Problems with the OPAC? Part Deux

I'm still working with Bob Trotter on our various and sundry OPAC problems, and he's asked me to give him the full URLs of the oddities.

So, from here on out, report any OPAC weirdness to me as follows.

1.) Copy and paste the URL of the problem page into the body of a plain text email.

2.) Include as full a description of the problem as possible [what problem is occurring (we have three right now), time, date, what kind of search you were doing, did you go in through the Quick Search originally, what you clicked on right before the bug occurred, etc.] There is no such thing as too much detail here. Give me everything you can think of.

3.) Email this to me at tminchew@gpc.edu.

You no longer have to send me printouts, just follow the above instructions.

To recap, these are the three different instances of "weird" OPAC behavior we are working on now:

1.) Sometimes the Item Status in a record display will read "No Information Available" even though there are clearly item records attached, as the number of items will be set. Then the Item Status will revert "Not Checked Out". I'm not clear on whether or not this happens automatically, or if the user has to hit Refresh. On the one instance report I have of it, the item status read one way on one computer, and a different way on the other during the same one minute period.

2.) When leaving search results idle for a little while, then coming back and clicking on the Quick Search link at the bottom of the screen, people are being thrown into a plain white screen containing only the text "lost+found".

3.) After taking some action in the OPAC, people are thrown into a screen entitled "Builder Search". The style sheet changes from our usual blues to reds, and the search itself doesn't always work. The majority of the time folks seem to have been doing an exact search, then left the connection idle for a while, then clicked on New Search, and were thrown into the red screen. However, this is not always the case.

Thanks everyone! Keep these reports coming. Hopefully Bob will be able to figure something out. And please let me know if you have any questions or encounter any new problems.

Pharos

In a recent gen-mail from Keith Chapman, he stated that students can access their printing account either by swiping their card or by entering their official GPC login and password at the print release station. When I asked Barry Bailey about this in December, however, he said students can only access their account by swiping their access card. I checked with Keith about his e-mail and he said his understanding was that, "Dexter's group with OIT is installing a password authentication program on all print release stations." Keith said he thought maybe Dexter hasn't gotten to Dunwoody with it yet. I haven't heard any more updates since then. So, does anyone know about this? Do other campuses have this password authentication program? We need to clarify this because we have had students ask about this (yes, apparently someone actually read the gen-mail).

Problems with the OPAC?

I've gotten a couple of reports about problems with the OPAC since the upgrade. The scenario is always the same, after taking some action in the catalog, people are thrown into a screen entitled "Builder Search". The style sheet changes from our usual blues to reds, and the search itself doesn't actually work. The only option to get the OPAC working again is to completely exit and start over.

I've had this happen to me a couple of times over the years, but not often enough to worry about. After the upgrade, I've had it reported by two librarians on two different campuses, and each says that it's happening several times a week or more. Bob Trotter and I can't seem to replicate it, so there isn't much that we can do right now, and I was just wondering if this is happening to anyone else. If so, please drop me a line and give me as many details as you can (time, date, what you were trying to do in the catalog when it happened, etc.). Thanks!

Sign Up System PPT

At some point in the future, OIT is going to implement the Sign Up PC reservation system on all of the library public access PCs. This is the same reservation ystem used in the student computer labs. Take a look at this PowerPoint from Dexter in OIT to learn more about the system.

Sign Up Presentation (PPT)

The Directors named the following folks to a subcommittee of the Reference Committee to look into common issues such as session length that will need to be decided before the system goes live.

Kip Cates (Rockdale/ Newton)
Carmel Chaille (Dunwoody, Chair)
David Free (Decatur)
Ann Mallard (Clarkston)

We'll briefly discuss Sign Up at the holiday party on Tuesday. And you can contact your campus rep with any questions.

Food (for thought)

Hey everybody,
I know you're thinking, "Pete, it's the holidays; the last thing we want is more food!" Well, the good news is that this food really doesn't have any calories (whether someone sees you ingest it or not).
Actually, I am wondering about how other folks deal with strange/difficult assignments, and I would like to hear some ideas about how others would approach one particular reference question. The question comes to us like this, "So... what does the American Government stand for?" Students have shown us the assignment sheet, and that is exactly how the instructor wrote it. The handout also includes some other suggestions such as talking to friends, family, and veterans of the armed forces to see how they would answer the question. The students are required to cite at least four academic/scholarly sources, but it is not clear what exactly constitutes an academic source. This is for a Political Science class.
How would you approach this question?
Also, how do you generally handle questions that cause confusion or difficulty at the Reference Desk? Do you contact the instructor to discuss difficult assignments? If so, what kind of reaction do you get? Do you share ideas for handling specific problematic questions with others on your Reference staff? What other approaches have you used?
~Pete

Voyager Upgrade Looming

[I sent a message about this to everyone's director, to forward along, but I thought that I'd post it here too, just in case anyone missed it.]

The slot GPC has been allotted for the Voyager upgrade is Wednesday, December 20th, beginning that evening and hopefully ending by the following morning or afternoon.

I'm exploring the possibility of a remote upgrade with OIT, which is very gracious of them. However, if we can't get that working, I'll be manually upgrading every PC running Voyager, just like John did last year, starting December 21st. I will make it my only priority, but even devoting all of my time to it, it may take a while for me to get to every campus, so your patience will be greatly appreciated.

Circulation (for GPC materials) will be down until the machine you run it on is upgraded. GIL Express will be down for the duration of the entire upgrade. This means that all USG institutions must be successfully upgraded before GIL Express service can resume anywhere. The estimate is that GE will be down from December 13, 2006 through January 5, 2007. This service suspension has been discussed at length on the UC/UB listerv, and I imagine that GPC circulation staff are familiar this discussion.

That's about all that I know right now, but if you have any questions, please just drop me a line. I'll keep you posted as more details become available.

GPC Libraries Site Search Up and Running!

From the get-go one of the requests we were hearing for the new web design was a site search feature that covered all the pages (residing in five different directories). This sort of thing was a bit beyond my skills right now, but, fortunately, I recently discovered yet another handy dandy little Google tool called a CSE (Custom Search Engine). After a little poking with an e-stick, voila! We have a site search!

You’ve probably noticed the link appearing in the top gray menu bar on some campuses in late November, a phased roll out, as it were. Well, it should appear on all of the pages now, so if you see a page lacking it, please notify the appropriate webmaster (see the footer at the bottom of the page in question).

So, take our little CSE for a spin, kick the tires, and tell us what you think.

Welcome Amy Eklund!

The last of our new catalogers has arrived! Amy Eklund is a recent graduate of UNT and was involved in some mighty impressive work there. We are quite happy to have her with us, so please pop by and make her feel welcome. Her phone number is #3666, and her office is CL-1204.

EZ Proxy Server down

There is a partial power outage at Clarkston, including C Building where our EZ Proxy Server is located, so we're currently not able to connect to the databases which GPC pays for outside of our GALILEO subscription. These resources include JSTOR, Project Muse, Literature Resource Center and Opposing Viewpoints. A complete list of these databases can be found on the GPC Libraries website, under "Find More Articles".

Tessa has verified that the ez proxy server is currently down, but OIT may be able to have it running later today.

Update from Tessa: Three cheers for OIT!

I just got a phone call from Andrew asking me to test our EZProxy access and it is up and running now. He says that it should be stable from here on out unless the partial power in the C building goes south again. So, if you experience any more connection time outs, it is most likely the fritzy power, which will hopefully be completely cleared up by tomorrow.

Problems with NetLibrary

It has come to my attention that Dunwoody has been having some problems with NetLibrary access. Apparently, NetLibrary will recognize them by IP address on some machines, but not on others. To add to this, whether or not a certain machine recognizes them by IP varies from day to day.

