Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
"For a variety of reasons - the economy, access to technology and a change in marketing philosophy - libraries are happening places again."

Another positive article, pointing to rising circulation in (US public) libraries, reminding readers that the internet hasn't replaced libraries (and pointing out that libraries were quick to embrace the 'net), and describing the increasing use of marketing techniques to improve service - "this is something a business would do". (I can think of at least one of my lecturers who would be very pleased to read those words).

From The Daily Herald (Chicago).


| posted by Simon at 2:26 pm

 
"Librarians do more than keep records. Often, they serve as visionaries in schools, said Jane Matthews, Franklin Community School Corp. K-12 library media coordinator."

Cool quote from an article about the declining numbers of librarians in Indiana school libraries, at a time when more information is available than ever, and circulation of books is up.

From The Daily Journal.

| posted by Simon at 10:21 am

 
A solution to the problem of libraries being offered bundles of journals, containing many titles that they don't want?

"Now HighWire Press, the librarian-led journal aggregator from Stanford University, has launched a new subscription program called Shop for Journals (http://highwire.stanford.edu/shopforjournals). Initiated by a group of scholarly society publishers participating in HighWire, the new pricing/subscription model offers an alternative to the �Big Deal� packages and allows librarians to create their own packages using tiered pricing tied to library type."

From Information Today.

| posted by Simon at 10:16 am

 
Nicely written article from The Scotsman, summarising the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, which extends legal deposit in the UK to digital information (both webpages and CDs). The article manages to cover concerns such as preservation, selection, and copyright.

Also interesting to note the other countries that have gone down this path:

The French government has issued a directive to ensure its national library collects all electronic material [which the UK won't be doing]. Norway, Finland and Denmark also have similar models, while Germany has new draft legislation in place.

| posted by Simon at 9:11 am

 
"Public libraries, once considered solely as book-lenders, are beginning to supplant town halls, churches and schools as the main gathering place of local communities, say officials from the Vermont Department of Libraries."

From The Battleboro Reformer, Vermont.

Very cool article about the changing role of libraries in the internet age. They're not just about books in a locally-held collection, but can take advantage of interlibrary loan to increase the collection. Access to the internet is an obvious plus, with one library mentioned in this article having the only broadband access in its area. The article also discusses the role of libraries in spurring economic growth.

| posted by Simon at 12:50 pm

 
School board cuts funding that paid for school librarian. School has no librarian. Books are sitting around in boxes, with children unable to take them out. Volunteers are "filing" the books. But more books, brought through a grant, "cannot be placed out until they are logged into the new computer system." Let's fervently hope that they don't ask these parent volunteers, dedicated though they surely are, to catalogue the new books.

From The Tribune-Chronicle, Ohio.

| posted by Simon at 12:33 pm

 
School is being refurbished. Sub-contractor takes books and equipment into storage. Contractor goes bust, leaving sub-contractor unpaid. Sub-contractor refuses to release books. Children have no access to books or library equipment.

From The Scotsman.

| posted by Simon at 12:30 pm

 
Long discussion on Slashdot about this article from technewsworld.com, about libraries selling unwanted books on eBay, instead of the good old used book sale. Some good comments from slashdotters concerned at the possibility that libraries are actually getting rid of material that may be valuable to researchers, and advocating for more public funding for libraries. Which seems appropriate, as most of the mentions of libraries I see in the US media tend to be articles bemoaning their lack of funding, or describing how student volunteers are helping academic libraries to maintain opening hours.

Of course, weeding collections is an important and necessary part of library collection development. (Yep, I'm writing an assignment on this at the moment, and I'm pleased that I've finally managed to track down a copy of the 4th edition of Slote's Weeding library collections seeing as it seems to be considered the definitive text).

| posted by Simon at 12:25 pm

 
You follow?

"Librarians rock. That reputation they have involving buns, sensible shoes and shushing people is merely a cunning ruse, developed over centuries, to conceal their real lives as radicals, subversives and providers of extreme helpfulness." Taken from this article from the New Zealand Herald.

The article's a round-up of various library weblogs, including mine (heh - I knew my status as the only (listed) NZ library weblogger would bring me fame and fortune one day).

It starts by discussing the Michael Moore Stupid White Men incident, and then points to some blogs. Now, here's where I'm a bit disappointed: look who's listed.

• The Bellydancing Librarian


• The Modified Librarian


• Naked Librarian


• Anarchist Librarians


• Lipstick Librarian


• Laughing Librarian


• Ska Librarian


• Biblia, The Warrior Librarian


• Conan the Librarian

Notice what these all have in common? None of them are serious library blogs (except the Anarchist Librarians and me, and you can see why we were included). Where were Steven and Jenny and Marylaine and Gary Price and Jessamyn (apart from the Naked Librians page)?

Sigh. Less "interesting use of new(ish) technology by worldwide group of information professionals" and more "stereotype: anti-stereotype". Such is life.

[edit] I had a closer look through the Ska Librarian and Laughing Librarian sites, and they do contain at least some "serious" information (gosh, what a value judgment). Although the Ska Librarian's site is only tangentially related to his profession - and you can see he was included because "gay skinhead librarian with weird taste in music" makes more interesting copy than "average (wo)man with interesting things to say about new developments in library and information science"[/edit]

[edit]I've had to correct HTML errors five times in this post. Lamer.

| posted by Simon at 8:35 am

 
New Zealand national electronic resources consortium.

These last few days I've been very excited about the PER:NA project, sponsored by the National Library of New Zealand. PER:NA stands for Purchasing Electronic Resources: a National Approach. What the National Library has done is negotiate a consortium deal that covers every library in New Zealand. All sizes. All sectors. School, public, academic, special. Everybody is included.

The idea is that as many libraries as possible sign up for the consortium, which gives us access to some quality general information sources, supplied by Ebsco and Gale. We get access to full-text and bibliographic databases containing business, health, news, and general reference sources, both serials and monographs.

A quick flick-through shows me I could save quite a significant sum by signing up, and gain access to titles I wouldn't have a chance of purchasing any other way. And my customers (colleagues, staff, whatever) like the idea too (which is really what's important). Looks like we are good to go.

I'm really pleased by this. Let's hope it's the beginning of something even bigger, and well done the National Library.

| posted by Simon at 6:07 pm

 
Look no further than the MLS Graduate Student Resume Database. Open to all recent (within last 6 months) MLS graduates, the service is provided by the Association of Research Libraries, and linked to their diversity program.

This looks great. Exactly the sort of thing I need, if I'm planning on working in the US after I graduate. And at the moment, that's a definite option. Obviously, it's only of relevance if you're looking for work in the USA ;-)

First seen on Neat New Stuff I Found on the Web This Week, for which no praise can be too high.

| posted by Simon at 6:01 pm

 
"When several users look at the same book page they can see the AR image from their own viewpoint and when one flys into the virtual model, the other users see her as a virtual character in the scene."

HIT Labs, based at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) have launched a 3-D children's book. Here's the press release, and here's more on the book.

| posted by Simon at 5:55 pm

 
Justice Ministry staff are now sending text messages to remind people that fines and payments are due. Nice idea. Simple, and will hopefully have an effect on the youth market, as they intend.

| posted by Simon at 5:50 pm

 
What hope do the rest of us have?

Citing increasing prices (and limited use), Harvard University libraries are cutting the number of journals they subscribe to. (The Harvard Crimson Online). While the article claims that 90% of the use comes from 10% of the journals (which sounds exaggerated, the usual rule quoted is the "20%/80% rule), that leaves aside the fact that the other journals still make some contribution to the body of knowledge. And if Harvard is cutting these subscriptions, who, anywhere, is going to be able to afford them?

| posted by Simon at 5:42 pm

 
Pravda writes that Russia's five largest libraries have created a "virtual summary catalogue of their bibliographic descriptions and full-text electronic resources". The project is supported by the British Council and the European Union. The new catalogue will have three million records.

Cool!

| posted by Simon at 5:37 pm

 
The New York Post reports that a 60-year-old school librarian, under investigation for allegedly assaulting two students, has claimed she was sexually assaulted by the investigator. She has now been arrested for 'concocting' that claim.

Possibly not what we really need to improve the professional image of librarians, etc etc.



| posted by Simon at 5:34 pm

 
OK, I'm posting this a day or two late...

Amazon teams up with British Library (The Scotsman, 25 November).

Interesting thing here, which I didn't realise - the scheme will enable Amazon to sell books published before 1970. Up until now, Amazon only sold books with ISBNs (only introduced in 1970 - I didn't know that, either). This seems like a great example of how we can work with commercial operators for everyone's benefit. (I hope the BL is reaping some benefit from this).

| posted by Simon at 5:30 pm

 
First seen on The Resource Shelf, a ranking of global access to Information and Communications Technology. Probably inevitably, the Scandanavian countries top the list, with South Korea being the only country from outside that group in the top five. Canada, the US, and the UK hold 10, 11, and 12, and New Zealand is down nine places to 21, two behind Australia. We score very highly in the knowledge category (access to education, adult literacy), so it looks like we are being let down by things like broadband access and mobile phone ownership.

