Entries for May 2006

May 31, 2006

Periodic Table of Data

The Periodic Table of Data is a visual database of physical and thermochemical properties of the chemical elements. It includes an interactive periodic table, visualization of properties, graphs, tables of data, energy level diagrams, and games. The data in this resource has been taken from The Royal Society of Chemistry Electronic Data Book CD, London: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2002, with some minor corrections for consistency.

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[About RSC]

The RSC is the largest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. Supported by a worldwide network of members and an international publishing business, our activities span education, conferences, science policy and the promotion of chemistry to the public.

May 30, 2006

Inventor of Firefox to Speak in Cleveland

Blake Ross, the inventor of Firefox, will be speaking at the Cleveland City Club on June 14th. See the City Club website for more information.

The City Club posts podcasts of their speaker's addresses shortly after their presentation.

Internet Searches: Librarians do it Better

At the 2006 Medical Library Association's annual meeting came the results of a study that showed "cancer patients are more likely to find what they are looking for with a librarian-mediated search instead of going it alone."

• 65 percent of patients said they were not able to obtain the information that the librarians sent to them from any other source
• Additional 30 percent said the librarian provided some new information
• Only 4 percent said they found all the same information on their own

May 29, 2006

Who Owns "Web 2.0"?

Publisher O'Reilly Media recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to IT@Cork, a networking organization for IT professionals, concerning the use of the term "Web 2.0" in a trade show.

Read the full article from CNET News.com.

Chmoggle - Chemical Information Search Engine

UPDATE:
Under pressure from Google, Chmoogle is now called eMolecules.

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On November 18, 2005, eMolecules, Inc. announced the launch of Chmoogle.

Chmoogle wants to be the world's leading free open-access chemistry search engine. Chmoogle's mission is to discover, curate and index all of the public chemical information in the world, and make it available to the public. Chmoogle distinguishes itself by extremely fast searches, an appealing presentation of results, and high-quality chemical drawings. Chmoogle discovers sources of chemical data by searching the internet, and receives submissions from data providers such as chemical suppliers and academic researchers.

Chmoogle searches chemical information by drawn chemical structures, IUPAC name, or by entering SMILES nomenclature (Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Specification).

The Chmoogle web site also includes Cheminformatics 101 - An introduction to the Computer Science and Chemistry of Chemical Information Systems.

May 26, 2006

Virtual Visit of the Canadian Space Agency

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) was established in 1989 by the Canadian Space Agency Act. The agency operates like a government department. The president is the equivalent of a deputy minister and reports to the Minister of Industry. The president oversees five core functions: Space Programs, Space Technologies, Space Science, Canadian Astronaut Office, Space Operations. He also looks after six executive functions (Audit, Evaluation and Review; Corporate Management; Communications; Strategic Development; External Relations; Government Liaison) and three Corporate functions (Legal Services, Administration, and Human Resources). The President is supported by the Senior Vice-President and the Vice-President, Science, Technology and Programs.

Take a virtual tour of the John H. Chapman Space Centre. It is really well done and informative. It also makes a nice example if someone were creating a virtual tour of a library or laboratory within their organization.

(Via: The Scout Report, Volume 12, Number 20, May 19, 2006)

May 25, 2006

Comments on Brian Mathews Podcast

I finally got to listen to Brian Mathew's podcast that was created for the participants of ALA Library 2.0 (ALAL2). He did make comments that hit the spot since I work in an academic library.

He described Academic Library 2.0 in various terms:

He highlighted a couple of 2.0 services that he was aware of, such as PennTags. Mathews also described who he monitored students blogs by setting up keyword searches for words like "library" or "research". He could than offer advice or additional information to their discussions.

My university does offer a blog system to faculty, staff, and students. All entries are fed into a single RSS feed (Planet Case) that I do monitor. I have corresponded with several of the posters by highlighting a library or Internet resource that could help them in their research or other explorations. By interacting in this manner, I have received back several suggestions for other resource that I could highlight on my blog or other library web pages. If our blog system ever grows larger, I might have to rely on Mathews keyword search suggestion.

UPDATE: I had to delete some links to sources that no longer exist.

