Information Center Connections

Federal library world updates

The Federal Library Directory is a new resource of incredible value.

The directory, organized by FLICC, is searchable and provides detailed information about more than 1,000 U.S. federal libraries worldwide. Contact information, available services, and welcome audiences are listed, among many other characteristics of interest.

Read more about it in the press release.

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As you may know, GPO Access, the federal government's site for documents and reports, is being replaced by FDsys.  The transition has begun, and no new materials will be added to the old site. That site will be "retired" during the 2012 fiscal year, specific date yet undetermined.

FDsys stands for "Federal Digital System" and it is also a product of the U.S. Government Printing Office. The system provides access to information products from all three government branches, including fulltext documents and metadata.

Learn more about this resource on the FDsys site.

Whom do you follow?

Do you tweet?  Do you want to tweet?  Or, would you prefer to just follow?

Twitter is a great way to keep up with industry developments, find resources, and pick up a tip or two from colleagues.  I like the immediacy of it.

Here are some suggestions for those in the info industry world:

@mashable:  social media stories and tips
@graubart:  Barry Graubart, smart and witty digital media guru
@copyrightclear:  Copyright Clearance Center, for news and other developments
@jill_hw:  Jill Hurst-Wahl, LIS professor, author, speaker; she seems to be everywhere!
@jafurtado:  Jose Afonso Furtado, for an international perspective on the information world
@librarycongress:  Library of Congress.  Enough said.
@lisnews:  All the LIS news that fits into 140 characters
@scottabel:  Content strategy

 

And other tweeters I enjoy:

@ebertchicago:  Roger Ebert, movie review guy and social commentator
@nilofer:  Innovation evangelist Nilofer Merchant
@James_Kane:  The guy who knows everything about loyalty
@chrisbrogan:  Business consultant with some great ideas
@davidlebovitz:  American chef living in France with keen observations about people and food 

 

What are your follow suggestions?  Besides me, @triviachick, of course.

Technical Standards and You

Standards are part of our daily lives. They can be found at home, in our car, at work and in cyberspace.  We wouldn’t have email without standards.  Standards not only formally document technical criteria, methods, practices and practices, they allow companies and individuals to save money, accelerate projects and make better solutions.

Technical standards are up for review every five years which makes the revision process long and slow. Different organizations focus on reviewing, enhancing and proposing standards on different topics. In the library world, NISO, W3C, and Library of Congress are the standards organizations helping to define epublication, metadata, linked data, and CSS standards (to just name a few).

SLA has a Technical Standards Committee whose focus is to share standards activities from various organizations and provide educational opportunities about the standards, as well.  In the past, this committee has also voted on NISO standards on behalf of SLA. 

If you are interested in technical standards or tasked with implementing them in your organization, join the open SLA Technical Standards discussion list.  Subscription instructions are at the bottom of the committee's page. 

Look for educational opportunities about technical standards in the upcoming months. If you have suggestions for a specific technical standard you would like to learn more about or standards topics you think are important to information professionals, let us know by contacting any committee member.

New ventures for Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy

Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy, formerly of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker, have launched two new not-to-be-missed resource sites.

INFOdocket brings us industry news, and a whole lot of resources and tools.

FullTextReports...well, it's just what it says!  Reports from think tanks, scholarly organizations, industry analysts, and more.

Each site has an RSS feed and a Twitter feed (@INFOdocket and @fulltextreports), so it's easy to keep up with what's new, and each site is accessible on your mobile device.  How's that for great information service?

 

News from Dialog and ProQuest

Three cheers for Dialog and ProQuest!

Dialog is offering some discounts for access to its services for laid-off librarians and information professionals.  A press release from early October announced that the company is waiving standard Dialog start-up and service fees, offering free Dialindex, and discounting Dialog usage by 10% for librarians who have become unemployed since September 2008.  The company hopes it will help info pros find jobs and maintain their search skills during a difficult time.  Sign up for the program here.

And, for SLA members, here's another program to take advantage of:  free trials of Dialog and ProQuest resources.  Ninety days of complimentary access to databases will be offered on a rotating basis.  During the first 90 days of the program, the featured products are Environmental Impact Studies (full-text) and Papers Invited.  What's up next?  Conference Papers Index and Illustrata.  What better way to evaluate products than through a free trial?

Moving and shaking

Are you a mover or a shaker?  Know someone who might be?  Well, Library Journal wants to hear from you!