I’ve been in communication with, Katie, our GALILEO rep about this problem and NetLibrary has our correct IP range, so we are all stumped. If anyone else is having problems, can you drop me a line about it? Please give me as much detail as you can, like the inventory number of your PC, time of day, etc. I’ll relate all this to Katie and we’ll see what we can do.

In the meantime, it’s not an ideal solution, but, if you are trying to use NetLibrary and it doesn’t recognize you as being at GPC, move to a different machine and that should work. Sorry about this, everybody.

USG Upgrade to Voyager 6.1

No specific dates for GPC yet, but they're predicting sometime this December and I expect that I'll start working on our individual machines shortly after that. (I have to touch each PC that has the Voyager client.) The Voyager 6.1 documentation has been placed on the GIL Download web site. Remember that access to the GIL Download web site requires our SupportWeb user id and password. If you've forgotten it, drop me an email and I'll send it to you.

The GIL Download site has user guides for each module in Voyager 6.1, but they're extremely long (828 pages for circulation alone). I would, however, recommend taking the time to read the release notes, which are a much more manageable length (9 pages). Some of the highlights are search enhancements in WebVoyage and the Voyager staff interface, improvements to the display and sorting of results lists in the staff interface and the display of results lists in WebVoyage, and ISBN-13 support.

This is the gist of what I know right now, but please feel free to send me your questions and I'll do what I can to get them answered.

Internet Explorer 7- Upgrade NOT Recommended

I figure that everyone saw this genmail, but, with all the computers we have in the libraries, it bears repeating.

As of today, Microsoft will be pushing Internet Explorer 7 as a high priority update through Windows Update. If you have a PC that is set to download and install updates automatically, you'll be getting this new IE and it is not receiving rave reports. As I understand it, this new version is causing some problems with Banner and WebCT, and is likely to cause problems with other Web applications. Now, after speaking with our friendly neighborhood OIT guy, Andrew, I have learned that a script was run last night to connect everyone's Windows Update to a central server at OIT. Updates from Microsoft will go through this server before being released to our individual PCs and OIT will not be allowing the IE7 update to go through at this time. If anyone has trouble accessing websites on a library computer, check the version number of IE as your first troubleshooting step. The new one may have slipped through on that machine and you should call OIT and have it removed. I'd keep a close eye on your public computers in particular, if students are using them for WebCT, Banner, and the like.

I would also advise not upgrading your home PCs to this new IE version just yet. However, if it slips through, I understand that it is a little easier to uninstall than previous versions. Best to avoid all that mess and just not install it in the first place though. Or better yet, use Firefox. I've used it at home and in the office for a couple of years and I'm in love. It's the best-est. Erik Larkin of PC World has written a very detailed review of the two browsers, if anyone is interested.

Net Library Requires a Password for At Home Searching

I thought I would let every one know that Net Library requires a free account and password which you can set up while logged in to GALILEO for home searching. I learned this when trying to read a Net Library book at home.

Ross Singer Does It Again

[This guy is the bomb. We're lucky to have him in Georgia.]

"Ross Singer has won the Second OCLC Research Software Contest with Umlaut, an OpenURL Link Resolver intended to improve access to library collections by contextualizing citations and available holdings more accurately for a given user. Currently running with Georgia Tech's catalog, Umlaut utilizes a host of web services and can take several paths depending on what it finds at various stages."

Welcome Melissa Roberts!

One of our new catalogers has arrived! Melissa Roberts comes to us after several years as Acting Cataloger at the Watson Memorial Library of Northwestern State University in Louisiana. Her phone number is #3667, and her office is CL-1203.

We're very happy to have her with us, so, if you haven't met her yet, please pop in to Technical Services when you have a chance and say howdy.

JSTOR - emailing citations

Several of us have been having difficulty opening emailed JSTOR documents when off campus. Has anyone had success emailing JSTOR citations and opening the entire document off campus? I've followed the directions for emailing citations and can open the email and see the persistent/stable url, but when I try to open the document (off campus) I'm blocked from accessing the full text. I tried opening JSTOR in another window, thinking that might help, but it didn't work. If I'm on campus, I am able to open the document from the emailed citation. Any suggestions?

WorldCat Goes Public

I saw this on the LibRef listserv: WorldCat has gone public. Anyone can now access the complete (unlike access through Google and others) WorldCat database. It features the "beloved"
single search box and includes many personalized elements. There's an article in Information Today discussing OCLC's beta release of the WorldCat database.

ALA Award Winners

gpc award winners!
Originally uploaded by dwfree1967.

This is pretty late news, even by off-line standards, but congrats to Lois, Eva and Sherry on their award for the Library CSI Orientation program. Very cool! They received the award at ALA in New Orleans last month. Thanks to Amy (or Pete) for the photo as I wasn't able to make it to the awards breakfast.

I was able to make it to dinner every night, and here are the photos to prove it.

I have lots more ALA/ New Orleans photos on my Flickr site and more info about the conference on my blog too if anyone is still interested in month old conference news! :)

Electronic Resources @ Georgia Perimeter College

Just wanted to let everyone know that our new databases have been set up in EZproxy and linked from the website. I've tested them from my office and Kathy and I have tested them from home, so we think we're set. If you see any problems, please drop me a line.

When checking the links, I noticed that the coverage dates for the ProQuest Historical Newspapers had changed and I have edited them accordingly. This wasn't one of the pages I took care of in the past, so I don't know how often this coverage expands, but I'm figuring it's fairly regularly. If everyone could be an extra set of eyes for me, and give me a heads-up about changes, I'd appreciate it.

DeKalb Tech Status

As many of you know, DeKalb Tech is opening their own Learning Resource Center on their Clarkston campus in Building A, Room 141. As always, DT students are welcome to use our library, including reference services, the collection and the public computers, but as of June 30, 2006 they are no longer able to check out materials. [Vocational schools are not part of the USG system, so their students can't check out materials through GIL Express.]

The phone number which we've been given: 404.297.9522 x1140 rings at someone else's office and although the library was scheduled to open on Monday July 10, it has not opened yet. We haven't received any additional information from library staff at DeKalb Tech. Until their library opens, any DeKalb Tech student or faculty needing further assistance should be referred to DT's administrative offices at 404.297.9522.

GPC Ad Hoc Website Review Committee

Some of you may have heard that Interim President Watts recently formed an ad hoc committee to begin a website review process. Eva was gracious enough to get me on this committee and I just wanted to give you a brief overview of our work. This committee was not in charge of actually redesigning the webpage, only of making recommendations for the process. However, during the course of our meetings, we saw several examples of what the new GPC homepage could look like. I was iffy about some of the color choices, but that’s not carved in stone, and the designs themselves were very clean and professional. I'm pleased to say that the Libraries featured prominently in the main links in each of these mock-ups.

The committee began meeting on March 30, 2006. I was unable to attend the first two meetings due to prior commitments, but David Free went in my place. (Thanks, David!). The committee was charged by the Interim President to make recommendations to address the following directives:

• Ensure that GPC’s mission and goals are served by its website


• Promote coordination, consistency and cohesiveness throughout the website


• Recommend revisions or updates to the GPC web policy


• Recommend major design, content, or structural changes to GPC’s main web page and those linked directly to it


• Recommend design standards for deeper levels of GPC web pages or sites


• Provide recommendations on web-related issues or disputes

Our 17-page report was presented to Interim President Watts on July 3, 2006. The report contained ten recommendations for conducting the website redesign. On the redesign itself, the framework will be the same as ours, a college “gateway” serving as a door to individual department and/or campus pages.

Of course, there is a lot more detail than this and I’ll be happy to discuss it with anyone who is interested.

GOLD Looking a Little Out of Date?

