Papers of Tagging Workshop at WWW 2006, Edinbugh
31 May 2006
Librarian--Who?
Who should be called a "librarian"? Good Discussion going. Only think only persons having professional degrees should be called "Librarians".
30 May 2006
Indiamarks
Social bookmarking and tagging | indiamarks... where india bookmarks
indiamarks is a
social bookmarking
service for the global indian community.
Krunch - compress files online
Krunch is a simple tool that simplifies the process of compressing and sending your files online.
29 May 2006
26 May 2006
Wisdom of Crowds
The Wisdom of Crowds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
Next Best Thing to an MBA
The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBA
Across the country, public libraries are giving would-be entrepreneurs a helping hand with resources and expert guidance
Future OPAC: Web services that could be mixed and matched?
ALA TechSource | How OPACs Suck, Part 3: The Big Picture
The catalog of the future wouldn't be a catalog; it would be a series of standards-compliant Web services that could be mixed and matched.
Networks are about sharing now
BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Everybody’s a network
..Networks are about sharing now; they used to be about control. Networks are two-way; they used to be one-way. Networks are about aggregation more than distribution; they are about finding and being found..
25 May 2006
Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles
PLoS Biology: Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles
Even in a journal that is widely available in research libraries, OA articles are more immediately recognized and cited by peers than non-OA articles published in the same journal.
Search/Retrieve via URL
SRU: Search and Retrieve via URL (Standards, Library of Congress)
SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) is a standard search protocol for Internet search queries, utilizing CQL (Common Query Language), a standard query syntax for representing queries. SRW (Search Retrieve Web Service) is a companion protocol to SRU. The Library of Congress serves as the maintenance agency for these standards.
24 May 2006
Video interview on Open Access
Today I found a Video interview of Richard Poynder, a Freelance Journalist, with Open Access advocate Stevan Harnad. It is an excellent interview of about 30 minutes that can be viewed on a multi-media PC having a Windows Media Player installed. Apart from OA Publishing and Self-Arching, Prof Harnad also talk of role of librarians in OA Movement.
Here are the Broadband and Dial-up Links.
Here are the Broadband and Dial-up Links.
23 May 2006
Information dissemination, Sociomimetics and Trampoline
Interesting post on Information dissemination, Sociomimetics and the Trampoline in Nascent: Charles Armstrong visits Nature
Social Software in Academic Libraries
Meredith Gorran Farkas on Harnessing the Power of Social Software in Academic Libraries:
* Putting stuff on the Web can be really easy
* You don't need to understand how it works; you just need to know how to use it
* Play with technology! Kick the tires!
* Avoid technolust (technology should fill a need)
* We can learn a lot when we open ourselves up to feedback and collaboration
* We need to be where our patrons are
* Putting stuff on the Web can be really easy
* You don't need to understand how it works; you just need to know how to use it
* Play with technology! Kick the tires!
* Avoid technolust (technology should fill a need)
* We can learn a lot when we open ourselves up to feedback and collaboration
* We need to be where our patrons are
22 May 2006
19 May 2006
Web almost substitute for libraries?
Is Internet evolving into a giant global digital library? Now atleast 10 Reasons are available Why The Web Is Almost A Substitute For Libraries:-
"1. Everything I Need IS On The Internet.
2. Catalog This!
3. Quality Control Does Exist
4. Nothing Is Perfect
5. Check Out Dan Brown's Bytes @Your Library
6. The Ebook Is Coming
7. Look Ma, No Books!
8. Everything Is Born Digital
9. We No Longer Care What Was Written In 1970
10. The Internet Is Already Ubiquitous And Portable."
"1. Everything I Need IS On The Internet.
