This is a textual representation of a lightning talk done on Feb 26th at Code4Lib 2008. When the video of the talk is up (thanks, Noel!) I’ll link it here, too. The video is now available, and that article includes an update on progress since the this article was posted.
Sue Polanka, head of reference and instruction at the main library of Wright State University, sent a message to the OhioLINK membership today about a new blog she is moderating called No Shelf Required:
No Shelf Required provides a forum for discussion among librarians, publishers, distributors, aggregators, and others interested in the publishing and information industry. The discussion will focus on the issues, concepts, current and future practices of Ebook publishing including: finding, selecting, licensing, policies, business models, usage (tracking), best practices, and promotion/marketing. The concept of the blog is to have open discussion, propose ideas, and provide feedback on the best ways to implement Ebooks in library settings. The blog will be a moderated discussion with timely feature articles and product reviews available for discussion and comment.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library, OCLC, and Ohio State University and OhioLINK have put in a bid as host site for the 2009 Code4Lib meeting. Code4Lib is an informal organization of self-selected librarians and technology professionals. It exists as a volunteer organization run by consensus of interested individuals. The meeting in 2009 will be the fifth fourth1 face-to-face meeting of this group. Details of the central Ohio host location proposal are on the web at http://roytennant.com/code4lib2009.html
Information about becoming a member of the Code4Lib community and voting in the host site selection process are included below.
Stu Hicks, one of OhioLINK’s systems engineers, told the OhioLINK staff last night about a new program at Microsoft called DreamSpark. Through this program, post-secondary students around the world who are attending accredited schools or universities can download some of Microsoft’s big developer and designer tools free of charge. At the time and place this post is being written, the list of software is:
Dear future self,
If you are reading this, you are remembering a time when you ran into a really nasty interception proxy1 and you are looking for a way around it. Do you remember when you were sitting in the Denver International Airport using their free wireless service? And remember how it inserted advertising banners in HTML frames at the top of random web pages as you surfed?
I’ve been following the discussion by Stu Weibel on his blog about the relationship between Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Dublin Core Abstract Model (DCAM), and I think I’m as confused as ever. It comes as a two part posting with comments by Andy Powell Pete Johnston (apologies, Pete), Mikael Nilsson, Jonathan Rochkind, and Ed Summers. Jonathan’s and Ed’s comments describe the same knowledge black hole that I’ve been facing as well; in Ed’s words: “The vocabulary I get–the DCAM is a tougher nut for me to crack.”
On the ImageLib mailing list, Rob Lancefield (Manager of Museum Information Services for Wesleyan University) posted a link to the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG) for image creators. The introduction says: “These 12 guidelines — provided as a Quick Guide plus an in-depth Complete Guide — aim to clarify the issues affecting accurate reproduction and management of digital image files. Although they largely reflect a photographer’s perspective, anyone working with digital images should find them useful…. This document, prepared by the UPDIG working group, represents the industry consensus as of September 2007.” The listed members of UPDIG leads one to believe that this is a professional photography group. One thing in the introduction to the guidelines caught my eye, though:
The chapter on archiving now has a discussion of JPEG as an archival format.
OhioLINK’s Meg Spernoga pointed our staff to a 30 minute audio documentary called Who Needs Libraries? from Soundprint.org:
As more and more information is available on-line, as Amazon rolls out new software that allows anyone to find any passage in any book, an important question becomes: Who needs libraries anymore? Why does anyone need four walls filled with paper between covers? Surprisingly, they still do and in this program Producer Richard Paul explores why; looking at how university libraries, school libraries and public libraries have adapted to the new information world. This program airs as part of our ongoing series on education and technology, and is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education.
Ithaca, NY and Los Alamos, NM, January 21, 2008 – As a result of initiatives in eScholarship, the format of scholarly communication, and the process that underlies it, are becoming increasingly expressive and complex. The resulting new artifacts of scholarship are aggregations composed of multiple media types, links to data, and to applications that allow interaction with that data. The success of these innovations depends on standard methods to identify, describe, and exchange these new forms scholarly communication.