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LAFD News & Information: 20 Years Ago Today: No Fiction at LA's Central Library

LAFD News & Information: 20 Years Ago Today: No Fiction at LA's Central Library.

Saturday, April 29, 2006
20 Years Ago Today: No Fiction at LA's Central Library
Los Angeles Central Library

Each time I walk into the magnificent Los Angeles Central Library, I take reverent pause to consider how easily it could all be gone - but for the work of nearly 350 of my Brothers and Sisters who gave their all twenty years ago today.

The next time you visit the Central Library, hopefully for a free public tour, along with the magnificent art and architecture, please take a moment to view the plaque on the North wall just inside the Library's Flower Street entrance. There you will find the names of every Firefighter described in this official Department correspondence...

Courage, capital A.. a wonderful tribute to the Los Angeles Central Library fire of 1986...

Library book downloads picking up | Chicago Tribune

Library book downloads picking up | Chicago Tribune.

Library book downloads picking up

By Tonya Maxwell,
Tribune staff reporter,
Published April 25, 2006, 10:07 PM CDT

A month ago, the Chicago Public Library quietly added a link to its Web site and waited for the tech savvy bibliophiles.

"New! Download Audio Books," the link promised since March 15.

That first day, 72 titles were downloaded to home computers and MP3 players from www.chipublib.org .

By the end of week two, 617 titles were checked out, and the numbers were promising enough that library officials doubled their initial $25,000 investment to buy more titles. The collection jumped from to 1,300 downloadable titles.

"It looks promising. I think a month is too soon to tell" whether the downloaded audio books will be in demand, said Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey. "If they continue to be popular, we'll invest more. And if we see flat usage, we'll invest only a little to meet the need."

For Chicagoans, downloading and listening to a book requires a library card, a computer, an Internet connection and free software from the library's Web site.

From OverDrive, and most of the larger libraries (and smaller ones too) are trying out audiobooks.. it's a great new wave of listening to books at home, in Starbucks, or anywhere...

SciGuy: Is that the Library of Congress in your pocket, or are you...

SciGuy: Is that the Library of Congress in your pocket, or are you....

April 29, 2006
Is that the Library of Congress in your pocket, or are you...

OK, I wouldn't know barium titanate from the fake chrome used in cheap car interiors, but this news is nonetheless exceedingly cool:   

Adding water to nanowires could create computer memory devices capable of storing 10 million times more information in the same physical space as existing drives. Researchers ... discovered that water turns barium titanate (BaTiO3) nanowires into a potential form of computer memory.

Barium titanate is a ferroelectric material. It maintains an electric polarisation analogous to magnetisation -- a positive charge on one end and a negative charge at the other -- that can be oriented by an electric field. This makes ferroelectric materials suitable for storing data, in the form of electric polarisation, on the microscale.

What kind of storage capacity are we talking about? Theoretically the wires could be used to make computer memory drives with a data density of 10,000 terabits per cubic centimeter. A cubic centimeter is about the storage volume of an iPod Nano, which currently can hold up to 4 gigabits of data, and probably would seem grossly misnamed were the new technology to come to pass.

By way of comparison, the entire text of all volumes in the U.S. Library of Congress comprises about 10 terabits. The Internet -- you know, where you're reading this -- is about 100 terabits.

Perspective: The endangered joy of serendipity

Perspective: The endangered joy of serendipity.

The endangered joy of serendipity
The modern world makes it harder to discover what you didn't know you were looking for
By WILLIAM MCKEEN, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES, Published March 26, 2006

There's an art to finding something when you're not looking for it.

In my freshman class at the University of Florida, I require the 240 students to subscribe to the New York Times Monday through Friday. I haven't even finished announcing this in class the first day, when the hands shoot up. "Can't we just read it online?" they ask, the duh? implicit.

"No," I say and the eyes roll. They think I'm some mossback who hasn't embraced new media.

"Why not?" Challenging, surly, chips on the shoulders.

"Because then you would only find what you're looking for." Appropriately weird, elliptical, professor-like response.

