The week that was.........

Here are the top 3 links I should have discussed over the last week. Coming in at the top:-
1. Tagging: LibraryThing and Amazon. If you like tagging then you'll love this article by librarything owner Tim Spalding.
2. I loved the story of the patron in Alaska arrested and his laptop confiscated for using the libraries wi-fi after hours. Whats that about?
3. About Five Weeks to a Social Library over on Meredith Farkas blog. This looks wicked, but I've just had no time to do it with a term paper to do.

Shelfari gets amazon investment

Nice to see the first web 2.0 company, Amazon has invested a minimum of $1 million in the company. I've spoken many times about shelfari (1, 2, 3), so hopefully Jeff Bezos can teach them a thing or to on being a web 2.0 company.

More on DOPA and Social Networking Web Site Prohibition Act

Having discussed DOPA previously (1, 2, and that it had failed, but returned in a new guise when Senator Matt Murphy (Illinois) had introduced a new bill called Social Networking Web Site Prohibition Act, I was interested in Jenny Levine's article over on the shifted librarian blog called Senator Matt Murphy of Illinois Set to Ban His Own Blog from Libraries?.

She points out that in his blog that :-

In the blog post itself, Murphy sounds fairly reasonable and balanced, saying he filed the bill "to raise awareness of the threat predators on these sites pose to our kids" and "to advance a dialogue on how we can minimize this threat." Neither of these reasons really explains why he chose to introduce a full ban on a class of sites he can't even define (nowhere does the legislation explain what is meant by the term), but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt as I read his responses anyway.

Unfortunately, I got as far as the 12th comment, in which Detective Bob Riordan, who is working with Murphy on this legislation, notes that Blogger is in the list of "top 10 social networking sites."

Crikey. How funny is that. You would have thought he would have at least checked his own blog out beforehand wouldn't you?

What site is Murphy's blog on? Blogger. So apparently, Murphy's current bill would ban his own site - where he hosted the "live chat" to discuss banning social networking sites in libraries - from being accessed in libraries, even by adults.in

Streamburst release of In search of the valley

Streamburst has just released In Search of the Valley on there website I hear.. Streamburst describes themselves as:-
Streamburst is an innovative and forward thinking company supplying services and infrastructure for the delivery of Television and Film Productions over the Internet.
Streamburst has sole focus on Download to Own content, no VOD (Video On Demand) or near-VOD services are planned at this time.
International Distributors, Production Companies and Website Operators can benefit hugely from the unique features that Streamburst offer:
New highly effective piracy deterrent methods that do not alienate or drive customers to piracy Content Delivery in Multiple Formats Servicing Multiple Devices
Brand / Market Specific Content Delivery,High Quality, Fully Managed and Professional Service.

Obviously i've discussed the film previously (here and here. Previously the film had been on DVD sales at $18 (with coupon, $20 without). So the new format sysatem, is a great breakthrough.
The release of the film has hit both Digg and techcrunch. Its also been entered onto the internet movie database. Good publicity if you can get it I say.
I really must recommend the film as I both worked on it in a minor degree and its what I consider I write about. Meeting such web 2.0 and open source luminaries as Tim O'reilly, Brian Behlendorf and Marc Canter (who has a wonderful voice. I mean he loves the sound of it). This film is well worth a look. And hell, there's extra's with it to, and at $8.

Pet bug......SHELFARI

I wonder if i'll ever stop writting about social cataloguing sites (1, 2, 3). But i've just learnt that shelfari has added groups for its site. Wow. Brilliant. 8 months behind librarything, and they at least created a few groups themselves. Has shelfari done that? Don't be silly, thats what the users are there to do (i there world anyway).......

Wikipedia update part 1

Follwing up (a few days behind I know), on the demise of wikipedia, it seems I was a bit early in putting them in the dead pool.
When listening to libvibes on the 15th of february, 2007, it pointed to the following article from Lunch over IP blog. The author points out that:-
Let's start by saying that the most-digged story on this (by several thousand people) was by a blogger that was not at the conference. Laurent Haug, the producer of LIFT, has already made clear that Devouard did not say that Wikipedia is going to shut down, nor used the word "disappear" during her speech.
Oh well. Sorry about that.

Return of DOPA

Seems the demise of DOPA (Deleting online predators act) is in misinformed. Having discussed this previously (here and here, seems though that a new (but oh so similar act) is being brought forward called the Social Networking Web Site Prohibition Act by Illinois state senator, Matt Murphy. There's better analysis of this here.

Wikipedia update

Well, following on from my earlier blog entitled Wikipedia running out of money, I got left a a comment pointing out that the quote had been taken out of context. He also pointed me in the direction of another article called Wikipedia: On the brink? Or crying wolf?. The author says:-
Hyperbole aside, there can be little doubt that the organization is indeed strapped for cash. Its worldwide operations now require 350 servers and they don’t run themselves.