Science & Society Picture Library

The Science & Society Picture Library (SSPL) represents over a million images from the Science Museum, the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum. It contains over 50,000 digitised images. The collections include 4000 personalities, the Daily Herald and Manchester Daily Express archives, and the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, William Henry Fox Talbot and Tony Ray-Jones.

SSPL now has over 150 image collections from both within and outside the museums' core collections. These contain over 70,000 online records, including over 40,000 digital images.

Images are organized by category. For example, explore the "Science & Technology" category.

Be aware though. Images are for purchase as demonstrated by their copyright statement.

All materials on this web site are subject to the laws of copyright. You may not use, copy, publish or distribute the images or any part of the images in any way whatsoever. In addition, you may not remove the image identification mark or alter, manipulate, add to or delete an image or any part of an image without permission. Copyright in all the images remains with the Science & Society Picture Library and the collections it represents. By entering the site through one of the buttons, you are indicating that you have read and accepted the above conditions.

National Institutes of Health: Office of Science Education

The Office of Science Education (OSE) coordinates science education activities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and develops and sponsors science education projects in house. These programs serve elementary, secondary, and college students and teachers and the public. Users can explore the content by subject area, grade level, or format.

Students might find the career resources quite helpful when looking for an internship or job.

See About Us for more information.

(VIA: The Scout Report, Volume 12, Number 20, May 19, 2006)

May 24, 2006

Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles

The article Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles (PLoS Biology, volume 4, issue 5, May 2006) described a study that looked at the number of citations of open access articles versus pay publications.

Articles published as an immediate OA article on the journal site have higher impact than self-archived or otherwise openly accessible OA articles. We found strong evidence that, even in a journal that is widely available in research libraries, OA articles are more immediately recognized and cited by peers than non-OA articles published in the same journal. OA is likely to benefit science by accelerating dissemination and uptake of research findings.

May 22, 2006

EEVL - Changes

From the middle of 2006 there will be some major changes to the current service. As you may know, EEVL is one of a number of Internet subject gateways that together form the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

As a result of a detailed planning and consultation process, the RDN service is currently undergoing extensive re-structuring and re-branding. The purpose of this exercise is to create a new more consolidated service with closer integration of subject areas, and to provide a single interface for our users.

The current eight subject gateways will be re-organised to create four major subject groups:

• Arts and Humanities (bringing together Artifact and Humbul)
• Science, Engineering, Technology (bringing together EEVL, GEsource and PSIgate)
• Health and Life Sciences (BIOME)
• Social Sciences (Bringing together Altis and SOSIG)

(Via: STLQ, May 9, 2006, TechXtra - A New Resource for Searching in Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing)

May 19, 2006

Comments on Michael Casey Podcast

I finally got to listen to Michael Casey's podcast that was created for the participants of ALA Library 2.0 (ALAL2). He did make a couple comments that really tied together some of our discussions here in ALAL2.

First, Casey pointed out, as many others have, that Library 2.0 is about change. But, he went one step further and defined how he saw "change":

His thoughts on an internal staff blog were very interesting as well. The internal employee blog went beyond the expectations of increasing involvement and communication by developing new communication pathways, building trust, and giving people ownership in their concerns and/or comments.
Thanks, Michael Casey for your thoughts on Library 2.0.

UPDATE: I had to delete some links to sources that no longer exist.

Freedman Center & Podcasting

I originally posted this entry on May 10, 2006, but I wanted to repost it to make sure it is included in the ALAL2 podcast RSS feed.

Explore the Freedman Center web site for more information.

How Today's Web Has Changed Technical Writing

The IEEE Professional Communication Society Newsletter (IEEE PCS, Volume 50, Number 5, May 2006) has two articles that address web development and how technical writers must adapt to "web 2.0" technologies and users.

Web Development…How Do You Define Web Development?
by Elizabeth Weise Moeller

The problem is that “web development” is such a broad term, unlike so long ago when the web was first getting started. In the end, I decided to talk about the past, the present, the future, and, in the process, highlight some trends you can watch to help keep visitors returning to your website.

What is Web 2.0 and How Will Technical Writers be Impacted?
by Amy Diehl

Web 2.0 is a movement away from understanding content as housed in websites, but instead views content as “granular.” In this way, the content can be syndicated and distributed in decentralized ways and without relying on the user visiting a site or page in order to find the information or content. With the advent of Web 2.0, or the web as platform, not place, technical writers and designers will need to rethink many of their strategies regarding how their writing works in relation to “place”.