I wonder if that has anything to do with the high prices of those services here, compared to most developed countries?

Link to report.

| posted by Simon at 8:51 am

 
Article from Time on 25 must-read graphic novels. Scarily, I've only heard of a handful of them - the Batman Dark Knight novels, Maus, Robert Crumb's work, From Hell, Sandman, and I haven't read any of those. No mention for Watchmen or V for Vendetta which is a pity.....

| posted by Simon at 1:12 pm

 
Unless you get the people side right first. Nothing earth-shattering here, but I'm mentioning it because it's another Work Foundation report (my former employer) and I used to work with the co-author who's quoted in the article.

From BBC News.

| posted by Simon at 1:06 pm

 
I liked this. It explains why writers should still (hey!) use the library for their information gathering needs, rather than relying on Google and the 'net exclusively. Benefits of libraries discussed include classification, selection of authoritative sources, the ability to search controversial materials without fear of an invasion of privacy, and the presence of information experts. Not sure I like the article's dismissive tone towards bloggers, though. The list of ten cool library manuevers for writers is, um, cool too.

Originally seen on librarian.net.

| posted by Simon at 12:44 pm

 
Nothing new in this, of course, but I found this comment interesting: "It is easier [to cheat], because sometimes when you go to the library you can't find the necessary books or you have too much to read," she says."

Something for us to be aware of, perhaps? Poor collection development/management as a cause of students cheating?

From the good ol' BBC.

| posted by Simon at 11:52 am

 
In what is surely a statement of the glaringly obvious, a survey finds that 95% of computer users thought companies using email marketing had an obligation to make more of an effort to only send out information pertinent to them. Apparently, receiving endless emails promoting products that we are not interested in is a turn-off. But the problem is set to get worse.

The BBC, 17 November 2003.

| posted by Simon at 11:49 am

 
The BBC reports that record labels are urging artists to put fewer tracks on albums because fans are put off by too many average songs.

| posted by Simon at 11:47 am

 
I've started third trimester courses, one of which is on digital libraries. The course notes refer to the (New Zealand) National Digital Forum, which is a coalition of organisations with an interest in digital resources. It's website is hosted on the National Library's website, which gives it authoritative status, and the website itself both looks good and contains interesting content, including a list of digitisation projects going on around the country, policies and guidelines, technical standards, training resources, conference papers and articles, and document templates and planning tools.

| posted by Simon at 10:08 pm

 
The NME reports that internet users could face up to five years in prisonfor distributing music and films before their scheduled release date, in a bill before the US Senate. Which clearly, in these days of the War on Terror (TM) has nothing better to do with its time.


| posted by Simon at 1:13 pm

 
Steven points to this interesting article: Why I Hate Personal Weblogs. Contains lots of ranting and swearing, so if that is likely to offend you, probably best not to read it. I did like the 'weblog statement of audience' which the author proposes that all weblog authors create to facilitate understanding of their place in the universe and the importance of their writings. A suggested template begins:

"I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet. My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know nothing."

| posted by Simon at 1:10 pm

 
It will contain over 12 million documents or 25 per cent of China's public information resources.

From The Hindu.

| posted by Simon at 1:04 pm

 
Greg Hill, director of Fairbanks North Star Borough libraries, discusses the flood of information available on the internet, and mentions that this means job security for librarians and information professionals. All true enough, although nothing we haven't seen before - I just wish there were more of these articles written by non-librarians - at the moment it seems like the converted preaching to themselves. One saving grace is that the audience are non-librarians, and for personal reasons I'm tickled to find that "corybantic" is a word....

From Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

| posted by Simon at 1:02 pm

 
Declining book sales in Japan are being blamed in part on libraries lending out new books, as well as on second-hand bookstores, and the sluggish economy. Authors have proposed both financial compensation for books borrowed (along the lines of the UK's public lending right, which Japan lacks), and an embargo on lending books until 3 to 6 months after publication.

From The Daily Yomiuri online.

| posted by Simon at 12:57 pm

 
The British Library (BL) has unveiled Collect Britain, a �3.25m digitisation project, putting 100,000 unique and rare items from its collections on the web.

From Computing.

Users will be able to build their own folders of images and sounds over time, enabling them to develop a personal resource tool....By entering their postcode or key terms for favourite subjects, users can also be sure to be notified when new content matching their area of interest is added to the collections.

Looks good. I especially like the notification and personalisation aspects.

| posted by Simon at 12:54 pm

 
The Guardian reports that the UK government has just passed a law extending legal deposit to electronic publications.

"Chris Mole, Labour MP for Ipswich, who introduced the bill in December, said the British Library, the National Library of Scotland and the National Library of Wales; the University Library, Cambridge; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and Trinity College Library, Dublin, would have to use their judgment in "harvesting" websites and electronic publications. "

| posted by Simon at 9:10 am

 
This month's issue of D-Lib carries an article by Geneva Henry on the future of online scholarly publishing. Henry argues that the debate over whether authors or readers should pay for the cost of publication is a 20th century one, inappropriate to the 21st century. She suggests that the real advantage of e-publishing will be a transformation of the way knowledge is created, with it becoming defined by a collaborative model, in which books, and even articles, can be produced by multiple authors, both within and accross disciplines, with each author creating a 'knowledge module', rather than a whole work. These modules can then be re-worked and modified as knowledge develops.

| posted by Simon at 5:13 pm

 
Says the New Zealand Herald (4 November 2003): " A year of development in high-speed internet services has failed to lift New Zealand's broadband penetration. Reports by the International Telecommunications Union and the OECD put us on the bottom rungs of the international ladder."

Hmm. Quite possibly due to the ridiculous prices we have to pay for broadband here, and the fact that most of it isn't true broadband by international standards, anyway.

| posted by Simon at 12:40 pm

 
My classmates might remember the Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems' project 'How Much Information?', which attempted to quantify the amount of new information produced each year (measured in bytes). It records what format the information takes (film paper, hard disk drive, IM, email, phone call), where it is produced, and how much is produced per person. They've just issued an update to the original (2000) report, which claims that the volume of information in the world has doubled in the last three years.

| posted by Simon at 1:07 pm

 
Seen on The Resource Shelf (and a few other places besides). Amazon has a new search function that lets users search the full text of over 120, 000 titles.

Gary mentions that "Searching for phrases can be imprecise. I ran a search for "sports broadcaster" and received many false drops." and no advanced search features are possible. Still, this seems like a potentially good idea. Once again, a commercial operator is way ahead of the services libraries are offering. What would we give for a catalogue that works like amazon's site does?

[edit] Testing the search with a few incredibly well known phrases ("it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and "Call me Ishmael") produced some odd results - plenty of references to Dickens' and Melville's novels, but not the novels themselves (Cliff's Notes, Maya Angelou citing A Tale of Two Cities, but not the work itself.) Which suggests that this project only goes back so far, and classic (but out of copyright) works just aren't represented.

| posted by Simon at 11:49 am

 
Report from Pew Internet that's been cited on Slashdot among other places. Quoting the Slashdot post:

About a third of people responded to a spam, seeking more information. And 7 percent actually bought a product or service.

Who are these people? Why are they doing this to us? (On the incredibly rare occasions I get a spam that might, just might, be relevant, I go to their website direct, rather than replying to the email. Don't want to encourage the spam).

[edit] In the half minute I spent typing this post, I received two spam emails.[/edit]

| posted by Simon at 11:45 am

 
This is a great idea. A database of songs that have been inspired by novels, poetry, short stories. The idea being to use people's interest in the songs to inspire them to read the originals. From my own experience, I'd say this could work - I read one of the plays on the list (Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey purely because Morrissey had mentioned it repeatedly in interviews.

Definitely a few references in there that I hadn't picked up on (Radiohead's My Iron Lung inspired by one of my favourite books, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (stop reading this, and go buy/borrow or steal that book. Now. Trust me). There's also a lot that they've missed (plenty more Smiths songs, and the Manic Street Preachers should probably be mentioned a few times). Soon as I can get to my CD collection, I'm submitting them a list of suggestions.

| posted by Simon at 11:40 am

 
Text Mining is the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extracting information from different written resources. A key element is the linking together of the extracted information together to form new facts or new hypotheses to be explored further by more conventional means of experimentation.

By Marti Hearst at UC Berkeley. Read more.

I must admit to being pretty much ignorant of text mining, so this is a worthwhile read for me.

| posted by Simon at 3:19 pm

 
A report of the Australian senate, that "provides a wonderful endorsement of libraries". (Via the NZ-Libs mailing list).

| posted by Simon at 3:09 pm

 
My absence for the past two weeks is down to encroaching deadlines and so forth. I have finally managed to finish the various assignments I've been working on (change management plan for a library, essay on issues in electronic publishing, and the design of an electronic journal as part of a group project). The latter included learning (more) about HTML, and learning how to use Cascading Style Sheets. I really enjoyed it. Weirdly, writing mark-up language code is the only thing I seem able to concentrate on for hours at a time.