2. Catalog This!
3. Quality Control Does Exist
4. Nothing Is Perfect
5. Check Out Dan Brown's Bytes @Your Library
6. The Ebook Is Coming
7. Look Ma, No Books!
8. Everything Is Born Digital
9. We No Longer Care What Was Written In 1970
10. The Internet Is Already Ubiquitous And Portable."
Croquet Project
The Croquet Project
A new open source software platform for creating deeply collaborative multi-user online applications
Redefining Libraries
From The "M" Word
Libraries are in the process of redefining from repositories of books to ever-evolving community and information centers but according to OCLC's study, Perception of Libraries and Information Resources 2005, the public seems to still cling onto our old image believing libraries are synonymous with books not information.
aDORe Archive Software
aDORe Archive
The aDORe Archive allows for the storage of mutliple XMLtapes and ARC files through the introduction of OAI-PMH compliant XMLtape and ARCfile registries. Its Source Distribution is available for download.
Blog Search by Date now.
Never browse outdated posts again: a new feature on Google Blog Search now lets you narrow your search by date.
18 May 2006
New Web-based Google Video Uploader
Just tried the new web-based video uploader for Google Video as annouced in their Official Google Blog: Instant gratification, Google Video style. Shot up a small video through Sony Ericsson K750i Camera Phone. It created 3gp file. Opened up the Uploader -- and done in a minute or so.
MedBioWorld Site
"MedBioWorld: Medical/Medicine and bioscience journals, associations and resources" is medical and biological resource directory. Covers journals, associations, news, databases and companies.
Download Medical Softwares
Medical Download.com Lists and offers downloads for various softwares that can be used in medical areas like billing, medical records, practice management etc.
17 May 2006
Place for Social Software in LIS curriculum
Is Internet evolving into a giant global digital library? If
yes - then it is due to rise of the phenomena of Social Softwares / Web 2.0 /
Library 2.0. So, obviously Social Softwares will find place in LIS
Curriculum sooner or latter. Such a curriculum has been suggested in blog post
It includes - Introduction to Social Software, Blogs, RSS, Wikis, folksonomies, social networks and other social software tools like Instant Messaging applications and Podcasting.
Why not to kill Libraries yet?
There is a rather long posting with on going discussions - whether browsing the Library stacks should still continue in this web age. (stevenberlinjohnson.com: Can We Please Kill This Meme Now). Here is my opinion.
-- Browsing / Surfing is one way of acquiring knowledge and to satisfy the inner hunger for information. Call it infotainment – entertainment with information. One can get this type of entertainment either visiting a library or sit in front of desktop. Books / other published documents in a library does go a filtering and selection process – first in the publication process then in the selection process of the library. Hence reliability of the contained information is somewhat ensured. The same cannot be said about whatever goes on Internet. Persistency and referencing is more reliable in case of library collection – though referencing by links is much easier on web. However, it is also true that as time passes, Internet is evolving into a library.
-- Browsing / Surfing is one way of acquiring knowledge and to satisfy the inner hunger for information. Call it infotainment – entertainment with information. One can get this type of entertainment either visiting a library or sit in front of desktop. Books / other published documents in a library does go a filtering and selection process – first in the publication process then in the selection process of the library. Hence reliability of the contained information is somewhat ensured. The same cannot be said about whatever goes on Internet. Persistency and referencing is more reliable in case of library collection – though referencing by links is much easier on web. However, it is also true that as time passes, Internet is evolving into a library.
16 May 2006
Google Notebook Up
Google Notebook is now up. It works similar to what I expected. Does the work like clipmarks but in a much cool manner. Moreover, Google Search Engine has been leveraged in a good fashion.
Installation is very simple - you need a Google Account ( your gmail account will do ). In mine case - as soon as I logged in - it asked for downloading a Firefox extension. This was done in seconds. Next time when Firefox was opened, it had a small Notebook icon towards the right bottom corner.
Working with it is Simple - mark anything in your Firebox / Browser and click -> notebook icon -> Add Note. You are done. While searching with Google, it shows - "Note this" hypertext under each hit.
Installation is very simple - you need a Google Account ( your gmail account will do ). In mine case - as soon as I logged in - it asked for downloading a Firefox extension. This was done in seconds. Next time when Firefox was opened, it had a small Notebook icon towards the right bottom corner.
