The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google. Academic Libraries Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google A new article by Steven Bell. He writes, "For some time now, the largest producers of databases have focused more on competing with each other for library business than on designing interfaces that students can navigate on their own. And because the producers seem to think that a librarian cares most about the number of full-text journals a database contains, their databases are now so loaded down with journals of questionable value that searches often yield results that are not much better than Google's -- but almost equally addictive to students, who get lots of full-text articles fast without having to do much thinking. In their current state, the aggregators are part of the infobesity problem, not part of its solution." Kudos to S.B. for an excellent article. One potential solution (at least for the time being) might be the federated database/common user interface concept. This could help solve several research issues common in academic and other types of libraries. This technology can also allow the individual library or research organization to build an interface for the particular wants and needs of their users. Finally, when a faculty member is nice enough to invite a librarian into their class, the librarian can talk about a single interface instead of many disparate sources and tools. [ResourceShelf] This is an important article, and one that librarians who serve high school students should read and consider as well, since our students have the same problem and have even fewer discriminiation skills. 1:53:59 PM     [comment []];[]

Invisible Web and Information Literacy. Yazdan Mansourian, who produces the Invisible web weblog writes for us: "Mary Hricko from Kent State University has published an article entitled [base "]Using the Invisible Web to Teach Information Literacy [base "](Ref 1). This is an interesting article because it has... [Information Literacy Weblog] 1:40:51 PM     [comment []];[]

UK Author Gets Wider Exposure TIME Article About Malorie Blackman. Malorie Blackman's Knife Edge is featured in a 2 x half-page spread in the current edition (Feb 23) of TIME Magazine. The article is headlined "Sharper Image - with Knife Edge, writer Malorie Blackman tests the outer limits of kid lit"... [ACHOCKABLOG] Of course as far as I can tell, the article is only in the international edition of Time... 1:19:54 PM     [comment []];[]