Maybe that's my true vocation. Or, alternatively, I can just become tech-geek library boy. There must be a market for that, surely? ;-)

(The e-journal is up here for anyone who's interested. (As who wouldn't be?).

| posted by Simon at 5:29 pm

 
"Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madams, greeting punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs, and pimping their books. That's rubbish, of course, but it does wonders for the image of librarians."

From The Guardian. (Perhaps not entirely serious).

Steven saw this one too, but I promise faithfully that I saw it on my Google News alert, and didn't just rip him off.

| posted by Simon at 5:26 pm

 
This is a neat little tool. It enables you to input the date you start working on an assignment, the date it is due, and the assignment subject, and it spits out a schedule for you - giving you a day-to-day plan for constructing a research strategy, searching library catalogues and other resources, and actually writing the thing. You can even sign up for email reminders.

From the University of Minnesota, seen on Neat New Stuff I Found on the Web.

| posted by Simon at 8:44 am

 
Published by the Wellcome Trust, this report "provides a comprehensive analysis of an industry that generates some �22 billion annually."

"The report has been published to support constructive dialogue between key players in the scientific publishing field - publishers, researchers, academic institutions and funders. The ultimate aim of this dialogue would be to develop a publishing system that meets the needs of all groups, and best promotes the public good of scientific work - that is, disseminates research outputs to all who have an interest in them."

Of great relevance to my Electronic Publishing course, I think. I'm off to download the full report (PDF 1300kb) now.

| posted by Simon at 8:37 am

 
Google on Tuesday announced it acquired Kaltix, a three-month old search technology startup at work on improving search results relevance through personalization.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. A Google representative said the Mountain View, Calif., company gains three engineers and all technologies Kaltix developed. The representative declined to go into detail about how Google would use Kaltix's search advancements, citing competitive reasons.

Silicon Valley Internet.

| posted by Simon at 8:30 am

 
From the Australian Library Journal, an article by Sue Myburgh of the Centre for Internet Studies at the University of South Australia, discussing the knowledge, skills and attributes required by information professionals in the 00s. This is worth a read - it was originally presented at the 11th Information Online Conference and Exhibition of ALIA (the Australian Library and Information Association) and I saw Sue's presentation. I was impressed with what she had to say (and it removed a lot of the worries and doubts I had about entering professional library studies).

| posted by Simon at 4:46 pm

 
Successful corporate libraries market their function as value centers rather than cost centers in order to maintain corporate support of their operations, according to a new study by research and consulting firm Best Practices, LLC. The study examines effective practices for the operation of corporate libraries and information centers in pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

"From Books to Bytes: Creating Effective Corporate Libraries in the Digital Age," online at Best in Class, reveals how leading corporate information centers demonstrate value by delivering services and resources for which the benefits exceed the costs.

From Business Wire, found via Google News.

(Eep! The full report costs a STM-journal-like $3000! At 111 pages that's, oooooh, $30 a page. About $1 per line. But there's a summary available online for free).

| posted by Simon at 1:57 pm

 
Analyst Paul Gooden of Bear Stearns upgrades Reed Elsevier (REL) to "outperform."

In a research note published this morning, the analyst mentions that the company has notified librarians that it intends to increase science journal prices by 6.5% in 2004. The company�s strong pricing power in journals is the reason for its stock�s current valuation as well as its capability to generate earnings growth, the analyst adds. The company is well positioned to benefit from the expected recovery in the business advertising segment in the long term, the analyst says.

Taken from New Ratings, found via Google News.

| posted by Simon at 1:06 pm

 
"However, in a small percentage of cases, poor quality information has direct, devastating consequences. For example, many of the arguments concerning personal privacy are based on the knowledge that an adverse comment on a person's reputation perpetuates itself, even after a formal retraction is published or a libel case is won. Some sorts of information are more "sticky" than others. Just as the garden weeds are more robust than the desired plants, bad information rears its ugly head more virulently than good information."

From Information Today via Infosophy.

| posted by Simon at 8:13 am

 
'The librarians will have bongos. They are learning the anthem.'

The New Zealand Herald reports on a group of Australian librarians who have "adopted" Namibia as their team in the Rugby World Cup. Something of a relief to see that the article doesn't explicity treat this as a 'look at those crazy librarians bucking the stereotypical image' story. Somewhat disappointing that a majority of them hadn't heard of Namibia. But at least they knew how to look it up.

'They will have funny-coloured clothes. And if the team hasn't got a dance to rival the haka* they will make one up.

"Most of us had never heard of Namibia and we had to get the atlas out," said Ms Abbot, 46.

"But that's easy in a library."

It was unclear yesterday how the Namibian players would react to 56 screaming librarians wearing their national colours at a remote Australian rugby ground.'

' Namibia has just 16 clubs and 540 senior players, and needed better than a seven-point loss to Tunisia to make the cup.

Despite having eggs and tomatoes tossed at their bus, their rooms visited by prostitutes the night before the game and being attacked with slingshots during the game, they managed to lose by exactly seven points. They qualified because they had scored an extra try during their qualifying games. The team then needed to get a loan and Government help to pay for the trip. "

[*Haka: a traditional Maori war dance/challenge, performed by the New Zealand rugby team before each international match].

| posted by Simon at 10:57 am

 
On the off-chance that anyone in the US reading this is desperate to hire a partially-qualified librarian with about 3 years solid work experience and the ability to handcode RSS feeds (see below) if given a suitable template to work from, please let me know ;).

Ideally I'd like to be in the Northeast, but right now anywhere in the continental US (or Canada) sounds good.

I have my reasons.

| posted by Simon at 10:22 pm

 
I mentioned a few months ago that the NZ e-government unit was recommending that government agencies create news feeds using RSS 1.0. The feeds would then be displayed on the NZ government portal . After some playing around, and with help from the e-gov unit, I've managed to code a newsfeed from our site. I'm pleased. It's the first time I've actually used this technology for something related to work, as opposed to my own professional development/interest.

It won't be the last though. We're planning on building a page on our website to display imported feeds relevant to our work. Should be a good project.

| posted by Simon at 5:01 pm

 
LIS News reports proposals in the UK to extend legal deposit to websites, with the operator of the website being responsible for delivering a copy of the site, at their own expense.

New Zealand has already passed such a law, with the National Library Act 2003 providing for the extension of legal deposit to native electronic format material. See National Library press release, 1 May 2003.

| posted by Simon at 11:23 pm

 
BBC Technology news reports that users have now downloaded 10 million songs from Apple's iTunes music store, in the four months it has been operating.

Which is great for Americans, but iTunes still hasn't negotiated licenses for the rest of the world. C'mon guys, it works, people like it, get it out there. (I know there are issues with having to negotiate rights for each country, but surely when they see something like this, that works, the record companies should be willing to get involved?)

| posted by Simon at 12:38 pm

 
Seen on In-between, a discussion of a future consisting of open access journals, but one in which the serials crisis remains, as publishers treat authors, rather than libraries, as a source of income.

| posted by Simon at 12:33 pm

 
From Info Today via The Virtual Chase. I've only had time to skim this, but it's a useful reminder for anyone working with information.

| posted by Simon at 8:36 am

 
Sadly (or perhaps not) it's nothing to do with the sexual image of librarians. CNN has named corporate librarians as one of its hot jobs for 2003/4.

"Librarians are needed far beyond the school and public library systems. Corporations, government and advertising agencies, law firms, museums, research laboratories and medical centers are just a few of the arenas Challenger noted have need for those with library science degrees.".

CNN listed the average salary for corporate librarians as $60-65, 000 (US obviously).

I hope two people read this - my father, and our HR director ;-)

Via LIS News.

| posted by Simon at 5:27 pm

 
I guess you know that blogging is becoming a mainstream subject when the Harvard Business Review writes a case study involving a blogger. OK, they went through and explained what this whole blogging thing was in simple language for those in their target audience who didn't know. But the fact is, they did feature blogging.

I found the study interesting as well. It was a (hypothetical) case of a blogger who was simultaneously helping her company's sales (by talking up their products in an honest and open way) and harming it (by publicising personal or inappropriate material). Three of the four industry experts that HBR asked to comment on the scenario said that the company should leave the blogger alone, that she was in fact an asset to the company. Only one suggested she should be disciplined. Interesting...

(It's in the September 2003 issue of Harvard Business Review, p.30 onwards).

Ties in quite nicely with Steven's comments about the growth in awareness of blogging.

| posted by Simon at 12:20 pm

 
To the person who keeps turning up here following a Google search for 'prozac nation free download'. It's not available for free. If it was, the publishers and author wouldn't be able to make any money back on their investment, would they? It's an interesting book, and worth reading. If you can't afford to buy it, try your local library, who will almost certainly have a copy. :)

(and a big shout out to whoever did a google search for 'valisblog' - which reassures me that at least one person who looks at this blog did so on purpose ;). Made my day).

| posted by Simon at 2:12 pm

 
Which, when you think about it, is still quite low. OK, we've seen a sharp increase in the number of users (50 to 59% in a few years). But that still leaves a huge number of people for whom the web has no particular relevance. See Pew Internet & American Life Project for more.