If you are in the habit of searching GOLD through the GALILEO interface, you may have noticed that it hasn't been updated in a while, since September 8, 2005 to be exact. I have made some calls, and here's what I know at this point.

As some of you may know, OCLC has moved union listing to a new software program, and a new format. They are now using MFHDs, like we do, instead of the old LDRs. This is pretty cool, but the OCLC service that provided that semiannual snapshot of GOLD holdings now has to undergo a major revamp and is on hold indefinitely. It may be moved to another module altogether, but I don't have anything concrete on that. Of course, I will pass along any information that I do get.

In the meantime, you can still use the GOLD interface at GALILEO to search holdings in other libraries, just remember to consult the individual library's OPAC for the most complete holdings information. As always, our OPAC has the most current holdings for GPC. Thanks everyone!

What Are You Reading??

It's about time for the 2nd annual Listen Up! summer reading edition. I'd like to include a little segment on what GPC library workers are reading. So post what you're reading! I'd also love to record you talking briefly (couple of minutes max) about what you're reading or any summer reading recommendations you might have. I can come to you and promise it's relatively painless!

Thanks!

ALA Bound?

If you're going to ALA next week and would like to get together for dinner or coffee or something lemme know. I'll be in NOLA through Monday afternoon. Should be an interesting conference!

LCSH Changes: War and the Environment, How Cheery

Though it's pretty depressing to work on these heading changes, I am still pleased to announce that the LCSH "Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975" has been changed to "Vietnam War, 1961-1975". I imagine that heading stumped many of our younger patrons. It was still going on when I was born and I don't even call it the "Vietnamese Conflict."

I've completed all of the associated changes in GGC's database. GPC has a lot more instances of this heading, many of which I have to change by hand, so you may still see the old heading here and there for a couple of days. I'm plugging away at it though. If I haven't caught everything by the end of next week, you can assume I've missed it and drop me a note.

Another sensible change that I thought you might like to hear about, "Biological diversity" has become the more recognizable "Biodiversity." I have managed to change all of these in both catalogs, GPC and GGC.

RLG to Merge with OCLC

Though I am watching this with interest, I'm not overly concerned about the how-will-it-affect-us issues. It's probably a good thing for us, if OCLC makes good use of RLG innovations like RedLightGreen. Were we RLG members, I'd be more concerned, as it sounds like they are the ones set to be "absorbed." It's not a done deal, the RLG member institutions have to vote on and approve the decision by June 7, but it sounds like it's going to go down.

RLG to Merge with OCLC (InfoToday)
RLG to combine with OCLC Press Release (OCLC)
RLG Proposal to Combine with OCLC FAQ (OCLC)

Date only search

We've been experiencing a problem when we search "on this date" in the Historical NY Times Database (with no search terms). We use this for the assignment in which students are required to find an article on the front page of the NY Times on the date that they were born. This assignment is depressing enough when we think about where we were (i.e. in college, out of college!, etc.) when these students were born, but recently we began receiving an error message and no results. Today (5/8/06) I spoke with someone at the ProQuest technical support, and he said the problem has been reported and they're working on a solution.
In the meantime, he suggested that we use the per cent (%) sign as a wild card in the search box along with the date. I tried this, and it works. Also, Carmel discovered that the date only search works in the Advance Search without anything in the search box.

Historical NY Times Printing

Does anyone else have difficulty printing articles from the NY Times database? When I try to print them, the font is so small it is barely readable. Does anyone know a way to adjust this?

Staff Development Program!

The Staff Development Committee is presenting a program entitled "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Medical Information But Were Afraid To Ask" on Monday, May 15th. Dr. Stephen Koplan of the Dunwoody Campus Library will demonstrate the PubMed database.

The program will take place from 11am-1pm in the JCLRC Instruction Room (2220) on the Clarkston Campus. The committee will provide drinks, chips and sweets but bring your own brown bag lunch!

Please let your campus Staff Development person(s) know if you will be attending by Thursday, May 11.

See you on the 15th!

Henriette D. Avram, Mom of MARC, Dies at 86

With the development of MARC, Avram revolutionized the catalog, and therefore the library. She could have made a name for herself in any field. The library community was extremely lucky to get her, and we shouldn't forget that.

NY Times Obit

The End of the Library World As We Know It

Well, no, hopefully not. But, the report "The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools," has put many in the cataloging community all a flutter. Commissioned by LC and written by Associate University Librarian Karen Calhoun of Cornell University, the report (which, I shamefully haven't had time to read yet) advocates cost-cutting and Googlization of library catalogs. Apparently, ditching LCSH is one of those cost-cutting suggestions. Thomas Mann, current LC reference librarian, former private detective, and all-around nerd heartthrob, argues in his critical review of the Calhoun report that ditching LCSH would seriously impact scholarly research. As writing about research is one of the things Mann does best, I tend to perk up my ears when he speaks.

According to the Calhoun report, library operations that are not digital, that do not result in resources that are remotely accessible, that involve professional human judgment or expertise, or that require conceptual categorization and standardization rather than relevance ranking of keywords, do not fit into its proposed "leadership" strategy. This strategy itself, however, is based on an inappropriate business model – and a misrepresentation of that business model to begin with. The Calhoun report draws unjustified conclusions about the digital age, inflates wishful thinking, fails to make critical distinctions, and disregards (as well as mischaracterizes) an alternative "niche" strategy for research libraries, to promote scholarship (rather than increase "market position"). Its recommendations to eliminate Library of Congress Subject Headings, and to use "fast turnaround" time as the "gold standard" in cataloging, are particularly unjustified, and would have serious negative consequences for the capacity of research libraries to promote scholarly research.

Ba-pow!! What did I tell you? Thomas Mann, nerd heartthrob. I want to put a picture of him in my locker.

Now, I realize that I could be accused of a certain amount of self-interest here, but I assure you that isn't the case when I say that I'm standing by my Mann (har har). I can only imagine how cash-strapped LC is finding itself these days, so I certainly understand the temptation to cut corners, but LCSH is just not where to do it. Throw as many Google features as you like into the catalog, I'll be the first one to welcome it, but keyword searching just doesn't replace a standardized vocabulary developed over more than a century.

I know, I know. We’ve all heard the mantra at every conference for the last couple of years. "These wacky kids today don't care about good information. They'll settle for good enough information." But the bigger picture is that there are plenty of people using the catalog who don't want to settle, and they shouldn't have to. The catalog should be able to accommodate all of these searching styles, and, most importantly, it should nurture truly scholarly research, without which we, as a nation, are in really really big trouble.

Will all this bibliographic gloom and doom come to pass? Who knows. I’m hearing quite a few rumors about scary things going down at LC. Some of the rumors are just silly, some are shaping up to be true. I am reminded of a professor in library school, who was fond of pointing out that societies crumble and fall when their ability to produce information far outstrips their ability to access it. In these days of "dumbing down the catalog", drastic funding cuts to education and scholarship, and secrecy trumping open access in our archives and libraries, that little teaching point takes on a disturbing immediacy, doesn't it?

But, don’t worry. I’ll keep enriching subject access until they pry the red books out of my cold dead fingers. (Well, ironically enough, I mostly use the online version now, but that’s not the point.)

GALILEO Quick Search

GALILEO Quick Search
Here are two handouts we have developed to help students, and to help ourselves, with the new Quick Search feature. Please post success stories you have had with Quick Search.

An Introduction to GALILEO Quick Search (for students)

Quick Search 101 (for staff)

Reference Committee Minutes

The minutes from the last Reference Committee meeting, including the database roundup, are available on the committee website.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 2 from 10am-12pm in the JCLRC instruction room.

GALILEO Quick Search Redux

According to GALILEO e-mail the new Quick Search feature goes into production tomorrow, 3/28. Let the fun begin!

