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Blog posts from March 2011

Amazon Cloud Drive & Cloud Player

Submitted by Jason Griffey on March 30, 2011 - 3:04pm

On March 29th, Amazon launched two major new services, both of which seem to speak directly to my post guessing at an Amazon Tablet...as well as being shots across the bow of both Apple and the music industry. The two services are connected, but distinct in capabilities and effects, so let's look at them separately:

Amazon Cloud Drive Read More »

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Karen Coyle's Library Technology Report wins ALCTS Award!

Submitted by Patrick Hogan on March 25, 2011 - 11:29am

Congratulations to Karen Coyle for winning the Association of Library Collection and Technical Services Outstanding Publication Award for her Library Technology Report Understanding the Semantic Web: Bibliographic Data and Metadata (Vol. 46: No. 1).
Read More »


I Confess...I Dislike Facebook

Submitted by Michelle Boule on March 16, 2011 - 9:27am

I have a confession. I realize what I am about to admit will make me a curmudgeon to some, but so be it.

I dislike Facebook.

Hate is too strong a word because Facebook is good for finding people I have lost track of, but that is about the only thing for which I'm willing to give it credit. I would rather everything else that Facebook does elsewhere. My reasons for this dislike boil down to a mix of a dislike of user agreements as well as the lack of intellectual property rights, lack of privacy, and my general annoyance that very few people know or care about these issues with Facebook.
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I Profess Everything

Submitted by Tom Peters on March 10, 2011 - 10:04am

Approximately 22 years ago I had a memorable conversation with a university English professor.  One Friday afternoon we were bandying about the idea of faculty status for librarians – back then a hot topic at a particular university.

English Professor:  If librarians want to become professors, what do they profess? 
Librarian Me:  Rather than focus on a particular subject area (such as English literature, political science, or physics), we profess how information is created, found, accessed, used, organized, and archived by humans.

It was playful academic banter, but my memory of the exchange has lingered across the decades. 

Then, early on Monday morning, March 7, 2011, I noticed that James Gleick has a new book out:  The Information:  A History, a Theory, a Flood, published by Pantheon, an imprint of KnopfDoubleday.  Read More »


Continuing the Conversation: Making Mobile Services Work for Your Library

Submitted by Daniel A. Freeman on March 9, 2011 - 4:36pm

Earlier today, we held the ALA TechSource Workshop Making Mobile Services Work for Your Library with Cody Hanson. There was some great discussion in this workshop, and we want to follow up on that with a few of the questions asked during the presentation that we felt merited further discussion: Cody will be part of the discussion as well! Read More »


ALA Editions Offers New E-Course on Using E-Gov Resources

Submitted by Daniel A. Freeman on March 7, 2011 - 9:52am

Using E-Government Resources is an increasingly important part of librarianship. Public records, archives, goverment repositories and other forms of government documents are more likely to be created digitally, and older documents are being digitized every day. To help you understand and unleash the potential of these resources, ALA Editions is offering a new eCourse, Cutting the Red Tape: Finding and Using E-Government Tools and Resources with Diane Kovacs, a government documents librarian and experienced online instructor. Read More »


Building Comprehensive Resource Discovery Platforms

Submitted by Marshall Breeding on March 4, 2011 - 9:56am

This column appears in the March 2011 issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter. To read more from Marshall Breeding on mobile library technology and other facets of the library automation industry, you can purchase this issue or subscribe to Smart Libraries Newsletter at our metapress site. Read More »


Cody Hanson on Libraries and the Mobile Web

Submitted by Daniel A. Freeman on March 2, 2011 - 10:04am

Cody Hanson is a guy who knows his way around the mobile web. In his new issue of Library Technology Reports, which will hit the ALA Store and our MetaPress site next week, his introduction talks about his ongoing fascination with mobile devices, which started when these devices had just become available to the public:

"I found myself on a Saturday morning in the fall of 2003 waiting in my car for my local GameStop to open. That October week had seen the release of what I was convinced was a groundbreaking convergence gadget: the videogame- and MP3-playing, Web-browsing smartphone. I was waiting for the privilege of exchanging hard-won U.S. currency for a Nokia N-Gage

If you’re familiar with the N-Gage, you’re likely wiping away tears from derisive laughter. If not, allow me to explain why the N-Gage holds a special place in the hall of fame of misguided, poorly designed gadgets." Read More »
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