(Via LIS News.

| posted by Simon at 1:58 pm

 
Currently reading The Invisible Web, Chris Sherman and Gary Price's book about finding information that is inaccessible to conventional search engines. See Invisible-web.net for background to the book, as well as a directory of information sources in the invisible web. Definitely worth the time, it explains how the net and the web work, and why some forms of information are more easily retrieved through search engines than others (non-HTML files, and information in dynamic databases, are especially hard to retrieve for various reasons. Read the book).

It all counteracts this article from CNN quite nicely. It's not a new article (late June) but I've only just noticed it. The key quote:

"Says Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace, a new Wi-Fi provider: "If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything."

Anything, Alan? Here's what Marylaine Block says about what's not on the net. By her estimate, the internet contains approx 12% of the world's accumulated store of knowledge. Which doesn't even allow for the fact that Google et al only index a fraction of what's online, anyway.

I'm giving a presentation at work in a few months on information sources. I'll definitely be drawing on Chris and Gary's book for inspiration.

Of course, the irony of this post is that I couldn't remember the URLs for either Invisible-Web or Ex-Libris. Guess how I found them? (If you said Google, you were right - and the links I wanted were in the top one or two results of my basic Google search).

| posted by Simon at 1:53 pm

 
Via Sitelines. Google has introduced a synonym operator using the tilde (~) character. Could be interesting....

| posted by Simon at 1:05 pm

 
The Digital Book Index provides access to more than 73,000 titles records. It is the sole index that gathers both commercial and non-commercial eBooks from more than 1800 publishers and private publishing organizations.

Via URL Wire and Moreover.

| posted by Simon at 1:01 pm

 
My house got burgled yesterday. The pricks climbed our backyard fence, then jimmied open my bedroom window and climbed in through that. I lost US$230 in cash that I had left over from my travels, and one of my favourite CDs (which is odd, because there are approx 250 CDs in my room and they didn't take any of them...)

Although I've just realised that they took a CD carry case that had about 30 CDs in it - most of them weren't that good or were pirated copies, so that's OK - well sort of).

I'm trying to look on the bright side - they stole a watch that my ex-girlfriend gave me, but it's broken - and in the same drawer was a $1000 ring that belonged to my dead grandfather, which they missed. And we didn't lose any of our big stuff - stereos, TV, PC etc (although as my PC is broken I wouldn't have minded if they had taken that).

Fuck fuck fuck.....

| posted by Simon at 12:58 pm

 
(Via The Shifted Librarian. Children voting on the Yahooligans site prefer (by a narrow margin admittedly) to use instant messaging, rather than email. Jenny rightly points out that this will have implications for virtual reference services. Definitely something for me to think about as we've implemented a web-based reference service that at the moment runs via email only. I'd love to be able to answer reference inquiries via chat, but the problem with that is that we don't have the staff available to have one of us tied to a PC all the time. Maybe a limted hours chat service is the answer?

| posted by Simon at 1:16 pm

 
Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives.

Mr Dyke said on Sunday that everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet.

The service, the BBC Creative Archive, would be free and available to everyone, as long as they were not intending to use the material for commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added.

More at BBC technology news.



| posted by Simon at 1:13 pm

 
The BBC reports: "Researchers at Hewlett Packard have developed a prototype electronic book which can hold a whole library on a device no bigger than a paperback." The usual problems with e-books are mentioned, notably the difficulty of reading on-screen. The article continues "However new advances in electronic paper displays may get around this problem while making the prototype device slimmer and more powerful. "Radical new display technologies are on the horizon which will give a much more paper like feel", said Mr Robson. "

| posted by Simon at 1:11 pm

 
So next morning we have to get up early and get running, because young Cory still lives at home and her parents are coming back, and explaining to her Episcopalian parents that "this is Simon, he's my friend from New Zealand that I met on the internet" was likely to lead to all sorts of weirdness and problems. So we go for breakfast, and then she drops me at the station so I can head back to New York and catch up with Chrissie and Luke (yet more internet people). This eventually accomplished, we go back to their place in Conneticut, hang out for a while before heading to a party that their friends are DJing at.

The party turns out to be a good hour's drive from their house, and when we get there, to be a college party - Chrissie and Luke are probably 3-4 years older than most of the others there, and I'm 6 or 7 years older than that. So I feel a bit out of place. Music is good, less good are frat-boy types calling each other 'faggot' (as a joke ha ha). And then the party gets broken up (I feel like I'm relieving my childhood) by the college authorities. So we go down to the car park to wait around for a while, then back to the party - which ends up being 5 or 6 of us, plus a couple of strangers, sitting in a bedroom - and everyone from the house seemingly having disappeared. All good fun - we manage to get home about 8am after getting lost on the way back.

The rest of the week is spent in New York. I catch up with some of my real life friends - Paul, Antony and Amy (my cousin) who all live in New York or the region. Great to see them all, they all seem to be doing well, although there's a bit of a shadow over the meetup when we hear the news from Iraq - Paul works for the UN and knows several of the people killed there - Sergio was his boss at one point. Very, very sad.

Cory comes down from New Jersey and stays with me for most of the week. Which is, well, it's very very good. Unfortunately we both know that nothing much can come of it - we're both studying, and I don't think either of us would really give that up, if it came down to it. We also discussed things very maturely and decided we weren't going to make any promises. So of course since I got back we've done nothing but scheme of different ways to carry on the affair (relationship? Sounds like the wrong word). Which will all end in tears. No doubt. But it was worth it, anyway.

In between all this I manage to check out the Met, the Guggenheim, and wander round the East Village, Williamsburg, and Greenwich Village, as well as strolling Central Park. So all is good. And I nearly got inside CBGB's - except it was closed by the time we found it. Oh well.

| posted by Simon at 5:26 pm

 
So Cory takes me on a tour of Philadelphia, where I learn of the bitter rivalries between the advocates of the two Philly Steak sandwich vendors (You gotta like Geno's, or Pat's - there is no middle ground), get a whirlwhind tour of the art gallery (including the steps that Sly ran up in training during Rocky), and get taken to a Phillies game (baseball) with the incredibly knowledgeable hippy type Michael. It is genuinely one of the nicest days I've had in a longtime.

We continue with drinks at possibly the least authentic Irish bar I've ever seen (they don't even serve Guinness). But they redeem themselves by the price ($1.70/pint) before dropping Michael home. Cory and I continue back to Jersey, drink some more, by which time I'm fading and decide to go to bed. At which point, Cory goes to hug me good night and I go to kiss her (or maybe vice versa, it was one of those drunken things that you can't be sure if you initiated, or if the other person did). Which leads from one thing to another quite rapidly, and very pleasantly.

By all accounts I'm possibly the only person who knew I was staying with her who didn't suspect that this was a possibility when I decided to go visit her. Heh. Life is strange. But strange can be good.....

[Incredibly self-indulgent, I'm planning on posting some more library stuff when I get through the 50 million emails and Bloglines entries waiting for me - I guess if you want to read the library stuff you can just blank out when you read "(personal)" at the start of an entry, hey? Oh the tension between wanting to be taken seriously by my peers and provide something interesting for my friends to read).

| posted by Simon at 1:22 pm

 
So I'm finished with the conference, and I get to continue my US adventure. I'm heading to New York, and I've got as far as my stopover in Denver. I'm cursing the fact that I have to wait three hours or so for my connecting flight. I've just purchased a copy of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (after laughing my way through a chapter of Ann Coulter's Treason in the bookstore).

I get to the boarding gate, and the airline staff are saying something about '....flight delayed. Take a look at CNN'. So I walk over to the TV and see the first pictures of the NYC power blackout. Pretty soon, it's clear that this isn't something local, or something that will be over quickly, so I do what any sensible New Zealander would in this situation. I go to the bar. Where I watch CNN and see the blackout spreading through Jersey, Conneticut, even Ohio.

I'm convinced there's no chance of reaching NYC that night, so I rebook for Philadelphia the next day, and email everyone I can think of to tell them I'm OK (just in case NY descends into riots and they think I'm in it). I also phone Cory (who I'm supposed to be staying with), but can't get through as cellphone networks are down.

Surprisingly, a few hours later flights are back on, so I get on my originally scheduled (but now 3 hours late) flight. There's hardly anyone on it - I've got a whole row to myself, so I try to catch some sleep. We arrive La Guardia around midnight, to applause from the passengers. I must commend United Airlines' staff - they were great in a really difficult situation. La Guardia is mostly dark, with essential lights and electronics running from a generator. It's midnight, but maintenance men are still hard at work, trying to get water running in the toilets. Baggage handlers are working by hand as the carousels aren't working. People are sleeping all over the arrivals lounge, on the floor, on the stationary carousels. I join them (the floor is quite pleasant, and the cold helps with the lack of air conditioning).

