This book is dangerous. Everything is Miscellaneous takes all the precious ideas we are taught as librarians and throws them out the window. Structure, order, precise metadata, bibliographic control: gone, gone, gone, gone. Even, for you edgier types, ye who tell of your Semantic Web and your RDF triples: old-school, good-bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Read more »

During the week leading up to ALA Midwinter, I received an email message from a publicist, stating that his client would be attending Midwinter, and wondering if I would like to conduct an interview. His client is David Pogue, the excellent NY Times columnist and blogger who writes about technology topics, especially handheld electronic devices. I jumped at the chance to interview Pogue, suggesting 10 Sunday morning as the appointed time.

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I'm a big fan of the interactive/ dynamic/ RSS'ed/ video-blogged/ to-the-user-born school of library services. The days when we saw our job as input/output for books and journal articles are, I hope, long over. Most of us get itchy when we think about spending a year to make a minor decision… that way of doing things is so very 1995.

But when I talk to colleagues inside the belly of the IT beast, they share one heartfelt concern: think about what you're asking for.

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By now you likely have received your January issue of American Libraries (AL). (If not, it's coming soon!) Editor in chief Leonard Kniffel starts out his inaugural "From the Editor" column of the newly redesigned issue with a nugget about Melvil Dewey and change.

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On June 26^th I caught the tail end of Chris Anderson's standing-room-only talk in New Orleans during the ALA Annual Conference. Chris was discussing the "long tail" phenomenon in the new business-and-economics climate of the Internet age. His book on this topic was just published, appropriately titled The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.

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Congratulations to Andrew Pace and American Libraries on the launch of Andrew's new blog, "Hectic Pace" (just in time for ALA Annual in New Orleans!).

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At the Ontario Library Association Superconference earlier this month, I argued that library schools need to offer a course in copyright, licensing agreements for electronic products, and digital rights management (DRM), because they all affect the future of how libraries will interact with our users as entertainment and information becomes increasingly digital. It's unfortunate that at a time when the broadcast flag is again rearing its ugly head and media and publishing companies continue to try to buy legislation giving them free rein with users' rights, most librarians are completely unaware of just how much these moves could affect them. Read more »

If you read FRL (which I know you do), you know how busy Karen is. Considering she's the director of LII.org, I'm always amazed when I see her well-crafted work on FRL and her smiling face and seemingly unhurried composure at conferences (where she's a very sought after individual) at which I've had the pleasure of hanging out with her if only even for a few moments. There's also her work on the ALA Council (representing LITA), and as a lurker on a couple of library-related electronic lists, I know she also finds the time to weigh in on many important issues facing the library field. (And, of course, you know she contributes insightful pieces to this blog, TOO!)

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OCLC's new report, Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, is downloadable at oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm. Karen, points to it here, and says... so far, so good. The Association of College and Research Libraries' blog, the ACRLog, also posts about it today ('a must-read...library usage report').

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