up2date

From INFOdocket :

From the IFLA Web Site:

The Entresse Library in Espoo, Finland and FAIFE (IFLA Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) have together created the world’s first Banned Books video calendar. The project has garnered international attention and is considered pioneering in many ways.

...

The project’s participants include leading figures in the library world, who introduce their favourite banned books: IFLA President Ingrid Parent presents Timothy Findlay’s The Wars; Finnish IFLA President-Elect Sinikka Sipilä presents Mika Waltari’s The Egyptian; Kai Ekholm introduces Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Executive Director Jill Cousins of the Europeana Foundation expounds on James Joyce’s Ulysses. Other books include Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Boccaccio’s Decameron and Walt Disney’s Donald Duck.

Read the Full IFLA Post

Direct to Banned Books Video Calendar

(Digital and Archive) of "George Boole"

Just in case you need something to spice up an instruction session. From INFODocket :

A Logical Idea: Digital Archive Containing Newly Discovered Papers and Books of George Boole Announced

...

From Cork Student News:

UCC’s [University College Cork, Ireland] Boole Library is to receive an EMC Heritage Grant to go towards the creation of a publicly available digital archive of newly discovered papers and printed books of the mathematician George Boole....

The digital archives will be integrated into the ongoing Boole Papers digitisation project, which involves the digitisation of over 4,000 digital items, including a collection of letters, which is expected to be completed this month.

...The Boole archives to be published digitally by UCC will be available to the public.

Additional Info in this UCC Announcement

...

Ignoble Prize winners this yr

It's been a long week -- so here's a humourous end to Friday, the list of Ignoble Prizes for the year, awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research.

Some of them seem like quite a stretch -- almost deliberate or not really scientific studies, but I did like:

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

humour for a Monday

I know, it's only Monday, but I couldn't resist pointing out this post at Book Patrol (via Actualitté, merci), which offers

'signage [that] has now been created to prevent those whose experience with books is severely limited from making serious, life- or book threatening gaffes when in their presence.

The signs are appropriate for libraries, book stores, reading rooms, or general household use...'

I shan't post the image, for obvious reasons. When you need a break today (or this week), take a look.

Happy World Book & Copyright Day, everyone!

The poster (.pdf) is terrifically well-designed.

map of science

From the ResourceShelf (it's a pretty neat visual image):

Los Alamos Researchers Create ‘Map of Science’

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have produced the world’s first Map of Science—a high-resolution graphic depiction of the virtual trails scientists leave behind when they retrieve information from online services. The research, led by Johan Bollen, appears this week in PLoS ONE (the Public Library of Science).

Harper's Index searchable online

Referred to on the ResourceShelf, reported on ReadWriteWeb:

Harper's Index, the most thought provoking fun you'll find on one printed page, is turning 25 years old. Harper's Magazine, launched in 1850, is the 2nd longest continuously published magazine in the United States (behind Scientific American) but the Index is the first page that many readers skip to in each issue. To celebrate the Index's anniversary, Harper's has put the full index of biting trivia one-liners up on its website for searching and reposting on Twitter.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña on campus

So, I usually don't post about events on campus, but I just got the announcement that Guillermo Gómez-Peña will be speaking next week (and I had an incredibly hard time finding info. about it online -- and the events calendar only has the evening event (Tuesday, 17 Feb.)), and the lecture + his book signing should be worth attending. 

From the email (which is a .jpg, so I can't put it in the blog -- all typos are mine):

Multiple Journeys: the life and work of Gómez-Peña
Thursday, February 19
4h15-6h15
5710 S Woodlawn, Room 107.

If you would like a forward of the email, you have but to ask.