Next day I manage to get a bus into downtown Manhattan. This is the only downer of the trip. The bus is supposed to go to Penn Station. It doesn't, it just goes to Times Sq. Which is cool, I understand things are difficult. But when I try to ask the driver how to get to Penn, he just snarls at me that I'm lucky I even got into the city. Maybe he's right. There are hundreds of people wandering around who clearly slept on the streets (uh, that's in addition to the hundreds of people who usually sleep on the streets, obviously). In a park, Liz Phair is getting ready to play a free concert. I don't know why, and I don't stick around. I help an Australian backpacker with her navigation (she's looking for a hostel that is "somewhere near Central Park"), then head to Penn Station. Luckily, the Jersey transit is working. There's one scary moment when our train is announced, and a crowd of people flood down the stairs. I really thought for a moment that someone would get trampled.

Get into Hamilton. Try to call Cory. No answer. Phones don't seem to be working. Shit. She's only a 20 minute drive away, but she thinks I'm going to be in Philly, not Jersey. What do to? The internet to the rescue! I ask at the station if they know any internet cafes in the area. After establishing that they barely knew what the internet was, they suggest the parking attendant's office. So I go ask him if he knows where I can get online. "Nowhere I can think of round here...except on this computer". I wait hopefully...."go ahead and use it if you like".

What a saint! This is one of the things which I really noticed on this trip - there are many many very helpful and friendly people in the States. It takes me about 5 minutes to track Cory down on line, send her a personal message, and within half an hour she's there to pick me up.....

| posted by Simon at 1:15 pm

 
So, there was actually a reason for me being in the US. It's a user conference for a a virtual reference/knowledge base product called Right Now. I'm now the organisation expert on the product, so I get to go. It's cool. I've become such a geek that listening to people talk up the benefits of this new product is actually quite interesting to me (and we're having discusssions about why they use Boolean OR rather than AND searches, or specifically Boolean AND-ranked OR searches, so this isn't light conversation).

And the product is actually really good. I was pretty sceptical at first, but having used it for a while, I like it a lot. It's saving me a lot of time by answering the basic reference queries that I get asked everyday for me. Recommended. The new features (such as managing outbound mailing lists) look really good as well.

| posted by Simon at 12:55 pm

 
Finally back from the US, and able to write (I've been at a conference, which will get some sort of a write-up as it does relate to library stuff).

The trip: I'm kinda scared, because I hear security in the US is hyper strict now (unsurprisingly). I get searched twice at Auckland International, the second time my belt buckle and zip set off the metal detector (you are *not* getting metal on those flights). Weird thing is, the incoming security at LAX is less strict than at Wellington (maybe because we're so worried about food products? But in NZ, there are sniffer dogs all over your bags as you collect them. In LA, I saw a sniffer dog, but it didn't come anywhere near me, or most other people there).

Anyway, after panicking because my ATM card won't work anywhere I manage to score some cash and head for Union Station to catch the San Diego train.

Arrive San Diego, it's baking hot, wander round for a while before going to meet Brad. We chill out for a while in his impressive apartment, then go check out the nightlife. It's OK, but kinda mainstream. The interesting thing is the hookah bar - a place that sells hits of flavoured tobacco (yeah, just tobacco) in hookahs. Very strange, but it does have an effect on you if (like me) you aren't used to smoking. Best avoided, in my opinion. The effect isn't very desirable.

Next day is spent talking sport with Jeff before meeting Amy and Aly. Totally awesome to hang out with these people, even if only for a few hours. We play a sedate game of disc golf (I pretty much suck) in the sun, then go for dinner. After that, it's time for the bus back to Los Angeles, which is only eventful due to the presence of US Customs officials. Luckily, they are only looking for illegal Mexicans, so I'm OK.

Get to LA at midnight and decide to sleep in Union Station, because I've got no cheap way of making the airport that night (1 hour cab ride? No thanks. Not on a NZ librarian's wages). Which is actually no hassle. There are a couple of security guards, so no problems from anyone. There's a lot of homeless guys trying to sleep in the waiting room but the guards keep throwing them out.

Then down to LAX for the flight to New Orleans. LAX sucks - queues a mile long for everything, due to security. It's not the security per se that bothers me, just that everything is so badly organised and takes way longer than it should. (All the other airports I was at were a lot better organised, so I'll put it down to LA, rather than the US as a whole).

New Orleans rocks though. I spent my time there hanging out with Sri and Brooke and her friend Art. There were four of us sleeping in one room, right near the centre of town, and the next few nights were spent strolling Bourbon St, drinking in the open, having water pistol fights and putting together a campaign for the governership of California (it made sense at the time). We also check out the aquarium and Imax before trying to get into a rave on the last night. Sri is refused entry, so we end up in an incredibly tacky club playing 'Commercial Trance Anthems 2001' on rotate (or so it seems). We have tacky fun and dance till 3am or so, but that's pretty much all the alcohol we can handle and stagger back to the hotel to watch Finding Nemo on the payTV as we fall asleep.

New Orleans is incredibly hot and humid, and incredibly loose. Everywhere else in the US seems so uptight about drinking, especially in public, but there it's basically encouraged. And the bars will let you take drinks onto the street, too. Bourbon St stinks worse than anywhere I've been since India, though. (apparently, there are parts of New Orleans that are more like my stereotype of the place - cool little jazz and blues clubs everywhere. Although I had native guides, they didn't take me to any of those places. Oh well).



| posted by Simon at 12:50 pm

 
I've been travelling around the US, and have hardly been near a PC for long enough to blog. I'm back, very very tired and trying to avoid working on an assignment which is due in a couple of days. Lots of adventures, some of which might be worth posting here. Eventually.

| posted by Simon at 7:11 pm

 
Paul wrote that I needed to blog less about libraries and more about my own life. So, uh, here you are:

Monday: drinking with the people who I'm travelling to the US with. Discussing what we're trying to get out of the conference. Very pleasant, they seem like they'll be good company for the trip.
Tuesday: went to a pub quiz with students from the MLIS. Only two others turned up, but it was a fun night. We were close to winning, but lost out by a few points. Probably because none of us could answer the sports questions (2 out of 10) or the 'identify this military plane' questions (3 out of 10). Unsurprisingly, we were great at the literature, film and music questions.
Wednesday: Had dinner with Vanita, one of my classmates.
Thursday: My friends Michael and Beth came down from Auckland. We ended up in Vespa, drinking flavoured vodkas and various cocktails (under the influence of Michael's sisters). It all got a bit fuzzy after that, but at some point Michael and I were discussing purchasing a second-hand Soviet aircraft carrier. I'm not sure why.
Friday: Went to the birthday drinks of a friend of Vanita's, then went down to Bodega to listen to reggae DJs. Good night, but after the night before I was tired and staggered home early.
Saturday: Spent the day trying to write an essay on e-books, with a hangover. Went to dinner with Vana, Anthony and Shelley, then to Bodega to watch the Bats. Support band was excellent, had kind of a Wilco, Giant Sand, Nick Cave vibe going - seems to be the emerging style for Wellington indie bands (see also the genius that is the Phoenix Foundation). Most excellent. The Bats were good, after a slow start, but the real highlight was that it was one of those nights where every time I looked around I saw someone else I knew. Really good feeling, standing there and being surrounded by people I knew from five or six different places. Yeah. Bats played some new stuff, some of which was excellent ('Horizons') and should have an album out later this year. Good news.
Sunday: here I am back at work, avoiding finishing that damn essay on e-books.

| posted by Simon at 2:30 pm

 
Well, kinda. Found this poll on their website, with around 66% of respondents (at time of writing) opposing the mandatory installation of filters in libraries. (Obviously, it's in no way a valid poll, but still, nice to see that they got exactly the opposite response to the one they wanted. And flaws in their polling software mean that 'vote first and vote often' is a legitimate option for anyone wanting to 'improve' their results).

| posted by Simon at 2:22 pm

 
The BBC reports that a "new school funded by a Christian charity is to put closed circuit TV cameras in every classroom to clamp down on rowdy pupils." Another school set up by the Vardy Foundation apparently teaches creationism.

Great. Another step along the path to having CCTV in our houses (it's the logical conclusion of this process, given that most violent crime etc occurs in the home). Paging Mr Orwell.....

| posted by Simon at 1:46 pm

 
Seen on TVC Alert an article from the Globe and Mail, suggesting that there's a downside to ICT - we no longer find it easy to concentrate on one thing at once, we have shorter attention spans and prefer to multitask. (Actually, I find this article reassuring - I thought I was bad because I'd never watch a TV programme without reading a book at the same time, but the author is in a whole other league from me). Worth thinking about though. (I think it was Schenk in 'Data Smog' who said that over-reliance on ICT is giving us all ADHD.)

| posted by Simon at 1:41 pm

 
Finished this one ahead of time....I have to work fast because I've got two assignments due while I'm in the US. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I've spent today just polishing it, rather than frantically rushing to get it written by Tuesday. (Evaluation of an electronic journal, and how it takes advantage of the potentials of the electronic medium, since you asked - I chose Athletic Insight. It's not a fantastic essay, but it's a solid pass.

| posted by Simon at 1:26 pm

 
I'm belated commenting on this article from Slate, on "Googleholes". The author considers "skewed synonyms" to be a major problem on Google (e.g. search for 'Apple' and the first 50 results will be for the Apple computer, not for the fruit). Now, I don't think this is a problem, but I'm noticing some weird results from searches that suggest Google's ranking needs tweaking.

