MSN Search offers free full text access to Encarta Encyclopedia

via resourceshelf

Researchers might be interested to learn that MSN Search is offering a free access to the full text (not just blurbs) of Microsoft's

This page offers details about how to get a free pass. No, registration is required.

Read on ...

search, msn, ENCARTA, library

Growing Wikipedia revises it 'anyone can edit" policy

While these measures may appear to undermine the site's democratic principles, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder, notes that protection is usually temporary and affects a tiny fraction of the 1.2 million entries on the English-language site.

"Protection is a tool for quality control, but it hardly defines Wikipedia," Mr. Wales said. "What does define Wikipedia is the volunteer community and the open participation." Read the whole article

Tags: wikipedia, library

Storytime online

"Storyline Online is an innovative website featuring well-known actors reading quality children's picture books aloud.

Offered free of charge, these imaginatively produced videos fully capture the intricate illustrations, colors and textures of each book.

Storyline Online also includes a supplemental activities section developed by an Early Literacy curriculum specialist.

The videos and related activities strengthen comprehension, verbal and written skills of English language learners worldwide."

visit Storyline online

library

New Publications

Ross McMullin has revised his 1984 publication on the life of artist, cartoonist, war correspondent and poet, Will Dyson.

The new book, Will Dyson : Australia's Radical Genius, features reproductions of Dyson's drawings and cartoons, many providing an insight into trench conditions during World War I.

(Dyson's own book, Australia at War : A Winter Record, covers this theme more fully.)

From AustLit

library

U.S. Ends a Yearlong Effort to Obtain Library Records Amid Secrecy in Connecticut

After fighting for nearly a year to keep details of a counterterrorism investigation secret, the federal government has abandoned efforts to obtain library records in Connecticut, concluding that the implied threat had no merit.

The decision was hailed yesterday as a victory by the four Connecticut librarians who mounted one of the few known challenges to the nation's strengthened antiterrorism law when they filed a lawsuit last summer objecting to the government's request for patron records and its insistence on absolute secrecy. Read on ...

library

Information Literacy Assessment

TRAILS is a self-guided, self-administered assessment tool designed for use by library media specialists and teachers to determine the information literacy competencies of their high school students.

Librarians and teachers at other grade levels may find it of use as well. Once an assessment is selected, the library media specialist or teacher can choose how to use it to serve local needs.

These tips may provide helpful information to create an assessment experience most conducive to obtaining useful results.

Visit TRAILS


information literacy, library

Find in a library

Always there browser tools that let you search libraries

Books, videos, downloadable audio books, if it's in a library near you, you'll find it with Find in a Library. Install one of the browser tools below to search liraries no matter where you are on the web.

Learn more about Find in a Library

library, worldcat

Click 06 - ALIA's Biennial conference

Perth Convention Exhibition Centre

Perth, Western Australia

19 - 22 September 2006

Registration Brochure & Preliminary Program now available on the website

Click on the link to download or print off the full RegistrationBrochure

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/Documents/Registration_brochure.pdf

and RegistrationForm

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/Documents/Reg_form.pdf .

Available now on the Conference website.

You can also click here

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/ for Conference details including the preliminary program

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/programme_programme.html ,

list of invited speakers, exciting social events, accommodation optionsand attractions in Perth.

ALIA, library

Reference Librarians use Electronic Sources Six Times More than Print Sources to Answer Patrons’ Questions

from
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 2006

A review of:Bradford, Jane T., Barbara Costello, and Robert Lenholt. “Reference Service in the Digital Age: An Analysis of Sources Used to Answer Reference Questions.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 31.3 (May 2005): 263‐72.

Abstract

Objective – To test the hypothesis that electronic sources are used by librarians more often than print sources to answer questions at the reference desk.

Read the report

library

National archives prepares to go digital

(From my archives!! November, 2005) With the unenviable responsibility for housing potentially petabytes of government information that's both public and 'private', the National Archives of Australia (NAA) in Canberra is set to launch its digital archiving service on new infrastructure. Read on ...

archives, library

Evidence based librarianship and open access

Morrison, Heather (2006) .

Evidence based practice, whether in librarianship or any other profession, depends on access to the evidence, and access to opportunities to share one’s own evidence. Open access (OA) is the perfect complement to evidence based librarianship. OA provides the optimum access to the evidence for librarians everwhere, and the optimum means of dissemination. This article compares examines access to the LIS literature in the print and electronic media, and the impact of open access. Read on ...

library, open access, evidence based librarianship

Mashing Up The Library

Mashing Up The Library competition announced

(Via Phil Bradley)

Talis is pleased to announce the first competition intended to encourage innovation in the display, use, and reuse of data from and about libraries. The competition is open to all, and includes a first prize of £1,000 for the best entry. Read on for more information, and the respected panel of judges looks forward to reviewing a wide range of innovative entries. Read more ...

library 2.0, library

The story continues ...