Science & Engineering State Profiles: 2003-04

The Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) publishes Science and Engineering State Profiles annually. The 2003–04 report, published only on the Web, includes a data source page and a set of 52 one-page science and engineering (S&E) profiles (in Excel) that summarize state-specific data on personnel and finances. Rankings and totals are for the 50 states; Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico.

I have included a portion of Ohio's statistics.

(VIA: ResourceShelf, May 9, 2006)

Fuel Cell Mixes with Porn Company for Pseudo IPO

Here is an interesting way to quickly get to an initial public offering. A company that creates a membrane for methanol fuel cells used the old shell of a porn company to quickly go public.

From: CNET News.com Future Tech Blog, March 17, 2006

May 18, 2006

ALA Library 2.0 - My Perspective

All of the discussions about ALA Library 2.0 and its implementation are great (Library 2.0, Open Stacks, Free Range Librarian, and A Wandering Eyre & followup). The ability to provide one's opinion and learn from resulting discussion is Web 2.0.

As a disclaimer, I am a member of ALA and a participant in ALA Library 2.0 (ALAL2). I was asked to participate in ALAL2. I decided to participate for my own and my organization's benefit, just as much as for the benefit of ALA.

I decided to participate in this initiative with the hope that ALA will see the advantages (or disadvantages) of these various technologies and processes. I hoped we would finish with a package of data, experiences, policies, and examples, that could be used by ALA or any of its members to implement or instruct in Web 2.0 technologies and understand the mindset of newer/younger library users.

While I have had many of the concerns others have had about implementation of ALAL2, I am glad it was done this way for many reasons. Mainly because if you look at the "big picture", a "real world" activity has been created. Let me explain.

Participants
I have heard some comments that the group of participants has created some hiccups. First, everyone is participating at different levels of time and commitment. This could not be any more "real world" than what we all experience within our own organizations or within ALA. Everyone we work with has different motivations, personality traits, communication skills, etc. I think ALAL2 is one of those times when the final outcomes are more important than the individual contributions.

Second, the participants are at various levels of technology awareness and places in the career ladder. Some are spending more time learning the technology, while others may have been able to jump right into the provided information. There is nothing wrong with this. It reminds all of us, and as a result will be evident in the final outcomes, that our library users span the spectrum. It reminds all of us that not everyone learns the same way. It reminds us that not every process will work the first time for everyone, nor will every user do things the same way.

Technology
I think the problems we have had with implementation of various technologies only added to the learning environment. Since ALAL2 is a chance to "play" and share key learnings with ALA (or any information professional), I am glad the learning environment was not totally optimized and error-proof. As participants, we needed to make errors and run into road blocks so that we could totally be saturated in the project and make "real world" suggestions to other information professionals. Someone even suggested the the technologies and instruction methods be tried on others first. BUT, as participants in ALAL2, we are the "others" - the first. It is our responsibility to define what does and does not work, not just "play" with the optimized or ALA-selected way of doing things.

In addition, I have been trying to look at some of the technologies, processes, and discussions from a user's perspective. No matter what library's decide to implement, there will always be patrons that disagree with the choices. We have experienced that in ALAL2 and again it is another reminder of the "real world".

Instructors (and librarians) constantly push their favorite tool or technology that works best for them. It is not until a user points out a problem or an alternative, that all the options might be totally obvious. Otter Group, Jenny, and Michael have molded the ALAL2 experience with the technologies that were best at the moment of its creation. They all have pushed us to try alternatives and bring recommendations to the overall group. Groups have discovered and utilized wikis, OPAL, and Skype just to name a few. A big part of ALA2 was exploration and the initial tools have not prevented that, but in some have pushed for exploration into alternatives.

Implementation
I am glad ALA decided to proceed this way. First, as with any large organization, an expected procedure or final product, get greater results than others. If this is ALA desired method of exploring Web 2.0 and its advantages for its membership, fine we did it their way. It allows the leadership of ALA to focus more on our outcomes rather than the implementation.

