Category Archives: Internet

Why Yahoo! Answers Is A Librarian's Worst Nightmare

Don't worry – it's not because it's going to replace us anytime soon – it's because it's an incredibly crappy reference tool which is (unfortunately) also one of the most widely used on the Net, second only to Wikipedia. The blockbuster success of Yahoo! Answers is all the more surprising once you spend a few […]

Friday Fun Link – 33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians Are Still Important (Dec 7, 2007)

This list is focused mostly on the Internet and technology as things that librarians are better at (rather than librarians successfully utilizing these tools beyond what normal users might do – he says, typing on a blog) but it’s still a lot of food for thought. To be honest, I think it wouldn’t be hard to make a […]

"From Books to Beers and Stacks to Snacks" (Xmas Edition)

If you're a librarian in Regina, live nearby or are going to be back in town for the holidays, feel free to join us for a Christmas gathering on Friday December 14 from 5pm until whenever at Monarch's Lounge in the Hotel Saskatchewan.  If you're on Facebook, full details are available here. 

Four Week "Introduction To Computers" Course

I was asked to teach a four week “Intro To Computers” course for the month of November at the Weyburn Public Library, one of two city branches in our region, while they are temporarily short-staffed.  Last week was my final class so I thought I'd put up the outlines and some thoughts in case that's […]

Eight Laws of Library Technology

John M., who knows his stuff from both sides of the coin, having been an IBM web developer before beginning library school, has written a post entitled “Eight Laws of Library Technology” that's worth a read.This is a topic that's in my head a lot having recently been introduced to Evergreen, an open source ILS […]

Six Ideas That Will Change The World

Six Ideas That Will Change the World(I also fixed the broken link in yesterday's post if anybody wants to see my paper and presentation on e-branch services for public libraries.  Thanks to John M. for (gently) pointing out the mistake! )

Electronic Library Services Paper & Presentation

I made a somewhat cryptic reference to a special project I'd been given in a previous post on My 10 Favourite Things About My New Job.  At the time, I said “I'm not going to talk too much about it here yet but I've been given a special project to work on that is about […]

I've Seen The Future of the ILS…

…and it just might be Evergreen.  The University of Windsor is listed as one of the organizations involved with this open source ILS so if anybody who did a co-op there has thoughts (or anybody else who's familiar with Evergreen via other channels), I'd love to hear what you think. Useless trivia of the day: […]

Friday Fun Link – Canadian Police No Longer Targeting File Sharing For Personal Use (Nov 16, 2007)

“The Canadian police announced that it will stop targeting people who download copyrighted material for personal use. Their priority will be to focus on organized crime and copyright theft that affects the health and safety of consumers instead of the cash flow of large corporations.“My French isn't good enough to know if a Le Devoir […]

Friday Fun Link – Lazy Library (Nov 9, 2007)

Lazy Library is a website dedicated to recommending books that are no longer than 200 pages, on any subject, to help those that find reading to be “time consuming”.Like Michelle, I think it's not as dumb of an idea as it sounds at first and might have some utility in today's culture.  (I had a […]