off the Mark) reaction to [...]

The main reason I was able to go to NASIG this year was that Anne McKee, program officer for the Greater Western Library Alliance (apparently known as GWLA, pronounced “Gwilla”), kindly invited me to participate in a panel discussion about alternative library careers for serialists. I jumped at the chance to present with friends [...]

One of the things that came up in conversation a few times when I was at NASIG this past weekend was that last year I made a proposal to UIUC GSLIS for a new, advanced course on electronic resources management. My intent in proposing this new course was that an existing course that I [...]