Working with it is Simple - mark anything in your Firebox / Browser and click -> notebook icon -> Add Note. You are done. While searching with Google, it shows - "Note this" hypertext under each hit.
Subject Headings Vs Tags
Infomancy Blog has a post comparing Subject Headings with Tags. It argues that while "Subject Headings" are technically correct but "Tags" are right in the sense they reflect how the end user approach a particular information item.
Open Access Advantage
Journal of Medical Internet Research - The Open Access Advantage
PLoS Biology provides robust evidence that open-access articles are more immediately recognized and cited than non-OA articles.
15 May 2006
12 May 2006
Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
Terry Kuny and Gary Cleveland in their article “The Digital Library: Myths and Challenges" IFLA journal 1998 24 (2)7347 had rejected Internet as Digital Library. They regarded it a myth to consider it as a digital library. As a bookstore cannot be called a Library in the same manner Internet providing access to huge information resources cannot considered as a Library. “Finding information is difficult, the quality of the information is quite variable, and reliable, professional assistance for the confused and lost is lacking”.
I have been keenly observing in past few years the emergence of a trend to organize the Internet (WEB) resources so that these are useful to the potential users. Yahoo was probably the first popular tool to hand pick and organize information resources into categories. Then came the voluntary efforts to create an Open Directory (Open Directory Project).
Yet another landmark I consider is the emergence of social tagging platforms like Del.icio.us for bookmaking and Flickr to share Photos. Interestingly Nature Publishing Group produced Open Source Software – Connotea and a free site to “help researchers and clinicians manage and share information”. It handles academic references far better than Del.icio.us. Now only days back Goggle launched Google Co-op. Here you can categorize the URLs in way you know better and people can subscribe to your categorization. This means that now you as a librarian can categorize and organization the web resources in a manner that could be useful for your patrons!! Well it is expected that they subscribe to your categories while searching. And this has started happening - Just noted that [US] National Library of Medicine is a major contributor.
So Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
I have been keenly observing in past few years the emergence of a trend to organize the Internet (WEB) resources so that these are useful to the potential users. Yahoo was probably the first popular tool to hand pick and organize information resources into categories. Then came the voluntary efforts to create an Open Directory (Open Directory Project).
Yet another landmark I consider is the emergence of social tagging platforms like Del.icio.us for bookmaking and Flickr to share Photos. Interestingly Nature Publishing Group produced Open Source Software – Connotea and a free site to “help researchers and clinicians manage and share information”. It handles academic references far better than Del.icio.us. Now only days back Goggle launched Google Co-op. Here you can categorize the URLs in way you know better and people can subscribe to your categorization. This means that now you as a librarian can categorize and organization the web resources in a manner that could be useful for your patrons!! Well it is expected that they subscribe to your categories while searching. And this has started happening - Just noted that [US] National Library of Medicine is a major contributor.
So Is Internet evolving into a Digital Library?
Libraries in Social Networking Software
Information Wants To Be Free Blog has a comprehensive post on using ( or not using) Social Networking Software like MySpace and Facebook in Libraries.
11 May 2006
Google Related Links
"Google Related Links use the power of Google to automatically bring fresh, dynamic and interesting content links to any website". - Google Related Links
Going Strong the Search Way
According to Official Google Blog Four products are being launched by Google.
- Google Co-op - You can help Google Improve search results in the topics you know best.
- Google Desktop 4 - Next version of Desktop Search Tool that can "Quickly search your computer"
- Google Notebook ( To be launched ). Can't say exactly but can guess - could be similar to http://clipmarks.com
- Google Trends
10 May 2006
Flirting with OPML
Top RSS Feeds in Medicine inspired me to create a OPML File. The idea was to share a single URL instead of list for collection of useful feeds. So I opened my feed aggregator - BlogBridge and created a new "Guide". After this was done I started adding the suggested feeds one by one. It was not simple - and I was struck on the first feed - PubMed itself. It is a huge database - the problem was what to select? I queried for India and set the Limits for "Added in Last 30 Days" and "Links to Free Fulltext". It was now a short list. I was ready to same it as RSS Feel. Next came the Journal Sites. The publishers are offering multiple feeds packaged by Current Issue or Most Read Articles. I picked only a few from them. Once I completed my "Guide" in BlogBride I was ready to export it as OPML file. I exported it to my desktop.
