Monday, June 12, 2006

My summer reading includes Jules Verne's Lost Novel: Paris in the 20th century, Fernando Elichirigoity's Planet Management and Andrew Dillon's Designing Usable Electronic Text. Yes, none of these books are hot off the presses but that only makes them all the more interesting to moi! comment []9:24:58 PM

Sunday, June 04, 2006

The Good Earth is the sort of story I like and if it can happen in the world of wine (grapes have been controversial for a long time now) its pretty optimistic. The article is old (2003) and its about sustainability, organic farming, and the zero waste of Paul Dolan's vision of an organic wine business (he's right - organic wine is a very different taste - epiphany). Naive, idealistic social values about the environment and people can still be financially successful.  BTW, if you've never had a glass of organic wine, try Fetzer's Five Hills Blue (for under $6 a bottle I like it a lot!). It's a treat and if Northern California is in your summer, you could also check out the Fetzer Organic Garden Tour. comment []2:46:40 PM     June marks the 4 year anniversary of this blog. A good time to reflect on the original objectives and accomplishments, if any :). For the curious here's a few random months to browse through - June 2003; January 2004; May 2005; January 2006 (big-time aggregation not really blogging this month!) comment []1:29:21 PM

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The Eprint Versions project is investigating ways to build trust in open access repository content by exploring the lifecycle of the academic research paper. comment []9:31:12 PM

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Defining the Neural Basis of Dread (subscription needed to read the full-text) in yesterday's Science magazine provides a fascinating look into the human brain. The MSNBC website provides a more accessible and simpler description: What's worse? Anticipating pain or the ouch? Brain scans find some people are wired to 'just get it over with.' The new field is called Neuroeconomics! comment []12:41:25 PM

Saturday, April 22, 2006

dLIST patches to Eprints and PKP software are now easily available for your download and use. Thanks to Joseph Roback, dLIST Research Assistant and a graduate student in the Dept. of Computer Science, University of Arizona. The user functionalities include: EPrints -> Displaying "Latest Additions" from Apache SSI (Server Side Include) EPrints -> Displaying "News" from Apache SSI (Server Side Include) EPrints Statistics -> Various Bug Fixes, MySQL improvements PKP -> OAI Flow Control Harvesting PKP -> OAI ListSet Harvesting PKP -> Improved Advanced Search, Optimized for MySQL4+ The patches and documentation can be downloaded from the dLIST Technical Notes & Downloads page. Please let me know if you find them useful and we'll include you on a new 'dLIST brag' page. Thanks. comment []7:10:11 AM

Monday, March 20, 2006

Thanks to Carla Stoffle for information about a study  which examined newly proposed ALA core competencies and the  online descriptions of LIS accredited programs. The report and accompanying data are now available from the ALA Accreditation website. Title: Comparison of ALA Draft Competencies and Core Curricula of ALA Accredited Programs - http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditationb/Core_Competencies_Comparison.pdf Appendix 1: ALA Draft Competencies - http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditationb/Draft_Core_Competencies_07_05.pdf Appendix 2: Data Matrix - http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditationb/Data_Matrix_Comparison.doc It's an interesting report as the opening para declares: "This research shows that ALA-accredited programs have curricula in line with the latest draft proposed core competencies.1 (Appendix A at http://www.ala.org/ala/accreditationb/Draft_Core_Competencies_07_05.pdf )  Of the 56 institutions hosting ALA-accredited programs, 53 (94.6%) have courses to address all eight (8) core competencies. Were the draft proposed core competencies to be adopted by ALA, under the flexible language of the Standards, programs would be able to continue to deliver courses consistent with the core competencies in the same manner as they currently do." comment []12:02:56 PM

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Are librarians into authority? What is authoritative information anyway? Are authority and accuracy synonymous? For example, just how authoritative is the wikipedia's entry on Bharatanatyam? The wikipedia is created in what can be called a commons-based peer production of knowledge model.  Many people write the entries and often we can't and don't know who wrote them.  For readers (and librarians), this makes it hard to decide whether to trust in the information, especially if one does not know the topic - if one is learning it. Checking references, finding other and multiple sources for the same information should help. But still, we're left with lots of questions about exactly how authority and accuracy correlate. comment []7:44:05 AM

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