Second, the Otter Group has provided several advantages. Again, I will go back to "real world" scenarios. By having the Otter Group manage the technology, we have simulated a large number of the library organizations that utilize external IT support or are at the mercy of a larger organization's IT department. It cannot be any more "real world" than that. Second, I bet Jenny and Michael are learning more from the experience and able to add more to the final product by being active participants, rather the techies. Their knowledge is more valuable in the discussions than in teaching people to use a new form of technology.

My Conclusion
I guess this is one time where I was glad ALA was hands off and introduced as many variables as possible. It allows ALA's leadership to be a spectator, and learn from the discussion between ALAL2 participants and others following along. I think if ALA would have done it any other way, too many preconceived notions of the future of Web 2.0 within ALA would have crept into the picture and defined the experience. I think the implementation, the participants, and the freedom to adjust as needed has created a "real world" environment that has allowed us to be the test tubes for others.

I hope others are as eager as I to see the final suggestions and outcomes of ALAL2, and are optimistic that our hard work will lead into implementation within ALA and/or the organizations of its members.

TechXtra (Formerly EEVL Xtra)

In October of 2005, I shared information on EEVL Xtra. It appears the new name is TechXtra.

From the press release:

TechXtra suite of free services simplifies access to technology information

TechXtra is a suite of ten freely available services which simplify access to a multitude of different types of technology information from a host of different sources.

TechXtra facilitates immediate access to the freely available full-text content of hundreds of thousands of eprints, technical reports, theses, articles, news items, job announcements and more. In cases where the full-text is not freely available, TechXtra provides links to vendors for pay-per-view options. TechXtra searches a combination of digital repositories, journal databases, technical reports servers, web information, news sources and more, all with a focus on technology information.

Anyone looking for information in technology will find TechXtra useful, especially researchers, academics, students and practitioners.

The suite of services includes:
Database Cross-Search - This searches over 4 million items from 25 different databases. Use this to find articles, key websites, theses and dissertations, books, industry news, new job announcements, technical reports, eprints, learning & teaching resources and the latest research in engineering, mathematics and computing. Sources include: Australian Research Repositories Online to the World, arXive (eprint archive in computer science, maths and related subjects), CiteSeer (research articles in computer science), Directory of Open Access Journals, ePrints UK (selected open archives in the UK), Copac (union catalogue from the Consortium of University Research Libraries), National Engineering Education Delivery System (digital library of learning resources), NASA Technical Reports (12 different NASA technical report series)... plus 18 other databases. More will be added in the near future.

The Very Latest Job Announcements - OneStep Jobs brings together the very latest job announcements from more than 35 top sources, and presents them in an easily accessible and searchable format in one place. The content is updated many times each day. Sources include: Jobs.ac.uk, ICErecruit, The Engineer, Redgoldfish, Jobsite, Engineeringjobs.co.uk, 4engineers.co.uk, Matchtech, TipTopJobs and more.

The Very Latest Industry News - OneStep Industry News brings together news feeds from over 80 top sources, and presents them in an easily accessible and searchable format. The content is updated many times each day. Sources include: The Engineer Online, Engineeringtalk, New Scientist, scenta, Moreover, Yenra, Control Engineering News, Design News, EurekAlert, Slashdot, PC Magazine, BBC Tech News and more.

Free Trade Magazine Subscriptions & Technical Document Downloads - Hundreds of trade publications and their advertisers want to give qualifying individuals their publications. It's worth it to them to give you the magazine free because you need the information and products described, and their advertisers need a vehicle to deliver their message which justifies the cost of giving you subscriptions for free. In addition, this service now includes free Webcasts, live Webinars, informative eBooks, interactive CD-ROMs, and numerous whitepapers.

On-Line Bookstore - TechXtra users save up to 35% on any title from this bookstore from Pearson Education - books on everything from Computer Graphics & Design, to Programming, Software, Careers and Personal Development titles. Postage is free within the UK and Europe.

Offshore Engineering Information Service - This service gives information about publications and meetings dealing with: oil and gas exploration and production; offshore health, safety and environmental protection; resources of the seabed and renewable energy; and marine technology.

Discovery Guides - Free indepth reports on topical engineering, mathematical and technology issues.