Oh, Snap! Britannica v. Nature Smack Down Ensues.

You will recall that, only a few short months ago, you couldn't escape the headlines about the Nature study that claimed that Wikipedia was roughly as accurate as Britannica. It was even briefly discussed on our own humble blog.

Now, Britannica is accusing Nature of taking a little artistic license with their methodology, and it sounds like they've got a point. I was a little suspicious of the methodology from the beginning, particularly since it wasn't made available with the original article. A link to it has now been added to the article, but the Word file seems corrupted and I haven't been able to open it. Regardless, it is sad to think that a respected publication like Nature would game a study like this, but if what Britannica says is true, they have every reason to call foul.

Computers In Libraries

keynote
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

Greetings from chilly Washington, DC. I'm at the Computers In Libraries 06 conference. Been to some great sessions about search engines, wikis, federated search etc. The keynote session today covered current and potential library-esque applications for handheld devices. And just saw Lorcan Dempsey from OCLC talk about some very cool stuff they're doing with WorldCat metadata.

I'll post more details about some interesting stuff when I get back or later on if I get a chance. And the presentations are usually online too at some point. Plus there are several folks blogging the conference in way more detail. Check out the CIL wiki bloggers section for links and more info.

Joy says "hi" too!

LCSH Changes: A Quickie, but a Goodie

I'm guessing that this is probably an oft-consulted subject heading, so you all will be pleased to know that the slightly awkward LCSH "Student loan funds" had become the tidy and trim "Student loans."

Let the dancing in the street begin.

Scopus Trial to Begin This Week

[For those who are unfamiliar with Scopus, it is a large abstract and citation database primarily covering the sciences.]

This news came from Merryll Penson via Kathy Gallo:

"Later this week, Scopus will appear on your GALILEO menus. It will say trial and there will be a link to a feedback form. Scopus is available at all academic libraries with a few exceptions.
At the end of December, 2006 libraries will be asked if they wish to subscribe for 2007.
Libraries would be billed in July 2007 if they choose to subscribe. If they do not choose to subscribe access would terminate in March 2007. "

Addition of Death Dates to Selected Name Headings

I've been meaning to tell you all about this, and just haven't found the time. So, here's the brief version.

On February 6, 2006, CPSO will commence a special project to add death dates to a selected list of name headings. The project is expected to end by Summer 2006.

In a nutshell, LC is now allowing NACO libraries to add death dates to national name authorities with "open" birth dates. So, Princess Diana, and many others, can finally die in our catalog. (We aren't a NACO library, so I won't be able to add these dates, until they are added to the LC or WorldCat authority file.)

If you peruse any of those links, you'll see that it's all a lot more complicated than it sounds. It's going to be an utter nightmare for libraries lacking some form of automated authority control. Even with automated authority control, it's a big job for us. But, we know it's going to be quite the blessing for public services, and we are excited about it. Just think, you'll never again have to hear, "You know Princess Diana is dead, right?"

Now, all that being said, it's going to take a little a while to do all this, and I'm afraid that I won't be able to start immediately. But, as a show of good faith, and since I've just harped on her so much, do a subject search for "Diana, Princess of Wales," and you'll see that I've shuffled off the biblio/mortal coil of poor Princess Di.

If anyone has any questions or comments about this process, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Octavia Butler Dies

Just an FYI. SciFi Writer Octavia Butler died this weekend. Obiturary information can be found at http://www.sfwa.org/members/butler/ . --Alicia

GPC Award Winners!

Just saw this interesting tidbit in my email: Eva, Sherry and Lois have been chosen to receive the 2006 CJCLS/EBSCO Community College Learning Resources Program Achievement Award for their work on the CSI: Information Literacy orientation.

"This unique orientation, initiated by the librarians and coordinated with the Joint Enrollment and Student Services Offices, is an outstanding example of creative, involved, professional librarians who stay focused on students and contribute to the overall mission of their institution," said award committee chair Alice Lubrecht.

That is awesome! Way to go folks!

LCSH Changes: Lighting Strikes Twice

I'm giddy with happiness. Somebody pinch me.

At the request of an AUTOCAT subscriber (go AUTOCAT!), the authority record for the PATRIOT Act (i.e. the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001) now has an eminently sensible cross-reference from " PATRIOT Act (U.S.)". Everyone squeal with me. “Yipeee!”

I just overlaid the new authority record in GPC and GGC and you've got to see it in action. Go to the OPAC and do an exact subject search for "patriot act". Now click on the grey "See Also" oval next to " PATRIOT Act (U.S.)". Now click on that crazy long PATRIOT Act heading and voila, our books on the PATRIOT Act!

Of course, none of the cross-references were capitalized (“PATRIOT” is an acronym), but that’s a pretty common mistake with this act, and we can’t have everything. I couldn’t find a rule expressly forbidding capitalization in this instance, so I just went ahead and did it myself. Future updates through MARCIVE may overlay my changes and revert to the lack of capitalization, but the lovely lovely cross-reference will remain.

I also skimmed the database to make sure that this subject heading is applied to everything that it could be. I’m not usually a big advocate of the keyword search, but this is actually a very good candidate for it. A keyword search for “PATRIOT Act” as a phrase will pull up a several titles that have an essay or two on the act, but not enough information to merit the subject heading itself.

Ahhh, I love it when an authority record comes together.

LCSH Changes: Ooo! These Are Good!

I'm very excited about this change from LCSH Weekly List #29 and mortified that I didn't catch it sooner.

The rather un-user-friendly headings of Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test have been cancelled in favor of the much more logical SAT (Educational test).

It appears that the PSAT has followed suite, with PSAT (Educational test) replacing Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test.

I hope that you are all as thrilled as I am about a heading change that is much more useful than making Treasure-trove plural. I've just finished correcting all of the headings in our catalog, but a lot of it had to be done by hand, so let me know if you see something wonky.

Classifying A Million Little Pieces

Some folks on AUTOCAT had a little discussion recently about whether or not to reclassify James Frey's A Million Little Pieces from non-fiction to fiction and I was wondering if anyone here has an opinion about it.

We have a couple of copies, and they seem pretty popular, but I'm loathe to reclass them. We classify works objectively, describing them as the authors present them. Rethinking that is a very slippery slope. If we reclass this title, there are plenty more to bring into question, 'cause, let's face it, memoirs and autobiographies just aren't always the most honest and accurate things on the shelves. Then, what do we do with other non-fiction works that ostensibly present false information? In my opinion, we have a lot more productive things to do with our time than opening this particular can of worms.

I am, however, considering editing the 520 (summary note) to reflect recent developments re. the title's "truthiness".

What do y'all think?

[Update 2.14.06: I've changed the summary note a bit, and added a link to Frey's "note to the reader" in which he addresses the fabrications. I figure that that's sufficient for our purposes. Take a peek and tell me what you think.]

Database Trials Page

John has added some info to the database trials page. A couple of the trials for products we discussed at the last reference meeting are already active. He'll keep adding new ones as he gets them set up.

Not sure we should link to the page in a technically open forum since it has passwords and such but the link is the same as last years page. Someone should know it on each campus for the newbies.

GALILEO Quick Search

Has anyone played around with the new GALILEO interface which is currently in demo mode? GALILEO Quick Search incorporates WebFeat's federated search, allowing you to search multiple databases in a single search box. So far the feedback I've heard from UGA librarians is that they want the general topic search be limited to a single multi-subject journal databases, like Academic Search Premier rather than including several databases and an encyclopedia as it currently does. If left the way it currently is, the new interface will certainly change the way we teach GALILEO. Comments?