The magazine is now collecting nominations for its annual Movers & Shakers issue (the issue will be released March 15th), which recognizes emerging leaders in our industry.  Deadline for submissions is November 9th, so start shakin' it!

The rankings...

U.S. News & World Report has released its ratings of various graduate school programs, including schools of library and information studies (that's us!).

Unless you're a premium online edition subscriber (or buy access to the ratings), the information on the site is not too detailed, but a perusal of the rankings may be all you're curious about.

What I like about the ratings...they also rank program specialties.  So, you can see the top 5 programs for archives and preservation, digital librarianship, health librarianship, information systems, law librarianship, school library media, and children's/youth services.

What's on top?  A shared #1 spot for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and UNC-Chapel Hill.

How were the programs ranked?  Surveys were sent to key people in each of the LIS schools, with a 56% response rate.  In total, 50 programs were included on the list.

So, what do you think?  Are these ratings important?  Important to all information professionals or just to individuals looking to enter a program?  Are the ratings valid?  As Jerry Seinfeld said in the "World's Greatest Dad" episode, "I don't know how official any of these rankings really are."  Maybe it's what you need and are trying to accomplish that count the most.

MIT Will Publish All Faculty Articles Free In Online Repository

This decision makes MIT the first university to commit to making its faculty’s research papers publicly available, and must be step in the right direction. Publishing industry trends, said Director of MIT Libraries, Ann J. Wolpert, have created a situation in which "the way faculty teach and conduct research is greatly at odds with the business models of publishers … Publishers seek to maximize profits by exercising maximal control over [authors’] work, while authors seek to advance research and education."  Kudos to MIT. See the full article in MIT's The Tech Online Edition.

Source: Resource Shelf

A morning in the Information Center

What happens in SLA's Information Center?  I thought today would be a good day to share some of my daily processes and describe the services we provide.

As much as we talk about information overload, there is actually a lot of action-related information in my e-mail inbox, and I use those messages to start the work of my day.  After deleting the spam and junk, I was able to get down to business with the real content.  The newsletters I receive from sources like the Chronicle of Higher Education and Library Journal usually have a few interesting articles.  I also received an article on Second Life and one on a traveling library in Colombia from SLA's strategic communications director, Maura Kennedy.  Library Link of the Day (also available via RSS) is a favorite source of news.  I "collect" the best articles from these sources and others in tabs in Firefox so they are in one place and ready for me when I create the day's issue of Nexcerpt News Connections. Together with Factiva News Connections, NNC brings members articles on topics across the information and technology industries.

Also in my inbox:  messages from various SLA discussion lists.  I forwarded a few of these to staff members who may want to read and possibly respond.  I received two comments to the SLA Blog post on blog training for SLA staff, so I followed up with a comment of my own. 

Next:  two inquiries about value and the information professional.  I responded to those with some published survey data...and updated the Value portal, which has a long list of resources, at the same time.

Planners for the SLA 2009 Annual Conference and INFO-EXPO are busy entering information on sessions and events in the online planner, and I've received a few deadline reminders for this.  (The registration for the conference opens in January.)  The conference wiki, created by the DC chapter, is a great place to read, and share, conference tips.

One way I keep up to date is by using TrackEngine to alert me to changes in Web pages (sometimes, an RSS feed just isn't available).  For example, when ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership updates the "new and upcoming" publications page, an e-mail is sent to me.  This makes it easy for me to notify staff members of new titles they might be interested in reviewing.

While preparing today's Nexcerpt News Connections, I consulted my Bloglines account (although a move to Google Reader might be in order).  I keep track of about 150 blogs, and usually pull several items from there to add to Nexcerpt, and I forward many more news bits to staff members.  I also file some posts away for consideration for my Info Sites column in Information Outlook or for a briefer Worth a Click post on this blog.

As you can see, and I'm sure you know from your own experiences, one thing leads to another and it's lunchtime.  Staying organized can be a challenge, but it's necessary for the work we do.  Share your own tips and tricks and your favorite sources of information....

Online course on evidence-based practice

UNC's School of Information and Library Science is offering a course in evidence-based librarianship in the Spring 2009 semester.  The course, "Evidence-based Library and Information Practice," will be offered online, and Joanne Gard Marshall and Carol Perryman are the instructors.

For a full description of the course, visit the SILS website.

More about evidence-based practice for librarians can be found in the LIS Research portal on SLA's website.