Information about Validated Engineering Design Data - This subset of ESDU contains over 1,300 abstracts of data item design guides. Access to the full text is via subscription only.

Recent Advances in Manufacturing - A database of bibliographic information for manufacturing and related areas, covering items in over 500 niche and mainstream journals and magazines, plus details of books, videos and conference proceedings.

Selected links to top sources of technology information - Internet tutorials, newsletters and gateways.

TechXtra harvests data from external sources using standard protocols such as Z39.50 and OAI-PMH.

TechXtra is an initiative of the ICBL and the Library, at Heriot-Watt University. The ICBL is also the base of the PerX Project, which has produced a Pilot to help scope future developments in cross-searching. Feedback on the Pilot would be much appreciated. A 60 second survey is available, and those providing feedback will be entered into a draw to win £100 of Amazon vouchers.

For more information about TechXtra, contact:
Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian
Heriot-Watt University Library
Edinburgh
0131 451 3576
r.a.macleod@hw.ac.uk

(VIA: STLQ, May 9, 2006, TechXtra - A New Resource for Searching in Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing)

Emerald Engineering - Free Access until September 2006

Emerald Engineering showcases practical and theoretical insightful articles, interviews, case studies, viewpoints and more. Whether you are an academic, researcher or industry practitioner, Emerald Engineering can help you find solutions to problems and keep up to date with current research, industry news, trends and debates by providing access to quality engineering information.

Free Access!!!
Emerald Engineering will be available on three levels: level one will be unrestricted access for all; level two will feature additional content and will be available to registered members; and level three will have even more content for Emerald Engineering journal and database subscribers. However, in order to celebrate the launch of this essential resource, we are delighted to give access to the whole of Emerald Engineering completely free of any restrictions until September 2006. Follow the link on this page, then on the Insight login page simply click the "login" button to return to Emerald Engineering with FREE full site access.

It appears four subject categories currently exist: Advanced Automation, Computational Mathematics, Electronics Manufacture & Packaging, and Materials Science & Engineering.

May 17, 2006

Promoting Copyright Management & Access

John Ober in Facilitating open access: Developing support for author control of copyright (C&RL News, April 2006, Vol. 67, No. 4) discusses the role librarians have in promoting and supporting copyright management within their organizations. He discusses educational aspects and managing institutional repositories.

Libraries should be clear and honest about the logic of our advocacy, too, which seems to be: Faculty copyright retention is a necessary precondition for developing new forms of dissemination that (possibly) allow restructuring of some of the economic patterns to be more sustainable. Or, more bluntly, copyright retention and subsequent grants of use (might) reduce/remove (some) economic barriers to acquiring content for research/teaching.

For one thing reader and author visits to IR create a point-of-use opportunity, and usually a specific need, to educate scholars about copyright management, and ensure that they do, in fact, have the right to deposit their work. And while IRs can be promoted as a way to serve the scholar and library interests mentioned above, to be used IRs have to strive for unusually good related services.

Conference - Partnering in Science Information: Necessities of Change

The International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) announced a two-day conference, "Partnering in Science Information: Necessities of Change."

The June 7-8 conference at the National Library of Medicine allows you to network with the new players in scientific and technical information and provides insight into the new relationships and alliances forming in STI across the information lifecycle. Join the key players to see what they are planning and doing in the new digital information environment.

The conference is designed for managers and knowledge workers in STI (including scientists, publishers, librarians, digital content managers, information architects, and infrastructure developers). Session themes include:

• New Players in the Information Life Cycle
• Innovative Relationships: Who's partnering with whom?
• Globalization - Internationalization
• Moving Up the Value Chain: Information for Decision Making
• "Repositories" in the New STI Infrastructure
• National Centers: New Roles, Relationships, and Opportunities for Partnership

Conference speakers include Leigh Watson Healy, Outsell's Chief Analyst, and Clifford Lynch, Executive Director for the Coalition for Networked Information. You'll also hear speakers from Google, Scope e-Knowledge Center, the European Patent Office, Groxxis, Elsevier, and the Korean Institute for Scientific and Technical Information.

Register by May 26 to receive a $50 registration discount for the two-day event. The discounted rate of $250 includes networking lunches both days.

You can register online.

[What is ICSTI?]