First up: complaining that you get poor results from Google when searching on 'apple' is like complaining that you looked up Smith in the phone book, dialed the first number you found, and were disappointed that it wasn't the Smith you wanted. You have to be a bit cleverer than that, use the advanced search, or at least use more than one keyword. I don't think that's really a problem, if you take some time to think about what you actually want to find out ('growing apples' gets good results on Google, even 'apples' gets relatively good results compared with 'apple').

What I've noticed, though, is the way Google is elevating blogs in its search rankings, ahead of mainstream media. For example, recently there's been stories in the news regarding the 'blanket man', a well-known homeless man in Wellington. But the only Google results for a search on "'blanket man' wellington" are various weblogs. Same for a search on "Rob Jones" homeless Wellington (another homeless man who died here recently. My blog entry comes up in Google, but the articles I link to don't. Even though they're from a major news website. Why is that?

Why does Google priviledge what I have to say, ahead of what the mainstream media are saying? Isn't this a bit worrying? The only explanation I can think of is that Google hasn't spidered the stuff.co.nz website since that story was posted (5 July 2003). But it spiders my blog within a day or two....is this because Google owns Blogger? What implications does this have for web searchers, if Blogger-powered weblogs are turning up in web searches higher than, or instead of, mainstream news sources?

| posted by Simon at 1:24 pm

 
My home PC is on the blink, so I can't get online there (not a big deal as it was 3 1/2 years old and approaching the point where it was going to be given to charity, but inconvenient). I'm house and cat-sitting for my friend Mary, I've got huge amounts of work to do before I go to the US, and I'm trying to fit regular physical activity into my day (the theory that exercise helps your mental state is true, I think). Which means that I have almost zero time to post at the moment, which is frustrating, because I do have a few things I want to talk about (like why this blog shows up so high in so many Google searches - not actually a good thing to realise that my reposts of news stories actually rank higher than the original stories - something's not right there).

All I will say right now is: the combination of Hubmed (http://www.pmbrowser.info/) and Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) is working wonders for me in terms of current awareness.

| posted by Simon at 5:18 pm

 
For reasons which are way beyond my powers to explain, I've been given permission to attend a conference in the US, hosted by the vendors of a new virtual reference/knowledge base programme we've started using. Naturally, I'm taking some holidays at the same time, so I'll get to visit New Orleans and New York, and meet up with some friends of mine. I still can't quite believe it....meantime I've started back at university, and have to finish 6 weeks of work in 3 weeks, to make sure it's all done before I head to the US. Things are going to be busy for the next few weeks.

And my p___t__e hunting friend is still at it - you would not believe the number of variations on prosti*e, Ind*a, Bangalo*e etc that are turning up in my referrer logs.... - P in B, P B, P (B), over and over...give up, my friend. They aren't online.

| posted by Simon at 1:22 pm

 
Seen on Research Buzz a link to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book List Site. It's not pretty, but it looks incredibly comprehensive, with cross-referencing and links to official websites.

| posted by Simon at 1:17 pm

 
The BBC reports that a UK think tank is arguing that e-literate people should be forced to go online to use public services. "Savings from making the middle classes do things like file their tax returns online can help improve other services for those uncomfortable with computers, says the Work Foundation."

Heh. I used to work for the Work Foundation, and I didn't even click that it was their report until I'd posted this.

I don't recognise the author's name, but I like the way he's thinking.

| posted by Simon at 1:10 pm

 
Seen on Infomuse, a link to The Researching Librarian. No doubt very helpful for anyone planning on taking a research methods paper. "This site was created for librarians--new or experienced--who find themselves needing to perform research for purposes of publication, promotion, tenure, or other reasons. I hope that it also might be useful for other audiences and needs."

| posted by Simon at 9:41 am

 
Sometimes, things happen that make you think the world isn't so bad, that the people who think and behave decently are still in the majority. Right now is one of those times. A few days ago, Rob Jones, a homeless man known as the Bucket Man, died in Wellington. He was a familiar figure to many people here, and apparently never begged, or took more than he needed (to the point of taking only one sock from an offered pair, becuase he already had one good sock).

In death, Rob has become even more well-known. First our local paper devoted an editorial to him. Then, today, his funeral was the main news item on the newspaper billboards around town, and received front page coverage. The whole town, even those who didn't know him, seems united in grief. Grant Buist had a touching cartoon in the Capital Times, who also carried an article about the film being made of the life of the Blanket Man, another well-known homeless figure who covers himself only in a torn blanket, because of his disdain for possessions.

And then there's the other side. On the same day that Rob Jones died, the City Council announced that it is considering banning the homeless from the city - effectively making being homeless illegal. In what is perhaps the most unnecessary newspaper article ever, the Dominion-Post reports that Auckland mayor John Banks supports this move.

As one of the middle class liberals who are supposedly threatened by the homeless I'd just like to say - I ain't. Live and let them live, Mr Jones and the Blanket Man never bothered me.

| posted by Simon at 8:10 pm

 
My big toe has been hurting for the last few days. Monday evening I came home to find it was bleeding from what looked like a small blister or cut. So I put a plaster on it. It's been two days, and it didn't seem to be improving much, so I took a closer look at it, and realised that what I thought was a bit of callused skin, along the edge of the cut, was in fact a shard of glass. Which explains why the cut wasn't getting any better, and why my foot hurt like hell whenever I stood on my toe.

Anyone wanting to point and laugh is most welcome.

On a brighter note, I got my RSS essay back, and I got an A. So I've (unofficially) completed my first paper, with an overall A+. I'm happy (well, obviously).

| posted by Simon at 7:55 pm

 
Search Engine Watch reviews Vivisimo, a metasearch engine. It's killer app comes in the advanced search feature, which allows you to search specific news sites (BBC, New York Times), as well as specialised search engines (Pubmed, first.gov). (Note: Vivisimo doesn't seem to work if you de-select all the standard search engines, and select some of the additional ones such as BBC or Pubmed). It's also got a very useful clustering feature. Search on "physical activity" and you'll get links for that subject, but also for related subjects grouped under headings such as sports, physical education, fitness, health benefits, measuring physical activity, and school.

Very cool, and very useful, I think.

Seen at about the same time on Freepint and Open Stacks.

| posted by Simon at 2:43 pm

 
usr/lib/info asks the question "what will happen to the principle of fair use when Microsoft, as it intends to, builds DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) technology into Office applications such as Word and Excel?". Microsoft will be "providing users with a technology that, as its primary function, infringes on fair use." And worse, what happens when IE becomes the front-end of the system?

Sobering stuff.

| posted by Simon at 1:36 pm

 
Salon carries a story on the shifting public perception of Google, from plucky underdog towards dangerous monopoly.

First link via Phil Bradley's Blog.

| posted by Simon at 1:33 pm

 
A great list of 10 ways to improve Google searching, including using the * as a wildcard (to replace a whole word). In other words, typing "Bush *** Iraq" would return results like "Bush announces war on Iraq" (or whatever). In other words, proximity searching. Nice. Very, very nice. Still, Google suffers from its lack of internal wildcards, and truncation - it would be very helpful to be able to search on "behavio*r" to pick up on American and non-American spellings of the word, or "librar*" for anything to do with librarians. Sure, there are ways round this for those of us with at least basic search skills, but the majority of people don't have these skills. (I really need to put up links to the NZ Prostitutes Collective and to the Google 'Weapons of Mass Destruction" joke, because I'm getting a lot of hits from searches for those sites. For that matter, if anyone wants to help me set up a website for prostitutes based in Bangalore, please let me know, because I'm getting a lot of hits for that one too - latest 'good prostitutes in Bangalore').

Link via Sitelines.

| posted by Simon at 1:25 pm

 
A US Court has ruled that webloggers cannot be held responsible for libel in information that they republish. One more reason why the First Amendment is one of my favourite pieces of legislation, anywhere.

Via Technobiblio.

| posted by Simon at 1:19 pm

 
The internet is shit.

Via Metafilter.

| posted by Simon at 1:15 pm

 
Thanks to Steven for pointing out Bloglines, a web-based RSS aggregator. I like this a whole lot - it's incredibly simple to use, nice simple design, and best of all I can access it anywhere. Which means I can check it at work. Newzcrawler was good, but our firewall meant I couldn't use it at work. And I'm not online often enough at home for it to be much use for me there. There's already a whole lot of library and information weblogs listed with Bloglines (thanks in a large part to Greg). I can see myself with a window to my Bloglines account pretty much open all the time.

| posted by Simon at 1:13 pm

 
...and I still haven't got final grades back. But I've been doing fairly well, just got a paper back and I got an A for it. Not bad considering I was arguing something that I didn't wholly believe in ('that librarians are professionals'). Looking forward to getting my teeth into the Management and Electronic Publishing papers I'm taking next semester.

| posted by Simon at 10:02 pm

 
Saturday sees me in bed till the early afternoon, not wanting to deal with either the cold or the cleaning up. Eventually, my sense of duty overcomes my desire for comfort and I join in the cleaning process. Which is fairly painless, really. And results in us scoring the beers as mentioned below.