Nice opinion piece.. we retain the ability to enjoy the random delights of serendipity, and here's some of the reasons why we should exercise that ability to find, without looking.. thanks to Library Link of the Day for the pointer to this one...

Recording Two Shows at Once With Just One New TiVo - New York Times

Recording Two Shows at Once With Just One New TiVo - New York Times.

Recording Two Shows at Once With Just One New TiVo
By MATTHEW HAUGHEY, Published: April 27, 2006

TiVo perfected digital video recording and in the process shook up the TV industry. In the years since its debut, much has changed: prime-time shows are starting and stopping at odd times, commercials are designed to be watched while fast-forwarding, and an army of competing companies and devices have crowded the market.

CNET Review: TiVo Series2 DT

One major downside to TiVo until now has been that its devices can record only one show at a time. This week TiVo is introducing its new dual-tuner recorders, one with an 80-hour capacity ($99 after $150 rebate, direct from tivo.com) and another with 180 hours ($199 after $150 rebate).

New Orleans ready to rock at Jazz Festival - Music - MSNBC.com

New Orleans ready to rock at Jazz Festival - Music - MSNBC.com.

New Orleans ready to rock at Jazz Festival
Dr. John, Dylan headline opening night of first big post-Katrina music event
Associated Press, Updated: 11:07 p.m. ET April 28, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans’ music scene, languishing along with the city after Hurricane Katrina, was rejuvenated Friday as the city’s annual Jazz & Heritage Festival provided electric moments from both its homegrown musical heroes and superstar acts.

The festival, the biggest music event in the city since the devastating hurricane, began its two weekend-long extravaganza with a host of musical performances from blues to rock to gospel. Thousands of fans packed the outdoors venue where the event was held, hop-scotching between several different performing stages that demonstrated the breadth of the city’s diverse musical heritage.

E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship, Spring 2006 issue

E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship: Spring 2006 issue

E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship
v.7 no.1 (Spring 2006)

“That’s the Way We Do Things Around Here”: An Overview of Organizational Culture
M. Jason Martin

Designing an Academic Outreach Program through Partnerships with Public Schools
Alan R. Bailey, Linda M. Teel and Hazel J. Walker

Leveraging
the Skills of the Corporate Special Librarian to Enhance the Perceived Value of Information and Sustain Communities of Practice
Patricia Margulies

Check out the latest issue of E-JASL.. above are three of the newest articles...

Welcome to EngagedPatrons.org!

Welcome to EngagedPatrons.org!.

Welcome to EngagedPatons.org
Welcome!

We provide website services connecting public libraries and their patrons. We handle the programming; you reap the benefits of being able to offer your users a more engaging and interactive web presence. The following services are currently available. Subscribe to our News blog to stay current!

Library Events
Offer your patrons a list of your library's upcoming events, searchable by branch or keyword. Add online registration when you're ready! Learn more...

Library Blogs
Create interactive blogs integrated into your site's look and feel. Learn more...

Contact Your Library
Gather valuable feedback from your patrons right on your website with an easy-to-complete form. Learn more...

RSS Feeds
Offer your patrons the option of getting library news updates via RSS. Learn more...

Custom Web-enabled Databases
Have a card file or database you would like to make available to your staff or patrons? Contact us for assistance.

This looks like a good new service for libraries.. thanks to a post on Web4Lib by
Glenn Peterson for this news.. read what bloggers are saying about EngagedPatrons.org ...

Freedom Tower Construction Starts After the Beginning - New York Times

Freedom Tower Construction Starts After the Beginning - New York Times.

Freedom Tower Construction Starts After the Beginning
By DAVID W. DUNLAP, Published: April 28, 2006

Construction of the Freedom Tower at ground zero, it turns out, started a month ago. While the squabbling was still going on.

But the arrival yesterday of an equipment convoy from Laquila Construction, the foundation subcontractor, was reason enough for Larry A. Silverstein and a bevy of government officials to declare that — yes — construction was really, truly beginning, 21 months after the building's cornerstone was laid.