ICSTI, The International Council for Scientific and Technical Information, offers a unique forum for interaction between organizations that create, disseminate and use scientific and technical information. ICSTI's mission cuts across scientific and technical disciplines, as well as international borders, to give member organizations the benefit of a truly global community.

May 16, 2006

Skype - Free Calls to Landlines in US & Canada

Skype Introduces Free Calls to Traditional Landlines and Mobile Phones in the US and Canada
San Jose, CA, May 15, 2006

Skype, the global Internet communications company, today announced that all US and Canadian-based Skype customers can now make free SkypeOut™ calls to traditional landline and mobile phones in the US and Canada. Previously, Skype users in both countries were required to pay for Skype calls from their PCs to traditional telephones. Free SkypeOut calls to the US or Canada will be available to US and Canadian-based Skype users until the end of the year.

See the rest of the press announcement for more information.

Decrease in Computer Science Students?

From The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog (April 3, 2006) comes information on the potential closing of the computer science department at Seattle Pacific University.

From The Seattle Times (SPU might shut down computer curriculum, April 3, 2006):

Enrollment in computer-science programs has dropped around the country since the dot-com bubble burst. But the U.S. Department of Labor predicts information technology will be among the biggest employment drivers over the next decade, and many colleges are anticipating an enrollment rebound.

May 15, 2006

Jeff Trzeciak's Podcast - My Comments

One of the assignments for Week 2 of ALA Library 2.0 was a podcast of Jeff Trzeciak speaking on the training and roles of "librarian 2.0".

Trzeciak was one of the people responsible for the Next Generation Librarian job posting. What I find unique about such a job posting was not the responsibilities listed, but that a single position was developed to incorporate everything. I have seen people that have SOME of the listed tasks as electronic resource librarians, IT staff, instruction librarians, etc. Wayne State is looking for a single person to provide the innovation to use Web 2.0 technologies to develop Library 2.0 for its patrons.

He described the Web 2.0 technologies as "live and organic". He highlighted how these concepts may be in direct disagreement with librarianship in general, where we have total control (subject categories, keywords, etc.). He also looked at how today's generations desire "what they want when they want it".

Trzeciak says Librarian 2.0 needs to:

But are these just the traits needed by any organization or business to continue to succeed and improve? I expect many librarians or other professionals were "2.0" a long time ago, but now the technology has finally caught up.

Important traits of a "Library 2.0":
Again, I hope some libraries were already set-up like this. If not, the new technologies and user needs give them chance to reconstruct themselves. We can no longer assume libraries will always exist, if we do not change. The value of libraries is not as obvious in today's economy, culture, politics, and user's everyday lives.

As a side note, I have really been starting to use podcasts more often to increase my chance to absorb information. This specific podcast did have some audio problems, but if you a new consumer of podcasts, do not let it scare you away. Podcasts allow for some great benefits such as multitasking and portability.

Blogs about Writing & Commenting on Blogs

1. Entry from Reflexions blog: The Art of Commenting on Blogs
2. The Mentorship Project blog
3. A Pirouette: Commenting blog
4. Successful Business Blogging blog, specifically several commenting-related entries
4. Micro Persuasion in A Guide to Leaving Comments on Blogs

CIA World Factbook

The World Factbook provides all types of information about countries from around the world. Country profiles, rankings, and maps are just a few of the resources available.

The year 2006 marks the 59th anniversary of the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency and the 63nd year of continuous basic intelligence support to the US Government by The World Factbook and its two predecessor programs. See A Brief History of Basic Intelligence and The World Factbook for more information.

May 13, 2006

Google's "First Rule of the Internet"

The CNET News.com daily podcast on May 10, 2006, highlighted Google CEO Eric Schmidt's "First Rule of the Internet".

Sounds like Web 2.0 to me.

May 12, 2006

Congress Targets Social Network Sites

CNET News.com on May 10 reported that Congress is targeting social networks with legislation.

It appears the legislation does give parents the right to offer permission for their child to have access. But even that doorway in the law, has great consequences. If the law is interpreted as broadly as CNET suggests, many websites could be off limits. What about libraries that are using these various services to reach their users? Are libraries going to have to get permission for every single website, rather than larger domains? For example, parents says "NO" to Blogger, but what if the library has a website on Blogger?