"Web Sites Judge in a Blink"

Interesting Reuters article about the time it takes someone to respond favorably or negatively to a web site.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/01/17/canada.websites.reut/index.html

Changes to Oversized Book Processing Procedures

I just wanted to alert you to a change in our processing procedures for oversized books. Beginning immediately, we are no longer adding a lowercase "q" to the handwritten call number on the verso or to the call number label.

After checking extensively with the campuses, we discovered that this "q" is not frequently used as a shelving device, and often overlooked entirely. Most of the campuses use spine labels to identify their oversized books. Therefore, the “q” is an unnecessary step in our procedures and has been eliminated. Call numbers for oversized books will now be handled in exactly the same way as those for any other monographs.

So this:

PQ1248
q.K32
2002

Will become this:

PQ1248
.K32
2002

The permanent location will not be affected by this revision of procedure. Oversized books will still be assigned to the appropriate oversize location for each campus.

Thanks everybody! Please share this information with anyone it may affect and let me know if you have any questions.

Database Evaluation Form

Take a look at the database evaluation form we used last year and let John Lassiter know if you have suggestions for changes. We'll post the link to the db evaluation page when the trials for this year get set up.

Reference Committee Minutes and Agenda

The minutes from the previous Reference Committee meeting and the agenda for tomorrow's meeting are available on the committee website. Meeting tomorrow (1/19) from 10-12 in the JCLRC Library Instruction room on the Clarkston Campus.

BBC NEWS | UK | Librarians 'suffer most stress'

Good article to show folks when they say "it must be nice to get to read all day!". From Library Link of the Day.

Changing A Cultural Icon

The Distant Librarian today pointed out an interesting article from Educause called "Changing A Cultural Icon: The Academic Library As Virtual Destination" by Jerry D. Campbell. Campbell, who is library dean at UCLA, talks about how libraries have primarily become a virtual destination for most users and discusses issues such as use of physical space, virtual reference, and information literacy instruction.

Another item of interested from DL today: a note about a Kept Up Academic Librarian post on an Educause series called "7 Things You Should Know About..." different emerging learning techniologies. The series includes blogs, IM, collabotative editing, social bookmarking etc. How's that for some metablogging?

Happy weekend!

OCLC Acquires the Assets of Openly Informatics

Whew! Say that five times fast.

Openly Informatics' database will be used to enhanced WorldCat and vice versa. For more details, see the OCLC news release.

LCSH Changes: A Mixed Bag

With Voyager down, I have a little time to tend to the drifts of papers on my desk, filling things, trashing things, putting things in completely different piles. Very satisfying. In this excavation, I unearthed the last couple of issues of the Cataloging Service Bulletin, which have been shamefully languishing on my desk, and I thought I’d let you all know about a few changes that might be of interest in our catalog.

[Old Heading ==> New Heading]

Breast feeding ==> Breastfeeding

Restitution and indemnification claims (1933- ) ==> [Headings for individual ethnic groups]—Claims

Restitution and indemnification claims (1933- ) ==> Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Reparations

Restitution and indemnification claims (1933- ) ==> World War, 1939-1945--Claims

Restitution and indemnification claims (1933- ) ==> World War, 1939-1945--Reparations

Treasure-trove ==> Treasure troves

I haven’t gotten to all these yet, so you may see the older forms still lurking around GIL until Voyager comes back up.

How Does Google Rank Results?

This is the sole article from the first edition of the Google Librarian Newsletter. It's probably well worth a read, and I intend to get to it sometime soon.

Trial Databases

At the Reference Committee Meeting on November 28 we began the process of selecting database for the upcoming year. The first step is to select databases for consideration.
Here's the timeline:
January 19 - The Committee will finalize the trial database list.
February 1 - We need to have a list of databases to John Lassiter to give him time to set up trials during the Spring.
April 1 – The database list will be ready to submit to the library directors
July? 2006 – New databases will be made available

The committee will meet in January to finalize the list of databases for which we want trials.
The following is a list of databases suggested at our November meeting. Please, look over this list, make comments and add databases you would like the committee to consider at our January 19th meeting. Reminder: Last year the Committee decided to focus on a science database this year.

Suggested databases:

African American Experience (new Spring 2006) – Greenwood Press

Artstor.org – www.artstor.org digital art images, from the same folks who brought us JSTOR

Daily Life Through History – http://dailylife.greenwood.com We looked at this product last year, but the publisher changed the price after we decided we wanted to purchase.

Choice Reviews online - http://www.choicereviews.org/rev190choicescripts/

Classical Music Library (GUC purchased this database) http://www.alexanderstreet.com/products/clmu.htm

Europa Yearbook -http://www.europaworld.com/pub/

Historical Abstracts on the Web (ABC-Clio) - http://www.abc-clio.com/products/overview.aspx?productid=109712&viewid=0&fromhistorydb=1&from=academic

Library Literature & Information Science Full Text – (online version of Library Literature, a Wilson index) – http://www.hwwilson.com/databases/liblit.htm
requested by Dunwoody to supplement the new LIST program

Reference Suite – Facts on File - http://www.facts.com/facts-db-ref.htm
Includes: Issues and Controversies, Today’s Science and World Almanac

Scopus – http://www.scopus.com/scopus/home.url RACL (Regents Academic Committee on Libraries) is conducting a year long trial of this Elsevier product. John will investigate whether GPC can participate.

World Cultures Today – Greenwood Press - http://dailylife.greenwood.com

Journal: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica - Dec 15, 2005

Cnn.com points out an interesting article in the current edition of Nature on the accuracy of Wikipedia. The study found that there was not a great difference in the accuracy of science articles between the two sources.

As of today, the article is available free on the Nature website.

GALILEO Database Trials

Everybody has probably already seen this, but the folks at GALILEO have some database trials set up. There are a couple of interesting ones there now and looks like they will update the page when they add new trials. Apparently you have to request a user name and password to access the trials.

The trials page is available at:
http://www.usg.edu/galileo/help/library/trials.phtml

Holiday Party Location Change

The holiday party mentioned in the previous post will now be held in room 4190 of the JCLRC instead of on the third floor. If you come to the 3rd floor you will be lonely, hungry and gift-less!

Hope to see as many as possible on Monday!

Holiday Party Reminder

Don't forget, the holiday party is just around the corner! See your campus rep for tickets, which are on sale for $12.00. We'd love to see you all there.

Whether or not you can make it to the party, please still consider making a donation to this year's charity, the American Library Association Hurricane Katrina Library Relief Fund. Your campus rep can accept cash donations or checks made payable to "ALA" and marked for "ALA Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund". Funds collected will be applied to restoring and rebuilding devastated libraries in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We all know how important libraries are to a community, and these communities need all the help they can get right now, so anything you can spare will be much appreciated. Thanks everybody!

Risky Gamble With Google

Another great Library Link of the Day: this time an article from the Chronicle about the controversial Google Library/ Book Search project by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The article mirrors a great talk I saw him give at Emory in October. He's a great champion of libraries and has an interesting take on the digitization project.

More Database Considerations for Reference Committee

This is fun! I hope we can get a trial to all of these. Please make comments. --Alicia

1. Europa World Plus

http://www.europaworld.com/pub/about

“Europa World Yearbook and Europa Regional Surveys of the World”

2. Science Full Text Select (New Product)

http://www.hwwilson.com/science/

“Affordable choice for community colleges”

3. General Science Full-Text

http://www.hwwilson.com/databases/gensci.htm

“Designed specifically for students and non-specialists”

4. Greenwood Products

http://www.greenwood.com/default.asp?ImprintID=I1

The African American Experience (Spring 2006)
Additional Products in the future include Latino, Asian, and Native American Experience.

World Cultures Today

5. Facts on File Products

http://www.facts.com/

Issues and Controversies*
Today’s Science*
Reference Suite ?
World Alamanac?