Now question came - How do I share it? I first tried "Share Your OPML". I was little disappointed that I could not find any way to share my OPML as a URL. Then I searched for some other service. Soon found out OPMLworkstation.com where I could upload my OPML. Hopefully my OPML should be visible to people from this link.
Now question came - How do I share it? I first tried "Share Your OPML". I was little disappointed that I could not find any way to share my OPML as a URL. Then I searched for some other service. Soon found out OPMLworkstation.com where I could upload my OPML. Hopefully my OPML should be visible to people from this link.
9 May 2006
NLM released a new version of the Gateway
NLM Technical Bulletin, May–Jun 2006, Technical Notes
NLM released a new version of the Gateway that includes access to two additional NLM resources. Users are now able to search the Household Products Database and the Bookshelf, a growing collection of full text biomedical books.
Is everybody a Content Creators?
Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Teen Content Creators and Consumers
Teen Content Creators and Consumers: More than half of online teens have created content for the internet
Digital Library?
Key concepts for the Digital Library? - -=( In Between )=-
"The digital library should strive towards an openly accessible, modifiable knowledge base where each object is identified, where changes to objects are rigidly described, and upon which an extensible set of similarity operators can be defined."Does this means that a Digital Library needs to follow Open Access?
Skill Set for Modern Medical Librarian
The traditional concept of a library is being redefined from a place to access paper records or books to one that also houses the most advanced media, including CD-ROM, the Internet, virtual libraries, and remote access to a wide range of resources. Consequently, Librarians or information professionals, increasingly are combining traditional duties with tasks involving quickly changing technology. Soon Librarians' Duties would include BLOGS, WIKIs, WEBCASTS / PODCASTS, IM, RSS and WEB. A master’s degree in library science and information is desireable professional qualification along with masters in biological sciences. In addition awareness of Concepts like Library 2.0, WEB 2.0 and Knowledge Management would also be required.
However the problem with Medical Libraries in India is that their Salary Structure can afford only a clerk not a professional. Even a Degree College offering B.A degrees has a better Pay Structure than a Medical Library, Well almost!!.
Occupational outlook for Librarians
Occupational outlook for Librarians as per Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-07 Edition U.S. - Department of Labor | Bureau of Labor Statistics | Bulletin 2600
Isolatr, Web 2.0 and Ranganathan
I find Dr. Mohamed Taher comments on Isolatr rather interesting when he argues with help of Ranganathan's Third law on his blog Information Visualization.
Five laws of library science
1. Books are for use
2. Every reader his/her book
3. Every book its reader
4. Save the time of the reader
5. The Library is a growing organism
2. Every reader his/her book
3. Every book its reader
4. Save the time of the reader
5. The Library is a growing organism
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan
Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan
Indian librarian and educator (mathematician) who was considered the father of library science in India and whose contributions had worldwide influence
InfoVis:Wiki
InfoVis:Wiki
InfoVis:Wiki project is intended to provide a community platform and forum integrating recent developments and news on all areas and aspects of Information Visualization.
8 May 2006
ExpressPDF
ExpressPDF :: Convert online Word, Excel, Web pages to PDF Free !
ExpressPDF is an online service that lets you convert Microsoft Office documents to PDF.
This service can also convert Web pages to PDF !
Medical Digital Library - IAMI Discussion
I have submitted my following post to IAMI Discussion Forum to start the ball rolling on Medical Digital Library.