From AustLit

AustLit's April/May Newsletter reported on a perceived takeover in the writing and transmission of Australian history. ('Move Over History Wars – the Novelists are on Their Way')

Led by historian and writer Mark McKenna, the argument ran that, in part because of recent disputes between Australian historians, 'writers of fiction are now more commonly seen as the most trustworthy purveyors of the past.'

McKenna's fears will not be allayed, therefore, by Allen & Unwin's announcement that it plans to publish a three-volume 'People's History of Australia' to be written by Thomas Keneally.

Keneally says that he 'will aim to cast a new lens over Australia and its people, so that you can see it in unexpected lights.' He hopes his work will surprise his readers and that they will be 'hearing from people they have never heard from before.'According to Allen & Unwin Chairman, Patrick Gallagher, '[n]o writer can better capture the essence of the Australian people than Tom Keneally ... we're all looking forward to publishing a series that will be of lasting importance to all Australians.' The first volume in the set is due for release in late 2008. (Allen & Unwin media release, April 2006)

library

Are You Game?

By Aaron Schmidt

Thanks to the Librarian in Black

Thanks to electronic games, attracting teens has never been easier Current Issue

You’ve heard the buzz about how hosting gaming events will have young patrons beating a path to your library.

Marianne Kruppa, a Web developer librarian at St. Joseph County (IN) Public Library (SJCPL) has seen it happen firsthand. “Game nights grow exponentially,” she says. “When one kid has a great time, she brings one or two friends to the next event. Then those kids bring their friends!” Read on ...

library

States' help needed to ban books: Ruddock

The Federal Government has announced new steps to crack down on books or films that encourage acts of terrorism.

The Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he has written to state and territory Censorship Ministers, asking them to work with the Commonwealth to consider ways to ban the sale of books or films that support violent jihad or glorify suicide bombings.

Mr Ruddock has also asked the Classification Review Board to take another look at its decision which found that eight books and one film did not incite or promote violence.

Read on ...

library

Are you ready for Web 2.0?

“…Web 2.0, according to conference sponsor Tim O'Reilly, is an "architecture of participation" -- a constellation made up of links between web applications that rival desktop applications, the blog publishing revolution and self-service advertising.

This architecture is based on social software where users generate content, rather than simply consume it, and on open programming interfaces that let developers add to a web service or get at data. It is an arena where the web rather than the desktop is the dominant platform, and organization appears spontaneously through the actions of the group, for example, in the creation of folksonomies created through tagging..”

Read on …


web 2.0, library

The social life of books

An interview with Ben Vershbow at the Library journal blog

You write about the "social life" of books, and I know you don't mean where books go to hang out and cross-reference. What do you mean?Well, to a certain extent, I do mean that books will be able to go hang out and cross-reference. I think digital libraries will be in constant communication with each other, sharing patterns of use, exchanging user-created metadata, building maps of meaning out of the recorded behaviors and interests of readers. Parts of books will reference parts of other books. Books will be woven together out of components in remote databases and servers. So, in some ways books will have a life of their own. But you're right, what I'm getting at primarily is the social life of readers and authors that will exist around and inside of books. Read the whole post

books, library

Library stars: Best of the best

Tuesday 19 September 2006, 9.30 am -4.30 pm, Perth Convention Exhibition Centre

--------------------------------------------------Registrations for the forum are now open.

The forum will showcase libraries, projects and successes to recognise outstanding achievements in the public library sector and to inspire public library practitioners.

The program features:Keynote address by Rolf Hapel, Library Director, Aarhus Public Libraries, Denmark. Aarhus Public Libraries won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 'Access to Learning' Award in 2004.

Presentations on seven outstanding public library services and programs from around Australia including: three diverse reading and literacy programs, an indigenous local knowledge collection, an extensive local history project, innovative use of digital technology to provide library materials to people with sight impairment, and a staff development program for library staff in remote Northern Territory communities.

The forum will include panel discussions and Q and A sessions. Forum delegates will vote for the Delegates Choice Award for the best project presented on the day.

RegistrationALIA members*: $100.00 (GST incl.)Non-members: $135.00 (GST incl.)* Members of PLA, LIANZA, ASLA and ASA are eligible for the ALIA memberrate.

For details of the program and to register please go tohttp://alia.org.au/governance/committees/public.libraries/stars.html

Library stars: best of the best is presented by the ALIA Public Libraries Reference Group and is sponsored by Peter Pal Library Supplier and SirsiDynix. It is a satellite event for the 2006 ALIA BiennialConference, CLICK06, Perth, 19-22 September 2006.
For more information please contact Susan Magnay,susan.magnay@alia.org.au.nospam, ph 02 6215 8225.

library

The architecture of our systems

Details of Maisson Brisson presentation

"I argue that libraries are rich with the stuff people would like to link to, but the architecture of our systems often fails us on the other aspects."...

Read more ...

library