Science Search Comparison

The Library Link of the Day for Thanksgiving Day was an interesting article from Current Science called "As we may search - Comparison of major features of the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation-based and citation-enhanced databases" (PDF file). Fits in nicely with the discussion of SCOPUS etc we had in the Reference Committee meeting today.

Sony/BMG CD Anti-Piracy Software Update

Here's the abridged version. After perfectly justifiable outcry, Sony claims to have ceased manufacturing compact discs with XCP software. They also claim to be working with their retail partners to remove the offending discs from the chain of distribution, and they have established an exchange program for people who've already bought the discs. They've also finally released a list of the affected titles. There are 52 on the list, so I haven't had time to search our catalog yet, but I will be doing it shortly. In the meantime, if you have reason to believe that the anti-piracy software has been installed on a PC, you might want to contact John. As I understand it, the software is difficult to remove, and the patch offered by Sony is rumored to make the security holes even worse. Hopefully this will not affect us or our patrons, but we should keep our fingers crossed.

[Update 11/29/05 by Tessa:]
I have thoroughly checked our catalog for the 52 titles on the list. We had two that had just been received, so I managed to grab those before they were cataloged. We also had two that had been cataloged and sent to Nonprint. Of those two, one was on the shelf and one was checked out, each had only circulated once. I've grabbed the one that was on the shelf and have a hold on the one that is charged out. I've asked everyone who orders CDs to check the list whenever ordering a Sony/BMG title, so, hopefully, we've contained the problem.

LISNews.org | ProQuest Sells Periodical Microfilm business

Interesting note on LISNews about ProQuest selling off it's periodicals microfilm business. The article referes to this part of PQs business as "sluggish". Is this the beginning of the end of microfilm as a format for periodicals preservation/ retention?

Nice new design on LISNews too. Definitely miss things like that using a news aggregator!

Sony/BMG CD Anti-Piracy Software

A discussion of the problems related to Sony's new anti-piracy software has cropped up on one of my cataloging listservs. Apparently, a class-action lawsuit has already been filed about this in California and one is about to be filed in New York. Here's a summary from AUTOCAT (quoted with permission):

I don't know if anyone has been following this, but for those of you who have collections with CDs, be aware that there is a potentially fatal problem with the new anti-piracy software that comes with new Song/BMG titles. These CDs come bundled with their own player, which has to be installed in order for the CD to run. This program then limits the number of copies that can be made from the CD to three. However, in doing this it also installs a rootkit.

Rootkits, according to Mark Russinovich, who writes a computer blog, are "cloaking technologies that hide files, Registry keys, and other system objects from diagnostic and security software, and they are usually employed by malware attempting to keep their implementation hidden." What this rootkit does is actually rewrite parts of the code on your OS. Trying to delete these files may cripple your system, and may leave it vulnerable to other viruses and worms that capitalize on security weaknesses in the new code. It may also lead to the "Blue Screen of Death" and potential loss of data.

Note that nowhere in the licensing agreement we all click without reading does it say that using the CD will alter your OS or rewrite your computer's code. It is also very hard to get the uninstall program from Sony, and it doesn't seem to work very well if you do get it.

The original problem was noted in Russovich's blog:
Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far

and its follow-up:
More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home

It has also been covered by several news outlets and on IT security websites:
Sony Rootkit or Aggressive DRM?

Hackers Raid Sony's Playbook
(this has good links to other ariticles [sic] as well)

Because libraries buy and circulate CD copies to mulitple users, you may want to take a look at the CDs in your collection and avoid these. Apart from the spyware and privacy aspects, this is potentially a huge security problem, and may actually cause Windows PCs to fail. Caveat emptor.

I haven't had time to look into whether or not we have any of these CDs. There is a list that is making the rounds on slashdot and elsewhere. I'm not sure if there is any way to tell if they have this software before ordering them, but it might behoove us to look into it. It won't really be a problem for old fogeys like me who rarely listen to CDs on a computer, but our patrons who do might be understandably irritated by this. Thoughts?

Wikipedia Article

Interesting article from cnn.com about our friend Wikipedia possibly producing print/ cd versions of some content for the developing world.

Bye and thanks

I've enjoyed working with you, thanks for everything, and all my best wishes.

Can't wait to see you at GUGM, COMO, SAMM, ALA . . .

New Librarian @ Decatur

The Decatur Campus Library is pleased to welcome Adrienne Graham on board as our new full time Reference Librarian. Adrienne was formerly a part time librarian at Rockdale, so she is be no means new to the GPC Libraries family. Adrienne will be working with Circulation and Serials as well as the usual reference desk and instruction class duties.

Her contact info is on the staff page is you want to say welcome aboard. We're glad to have her!

Promotional Tools for the Open WorldCat Program

I got an email from OCLC that I thought might be of interest to our public services folks.

Promotional tools for the Open WorldCat program are now available on the OCLC Web site at http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/promote/default.htm. Use these tools to increase awareness of Web access to your library’s resources through Open WorldCat and its “Find in a Library” interface.

The materials available are a printable table tent, HTML e-mail, customizable news release, customizable flier, and a presentation slide.

What are you reading right now?

Post a comment, please, and tell us.

I'm reading Cookwise by Shirley Corriher, ISBN 0688102298.

Open WorldCat Just Keeps On Giving

OCLC is bringing us an interesting expansion of the Open WorldCat program that I've previously discussed on this blog. Here's the official word.

OCLC has begun a pilot program that enables Web users to add content to authoritative WorldCat records they locate through the Open WorldCat program. Available under the Details and Reviews tabs in the Open WorldCat interface, the pilot functionality allows anyone to quickly register and add content such as a table of contents, notes or a review. Open WorldCat users can edit the personal reviews they add to WorldCat records, and may also edit or correct information submitted by others that appears in the tables of contents and notes fields of the records. This pilot will continue into early 2006.

OCLC will first offer this service through the Open WorldCat program and later expand the service to the WorldCat database on the FirstSearch reference service.

Visit http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/usercontent/ to learn more about the pilot program.

Initial discussion of this new feature on Web4Lib has been thought-provoking, with such questions being raised as who will own (and can therefore redistribute) the user-contributed data, and can non-member libraries link to the reviews? I haven't had a lot of time to scrutinize the TOS so I don't have any answers to these and other probing questions, but I will say that this sort of social software is very popular and its inclusion in the Open WorldCat program won't hurt library PR in the least.

Here's an example of a newly revamped Open WorldCat record. The new display has several different tabs, Libraries, Details, Editions, and Reviews. I've used Clarkston's zip code as the location qualifier, and the Libraries tab is telling me that the only OCLC-member library near me that holds this title is UGA. The Details tab is pretty self-explanatory, and here you'll notice the ability to add TOCs and notes, one of the newer features. The Editions tab appears to be pulling different editions of the title from the WorldCat database, should you prefer an older edition. This is a very nifty, I think. Finally, in the Review tab you will notice that one user, "Minnie", has already reviewed this title. In the green box at the upper right, you will also notice the Buy It Now link that I've blogged about in the past.

As I said, I haven't had a lot of time to play with this or think about its usefulness for GPC specifically, but I wanted to bring it to your attention and would love to hear your thoughts.

Illiterate Brazilian Man Establishes Community Library

The writer of this article managed to work in the obligatory shushing reference, but the story is inspirational enough to forget all about that. Here's a quote from the gentleman who established the library.

When he asked members of his small bicycling group to help him collect used books, "they all thought I was a little crazy," he said.

But they humored him, and the nameless cycling club got a moniker: "The Madmen of Sao Goncalo." Or so they seemed at first to the neighbors whose doors they knocked on.