I wish politicians would do more to promote education and the role of parents than restricting rights.

UPDATE:
Another ALAL2 participant's post on this proposed social networking legislation.

Have you read the MySpace Terms & Conditions?

Someone just pointed out to me some of the terms and conditions that users of MySpace agree to.

As a librarian that has spent time in a corporate library so I was previously immersed constantly in patent and copyright law, and someone that strongly believes in negotiating your rights to your intellectual property before publishing or selling, I was shocked by these terms. First, it does protect users from others users copying, selling, or otherwise distributing their artwork, writing, pictures, music, etc. BUT, MySpace can profit from your creations in any way it see fit.

Ask yourself - how comfortable are you with MySpace having the ability to use an entry from your blog, taking one of your pictures, or sharing your music in an advertisement on its front page or in other marketing methods?

Would an artist or writer have less power to negotiate with a publisher or producer if their materials were already up on MySpace? Even though MySpace's rights are non-exclusive, can this hurt you in developing other alternatives? It may if the producer does not care for MySpace.

FreePatentsOnline.com

FreePatentsOnline.com provides fast, free access to all U.S. patents and patent applications, partial European data, free PDF downloading, free account features, and more. In addition, a user can can establish a free account that allows for saving searches, creating portfolios of documents, saving comments on documents, and getting notified when new patents of interest are published.

FreePatentsOnline.com is a great alternative to the single page Tiff downloads at the USPTO web site.

May 11, 2006

NIH Research

The NIH Budget and the Future of Biomedical Research
Joseph Loscalzo, M.D., Ph.D.
The New England Journal of Medicine
Volume 354, Number 16, Pages 1665-1667, April 20, 2006

The "first true budgeted reduction in NIH support since 1970" is predicted for 2007. See the full article for what this may mean for biomedical research.

Michigan Requires Online Instruction for High School Students

On April 20, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education - The Wired Campus Blog highlighted a new initiative for Michigan high school students. The recently signed bill will require high school students to take at least one online class before graduating to better prepare students for college and the work environment.

If you read the attached comments, people do have many questions and concerns, such as availability of techology and training of educators. I do think this is good step in the right direction, especially for preparing college prep students. I do have concerns it increases the digital divide for disadvantaged families if funding for technology or supplemental instruction is not made available.

May 10, 2006

Podcast - Freedman Center & Podcasting Studio

Today, I recorded my very first podcast. I had a discussion about the new podcasting studio at my library and got the thoughts about Library 2.0 from the managers of the Freedman Center within my library. If you have any additional questions, please let me know. My coworkers were very excited to hear about ALA Library 2.0 and look forward to the materials that are shared and created.

Team One Project Draft: Best Practices/Policies For Public Comment on Library And/Or Association Websites

Best Practices/Policies For Public Comment on Library And/Or Association Websites

Client: All types of libraries and/or ALA.

Opportunity: To identify best practices for open comments and conversations on both ALA websites and individual library organizational websites. To explore the promotion of open partnerships and collaborations between library users and association members as partners and collaborators, engaged in a dialog with each other, that promotes individual ownership.

Product/Service: The integration of open commenting using a blog and/or wiki tool, plus other web social communication tools.

Goals:
1. Determine best practices for the utilization of Web 2.0 communication tools.
2. Determine best practices for open commenting with blogs.
3. Determine best practices for open commenting or content creation by wiki tools.

Comic Strip on "2.0"

The Rhymes with Orange comic strip had a great comic on "2.0" in today's newspaper (May 10, 2006). It is not on their web site for two weeks, but I found an online newspaper that posts comic strips.

If the links stop working (since I know how newspapers can be), here is the basics.
Descartes 2.0
I think, therefore I am. (Person writing with a quill pen.)
I think therefore IM. (Person using a laptop.)

What do you hate about wikis?

I just put a post up about wikis on my other blog that I thought the ALAL2 participants might find interesting. It is about what one blogger hated the most about wikis. I was surprised that most of their concerns were about the user's interaction with the interface, rather than the perceived accuracy concerns that the traditional media targets.

What do you hate about wikis?

A Little Madness blog posted a Top Ten list of things hated about wikis