A Harry Potter blog filled with news, interviews and rumors about the books and movies.
May 2003 Archives
International environmental news, plus events, businesses, and links.
"Within the next year, both David Letterman and Jay Leno will make jokes about blogs and even discuss them. "Nightline" will do an entire show on blogging. San Jose journalist and blog promoter Dan Gillmor will be a guest for the episode. This is the point where blogging will become mainstream. Shortly thereafter, we will see blogging millionaires, as venture capitalists figure out ways to make money from the trend."
The Register: Malaysian govt tells public to quit buying CDs, DVDs
Won't work, but what a great statement to make.
AP Wire -- EBay Ordered to Pay $35M in Patent Case
Tiny company wins against the online auction giant in this first of what will likely be several courtroom dramas.
Catalog This: An Interview With Activist Librarian Jessamyn West
My favorite quote follows:
"Librarians are targeting their message to what people's real concerns are, as opposed to "Literacy is good; libraries are good; books are good!" I don't think we can just ride the wave of [telling people] "libraries are a good thing", and expect that people are just going to fall in line and be delighted to have us around. ... I think there's a lot more of an aspect of proving ourselves. I don't just mean "Libraries are great because we have an espresso cart", but really trying to figure out what people's needs are and trying to meet them."
So true!!
Explore the Taj Mahal with an online visual tour, 360 degree panoramas, pictures, movies, and narration.
Intro to Pauly's Playhouse.com
Free online games for children 3 and older with a look that screams Saturday morning cartoons.
An online encyclopedia of toons, meaning cartoons or cartoon characters both from animations and still mediums like comics and comic strips. It offers information on characters, people behind the toons, and toon companies.
Denmark.dk: Denmark's Official Website
The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs offers the official Denmark site. The site has sections on tourism, business, science, studying in Denmark, and life and work in Denmark.
This site from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute offers kids really fun ways to explore biology.
Library Journal | Reed Business Information
A clear guide on what to do when there are cuts in your library budget with an emphasis on staying positive.
Library Journal | Reed Business Information
Demco is acquiring Gaylord's supplies and furniture operation as well as the Gaylord brand name.
Over 1200 theater links, including sections for playwrights, backstage, and promotion.
This site offers images, news, essays and a timeline.
Online guide to chick lit books sorted into categories that include new age chicks, working girls, mommies and single girls.
Though there have been other online frog dissection sites, this one is by far the best visually. You must have Flash on your computer to use this site.
Davis drops library book checkout-fee proposal
California Governor Davis has dropped a controversial budget proposal to charge check out fees (up to $5 a book in some cases.) Hurrah! Wisconsin faced an issue like this last year where lawmakers were considering removing the free from libraries and allowing local municipalities to charge for services. It too was defeated.
Good to the Last Drop: Dimensions and Cultural Implications of Coffee Service in Libraries
This is an idea I have toyed with for some time, though we have a coffee shop just a block and a half away. It is nice to see that the libraries that offer this service on a small scale manage to not just make it work, but make a tidy profit.
LLRX.com - Sample of Search Warrant Procedures for Libraries
A concise, clear, printable list of procedures for libraries being issued a search warrant. It warns of potential pitfalls, identifies areas to use caution, and tells exactly what should be done and in what order. Refreshingly to the point and clear.
Amazon: new Potter book is best seller
Amazon has half a million orders for the new Harry Potter book, making it the largest new product release ever, and surpassing the previous book in the series.
beSpacific: RSS Feeds For Summaries of Recent Supreme Court Decisions
You can now get Supreme Court decisions via RSS minutes after the decisions are handed down. What a fabulous use of RSS!
This site offers keyword searching on over 35,000 weblogs. This is a great way to read the latest on any subject of interest. Results can be sorted by relevance or date, with newest first.
A wonderful new application to make going to your daily sites faster and easier. Using cookies, this site saves the sites you choose and allows you to visit them one after the other using a button at the top of the screen. Very cool for those sites without RSS feeds.
This site went live yesterday. It offers a digitized collection of Einstein's manuscripts, including his scientific and non-scientific writings and travel diaries. The site also provides a gallery that shows highlights from the collection of manuscripts.
News, articles, resources, newsletter, and discussion boards on learning disabilities.
Dan's Web Tips: Brand-X Browsers
A large collection of alternative browsers, some of which are good alternatives to IE and others that serve specific online needs.
News, research and resources on greenhouse gasses and attempts to reduce them.
Business 2.0 - Web Article - Happiness Is a Used PC
This article announces that the 3-year replacement cycle for business computers has come to an end. At our library, we never followed the 3-year rule, but instead replaced due to speed problems and whether we had the money in the budget or not. Due to a drop in our automation annual fee, we just replaced several of our computers for the public with new small towers that are fast and take up very little space. So we should be set for some time. But I am glad that I won't be replacing all of them in three years time, since that would mean also replacing our five public wireless laptops as well!
Disney will begin a rental program with DVDs that become playable after a 2 day viewing window.
This site is a portal to gardens, arboreta and nature sites. It includes a calendar of events, a selection of links, and a search engine.
This is a really fantastic idea, and an example of the leaps that Koha is taking. Koha can now offer RSS feeds that show new books, most reserved items and longest unseen items. Wow!