T start with let me highlight that discussion about libraries is nothing but about Standards, Standards and Standards. I would refer to a site called Digital Library Federation - http://www.diglib.org/ and its sub-area under http://www.diglib.org/produce.htm. For those who have some plan to build a digital collection – a document at NISO Standards Site” A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections” - <http://www.niso.org/framework/Framework2.html > is highly recommended. This Framework has two purposes. First, to provide an overview of some of the major components and activities involved in the creation of good digital collections. Second, to provide a framework for identifying, organizing, and applying existing knowledge and resources to support the development of sound local practices for creating and managing good digital collections. It is intended for two audiences: for organizations planning projects to create digital collections, and funding organizations that want to encourage the development of good digital collections. However it should be clear that "digital library" is not merely equivalent to a digitized collection with information management tools. It is rather an environment to bring together collections, services, and people in support of the full life cycle of creation, dissemination, use, and preservation of data, information, and knowledge. < http://genie.sir.arizona.edu/236/ >
Content is the key to a digital library like it is for the physical library. However, Intellectual Property Rights issues are more complex for Digital Libraries. This is due to the fact that even a single digital copy can serve the whole world. Therefore publishers are obviously a worried lot. Therefore they normally extend their protection of rights covered by Copy-Right Laws by means of contracts and licensing. While the publishers are trying to lobby for greater rights over Digital Content, the academics are in the picture now for a movement called “Open Access” < http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/brief.htm >. Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What make it possible are the Internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. Open Access is possible in academics because the authors’ motive for publishing article is never the financial gain but the appreciation of the peers. Open Access is of two types - Publishing and Self-archiving. Publishing is like the traditional journal publishing – only difference is that access is free to end-user [For example http://www.biomedcentral.com/ ]. Self-archiving is where the authors having rights over their documents upload them publicly accessible repositories [for example http://openmed.nic.in ]. Now about 90% plus [ http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php ] of traditional journals [under the “Open Access” pressure] have allowed their authors to self-archive their articles in one form or the other. It has to be kept here in mind that Copyrights are originally with the authors without any formality or requirement to register with any agency. However, authors were unethically exploited by commercial publishers take asking to transfer rights in their favor before a manuscript can be published. As authors’ main objective has always been to maximum readership of their work, they happily surrendered their rights. But things are changing now fast. Many countries are in process to mandate that research results of publicly funded must be made public.
T start with let me highlight that discussion about libraries is nothing but about Standards, Standards and Standards. I would refer to a site called Digital Library Federation - http://www.diglib.org/ and its sub-area under http://www.diglib.org/produce.htm. For those who have some plan to build a digital collection – a document at NISO Standards Site” A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections” - <http://www.niso.org/framework/Framework2.html > is highly recommended. This Framework has two purposes. First, to provide an overview of some of the major components and activities involved in the creation of good digital collections. Second, to provide a framework for identifying, organizing, and applying existing knowledge and resources to support the development of sound local practices for creating and managing good digital collections. It is intended for two audiences: for organizations planning projects to create digital collections, and funding organizations that want to encourage the development of good digital collections. However it should be clear that "digital library" is not merely equivalent to a digitized collection with information management tools. It is rather an environment to bring together collections, services, and people in support of the full life cycle of creation, dissemination, use, and preservation of data, information, and knowledge. < http://genie.sir.arizona.edu/236/ >
Content is the key to a digital library like it is for the physical library. However, Intellectual Property Rights issues are more complex for Digital Libraries. This is due to the fact that even a single digital copy can serve the whole world. Therefore publishers are obviously a worried lot. Therefore they normally extend their protection of rights covered by Copy-Right Laws by means of contracts and licensing. While the publishers are trying to lobby for greater rights over Digital Content, the academics are in the picture now for a movement called “Open Access” < http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/brief.htm >. Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What make it possible are the Internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. Open Access is possible in academics because the authors’ motive for publishing article is never the financial gain but the appreciation of the peers. Open Access is of two types - Publishing and Self-archiving. Publishing is like the traditional journal publishing – only difference is that access is free to end-user [For example http://www.biomedcentral.com/ ]. Self-archiving is where the authors having rights over their documents upload them publicly accessible repositories [for example http://openmed.nic.in ]. Now about 90% plus [ http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php ] of traditional journals [under the “Open Access” pressure] have allowed their authors to self-archive their articles in one form or the other. It has to be kept here in mind that Copyrights are originally with the authors without any formality or requirement to register with any agency. However, authors were unethically exploited by commercial publishers take asking to transfer rights in their favor before a manuscript can be published. As authors’ main objective has always been to maximum readership of their work, they happily surrendered their rights. But things are changing now fast. Many countries are in process to mandate that research results of publicly funded must be made public.
