Friday, June 13, 2008

Google groups is great for communication and sharing ideas.....over long distance as well as within the same building. It's an alternative to wikis, and could be used instead of emailing documents around. Is the esternal hosting attractive? However how many tools do we need to do the same thing?
Where is a magic comparison for selecting "the" tool that best suits your purpose?
Ok looked at Google groups which was thing 42
Looked at a library social networking group soc.libraries.talk (operating since 1992!!)
Checked out the usage stats..they grew during the 90'2, peaked in the late 90's, now seem to be tailing off a bit. However there are still peaks eg. Feb and Mar 07 with 94 and 100 posts respectively.
used this group to search for "cats" and found a library cat site. Oldish post, clicked through, but a dead link. google searching did the trick....and at the M.D. Anderson Library at the University of Houston they have these cuties http://www.ironfrog.com/librarycatsmap/txh-four.html

Friday, June 6, 2008

Reading the IFLA Statement of International Cataloging Principles

(an adaptation of the Paris Principles of 1961, updating them to move into the digital age.).I was delighted to see that the first and foremost principle is still "to serve the convenience of the users of the catalogue".

The fifth principle is 'sufficiency and necessity'. "Only those elements in description and controlled forms of names for access that are required to fulfill user tasks and are essential to uniquely identify an entity should be included."

So why do we insert a name tile series entry on works where a clear series entry is easily visible on the work in hand? This results in a cluttered and confusing OPAC display, with duplicate entries for each title listed for your favourite author.
Annoying for the catalogue user to sift through double the entries, and what a waste of staff time editing bib records to include the wretched things.

IFLA invite comments
And here's another one (much more interesting than the previous one)
Now to embed something from Slideshare!!

This is not very exciting but since i've just got a new Hyundai i30 (comes complete with the Hyundai theme song on a thumb drive to slot into one of the three USB ports in the car......there you go.

Friday, April 18, 2008




and we're on a roll here

A couple more images to embed, from Image generatot