While I'd rather spend the day in bed, I've arranged to accompany Mary to Desdemona, a re-telling of Othello from the female characters' perspectives, put on by the students at the school of drama. Worthwhile, with some great physical drama, but some of the dialogue was hard to catch for deaf me. Impressed though that the actors managed to play loud, physical characters without overacting.

I should really have gone to bed, but Lou Barlow was playing at Indigo, and as the number of American indie-rock heroes who pass through town in any given month is usually zero, I figured I needed to drag myself down to see him....and it was worthwhile, though I was hoping he'd be playing some Folk Implosion stuff, and it was basically just his solo songs, acoustic love songs and 10 minute anecdotes about stray cats. Lou tells a good story though, and he got a lot of laughs, especially when suggesting that he didn't need a therapist because he wrote songs, so we were like his therapist - and WE paid HIM. He also managed some sharp pastiches of Napalm Death ("sadfggqweadfaaararhaffarghdfhgo. Cheers. Thanks a lot. Aasd234fdsdfasadfksaypbarrfgiasdqefgfgty;ghghj cheers. Thanks a lot") and Guided by Voices ("the mystery is in your handbag").

By the time the encore came round I had blurred vision even though I'd only drunk two beers, so I cut my losses and staggered home.

| posted by Simon at 9:55 pm

 
Winter has hit Wellington full force, with a very nasty southerly bringing snow to the Rimutakas, though not to the city itself, which the forecasters thought possible. This flat is one of the coldest I've lived in - it seems to take much more effort to heat than normal. Naturally, we'd chosen today as a suitable day for our flatwarming party. We'd specified fancy dress with a heaven and hell theme, which Laurie interpreted uniquely by turning up as Darth Vader. I came as the Pope, and the 'so are you heaven, or hell?' jokes got old quickly.

Decent-sized turn out, about what I was hoping for. Hoping for more from class, but a good crowd from work, who got introduced to the delights of absinthe - I think I may have created a monster there, although if they feel anything like Drake and I did the morning after, they will be vowing never to touch the stuff again. Anyway, we nearly polished off my whole bottle, of which I had precisely three shots, so someone was enjoying it. On the plus side, we finished up with about twice as much beer as we started with, nothing got broken, no-one punched anyone, and not much got spilt. So overall a success.

| posted by Simon at 9:47 pm

 
The tiny Pacific Island nation of Niue (population 1700) has installed a WiFi network which will cover the entire island, the BBC reported last week. Niue is basically a New Zealand dependency, with the majority of the population living in this country. The network is funded by the Internet Users' Society Niue, a charitable group who fund ICT in the country through the sale of .nu domain names, working in association with the Internet User's Society in Boston Massachusetts.

I just love this story - it's fantastic both to think of how technology can be deployed in a third world country, and how the internet has opened up new sources of incomes to countries such as Niue and Tuvalu (.tv). Also, my favourite website in the world is hosted on .nu, so I have a soft spot for the country generally.

| posted by Simon at 10:06 pm

 
Go to Google and type weapons of mass destruction then hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button...funny....hope this lasts longer than the link for 'go to hell' that linked to microsoft.com....

| posted by Simon at 9:43 pm

 
Nice to see that some people are actually reading this - welcome! My new favourite referrer log entry is the Yahoo search for male prostitutes Bangalore that somehow turned me up. I hope s/he wasn't too disappointed...(though I do wonder, would male prostitutes in Bangalore have a website, given the illegality of both prostitution and homosexuality in India?

Meantime Steven is asking if I'm the only New Zealand librarian weblogger (which mention got me a few extra hits - thanks!). This inspired me to try a Google search, but I haven't managed any confirmed sightings yet. I hit this blog three or four times in the top 20 (and this post'll add another one). I did manage to find Malpractice which looks to be an entertaining read - made slightly weird for me by the fact that one of the authors has the same name as me, is the same age as me, and works across the road from me, or at least used to. He works *in* a library, but I'm not sure from the context if he is a librarian, and the blog doesn't really relate to libraries much.

Danielle appears to be a librarian too...and I found another one that looked promising, but can't now remember where it was....looks like I'm the only one so far.....

| posted by Simon at 9:41 pm

 
Yippee! I finally managed to get out of the house (turned out half my friends had thier phones off, and I was dialing the wrong number for the other half). Anyway, Drake dragged me to a warehouse party where his friend's band were playing their debut gig. And they're a Smiths tribute band. And I adore the Smiths. They had a decent sized PA set up in what was basically someone's front room, and they had the trademark costumes and mannerisms of Morrissey, Marr etc down pat. Adrian (Morrissey) was waving bunches of flowers around, then throwing them into the audience. He managed to fling out a whole load of condoms as well - I ended up carrying one around all night as a souvenier and showing it to random people as I told them how good the gig was. And it was excellent - great sound, great songs and a hardcore fan base of about 10 mostly female young goths who whirled around at the front of the stage, feet away from the band.

From there it was a rush to get to Bodega for Big Bada Boom, the Asian Underground night. Now, I was pleased to see my friends had turned up, but it wasn't quite what they'd expected. Seems that misheard me explaining that Bhangra was Indian music, and decided that I'd said Indie. I explained what I really meant 'some traditional Indian music, mixed with Bollywood film music, and with contemporary beats' 'sounds great, when are they on?' 'um, they've been playing for the last half hour'. Things had started off a little too slow and mellow for our tastes, but as the night continued the beats got harder and faster, and my friends started to enjoy it.

By this point I was pretty much going to be dancing to anything, as I was proving the efficiency of the herbal highs sold at Cosmic Corner. One day, all drug transactions will be like this - stroll down to the shop, knock on the door, the DJ comes over to a hole in the wall to serve you with a huge smile, and then he offers you chocolate to go with your purchase. Frenzy comes highly recommended, that's all I need say.

Anyways, the night was split between dancing and chatting to various friends. As well as Vana and Anthony who I went with, I ran into no fewer than 4 of my classmates, who'd arrived in two seperate groups. I think I was probably too far under the influence to have had a coherent conversation with Jo and Amy, but I managed a good chat with Vanita later on. Which I'm glad of.

I may have to edit this one - it doesn't make for terribly exciting reading...oh well.....

Google #1: New Zealand library blog
Google #21 naked librarian

own3d!

| posted by Simon at 9:15 pm

 
Greg reviews the HotBot Quick-Search Deskbar. This is a seriously good search tool. Not only will it search across the major search engines, you can set it to search a specific reference site, using a short term at the start of your search (e.g. amaz to search amazon.com, ul to search Snopes Urban Legends, md to search WebMD - plus literally hundreds more. And functions like a temperature converter, and a countdown timer. All from a search box that fits into your desktop taskbar. AND it takes only seconds to download, and is a cinch to install. Doesn't carry ads - I'm not sure if there's any spyware (I'm not smart enough to stop it). But we do have a firewall, and it didn't trigger that...recommended, anyway. I think I'm going to send an all-users email about this one - even the less computer literate should get this one.

| posted by Simon at 11:10 pm

 
I've been depressed for months. I haven't been interested in going out, or doing anything. People have had to drag me out, and I've been tired all the time anyway. Today I feel hyped up, ready for anything, and energised. And I can't get hold of ANYBODY who wants to do anything. Not by phone, text or email. The few people I can get hold of are tired themselves, and don't want to do anything. So I spend Friday night blogging and browsing. Thank God for Big Bada Boom, the Asian Underground dance night, tomorrow at Bodega.

| posted by Simon at 10:41 pm

 
Yesterday the NZ government voted, by the slimmest of margins, to decriminalise prostitution. The Bill passed by one vote, 60-59. There's a strong argument that this will increase the number of back street brothels, which is apparently what happened in Australia when they decriminalised. The Bill had support from the obvious quarters, and was opposed by the religious right, who insist that efforts should go into "rescuing" women from working as prostitutes (quite when and how they've made these efforts themselves isn't mentioned), and much of middle New Zealand.

And me? I'm pretty much in the school of thought that says, it's a fact of life and will happen anyway. The thing legislation can do is make it safer for the prostitutes, and hopefully get them better working conditions. Given that the Prostitutes Collective supported the Bill, and it was introduced by a former male prostitute (Georgina Beyer, the world's only transsexual member of parliament), I think its clear that those who understand the trade best are in favour of decriminalisation.

| posted by Simon at 1:19 pm

 
First up - greetings to the new visitors that I've seen turning up in my referrer logs. I'd especially like to welcome the two people who were looking for the Male Librarian (and obviously got VALISblog because I link to him). A huge extra special welcome goes to the Google searcher who clicked onto my blog having searched on 'naked librarian'. I have a feeling they may have been disappointed. Sorry. (Course, there is that essay on library porn online somewhere, which includes links to the actual porn - if I could be bothered I'd go find the link but hey, I don't want to look at the porn, so if you do, maybe you should use this as a chance to practice your search skills).