Neuroscience Gateway
Home : Allen Brain Atlas
Neuroscience Gateway, a resource for the latest research, news and events in neuroscience and genomics research has been developed collaboratively by the Allen Institute for Brain Science and Nature Publishing Group.
5 May 2006
Just the portions of interest
How many times we surf the net and wish to cut a small portion of text / information and retain for future. We normally bookmark them in our browser or better in tagging services like Del.icio.us. Today I came to know that there are tools that are meant exactly for "marking" portions of the sites of interest. Clipmarks and Net Snippets are one I am talking about. On first impression Clipmarks
seems to be a better choice as it being a "hosted" service and thus you are not bound with your Desktop. Later found out that Net Snippets will also do the same by uploading the collection. Both tools can be integrated with my favorite Firefox.
4 May 2006
Dissect Medicine
Dissect Medicine - Latest front page stories
Dissect Medicine is a place to read and comment on the latest medical news and research. Dissect Medicine users can rank and submit stories, which are reviewed by other users.
3 May 2006
Knowledge Management meets Structured Blogging
Manish Dhingra: Knowledge Management 2.0 - A Structured (Blogging) Approach to Knowledge Management
How to build a quick solution to inculcate Knowledge Sharing in an organization, using the raw power and versatility, structured blogging (SB).
2 May 2006
Caterpillar by Deepakshi
A drawing of Caterpillar by my daughter Deepakshi in her IV class. I took the photo with my SE 750i Camera Phone. I learned that these days Digital Cameras encode the metadata related to photograph in EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) data format. Isn't the importance of metadata growing like the Caterpillar?
Changing Nature of the Library Catalog
"Today, a large and growing number of students and scholars routinely bypass library catalogs in favor of other discovery tools, and the catalog represents a shrinking proportion of the universe of scholarly information. The catalog is in decline, its processes and structures are unsustainable, and change needs to be swift. At the same time, books and serials are not dead, and they are not yet digital. Notwithstanding widespread expansion of digitization projects, ubiquitous e-journals, and a market that seems poised to move to e-books, the role of catalog records in discovery and retrieval of the world’s library collections seems likely to continue for at least a couple of decades and probably longer".
- Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
- Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration with Other Discovery Tools
Usefullness of RSS
Library TechBytes: RSS Feeds - More than just news
Usefullness of RSS communciation channel beyond news sources and blogs
1 May 2006
Folksonomy
Folksonomy - < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy > may not as effective if looked from professional angle. However, its big plus point is that - it works!!!. Take for example of http://del.icio.us - it allows people to save bookmarks on their server. And to allow organization of these bookmarks people can classify them broadly and loosely by some words. This actually allows ordinary people to build their own personal libraries of Internet Resources. They Select and Classify resources. They can use these whenever they want. Story does not end here – it actually begins. They can also share their libraries with others by just referring a simple URL. The end product is collection of Internet Resources, which the users have themselves selected collectively and classified collectively. Of course the individual items in the collection get ranked automatically based on how many people have book marked (Tagged).
This is a best future strategy for librarianship. Help each individual to build his own personal but shareable library. And such practice should be termed as “Social Librarianship”
This is a best future strategy for librarianship. Help each individual to build his own personal but shareable library. And such practice should be termed as “Social Librarianship”
OJAX
OJAX - Ajax-powered metasearch service
OJAX provides a highly dynamic AJAX based user interface to a federated search service for OAI-PMH compatible repository metadata.
OJAX is simple, non-threatening but powerful. It attempts to minimise upfront user investment and provide immediate dynamic feedback, thus encouraging experimentation and enabling enactive learning.
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