"Hoy, vamos a construir la Torre de Libertad," Gov. George E. Pataki declared, answering a question from Roberto Lacayo of Univision 41 television. ("Today, we are going to build the Freedom Tower.")

Finally.. what a slow message, what a slow effort, what a mess of disagreements.. government and the people involved should be ashamed.. why was this so slow? .. don't you realize how important this is to America?

The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks - New York Times

The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks - New York Times.

Innovation
The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks
By EDWARD WYATT Published: April 23, 2006

REMEMBER the paperless society? That was the world that would emerge once there was a computer on every desktop. Well, there are computers in every dorm room and laptops in every lecture hall, but even at the front lines of the digital revolution, the printed textbook still rules.

Few students have warmed to electronic textbooks, despite their increasing flexibility and much cheaper price — typically 40 percent less than a new textbook and 20 percent less than a used one.

In one of the largest pushes to date, electronic versions of assigned textbooks are being made widely available for the first time, right next to their print counterparts at campus bookstores (before, you mostly found them through online specialty stores or directly through publishers, if at all). MBS Direct, which sells some 700 college textbooks in digital form, started the program at 10 campuses last fall and 31 this spring.

Thanks to Library Link of the Day for the pointer to this article..

COinS [OCLC]

COinS [OCLC].

Product Works
COinS

What are COinS?
On March 12, 2006 OCLC added COinS to its Open WorldCat web pages. COinS is an acronym that stands for Context Objects in Spans, which represent a standardized way to embed citation metadata into a web page. COinS are actually included in the HTML code on the web page using OpenURLs. This allows other processors—such as your web browser—to find the citation metadata and generate links to other resources that are accessible via OpenURLs.

How COinS work

In order to make use of COinS, your browser has to be modified, either by adding an extension (in the case of the Firefox browser) or by adding a bookmarklet. For an example, see the image below. The circled button beneath the Bookmark|Permalink area to the right of the title is the link to the OpenURL resolver specified in the Firefox extension.

Nice effort by OCLC to work with this AJAX world implementation.. it's particuarly easy to do in the FireFox browser.. see "Go to the OCLC Openly Informatics OpenURL Referrer site and download/configure the OpenURL Referrer Firefox Mozilla extension. Instructions are available on the site." ...

New York's Lighthouse - New York Times

New York's Lighthouse - New York Times.

New York's Lighthouse
By MARK KINGWELL, Published: April 23, 2006

LIKE most people, I made a trip to the observatory of the Empire State Building on my very first visit to New York, when I was a gawky Canadian teenager fresh off the train from Toronto. My visit to that building, which will have been open 75 years on May 1, was romantic in more than one sense.

I was with my first girlfriend, a petite girl with braces on her teeth. Though neither of us had seen "An Affair to Remember," the 1957 Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr weepie that immortalizes the building as the quintessential New York lovers' rendezvous, we knew that the top of the building was the ideal place to share a kiss, even if it was awkward and adolescent and jostled by other tourists hefting the bulky camera equipment of the pre-digital day.

The movie we saw later that day in Times Square — a matinee of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" — featured a fistfight in the back of the theater, in the smoking rows, and my girlfriend and I broke up on the train ride back to Canada. But that moment on top of the building, looking out over the broad Hudson and Lower Manhattan's dense packing of brick and stone, sealed New York's grip on me, as it has on millions of others.
...
Mark Kingwell, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor to Harper's magazine, is the author of "Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams," to be published next month by Yale University Press.

Wanna Stay 'Lost'? Play 'Lost': The Game | Kevin D. Thompson

Wanna Stay 'Lost'? Play 'Lost': The Game | Kevin D. Thompson.

April 24, 2006
Wanna Stay 'Lost'? Play 'Lost': The Game

This morning I received a press release from ABC announcing a new interactive game based on Lost. The release claims the challenge is the largest ever tied to a TV series. ABC as well as 19 other networks spanning five continents will take part in the ‘Lost Experience,' an internet game that will feature a parallel storyline that will give players more insight into ABC’s hit series.