More seriously, I'm glad to see at least a few of my classmates have been checking this site out. Hope you find it at least vaguely interesting - would be better if the comments facility was working, but I can't seem to get it to work right.

Our entire staff have spent the last two days on a marae, both as a team-building exercise and as a chance to learn more about Maori culture, protocol, language and worldview, all of which is especially important to us as a government agency. (Non New Zealanders who don't have any idea what I'm talking about could check out Maori.org.nz for a good introduction. The Maori are a Pacific Island people indigenous to New Zealand, and as partners in the Treaty of Waitangi, it's incumbent on government agencies to consult with and understand Maori).

Was a worthwhile experience, on the whole. I've never slept on a marae, and having 30-40 of us in one big room was kinda interesting. Definitely helped strengthen the bonds between us. And it was certainly the most interesting Marae I've ever seen - it seems to have been built haphazardly up a hill, with new sections added on and on (apparently it's on 8 levels). It looks like something out of Gormenghast, rather than my idea of a traditional marae. In terms of the content, we did tend to cover the same ground that we went over at the start of this year with the MLIS class. So it was a little redundant, but it did make some points stick more clearly in my mind. And I definitely picked up a good amount of the language.

An appropriate proverb: He tapu te matauranga - knowledge is sacred.

| posted by Simon at 5:53 pm

 
One that you'd have to live in Wellington to fully appreciate, I think. The council of the neighbouring city of Upper Hutt (think New Jersey, think the bad parts of Essex) launched its draft annual plan, seeking comments from residents. Some of whom responded by suggesting that the locals needed to (a) learn to dress better and (b) lose some weight. Other comments included complaints that "there weren't enough roads that you could drive faster than 100km on" (100km being the speed limit). More here.

| posted by Simon at 9:45 pm

 
David emailed me this story from Yahoo Business. Quote: business software is "too complicated. It's too expensive. That's why it's change-or-die time". There's a suggestion that quality experts may get a hearing in India's burgeoning IT industry, while they are ignored in the US, and speculation that the Indians could do to America's IT industry what the Japanese did to its cars. Far-fetched perhaps, but there's a lot of signs that the Indian IT sector is really taking off, and with the huge difference in labour costs, and the international nature of the industry, it seems fairly likely that they'll at least dent Silicon Valley's profits.


| posted by Simon at 9:41 pm

 
Or the comments tools I've been using are incredibly hard to make work...mine keep crashing, and I'm not the only Blogger-hosted 'blogger to have that problem (not that I'm blaming Blogger as the comments tools are all third party). If anyone reading this can recommend a good, stable comments service, pls let me know.

| posted by Simon at 9:35 pm

 
...as long as it's giant corporations hacking into our PCs. US Senator Orin Hatch appears to endorse "remotely destroying the computers" of people illegally downloading and sharing files (more of this nonsense here.

| posted by Simon at 9:30 pm

 
In a black day for my American colleagues, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Children's Internet Protection Act is constitutional. This would force public libraries to install filtering software if they want to be eligible for federal funding. This is in spite of the fact that:

(a) filtering software doesn't work;
(b) librarians aren't your children's guardians, anyway; and
(c) filtering software doesn't work.

To give an example of the problem, here's a link to a site which I was blocked from accessing by the porn filter at my work (follow the link - it's completely, absurdly worksafe). How this was considered porn, I don't know - I read the page over and over and couldn't find anything untoward on it.

Jenny has a great round up of links and commentary - there's a good thread on Slashdot which she links to.

Not recent, but Unshelved ran a great series of strips last year on the subject.

Weird thing is, people seem to think its a good idea. Even people I would assume would be free-thinking, anti-censorship. No-one's yet given me a good reason why the internet should be filtered, but they've come up with a few points as to why my arguments against it are no good...but still, no justification for doing it in the first place.

| posted by Simon at 9:28 pm

 
The MLIS has finished its first term (OK, it finished last week, I'm slow, I was stressed with end of term work). Which means I'm exactly one sixth of the way through (taking me two years, due to being part-time). My initial feeling is of relief, and my second 'what was that all about?'. Sadly, I can't see myself really applying much of what I've learnt in the 'real world'. The two courses I've taken so far have either been very high-level and theoretical, or too detailed (with a focus on computers that goes far beyond what I'd need to know as a librarian, but not nearly as far as I'd need if I wanted to be a systems librarian.

Not that some of it hasn't been interesting, but it's a little dissapointing that a course which I must take in order to work in my field has so far not much relevance to that field. OK, that's a bit unfair - some of the IT stuff was useful, it's just I knew most of that already. And so was some of the information policy stuff, once we got past the really theoretical stuff. And future courses should be more practical.

Anyway, I'm over the first hurdle...and I finally got to get good and drunk with some of the classmates, which I really needed at the time, so it's all good :-)



| posted by Simon at 9:12 pm

 
Steven writes that he won't be reading Harry Potter, and also mentions that he can't read sci-fi/fantasy books in general. I'm somewhat relieved to hear that I'm not the only librarian/book-lover on the planet who hasn't read even a word of J.K. Rowling's writing. On the other hand, I think he's missing something in not reading sf (though maybe not fantasy). Some of the best novels I've read recently have been Iain M. Bank's Culture series, and Stephen Baxter's work - especially the Manifold series.

Which is a somewhat convoluted way to introduce my current reading, Australian sf writer Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine, set in a post-fall (war? technological collapse? not quite sure yet), 40th century Australia. I'm just a chapter into it, but already there are a number of delights. Thrill as the librarian protagonist, already one of the most powerful people in the region:

• breaks into an observatory to spy on the moon


• defeats one of the world's best players of their chess equivalent, secretly using a computer with human components


• Arranges the kidnapping of any numerate individuals she can lay her hands on, to use as forced components in the computer (OK, it's hardly moral - but it does seriously kick ass)


• fights duels with her opponents inside the library establishment, in order to force through her modernisation programme - and haven't we all wished we at least had the option?

I wonder if "Zarvora was a librarian" could replace Batgirl or Casanova?

| posted by Simon at 5:38 pm

 
The National Library of New Zealand is spearheading a scoping exercise, looking at the feasability of negotiating a national licence for access to various electronic resources. The idea is to form a consortium among as many libraries as possible across the country, in order to negotiate cheaper rates. So far, the plan is to identify two resources which would be useful to libraries of all types and sizes - with New Zealand newspapers/magazines suggested as an appropriate starting point. If the first stage is successful, it's hoped that similar deals can be negotiated for more specialised resources, such as health material.

Libraries here, as everywhere, are faced with increasing costs and diminishing budgets, so any such move has to be welcome. A major problem, however, may be getting vendors interested, as the the entire library sector in New Zealand isn't as large as, say, an academic library network in California.

Article describing the project.
Press release announcing the appointment of a project manager.
(Both from the National Library of New Zealand website).

| posted by Simon at 1:08 pm

 
It's not been a good weekend. I don't want this blog turning into 'how depressed I am and why everyone should feel sorry for me', but that's how it's been. Didn't manage to get out of bed until 2.30 yesterday (and I was in bed by about 11.30 on Saturday night). It felt like there was a weight pushing down on me, and it would have taken energy I didn't possess just to sit up. When I considered that I couldn't see any valid purpose in getting out of bed anyway, it just seemed easier to lie there in the warmth with my copy of Hemingway's Fiesta (not up to the standard of For Whom the Bell Tolls). Saturday had been OK, but there was still the struggle to motivate myself to do basically anything.

At least this has a name (thanks to Prozac Nation): atypical depression, the sort of low-grade depression that never seems to go away, that leads to an emotional flatness, a lack of interest and motivation. Sounds exactly like me. Funny that even though I've taken 4 years of psych I didn't know (or at least remember) that term until I read it in an autobiography.

Today feels slightly better. I managed to get out of bed (an hour or so later than I wanted to) and actually managed to shower and shave and get to work on time. So it could be worse. But I'm really thinking I need to talk to my doctor again.

| posted by Simon at 12:58 pm

 
Well, OK this is technically old news, but I'm possibly (?) the only New Zealand librarian blogger, so probably no-one else mentioned it. The key points are the extension of legal deposit to cover electronic publications (including websites) and a confirmation of the Crown's responsibilities to preserve the nation's heritage. And given that this is 2003, and the previous legislation dates from 1965, the Act specifies a stronger Maori dimension for the work of the library. Read the press release here and the National Library of New Zealand Act itself here. You'll have to search for it as the site uses frames.

No word yet on exactly how the National Library plans to take legal deposit of websites, with regard to which sites, how often, and how thoroughly they are archived. There's also still some issues to work out with publishers regarding access to electronic documents. For some reason publishers aren't too keen on the National Library placing copies of their documents online. ;-)

| posted by Simon at 4:01 pm