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Library Site Down Thursday from 11AM to 2PM (or so)
The Library site will be down Thursday, April 28, from around 11AM to 2PM. The whole college site will be down at that time.
If you know you'll need CUNY+ then, you can bookmark this link: http://apps.appl.cuny.edu:83/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=laguardia. If you'll need the databases then, you can get them through CUNY, via this link: http://libraries.cuny.edu/resource.htm. If you're not on-campus, you'll have to use your library card barcode to login.
posted by Steve in the Library on Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Intel Wants Full-Text in Print.
Intel paid a man $10,000 for his old copy of Electronics magazine.
What was so special about it? It was the issue where "Moore's Law" was first mentioned. "Moore's Law," created by Gordon E. Moore, one of Intel's founders, states that " the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would continue to double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future." Since Intel makes chips, they're pretty big fans of the law. The $10,000 bounty threw libraries into chaos, as they suddenly had to lock up their old issues of Electronics or risk having them stolen. I can't figure out is why a technology company would put so much emphasis on the print version of a document they already have electronically. As more and more information moves from print to online, it's sort of odd seeing a company moving from online to print. I'm not sure if it's good or bad. It's certainly strange, though.
posted by Steve in the Library on Monday, April 25, 2005
Online Improvements
There's a ton of information on the general Internet, but not a lot we can really trust. Sure, stuff looks good, but often we have no idea how or why someone is posting something.
The Internet isn't all bad, though. Sometimes, the nature of the Internet makes certain kinds of information easier to access. For instance, Boing Boing posted this video of a professor addressing a class with a student who had stolen his laptop. Kind of a goofy/funny thing. But the posted video was long and in the RealPlayer format. So someone edited the video so it only showed the relevant part. And then someone else made it into an MP3, which is quicker to download. And then someone else wrote a transcript of the funny part of the video. So all of these people worked together to make the video easier to use and understand. That's what can be so great about the Internet — people working together to improve user experiences. It's just sad that we can't trust everything we find online.
posted by Steve in the Library on Thursday, April 21, 2005
New Library of Congress Site
So the Library of Congress site launched their new page design sometime between yesterday and today. You can see it here: http://www.loc.gov/.
It's a little more compartmentalized now. Sites usually (or hopefully) start off with a great navigation, but as they add more features, they outgrow the original system. So now, right at the top of the page, the new Library of Congress site breaks things down by audience. That way, they can cater the user experience a little better. My one complaint? The fonts look way too small in the Opera browswer. It looks fine in Explorer and Firefox, though. I guess you can't please everybody. But the re-design is pretty nice work anyway.
posted by Steve in the Library on Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Back Up Your Data
Information is valuable. As we head into the time of year where papers are due, you might want to do everything you can to protect your hard work.
If you save all of your work to a computer and the computer dies, your work is gone, too. If you save all of your work to a floppy and the floppy dies, your paper is gone. So how do you protect your information? It sounds pretty anal, but I usually keep a copy of all of my work on a disk or flash drive, a copy on my computer, a copy in my email, and then I print a copy. It's a few minutes work and it guarantees I always have access to my work. The email trick is especially important. I set up a separate email account just to hold papers. The accounts are free, so why not? Yahoo! says they're close to giving a gigabyte of email space. Google's Gmail will give you two gigabytes, but those accounts are a bit harder to come by since they're invitation only. If you don't have a friend who can send you an invite, you can use an automated invite spooler to get one. I haven't tried it myself, but they're supposed to be pretty efficient. Here is one: http://isnoop.net/gmail/.
posted by Steve in the Library on Monday, April 18, 2005
Between the Encyclopedia and the Wikipedia
So there's Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
Some people think it's great that anyone with knowledge can contribute, but others, like me, worry that people might be contributing errors. Well now there's a middle ground. Microsoft's online encyclopedia is accepting edits from the public. If you see a mistake or something missing, write to Encarta and they'll check it out. So you have the public contributing knowledge, but someone making sure they're right. Of course, if it takes Microsoft weeks to make changes, people are going to lose interest pretty quickly, so I hope they hired enough editors.
posted by Steve in the Library on Thursday, April 14, 2005
National Security Archive
Here's the link to the National Security Archive, a cool and valuable non-governmental non-profit organization affiliated with George Washington University. They posted, today, declassified documents from the desk of John Negroponte, Bush's nominee for Head of Homeland Security, from in the 80s, when he was ambassador to Hondurus. Here's the site's own description of who they are:
"The National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions in one non governmental, non-profit institution. The Archive is simultaneously a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and publisher of the documents in books, microfiche, and electronic formats. The Archive's approximately $2.3 million yearly budget comes from publication revenues and from private philanthropists such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Ford Foundation. As a matter of policy, the Archive receives no government funding."
posted by Paul on Wednesday, April 13, 2005
New Look to Library of Congress Site?