An online game that is educational and engrossing, you try to evolve over millions of years. What you eat, where you live, and more will decide what you evolve into. My only hint so far after dying an early death is to watch the ferociousness of the other creature. :)
Google indicateur - All about the search engine Google
This site offers a large collection of links about Google. Subjects range from corporate information and advertising on Google to news and online tools.
American Civil Liberties Union : Support the Freedom to Read!
Use ACLU's free Take Action feature and send your congressman/woman a fax supporting the passage of the Freedom to Read Protection Act that will exempt libraries and bookstores from the Patriot Act laws that allow the FBI to easily access personal records.
A joint project of OCLC and the Gates Foundation, this site offers information to libraries promoting public access computing and technology. The site just went live on May 12th. Sections include policies, resources, buying guide, training and forums.
New & Used Books: Find the Lowest Price
This site lets you compare prices for used and new books. It searches over 70 book stores and 40,000 sellers with a single search.
From the University at Albany Libraries comes this site with a compilation of quality computer science links.
This news service scans over 370 top online news sources and compiles the results. Results can be browsed by subjects, including business, sports and IT/Internet, or by country.
HP inkjet cartridges have built-in expiry dates
Meaning that even if your cartridge is over half full, your printer may reject it and force you to get a new one! Also, the date on the cartridge does not correspond to the date your printer will reject it. Of course not, that would make far too much sense!
booksfree.com: borrow unlimited paperback novels
What a bizarre concept! Obviously based on the success of Netflix, the DVD rental-by-mail place. But this fee seems really steep, especially with public libraries out there. We have no patrons who run up fines of that size at the library without losing an item or keeping videos or DVDs too late. No one runs up $6.99 in fines on books each month and (gasp) we have both hardcovers and paperbacks and (double gasp) usage is free unless you are late!
Backcheck: A Hockey Retrospective
The history of Canadian hockey from The National Library of Canada. One nice touch is the separate kids version of the site. The graphic intro requires Flash, but it can be bypassed.
What is a library anymore, anyway?
Here is the conclusion from the paper:
"Whether or not consciously, libraries and librarians have long been prominent among the few kinds of social agencies that have preserved continuity of cultural heritages. By serving as custodians of local collections, they have incidentally served a larger common good. Whatever other public benefits they provide, publishers and Internet promoters do not, and cannot be expected to, fulfill this custodianship role.
That libraries may be becoming obsolete is, to some degree, plausible, not because they are losing some kind of competition with the Internet for eyeballs or compellingly superior content, but rather because libraries may be in the process of abandoning their role as collection builders and managers. We do not suggest that anybody is to blame in this as a practical matter; we haven't yet figured out how to retain that role in an increasingly (if never exclusively) digital information universe. The economics and limitations of technology (with some enormous intellectual property issues on the side) are serious, if temporary, impedimenta. But if we don't assert the importance of that role, of the centrality of selecting, acquiring, retaining, preserving and building means of access to collections, we will inevitably fade away."
I completely agree and could never have said it so eloquently. Lovely!
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Digital and Preservation Services Outreach Center
This site has sections covering copyright, good practices, digitization, grants, preservation, and current news. This is another aspect of librarianship that I am fascinated by, but know nothing about. Yet another thing on my "If only I had time" list.
Pulling FBI's Nose Out of Your Books
U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders has introduced the Freedom to Read Protection Act that will do away with the parts of the Patriot Act that threaten people's privacy in bookstores and libraries. It would leave open the constitutional routes for criminal investigation, returning us to the laws that affected libraries before the Patriot Act became law. Hurrah!
A site filled with edgy teen novels with gripping synopses and excerpts. I heard about it on the CCBC mailing list.
Use this site to find county officials for any county in the U.S. It also contains the code of ethics, ordinances, demographics, and policies.
A combined database of information from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and FirstGov. The database can be browsed by topic or search in simple or detailed ways.
Earth Science site from the National Science Foundation with chapters on matter, surface changes, atmosphere, weather, oceans, space and earth's history.
Selling public building naming rights a success - 05/04/03
A new concept? Naming libraries for benefactors? That would surprise Carnegie and Caestecker.
Written from inside the lovely Caestecker Public Library in Green Lake. :)
Library Journal | Reed Business Information
A list from LJ of the best of the new magazines from last year.
This site has the latest science news and a busy science discussion board.
Fascinating article on how linkers can affect the Google ranking of the site they are linking to.
Over 1000 links to socioeconomic data sources and a list of the ten best sites for finding regional economic data. Added to the Economics Section of my List.
Quickiwiki, Swiki, Twiki, Zwiki and the Plone Wars
And just when I thought I was ahead by having a blog, here comes Wikis. I like the idea of such a collaborative online tool. Hmm. Something to ask the geeks at the system to look into.
The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection
This collection is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins University. The collection focuses on popular American music from 1780 to 1960 and contains over 29,000 pieces of music. This online version indexes the entire collection with pieces published before 1923 that are in the public domain available in full text.
A Tapestry of Time and Terrain
The USGS has a new map that digitally combines U.S. geology and topography into a single map. This allows one to see not only the mountains but also the age of the rocks in the area. A complete map of North America is coming soon. This is the sort of site that I was unable to share through my List of Links since it is too specific for that general list of sites, so I am a happy blogger today!
MiniClip.com - Free Online Games
A fairly large collection of online games that require Shockwave to run. Added to the Games Section of my List.