My initial reaction was a big, fat, who cares?

That’s all I need -- a maddeningly confusing interactive game that’ll probably be just as maddeningly confusing as the TV show. When I read the release, it just reminded me how my patience with Lost is waning. Too many repeats. Too many do-nothing flashbacks. Too many promos that promise something juicy, but ultimately deliver nothing.

Lost is moving in slow motion. And I’m getting tired of working that hard just to watch -- and understand -- a TV show. When Locke discovered the glow-in-the-dark map, or whatever the heck it is, in the hatch a few weeks ago, it looked intriguing. But I wasn’t about to pause my TiVo to go about the business of deciphering all those symbols and letters and scraggily drawings.

Will people play the game? .. Yes, but (see previous post) a lot of them will be geeks and nerds.. Will the game help or hurt Lost? .. Help, if it gives summer re-runs a bounce, and helps the show "get unLost" a bit.. I have to agree with this columnist from Florida; it's interesting, it's fun, it's entertaining, and it's moving at a snail's pace.. The major players are busy elsewhere, and it's showing up on the small screen.. there's time to fix what's broke, but is anybody listening? ...

Library Juice: Geeks and Nerds Battle for the Soul of Librarianship

Library Juice: Geeks and Nerds Battle for the Soul of Librarianship.

April 21, 2006
Geeks and Nerds Battle for the Soul of Librarianship

Perhaps the most pressing issue facing librarianship is one that is unlikely to receive serious scholarly attention. It is, to put it simply, a battle presently being fought between two camps of librarians. Some may cite generational conflict as the primary conflict in librarianship today; baby-boomers representing traditional knowledge of librarianship as well as bibliographic knowledge, and GenXers representing facility with technology. There is some truth to that picture, but it is primarily a distraction from the real conflict. That conflict, I submit, is the battle between geeks and nerds.

“Geek, nerd, what’s the difference?” some might ask. Well there is a definite difference; in fact there is little overlap between the two groups, although there are a few characteristics in common. I will summarize the traits of geeks and nerds for you. I may offend some people in doing it, but if you want to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

A topic for the ages, from Library Juice (now a blog instead of an e-zine) .. Rory always has a unique and interesting slant on affairs in the library world; don't miss the comments on this one.. thanks to LISNews.org for the pointer.. on the dichotomy at hand, hasn't it always been so? .. are the nerds in "public services" and the geeks in "technical services"? ..but, seriously, there is a history in the profession of practical practitioners who eschew the "philosophical" underpinnings, research, and the like; and, the thinkers and imagineers of the profession, who lead with insights, inquiries, research, and debates -- small and large ...

LLRX: The Government Domain: The Government Domain: Roll Your Own Government Search

LLRX: The Government Domain: The Government Domain: Roll Your Own Government Search.

The Government Domain
Roll Your Own Government Search

By Peggy Garvin
Peggy Garvin of Garvin Information Consulting is author of The United States Government Internet Manual (Bernan Press) and contributing author for The Congressional Deskbook, 2005-2007 (TheCapitol.Net).

Published April 15, 2006

    Does web searching have you feeling like Goldilocks in the house of the Three Bears, with a search of the entire World Wide Web being too big and a search of just one or two sites being too small? If you are looking for a web search that is "just right," you may want to make your own porridge.

Rollyo is a free web service that lets you build your own little search engine by choosing up to 25 sites to search at once. Using Rollyo can save time for those of us who regularly research specialized government topics: no more wading through results from the flotsam that a general search engine crawls, no more jumping from site to site recreating the same search on weak site search engines, and no more navigating different sites for government, topical blog, and public policy content. Need to search the web sites of your state cultural agencies along with the sites for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities? Want to search the sites for the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, the House, and the Senate along with the CRS reports at Open CRS, all in one fell swoop? You can do these things with Rollyo.

Wonderful column on Rollyo.. a searchrolling application and site.. I'm going to give it a try for some "special" search sites I use regularly.. from the e-mail newsletter from LLRX.com...