Techdirt articles....again

Over on Techdirt they point out that Blockbuster and Netflix have sorted out their patient dispute. The dispute being that Blockbuster was copying netflixs business model. I do find it frustrating that business models are being patented. Jefferson would turn in his grave if he knew this.

Quick shout out to Pete

For those who don't know, England has been suffering flash floods in the north of England. A blogger who live's in that area is Pete Smith, but fortunately in his seems fine in a recent post. Hope the sun come's out for you and family soon Pete.

Siva article

Guess who is catching up on his bloglines? Well over on Siva's site, he has an interesting article called Google still offers really bad search results; Librarians still essential. This indicates the need for librarians rather than just the google search. Not that we did not know that already.

Techdirt articles

Techdirt have a story today called College Libraries: Forget The Books, Host LAN Parties. This loos at how o get more users through the door. Although I do feel Jenny Levine has been doing this for ages!!!!!!!

Questionaire for Librarians with blogs in Libraries

As i've said many times before, I am presently doing a dissertation on blogging in libraries. I have therefore set up a questionaire online, as I was unsure how to set it up on my Ning account. Therefore, if you have a blog at your library, please answer the questions below as it would be really appreciated.


Click here to take our Online Survey

More facebook......

Bought via Tom Coates, an interesting articles about facebook in CNN. Although others have written about the rise of facebook in more detail, its worth looking at. Seems that facebooks newsfeeds appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of a member's friends..
Seems facebook is taking over by the look of CNN article.

Tim Coates......talking with Talis

Its been interesting to see Talis has been talking about the problems in public libraries and especially talking about Tim Coates blog and how he see's how things are not working in public libraries. I'm not always in agreement with Tim, but I do think he does sometime have a point. Therefore its good to see that Talis interviewed Tim. Its good to see a conversation like this.

Celebrate......all marks passed

I finally got my marks and seems I passed everything. Just a 15000 words dissertation to do.......

New York Times article

There's a great in the New York Times called Can Blogs Become a Big Source of Jobs?. It looks at how blogging can aid with people with one's career. Worth a read.

I don't stand a chance.......

Seeing I finish my masters in September 2007, and I have to look for a 'proper' job, puts a lot of fear in me. Having already struggled with the idea that i'd be up against Walt Crawford for a job, but now the free range librarian is also looking for a job. Well, mcdonalds awaits me......

New alternative search engine site

Read/write web has extended its network, after recently adding the excellent last 100 (a site dealing with the digital lifestyle). The new one is called Alt search engines. For us information a possibly new blog to look at rather than Google?

Netflix, are they joining Amazon?

Netflix, the DVD rental company has been making ruption in its share prices (so say Businessweek). Businessweek believe that Amazon could soon make an approach. With Amazon already acquiring Shelfari, Amazon seem to be cranking the investment up to increase there search facilities (and like businessweek, Amazon's unbox has hardly been a great success). The acquisition seems a pretty good one, as with there database on sales would greatly add to more longtail sales.

Twitter article

There is a nice article over on Bussinessweek called The Twitterization of Blogs. Although i'm not a fan of twitter (unlike other bloggers). As i'm covering my dissertation on blogging its another piece of research to add to my delicous account I suppose.

Naked Conversation.....oh, we're CILIP lets make it no conversation

Although Cilip has enough of its detractors, who are more articulate in there arguments, I thought they were doing something really useful in providing a daily round-up newsletter for information workers. UNTIL TODAY.
Then, you get an email, informing you there replacing it with a weekly one. How good of them to show how poorly there acting. This falls down in so many ways, and perhaps underlines CILIP lack of judgement. This is how I see it falls down.
1. The newsletter we recieved today informed us there would no longer be a daily mail-out. But no explanaition was given. If you opened a library on sundays for 6 months and then just stopped it without no explanation, would the user be happy. NO. CILIP are the professional body that are supposed to lead in these area's and not show us how to do a bad job about it.
2.The newsletter today says:-

Although the current daily bulletin has now ceased, we will be looking at alternative ways of keeping you up to date. Our enhanced weekly bulletin will be appearing on Thursday.

Again, this is covered in bad PR (a reflection of CILIP and some libraries), when they are making all the decisions. In an enviroment of library 2.0 we are all investors in the service we work for. The new network economy can enhance user experience, but CILIP seems to reject this idea. Why didn't CILIP have an email address so we could have some idea's for what they should do with a new service. Oh no. We just pay for the priviledge of being members to CILIP, and our opinion is irrelevant.
3. A weekly bulletin board is impreactical. A weekly update means dated news. More news to read in my inbox. A daily one is short and fresh.
Their are plenty more criticisms I could add, but the idea of CILIP ever taking note is a forlorn hope I think. I do feel that consultation would have been a good idea here.

Copyright Documentary release

From a blog I usually read, I was pointed to a film thats been released on copyright called Good Copy Bad Copy. Its released on a creative commons license, and speaks with some real experts in the area like Lawrence Lessig, John Buckman of bookmooch and magnatunes, the bit torrent site Pirate Bay crowd amongst other. Its free to download here unless you want to make a pay pal donation.

Article on university library

There's a nice article called SOU's Hannon Library gains Web networking savvy
in which the library's information literacy coordinator (Dale Vidmar) has set up social networking sites (bebo, facebook, myspace) saying "I think people appreciate that the library is not this formal imposing place," said Vidmar. "It has personality." Thank god that will never happen in the uk ;)

blogger and podcasting

The June edition of the online magazine Blogger & Podcasting has just arrived in my inbox. Looks really good and something i'll need to read. but then I always say that about Walt Crawfords Cites & Insights.

What I should have done before.........

Having reached a year of blogging and not done much lately, there is one blog which I felt I should write. Thats to say thanks to the following people who left comments on my blog. I am doing this as I read John Schwartz's blog in which he said:-
How does a print media company grapple with the threat of on-line media? If they're not acquiring new media properties, they're attempting to add community engagement to the on-line analogs of their printed publications (eg, opening comments on ariticles or newsfeeds). This isn't always smooth, but rather than fight the trend, most recognize that readers find community content as or more interesting than corporate content (I, for one, find the comments on my blog far more interesting than my blog).
Thjerefore I would like to say thanks to the following people:-

• Stephen O'hear
• Helen Blowers
• Tim Hickey (who no longer blogs)
• Siva Vaidhyanthan
• Paul Miller
• Rick Roche
• Johnathan Kelley
• Don Wood
• Brian Mathews
• Tim Spalding
• Rana Basheer
• Rachel J. K. Grace
• aaron
• Dr.Fiction
• Michael Sauer's
• Dan Champion
• Roger Hiles
• Bill Drew
• Michael C. Habib
• Pete Smith

Thanks for your adding some feedback on my blog.
Also, I will also discuss in a future blog what I've learn't from blogging. Sorry for the infrequent blogs too, but the dissertation seems to take up a lot of my time.

Sorry, I forgot to add Jessamyn West.