Wikipedia running out of money

Wikipedia it seems is running out of money according to 901 blog. The reporter says:-
Florence Devouard, Chairwoman of the Wikimedia foundation has told an audience at the Lift07 conference that Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for another 3-4 months, and that without further funding Wikipedia “might disappear”.
Hopefully they'll sort the situation out, it would be a shame to lose it.

Something new, an exciting social cataloguing site

Richard Wallis on Panlibus has pointed me in the direction of a new and innovative social cataloguing site (now I didn't think I would say that recently). The site is called Revish, and not released yet but it sounds promising, as Richard writes:-
Unlike the short snappy often light-weight reviews you find on sites like Amazon, LibraryThing, etc., Ravish intends to create a community of in-depth reviewers.
I've signed up for it and will discuss it in more depth, but for now here the companies blog.

Petition to stop British library cuts

Following on from my earlier entry about the 7% cuts at the British library,I just read about this petition to stop it going through. Please do sign it.

Review of Blogging and Rss: A Librarians Guide

Having had a 9 hour journey in all to read this, i've finally got an opportunity to review it as promised. I think the book is well researched and full of tips. But why? Well the author looks at How to use an RSS feeder like bloglines, how to write source code and how it works in the RSS feeders. Podcasts are also discussed, and how the source code works. The coverage on bloglines is really fantastic and I learnt so many things, even though I've been using it for over 8 months. That alone make's it worth a read.
There is also a large amount of screen grabs so one can visualise what Michael is discussing. These are not intrusive either.
Michael also interviews the following library blogs as well:-
Travels with the state librarian, librarystuff
, library web chic, Walt at Random, Lorcan Dempsey
, Librarian in Black, The shifted librarian, Library Techtonics, Walking Paper, Tame the Web, Jessamyn West. They give some great advice for why you should (and shouldn't) blog, and also what they have gained from the experience.
The opening chapters also deal with how to start a cheap and inexpensive blog and the different one's you could use. He predominantly discusses blogger
, but does discuss other blog software.
Michael concludes with some links that are worth having on an RSS feeder and a quote from the cluetrain manifesto and how to get blogging.
So are there any pitfalls? Well, at first the now defunct pubsub was discussed. Thankfully, at the end he left a post note saying he'd noted its demise. Finally, Michael did forget that one should always self subscribe your own blog to see if any one's reading it ;)
Overall, this book is for any librarian interested in learning about blogs, library 2.0 or want something technical to read. So really, all librarians should read it....10 out of 10

Bookmooch enters second life

John Buckman, he of bookmooch has started a place for bookmoochers to congregate in second life. Cool, now i'll really have to get into second life

Social networking? Or will my users be bothered?

After watching the rise of digg and technorati and all the site's that require feedback, it seems sad when some people try this and its not as successful as it wished. For example, over on Ubiquitous Librarian blog, he was discussing how he set up an internal wiki, which just has not taken off. The problem is not usually the technology or the training that scare's people, its they don't always see its relevance or even worst, there suffering burnout from having too many social cataloguing sites...... I'm really a fan boy of the social networks sites, but people are really finding it hard to keep up with this stuff.......oh, well another rant from me, but I do hope that Brian does get the wiki up and running, sounds a great project.

Social cataloguing site.....ANOTHER ONE?

Steven Cohen's wonderful site has pointed me towards another social cataloguing site called good reads. I know I have written about it before, but do we really need another one? I know competition is good, but please do something original rather than copying librarything, shelfari, gurulib, connectedvia ad infinitum.

33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians are Still Extremely Important article

A friend sent me a link called 33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians are Still Extremely Important. Obviously, i'm preaching to the converted (well I HOPE I am), but its great to see people try to remind some people that not everything is on the web.

Blogging and Rss: A Librarians Guide......its worth it

Just started reading Blogging and Rss: A Librarians Guide long last. Its totally brilliant so far. Michael Sauers book discusses some great idea with other bloggers, and has virtually done my research for my dissertation for me. Thankfully I have a long journey tomorrow, so will finish it and review it like some others already have.

Hands up those who want to work? except sunday and late?

I love it. Seems Wigan librarians are considering striking because of sunday opening and longer hours. I'm sorry, but aren't we struggling to gain people's attention to get them to come. Surely, with people working more hours we need to make ourselves more available to Joe Public not less? I'm with Tim Coates when it come's to reducing opening when he says:-
Because we know that the three most important aspects of the library are its stock, its building and its opening hours. If someone is to be responsible for improving the quality of the service to the local people they must be able to influence these three things, and over all three they need to have day to day tight control .

Blogger......I never knew that.....

I just realised that the beta version of blogger allowed to tag (sorry Google, I mean LABEL). I really should take more notice.......

British library continued

Following on from my previous post, its good to see that people are kicking up a fuss over the paying for use of the reading rooms. Now, if only we could get more people interested in the closers of our other libraries around the country, we might have a heritage worth saving.