New Media Index

A new initiative from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, reported on the ResourceShelf:

The New Media Index is a weekly report that captures the leading commentary of blogs and social media sites focused on news and compares those subjects to that of the mainstream press.

interactive film

no, not an oxymoron, but another interesting use of digital media:

From Wired:

Viewer's Cut: Interactive Film Gives Editing Tools to You

Watch Late Fragment straight through and you won't really understand why a young woman kills her doting father. Take control of the film, unlocking hidden footage and shuffling scenes around, and you learn that Dad may dote a little too much. Because the truth is, our perception of stories and characters shifts as we learn more about them. On this filmfest-and-DVD-only feature from a trio of Canadians, you delve deeper by using your remote: Click at the beginning of a scene and you'll be taken somewhere totally different than if you do so at the end. Any given viewing might weave 90 or so of the 139 available scenes into a Pulp Fiction-like circular story arc.

spell-check

A very interesting article on Slate: "Who Checks the Spell-Checkers?Microsoft Word's dictionary is old and outdated. Here's how to fix it." by Chris Wilson.

what not to say in 2009

Starting the year off on the right foot, Lake Superior State offers its 34th list of words to be stricken from the "Queen's English." Among the ones I will be glad to avoid:

ICON or ICONIC – Overused, especially among entertainers and in entertainment news, according to Robyn Yates of Dallas, who says that "every actor, actress and entertainment magazine show overuses this." One of the most-nominated words of the year.

Your votes?

Down with the DDC! (?)

I couldn't resist this one -- via the ResourceShelf:

FL Legislator: Dewey Decimal System “anachronistic”

Storms, R-Valrico, railed against the book-cataloging system during a budget hearing on state library aid, calling the Dewey Decimal System “anachronistic,” costly and just plain frustrating.

The system requires training for both staff and users, she complained. If Barnes & Noble organizes its books more simply, why can’t libraries?

“A lot of little old librarians are going to have a heart attack that I even said that out loud,” Storms said during Wednesday’s hearing. “But it really is ridiculous.”

Social Media Explained in Ice Cream

Thanks to SeriousEats, I was directed to a novel -- but effective -- explanation of how social media works.

Google's 2008 Zeitgeist

One of my favorite end-of-the-year reviews, available for many different countries or overall.

Retrospective on Who's Who in America

For the day before Thanksgiving, everything you've never known (and perhaps never needed to know, but it's interesting) about the history of Who's Who.  From Marquis' site (and he was...read the .pdf to find out!):

Someone in our company’s history was a scrupulous file keeper and to that person we owe much gratitude for the information we found on Who’s Who in America’s 110 year history. Stories, letters of interest and photographs were carefully archived, and in learning much about Who’s Who in America’s history, we were also treated to a lesson in our country’s history.

"Literary Representation as a Source of Authoritative Knowledge"

"The Fiction of Development: Literary Representation as a Source of Authoritative Knowledge" is a new report from Manchester University and the London School of Economics.  According to the Guardian's review, it "claim[s] that stories and their writers can do just as much as academics and policy researchers, perhaps even more, to explain and communicate the world's problems. Fiction, they boldly venture, can be just as useful as fact."

French Interior Design mag online

So, I might not post this if it weren't a Friday, but today's Scout Report mentions the Smithsonian Institute Libraries digitization of Le Garde-meuble , a bi-monthly periodical interior decoration publication (1841-51) online.

Once you've chosen the specific category you would like to see, click on it to see thumbnails, and then click on an individual image to see a beautiful color illustration that is so detailed and exquisite that even the shadows the furniture would cast are present in the drawings. Visitors shouldn't miss the "Beds (furniture)" category, under "Furniture-Casework," to see elaborate beds with canopies and curtains galore.

Library-a-go-go

from the FAQ:

What is Library-a-Go-Go?
Library-a-Go-Go is an automated book/av dispensing machine and/or a self-contained collection of books that circulates (checks in and checks out) materials to Contra Costa County Library card holders. A touch screen, similar to an ATM screen, is used to select from up to approximately 500 items that are delivered through an opening in the front of the unit. Materials are returned in a similar way. A robotic arm controls the selection and data input creates attractive screen displays with book jacket images, reviews, and tables of content and other enhanced content information.

I want one in the Metra station!

Online Hunting and Gathering

Ah, how we've (not) evolved?

Online Hunting and Gathering: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sex Differences in Website Preferences and Navigation
Stenstrom, E.; Stenstrom, P.; Saad, G.; Cheikhrouhou, S.
Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on
Volume: 5, Issue: 2 June  2008
Page(s): 155-168
Summary: Despite numerous sex differences found in spatial navigation, perception, and verbal abilities, the manner in which these differences manifest themselves ...