The newly integrated National Library of Canada and National Archives of Canada is looking for a new name. Please someone suggest something shorter.

This article in Wired laments the snail's pace progress of Project Gutenberg which, over 32 years, has only managed to upload 6,267 electronic texts (according to the article; the project's website makes no mention of the total texts to date):


I don't know about anyone else, but when I tried to get involved with the project back in 1998, I got pages and pages of how-to instructions by email, but there was practically no platform to support information exchange between the project folks and the volunteers, so I gave up after 5 months of trying to work my way through the reams of instructions and trying to find someone to answer my non-FAQ questions. They've probably come a long way since then, and I probably should give it another try.

The Blog Driver's Waltz: Canadian librarian Geoffrey Harder blogs quite nicely.

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published Wednesday, January 29, 2003  @ 11:58 | |

Yep, Bibliolatry has been redesigned again. I started out by designing a new header, and then it just snowballed from there. The orange and green colour scheme was beginning to lose its appeal, so I'm hoping this new design has a more reader-friendly (albeit still greenish) look to it.

Laura Bush is pledging all sorts of money to overcome the librarian shortage in the US. Straight from the White House.

And isn't it always nice to read about the media coming to the rescue of public libraries.

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published Monday, January 27, 2003  @ 13:02 | |

Library Link of the Day is the brainchild of John Hubbard, a librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The site provides a new library-related link everyday, or you can receive the link by email. Some or all of you might already know about this, if so file under "everybody knew this but me." [via memepool]

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published Thursday, January 23, 2003  @ 11:03 | |

A recent discussion on LES-L about video reviews introduced me to Video Librarian Online, the electronic addendum to the print review publication. Handy for anyone working with A/V collections.

Librarian's Book Club now has it's very own domain: librariansbookclub.org. It points to the same creighton location, but the new, easily remembered URL helps.

For anyone planning on attending ALA's Midwinter conference, you might want to stop in at room 303B at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Sunday, January 26th to preview ALA's new website. The site will be launched later in the spring.

GODORT's Legislation Committee maintains this great page of information relating to access to government information.

Steven Cohen has launched the Save our Libraries blog, devoted to articles on library cutbacks and closures.

You can find a transcript of that PBS program on intellectual property I mentioned ("Tollboths on the Digital Highway") right here.

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published @ 10:15 | |

I've probably mentioned this before but LII this week just reminded me of CensusTools. They provide all sorts of nifty Excel forms for downloading census data.

SearchDay has been putting out all sorts of gems recently. Yesterday's edition was devoted to the value of non-commercial web directories, guest-edited by Gary Price.

This recently published report by the ACLU puts the library surveillance discussion within the broader context of the danger inherent in the US becoming a surveillance society in general:

Bill Moyers is talking about the digital future of intellectual property on PBS tonight.

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published Friday, January 17, 2003  @ 12:21 | |

Today's Searchday talks about full-text database access provided by some public libraries, including ones with remote access.

Jessamyn has issued a CFP for an upcoming issue of Reference Librarian that will be devoted to Ask-a reference services.

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published Wednesday, January 15, 2003  @ 14:43 | |

Freedom to Read Week in Canada runs from February 23rd to March 1st. Plenty of time to organise all sorts of events at your library. To help you, the publicity and planning kit is here.

Read all about one New Yorker's disappointment with [and subsequent excitement over] her branch library.

And here is an interesting tale told from the point of view of a library architect. Although I'm not sure I like his analogy:

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published Tuesday, January 14, 2003  @ 11:55 | |

I'm back and I missed a lot of activity in the library world while I was away. Some of this might be old news to some of you, so bear with me. But first, three stories from the British Isles.

While we were in London, this story on the safety of solo-librarians was causing concern.

The best idea I've heard on what to do with those love letters to Princess Diana: preserve them at the British Library.

Charge overdue fines to make sure that people bring their books back on time, but the fines themselves might keep people from coming back.

Spies in the Stacks, that off-Broadway show I was telling you about, now has a website.

For those of you who are going to OLA's Superconference, Gary Price will be there. I plan on stopping by.

divine Library Services collapsed while I was away. Some implications.

fetchbook.info was recently launched. It searches bookstores for the best price (new and used) of any title searched. I haven't had a chance to look at it closely, but it might come in handy for acqusitions departments who need to scour various sources for out-of-print titles. [ thanks Ori]

I've recently been reminded of All that JAS, an online registry devoted to Journal Abbreviation Sources. The subject breakdown is particularly useful.

This Q & A document produced by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario addresses the privacy responsibilities of public libraries in Ontario.

This story in the National Post claims that Google is the most important site on the Internet.

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published Saturday, January 11, 2003  @ 14:42 | |