Tennant: Digital Libraries

November 3, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

I've long been a fan of the writing of Meredith Farkas, as is true of many of my colleagues. She is perceptive, nuanced,  and an excellent writer, which presents a triple threat against ignorance and obfuscation. Her latest post, "Shades of Gray", is no exception. I suppose this makes Meredith the anti-Annoyed-Librarian, to whom I will not link despite the fact that we share the same platform.

Meredith uses her usual level-headedness to view some of the recent controversies of libraryland, where some have attempted to paint some controversial issues as either black or white. They are neither. Go read it, I'll wait.

Let's be clear -- Libraries are in some very trying times. We are being assailed from...Read More
Industries: News & Features

October 30, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

Not long ago I wrote about information on the Internet that should go away. Sure, there's the photo of you at that party that you sincerely wish would disappear, but I'm also talking about just plain outdated information, such as how to fix a software problem for a version of an application or operating system that is no longer used by anyone on this planet.

So imagine my surprise when someone whose opinions actually matter happened to agree with me. He was interviewed on NPR's hit show "Talk of the Nation," no less. It turns out that this Viktor Mayer-Schonberger has even written a book on the topic: Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in t...Read More
Industries: News & Features

October 28, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

After several months of hard work and preparation, the Library 101 video and web site debuted today to a roomful of rapt and engaged librarians at the Internet Librarian Conference. Spawned by the creative forces of Michael Porter and David Lee King of "Hi-Fi Sci-Fi Library" fame, this project combines a variety of techniques and technologies to get across the important message that libraries must both change a great deal and also get back to our root...Read More
Industries: News & Features

October 27, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In a post last week, I introduced the eScholarship redesign and refocus of mission on the publishing needs of faculty, with repository capture being a side benefit. With this second part, I seek to lift the hood of the technical infrastructure, which I'm doing with the help of Lisa Schiff of the technical team that worked for two years on this major refactoring of eScholarship. As Lisa said in part in an email to the Code4Lib and XML4Lib mailing lists:

Some h

...Read More
Industries: News & Features

October 21, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (2)

This week, in honor of Open Access Week, the California Digital Library    released a complete redesign of the eScholarship Repository. But what at first glance appears to be a gloss on one of the earliest and most successful institutional repositories is, in fact, much more. It is a major refocus of mission and goals toward the publishing needs of faculty, with the requisite changes in both messaging and tools to support them.

"There were three things we wanted to accomplish with this redesign," said Catherine Mitchell, CDL Publishing Group Director, in a phone interview, "1) ...Read More
Industries: News & Features