Tom Roper's Weblog

Love Libraries

The sick-makingly-named Love Libraries campaign hit the papers today with endorsements from 150 writers, in the broadest sense of the word. The press seized on J K Rowling's statement, there are some I've never heard of, though that may be my ignorance and one wonders about the inclusion of some of the others: Jeffery Archer, for example? If we're concerned with branding I'm not sure Thatcherite ex-cons are quite the people we should be associating with. I wonder if they could not have given the list a bit more intellectual weight. But this is perhaps carping....if it makes the government rethink, it must be a good thing.

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Once more on Google Tips of the Trade

Pam Saenger of Google has e-mailed (see her comment on the original post). Non-US participants are welcome (though Google say they can't film you). Go to http://www.google.com/support/librariancenter/bin/request.py to submit.
Google seem to have quite a big UK presence now, though: http://www.google.co.uk/jobs/index.html (interest declared, I looked at this to see if they might give me a job :-))...it might not be beyond the wit of man for someone from London, Oxford or Manchester to wield a camcorder, or to accept video submissions

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Mediated searches: a paper by Reinhard Wentz

On the LondonLinks site as a pdf: the role of Mediated Searches in Health Care Librarianship: Current practice, evidence for effectiveness, and their future role – a literature review.

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Google Tips of the Trade

I have not joined the anti-Google faction whose scratching can sometimes be heard in the wainscoting of modern librarianship, but I do wonder what the search engine thought it was about with the latest offering in the Google Librarians Centre, Tips of the Trade.
The idea of a competition for innovative uses of the search engine is interesting, though I declare straight away that I would stand no chance. The first thing I ever did with Google, so long ago and scarcely innovative, was to look for myself, and then I searched for assorted exes (the former search found a square dance caller, a maths professor and a schooner, I shall say nothing about the results of the second search, except that there was no intersection between the two).
Why then is the competetion restricted to US librarians? One can see the proximate reason, that they wish to make a video for the ALA conference in New Orleans. But with a little imagination, something like this, a way in which clever librarians could offer for the education of others innovative things they have done with Google, could surely be international in scope?

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Information World Review take to blogging

And they do so here. It looks very good and has been going since 3 April. I'm not sure what its relationship with Latest Updates from IWR is, though. The latter still seems live and is the only feed offered on http://www.iwr.co.uk/about/rss

BBC programme database: experimental prototype

This is a remarkable find: http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax
It's published with a heap of disclaimers, most importantly perhaps that it is only an index, and has no links to the programmes themselves, but half an hour's play with it gave me an inkling of how useful it could be. It has lots of intriguing features, such as links out to Wikipedia, tag clouds, an "appears-with" feature (I was mostly searching for people), FOAF and Atom feeds.

British Library content strategy consultation

The British Library has published its draft content strategy for consultation, closing on 21 July. This is the first stage, comprising general principles and more detailed statements for the arts and humanities and social sciences. Science, technology and medicine are to follow at a later, unspecified date and are only covered in a preliminary way.
There are fourteen points on which they invite comment (some of these don't make much sense unless you read them with the whole document):

Q1 Please comment on the Library’s approach to developing a ‘content strategy’ as defined in 3.2.1 - 3.2.2.
Q2 Please comment on any of the implications of the British Library shifting its focus to a content strategy, as described in 3.3.1 - 3.3.3.
Q3 Please comment on the British Library’s approach to managing the print-digital transition, as described in 3.4.1 – 3.4.3.
Q4 Do you agree with the Library’s assessment of the key drivers and practical considerations that should influence its content strategy (4.1.1 – 4.1.2)?
Q5 Please comment on the British Library’s overall proposal for what it should and should not change within its content strategy (5.1.1 – 5.1.2).
Q6 Within the context of finite Library resources, do you wish to make any suggestions about where the Library should decrease or increase its collecting? Please provide a rationale for any suggestions you wish to make.
Q7 Please comment on any of the draft format strategies in Appendix 2. (Please state clearly the name and number of the table you are referring to.)
Q8 Please comment on the British Library’s proposed high-level content strategy for the arts and humanities (5.2.1 – 5.2.5).
Q9 Please comment on any of the draft content strategies for arts and humanities disciplines in Appendix 1. (Please state clearly the name and number of the table you are referring to.)
Q10 Please comment on the British Library’s proposed high-level content strategy for the social sciences (5.3.1 – 5.3.5).
Q11 Please comment on any of the draft content strategies for social science disciplines in Appendix 1. (Please state clearly the name and number of the table you are referring to.)
Q12 Please comment on the Library’s preliminary thinking about its high-level content strategy for science, technology and medicine, as outlined in 5.4.5.
Q13 What factors do you believe the Library should consider as it continues to develop a partnership strategy that meets the needs of UK researchers (6.1.1 – 6.1.4)?
Q14 Please comment on the Library’s proposed approach for developing a deeper ongoing dialogue about its content strategy with researchers (6.2.1 – 6.2.3). Are there other mechanisms we should consider?

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Google search tips

The Google newsletter for librarians announces a downloadable pdf poster of Google search tips

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Once more on public libraries and books

How's this? I was holding forth about public libraries and books: here's an example of how good public libraries can be. On Saturday I went into my public library branch, Seaford library. I wanted to reserve a new title, Julia Kristeva's, Murder in Byzantium. I'm not generally a fan of detective novels, but if written by post-structuralist philosophers and psychoanalysts, then I make an exception. (By the way, Professor Kristeva has a blog at http://kristeva.blogs.com/).
It was not on the catalogue, but a helpful member of staff looked it up and said they would contact t the stock section to ask if it could be ordered. On Monday I had a phone call from the same member of staff: yes, they were ordering it, and I would be first on the list. No need to fill in a reservation card, asking readers to catalogue the book they want, as someone once described it, and they'll let me know when it comes in.
Only one thing could improve this excellent level of service, and that would be to offer it through the library web site, so that readers can request items not already in stock remotely.

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HigherEd BlogCon

HigherEd BlogCon has already started but next week (10 April onwards) is deveoted to Library & Information Resources.
It will include Paul Miller on Upon the Shoulders of Giants – Building Library 2.0 Together, From the Platform Up.