"Some people thought, 'You must be joking. Here in this community, people ask for clothes, but to ask for books!' " said Ronaldo Pena, 48, one of the cyclists.

Very incredible story, well worth a read.

LC to Add More Reviews to Bib Records

As of Sept. 1, 2005, the Library of Congress Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team (BEAT) expanded its "reviews" project to include E-STREAMS: Electronic Reviews of Science & Technology References Covering Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine and Science. E-STREAMS is a free electronic-only book review journal published by Yankee Book Peddler and edited by H. Robert Malinowsky, Professor and Manager of Collections Development, University of Illinois at Chicago.

As with H-Net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences, links to which you may have already seen in the catalog, LC will be adding links to E-STREAMS reviews where appropriate and redistributing the records for the benefit of other libraries.

Here's an example of a record enriched with a link to its E-STREAMS review. (You will also notice a link to the title's table of content, another helpful little BEAT project). We use a lot of LC records in our database, so we should start seeing a few of these reviews soon.

Rockdale's New Director

It's all go at Rockdale these days! Send your congratulations out to Laura Tartak who has just become Rockdale's new LRC director.

Rockdale's New Full-Time Librarian

Everyone send your congratulations out to Kip Cates, who just became full-time at Rockdale. According to a forwarded email from Laura Tartak, Kip got his MLS from the University of Tennessee, has 19 years of experience in academic and public libraries, and will be a Rockdale committee representative. A lot of us have already met Kip, who has been part-time at Rockdale since October 2004, and we think he's just swell.

Congrats, Kip!

Libraries In The Chronicle

The Sept. 30 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has a big section of articles on libraries. Scroll down the contents page on the Chronicle website and you'll get to it eventually. Think a username/password is need to access most articles directly online but FT will show up in Academic Search Premier in about a month if you really wanna read it from a computer.

More Wiki!

Had enough wiki talk yet? I didn't think so. Reading some blogs and noticed a post on Library Stuff about the University of Minnesota Libraries using a wiki for their staff home page. Great way to get information out to what I assume is a huge staff.

And now for something completely different: I'm going to switch out a few of the blogs in our blogroll for some variety. So bookmark (or better yet subscribe via RSS) to your faves in case they go away. Also, send me any suggestions you have for new LIS related blogs to feature. I'll probably make the switches next week sometime.

Exalead beta search engine

I'm just now reading the 7/05 issue of LJ. This is from Readers' Delight by Cheryl LaGuardia about a beta search tool:

Exalead (beta.exalead.com/search) is a new search engine built from a unique perspective. "Unlike physical libraries, with volumes on shelves in predictable order, the web is a mess," writes François Bourdoncle, Exalead's founder. "With Exalead, decisions about what should be searched, in what form, or where, needn't be made before the net is cast to gather relevant information. . . . When results are delivered, a tailoring tool appears at screen left, and retrieved information is arranged by Related Terms, Related Categories, Web Site Location, and Document Type. . . . Searchers can fine-tune results before clicking on one link."

Library Instruction Wiki

There was a post on the ILI-L digest today about a new Library Instruction Wiki created by the Oregon Library Association. Looks to be along the same lines as a couple of the previously mentioned LIS wikis but focusing exclusively on library instruction topics and materials. Not a whole lot of stuff there yet, but looks promising.

Sympodium tips?

The library instruction room Sympodium recently was installed at Clarkston. Besides the basic circling, underlining, and highlighting, are any of you using the Sympodium more creatively? Posting annotated pages for students to access later? Drawing hand turkeys?

Katrina's Animal Victims

I know that everyone is as concerned as I am for what is going on on the Gulf Coast. As a Mississippian, I'’ve been deeply touched by the outpouring of tangible aid and emotional support coming from folks all over the country. I just wanted to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the pets and other domestic animals, livestock, and wildlife that are in desperate need of our help as well.

Many people who had to move to shelters, and many people who have been rescued from the rooftops of their flooded homes, were not allowed to bring their pets with them. Now, these beloved pets may be the only things these folks have left in the world and they are frantic to save them. There is some good news trickling in, but much more remains to be done.

The Humane Society of the United States and The American Humane Association are the two animal charities that I have donated to and I hope that you will consider doing the same. They are working diligently (with local animal groups) to rescue and care for the animals now trapped in homes, or homeless, all along the Coast. If you cannot make a donation at this time, please consider contacting these groups and seeing if there is anything else that they need. They managed to coordinate with some local shelters before the storm, to evacuate animals already housed there, and are now trying to find homes for them. If you were thinking of bringing a new animal into your family, this would be a wonderful way to do it.

Petfinder.com is also working on developing a comprehensive database to aid the pets affected by Hurricane Katrina and hopes to have it operational in a few days. (Petfinder is also an excellent way to adopt a new pet.) The ASPCA, Noah's Wish, and many other wonderful organizations are also doing everything they can to help.

Thanks everyone.

SOLINET Joins the Call for Housing

I know that some of you may have seen this already, but I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention.

SOLINET is calling on all who can to provide free shelter to library staff displaced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The Lexington (KY) Public Library is creating a database of information and providing it to the library associations in the affected states.

Please forward your offer of free housing to hurricanehelp@lexpublib.org with this information:
* Name, city and state, phone numbers, email address
* Brief description of space available
* Number of people that can be accommodated
* If pets or children are welcome
* Smoking or non-smoking
* Handicapped accessible
* Willingness to help with transportation
* Any other information

More Google!

Saw a story about yet another new Google service yesterday.

Will Google's Keyword Searching Eliminate the Need for LC Cataloging and Classification?

Nope!, says Thomas Mann, a Reference Librarian in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, "its limitations make cataloging and classification even more important to researchers." See Mann's paper, written for AFSCME 2910, here. There is a similar article in Library Journal, entitled Research at Risk, that I would also recommend. LJ recently did an about-face on its rather unpopular new policy of restricting articles to subscribers who establish a login, so you should be able to access this article freely. If not, and you haven't activated your login, drop me a line and I'll be happy to share.

Online Access for Report of the State Auditor

At the request of Ann, we've added a field to the bib record for the Report of the State Auditor that will provide access to the current online version of Salary and Travel Supplement. Give it a try and see how you like it.

Also, if anyone knows of a more common name for this publication, I could provide variant title access to that, making it a lot easier to find. Just let me know.

When I Talk Through Google...

...it makes me feel like #1.

Our good friend Google has a cool new service in Beta: an instant messaging/ voice chat program called Google Talk. Jennifer and I tested it out and it is very easy to download and use both for text and voice chatting. Although we did get a good bit of static the 2nd time we tried voice chat aka talking. Should be a major competitor in the IM game when widely released.

Happy weekend.

It's a WikiWiki World

If anyone is interested in getting involved with Wikis, here's a chance to get in on the ground floor. The LISWiki just launched on June 30, 2005 and there are plenty of topics waiting to be covered or just fleshed out. Unlike Wikipedia, LISWiki's mission embraces opinion pieces ("with factual information properly presented, of course"). So, if you have a soap box that's been gathering dust, they want to hear from you as well.

Raising the Bar: Legal Education Reform in Iraq

A collaborative project between OCLC Online Computer Library Center and the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law recently brought together 12 Iraqi librarians for a training workshop on cataloging standards and technology in Amman, Jordan.

WorldCat Adds Its Billionth Holding

At 2:21:34 p.m. EDT on August 11th, 2005, Anne Slane, a cataloger for Worthington (Ohio) Libraries, entered holdings information for the book The Monkees: The Day-By-Day Story of the 60s Pop Sensation, becoming the one billionth holding record in the WorldCat database.

The wording on this confused me a bit, but I'm thinking that they are saying WorldCat has 1 billion holdings records, and not 1 billion unique bibliographic records. (It's over 61 million bibliographic records now.) Impressive, nonetheless. Congrats, Ms. Slane!

