You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2006.
As a back-up for our maps and data areas, I thought I would post this:
As of January 2007, Natural Resources Canada will discontinue the printing of paper topographic maps and will close the Canada Map Office. Our government wants to get out of the business of producing maps.
As of January 2007, Natural Resources Canada will discontinue the printing of paper topographic maps and will close the Canada Map Office. Our government wants to get out of the business of producing maps.
Many Canadians place a priority on the paper map service the Government currently provides. Natural Resources Canada’s digital mapping policy will effectively cut off access to the majority of Canadians. However, our politicians see this issue as a minor one. ACMLA, which represents both the public and research communities, would like to convince them otherwise. This policy will have an enormous impact on the Canadian
public and our map users. The Minister of Natural Resources has a responsibility to listen to our point of view. This is not a minor policy amendment but a major change that has implications not just for map librarians but for the ordinary Canadian who is looking for a map for their cottage or who wants to go snowmobiling or hiking. Canada can be a vast and unforgiving country without a map in hand.
How you can help:
This is a political issue and we must get the message out to as many Canadians and organizations as soon as possible. An independent website has been set up to lobby and inform Canadians. ACMLA asks its members to support this initiative by sending emails to inform associations, university departments, schools, individuals, etc. of the Government of
Canada’s decision to abandon printing paper topographic maps. Let your M.P. and your Minister of Natural Resources know what their constituents think of this decision.
Support Access to Maps for Canadians mapsforcanadians.ca
I’ve added a new page on the Second Life Library on Information Island, in Second Life of course. Check out the links and feel free to get involved in the project!
There’s a radio commercial that I heard this morning for the yellow pages (I think, I’m still waiting to hear the commercial again to confirm this). They are advertising themselves as the Find Engine. This got me thinking about our library catalogues again. The debate has been raging about how our OPACs suck and there is a lot of merit in the arguements for this. The biggest question is whether our students can Find It; are we a Find Engine, should we be? The number of students who come to the research help desk looking for materials in our catalogue, I’d say we are not a great find engine. I’m not going to wade too deeply in the catalogue debate but perhaps we need to think of ourselves as Find engines.
Our library is presently undergoing transformation, a very exciting time as we start surveying all of the exciting opportunities we could be a part of. Part of a discussion at a meeting today turned towards blended librarianship. By considering learning theory, how students and faculty learn, rather than straight librarianship we may be able to move towards a catalogue that acts more as a Find engine. By considering how people learn, how they search, we can design more intuitive catalogues and help simplify the process. I’m interested on how this way of thinking would affect all aspects of the library, especially for instruction. A thought I think I will mull on for a while.
Just thought I would pass along word of two specialized agency databases that are providing developing countries with much needed scientific literature. One database, the Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture, is from FAO, while WHO offers the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative program. Find more information at the UN Pulse blog. Open access is essential to developing countries and it’s good to see this being recognized.
I’m very interested in technology but I must admit I’m a tech geek wannabe. I’m great at reading about new technology and software and maybe even playing at a very basic level. I don’t have the full grasp though, something I hope to gain in the future. Nonetheless, here are a couple of tech announcements lately that could eventually have an impact on libraries. Computers may get even faster in the near future thanks to a sticky silicon. A projector the size of a sugar cube has been created for use with mobile phones, PDAs, laptops, etc. Stephen Abram raises some considerations for libraries.
Here’s a piece lamenting the fact that fewer people seem to be able to read, comprehend and retain larger works of writing. Are future generations of readers doomed? I certainly hope not, although I must admit, I do find myself reading too many small chunks thanks to emails and rss feeds. I finally sat down with a peice of fiction the other day and it felt good to read more than a page. In an effort to stave off the dark days ahead, I vow to read more than my emails and rss feeds. Gee darn…
The new update of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is out and has added more terms to its prestigious pages. Some of the words included:
- Bada-bing
- Disneyfication
- wi-fi
- wonky
Maybe it’s just me, but I think some of these words belong in a slang dictionary rather than the OED, or maybe I just don’t hang around the right people (ie. those who use the words all the time).
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (may require subscription), Facebook is planning on opening membership beyond university communities, much to the chagrin of the students. The academic library community has been debating whether we should have a presence in this area and it will be interesting to see if the decision to open membership changes opinions.
I’ve been interested in the place of the library in Facebook and have gone as far as setting up an account but not much more than that. All of this is particularly interesting as I’ve recently discovered a similar student site just for students at my institution, complete with chat and forums for discussions. While browsing the site as far as I could as a guest, I noticed a thread involving the library. I contacted the administrators to see if I could participate and, surprisingly to me, they said yes. I’ve had a lovely response to my presence, which is more than I was hoping for. I intend to check in occasionally to see if there are any library or research questions I can help with. Hopefully it will remain so positive.
Here’s a piece from the BBC which talks about a school plan in which students are fingerprinted before they can borrow a library book. At the moment, there is an opt-out option but it will be interesting to see how long that lasts and how long it will be before others follow suite. I realize books are precious but this is not the way to enforce it. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I also can’t see it making reading appealing to children. There are other programs for which fingerprinting is useful (child identification and such) but I don’t feel it’s necessary in the library.
It is September 11, the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York. I’ll never forget when I heard about what was happening. I was in cataloguing class and during the break, someone turned on the tv. Unfortunately, once the break was over my professor came in and said “Sorry folks, but we’ve got cataloguing to do” and turned off the news coverage. It seemed a little heartless at the time. Nonetheless, my thoughts are with those who lost loved ones on this day. May it never happen again.
As you may have noticed, I’ve updated my look. That’s a path down to one of the beautiful beaches from my home province of Nova Scotia. Simply gorgeous!
Congrats to everyone involved in the Second Life Libraryon Info Island in Second Life! They’ve won second prize in the Talis Mashing Up The Library Contest! Read all about it from the Second Life Library Blog.
As I try to catch up on the backlog of rss feeds in my Bloglines account, I came across this and thought I would share (for all those gov pubs enthusiasts - and I know you think it’s your dirty little secret but it’s time to be proud of your love for gov pubs). FirstGov now has a list of many of the US government RSS feeds. A nice neat place to sign up for feeds. I’ll pass on any other neat things that I may have missed over the summer.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the National Archives of the United States new declassification system. After the scandal earlier this year in which NARA removed documents secretly, the archivst is working hard to keep the system more open. It seems fewer documents have also been removed. Let’s see how long this keeps up. Read more about it from the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required).
As I do collections in gov pubs, am I very interested in figuring out what to do with e-gov pubs, especailly when it comes to access and preservation. Two reports have been released from the University of Albany’s Center for Technology in Government. Guess what I’ll be reading over the next while. I’ll pass on any good hints and tips. I’m still intrigued by the use of Internet Archive for documents and will continue to mull over this.
Google is now offering a new service: news archives. You can now get newspaper archives, some going back to the 1700s, although not all will be free. You will have the ability to target dates or browse. Take a look at this CNN report on Google’s project for more info.
Update: Also, in case you haven’t heard the news (and you likely have), Google is also providing access to public domain books, making them nice and ready for printing. Check it out here.