Is it sad that I'm excited/curious about this note on the Library of Congress site:
I wonder what they're doing. I've certainly noticed a lot more multimedia things on their site lately. Like this Webcast featuring singer-songwriter John Prine and Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. I wonder if they're re-working the site to highlight things like that more.
posted by Steve in the Library on Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Internet Archive
Slate had a cool article on the Internet Archive last week.
The Internet Archive is a project to save Internet pages, so that once certain sites, or versions of sites, go down, they're not lost forever. As the article points out, the Internet Archive isn't keyword searchable. You have to have a date range and a specific site in mind. But I still think it's a cool site. It's like the database New York Times Historic in that you can see what the material looked like when it was first published. Here's a May, 1997 version of the LaGuardia home page. And this is what the New York Times site looked like in 1996. Now the Internet Archive is trying to get people to contribute their own materials — videos, photos, Word files. Whatever you have, they'll hold for you. The catch? Other people can search and see your materials. But the Internet Archive people are saying their servers are safer than commercial services, which tend to go under with little warning. If you're interested in submitting your files or seeing other people's stuff, you can check it out at http://ourmedia.org/.
posted by Steve in the Library on Tuesday, April 12, 2005
National Library Week
It's National Library Week!.
There are actually some cool aspects to it, though. Gale, a database vendor, offers free access to some of their databases for a whole week. But wait. There's more! LIS News reports there's even a Google image for National Library Week. So so far, it's off to a pretty good start, I think.
posted by Steve in the Library on Monday, April 11, 2005
Death of Libraries?
Here's another article wondering if the Internet means the death of libraries.
Obviously, as someone who works in a library, I'm hoping it doesn't. I think a lot of people forget how important libraries are. They're more than just a place to get books. They're also a place to get help and a place to study. The Internet gives us access to lots of great materials that make it easier to do research from outside the library, but that doesn't make finding stuff any easier. Plus, not everyone has the computers or bandwidth or desire to work with all digital materials. So I think death is a very strong word. Libraries are moving toward more digital materials, but I don't see how they can shut the physical buildings down yet. Like a lot of things, I think the truth of the matter is a lot less dramatic than the headline would have you believe. Libraries aren't dying. They're just changing.
posted by Steve in the Library on Thursday, April 07, 2005
E-Postcards: The Hidden Danger
It really seems there's less and less you can do online that's safe.
PC World has a warning about opening email postcards. It seems some of them install software that allows your computer to be hijacked. How do you prevent it? As always, be careful opening anything from someone you don't know. And check out these tips on installing anti-spyware software.
posted by Steve in the Library on Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Google Satellites
I know it seems like I write about Google a lot, but they really are do amazing things with searching.
Take their map search (http://maps.google.com), for instance. It now gives you a satellite view of whatever you're looking at. This is LaGuardia. You can even zoom in! Here's a nice close-up of Shea Stadium. But what I really love is how it lets you explore neighborhoods in other parts of the country. Here's a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Florence, South Carolina. Notice how much greener their neighborhood is.
posted by Steve in the Library on Tuesday, April 05, 2005
From Doors to Email
Here's yet another sign that the way we get information is changing: News of the Pope's death came via e-mail. According to the Associated Press, the traditional method was quite a bit different: " For centuries, one of the surest signs that a pope had died was the closing of the massive Bronze Door beneath a portico off St. Peter's Square."
There's a ton of online news about the Pope's death, but for a non-U.S. perspective, you might want to check out the BBC's special section. It's here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/pope_john_paul_ii. The Vatican also has a nice timeline of John Paul II's life. You can see it here: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/hf_jp_ii_xxv_en.htm.
posted by Steve in the Library on Monday, April 04, 2005
Web Hoaxes, Part II
A few days ago, I talked about Web hoaxes, and how they make it tough to trust information from the general Internet.
With today being April Fool's Day, a few are already going strong:
So as always, be skeptical whenever you find anything online. Everyday. Not just on April Fool's Day.
posted by Steve in the Library on Friday, April 01, 2005
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