GOLD/ GALILEO Annual Meeting

gpclibrarians
Originally uploaded by decatur library.

A good group of GPC folks attended the 2005 GOLD/ GALILEO Annual Users Group Conference in Athens last Friday. Here's a picture of some, but not all, of us. It was a very enjoyable day, featuring lots of yummy snack foods.

In addition to the eating, there were several interesting sessions. The previously mentioned presentation by Ross Singer of GA Tech on WAG The Dog was very informative. There was also a GALILEO update which covered the implementation of SFX and federated searching of GALILEO databases in the not too distant future.


The Digital Library of Georgia session included information about their newly redesigned website, some featured collections, and a great look at an exhibit about the Gold Rush in Dahlonega. Pete attended it too!




Hopefully many of the presentations will be online soon for folks who didn't get to attend. All in all it was a very fun and informative Friday.

Web Access to Works in the Public Domain

Interesting blurb from LC Cataloging Newsline, Volume 13, no. 10, August 2005:

This project makes links from the LC catalog to full
electronic texts of items for which LC has an exact match in print
represented in the LC collections. The project depends on the
cooperation of "trusted" partner institutions such as research
libraries and other organizations that are digitizing freely
available works. LC provides links to the electronic versions from
its catalog records for the print versions. Two new collaborators
are the RAND Corporation and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library,
University of Maryland. In the case of the former, over 680 links
have been made to RAND publications through the RAND Web site http://www.rand.org/publications [August 2005]. In the second,
over 140 links have been made to publications of the United States
Commission on Civil Rights digitized by the Thurgood Marshall Law
Library, University of Maryland at
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/index.asp [August
2005].

The Secret History of Librarians

An interview with Rex Libris creator, James Turner.

Thought that this might be a nice diversion for everyone from my usual "Blah, blah, blah, Open WorldCat, blah, blah, LCSH ..." Someone posted this link to AUTOCAT last Friday (the day we catalogers set aside for non-cataloging-related discussion and general humor, which must be properly tagged before posting, of course). I've only had time to skim the article, but it looks like a pretty cute little series, sort of Mr. Bookman the Library Cop (my favorite Seinfeld character) travels through time and space to track down overdue library books. I would have liked to have seen a female protagonist, but oh well. I still have Bunny Watson from Desk Set and that’s not too shabby. Besides, it sounds like Mr. Turner really has his heart in the right place.

What do you personally like about libraries? And in what ways have your feelings toward libraries influenced this particular piece of work.

I like being able to go in and read books for free, without the staff glaring at me or throwing me out. A good library system is to be treasured, as it gives you access to tens of thousands of books. The sum of human knowledge available at our finger tips. The work of academics, poets, artists, philosophers, scientists... all at our beck and call. It's amazing. We sit atop a mountain of knowledge. It seems a pity to ignore it. … We just have to take advantage of it. As Andrew Carnegie said, "It is the mind that makes the body rich." He believed education was vital, and while I can't help build 1,700 libraries as he did, I can certainly help promote them.

Open WorldCat: Book Buying Pilot and Virtual Reference Links

Some more information is starting to filter out regarding the Open WorldCat book buying pilot. An announcement posted to OCLC-CAT refcently had a bit more detail than that link. Here's an excerpt.

Each time a Web searcher purchases a book through Open WorldCat, a portion of the proceeds will be shared with Open WorldCat libraries in one of two ways. The purchaser decides online whether to apply a credit directly to the account of a selected Open WorldCat participant library or to redirect the credit to support the ongoing development of Open WorldCat for the benefit of all participating libraries.
In the introductory phase of book purchasing through Open WorldCat, Baker & Taylor is the single supplier of books. Baker & Taylor will sell books from its current inventory of over 500,000 titles. The book buying option will be visible initially to users in the United States. OCLC hopes to expand this feature to other content formats and additional partners, and to libraries outside the United States in the future. OCLC will pursue the best prices and discounts available for consumers, who will identify their library as part of the transaction.

Like I said in a comment to another post, I've always been a little iffy about the marriage of business transactions and libraries, but we'll see what happens.

Now, onto something I'm not iffy about, virtual reference. Everyone take a peek at this and let me know if there is interest in listing our virtual reference services. I'm our Open WorldCat contact, so I can get the necessary changes made. We'd need to have a single access page, so it would probably have to wait until the Web site re-design, but it's definitely something to think about. I've seen the links in Open WorldCat records and I'm thrilled by the visibility it could afford us.

ISBN-13 Is Coming, Dummy

If anyone is a little concerned/interested/confused by the impending 13-digit ISBN, the Book Industry Study Group has teamed up with our old pals at Wiley Publishing to offer ISBN-13 for Dummies. (By the way, does anyone else still bristle at being called a "dummy" when reading about MySQL or Robert's Rules of Order?) The pdf is just 21 pages and it appears to be geared more towards publishers than librarians, but the first few pages offer a nice overview of what's in store with ISBN-13. You may have noticed them lurking around a few versos already, and we can expect them to be fully rolled out around January 2007. My favorite bit of all this is that ISBN-13 for Dummies has, yep, you guessed it, a 13-digit ISBN!!! (978-0-555-02340-2, to be exact. You knew I'd check.)

I'm not really concerned about the 13-digit ISBN itself, it's the prospect of OCLC squeezing it into their existing 10-digit 020 field that gives me the willies. I'm sure that OCLC knows what it's doing and pretty soon everything will be fine, but at the moment we have to put it in the 024 field; which I have some reservations about, rather like wearing my sister's hand-me-down bell bottoms in 1986.

Project Muse full text searchable through Google

From College & Research Libraries News, July/August 2005, p. 507 or online:

Project MUSE, an online collection of scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, is collaborating with Google Inc. to enable researchers to use the Google Web site and the Google Scholar interface to search the Project MUSE Web site. Individuals at Muse-subscribing institutions will be able to search the full-text content from any of the more than 270 scholarly journals hosted by Project MUSE and access the articles in HTML or PDF format. Those unaffiliated with a MUSE-subscribing library will be able to view abstracts or excerpts of articles found through a Google search of MUSE journal content. Currently, MUSE subscribers can search and browse the collection’s journals through the subscribing library’s catalog and traditional abstracting and indexing databases.

BIG Meeting

The next meeting of the Atlanta Area Bibliographic Instruction Group (BIG) will be held on Wednesday, July 27th at the University of West Georgia in Room I-301 of the Technology Learning Center. That sounds like a cool place! The meeting is free but if you want to go, RSVP to Christy Stevens at cstevens(at)westga.edu by July 21st.

See this handy announcement for more info, including speakers and directions and such.

Freakonomics website

If you or a patron liked Freakonomics, there's a great companion website that includes an Authors' Blog. Levitt and Dubner post all the blog entries, and they accept public comments (and comment themselves).

And in case you're wondering who has the Decatur copy checked out, it's me.

Another Google Trick

I accidentally stumbled on this cool Google search today: if you type in an airline and a flight number the first result will be links to flight tracking sites. Very cool!

Here's an example: delta 824.

Have a great weekend.

eBook of the Month

Speaking of NetLibrary, I just read about their eBook of the Month campaign. Pretty neat. This campaign might be good content to highlight in our Web site redesign.

The eBook of the Month campaign is a monthly content promotion designed to showcase new and noteworthy titles available from NetLibrary and encourage patrons to visit your eBook collection. Each month, NetLibrary selects a new featured title and provides free, unlimited access through the authenticated homepages of more than 12,000 public, academic and special libraries.

The eBook of the Month for July is National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist. Looks pretty interesting, even to an unapologetic sports-phobe like myself.