BlogScholar

I've encountered a fair bit of scepticism about the academic relevance of blogging. If you haven't made your mind up yet BlogScholar might be of interest.

The BBC on the blogosphere

I managed to miss this Radio Four programme* about blogs and the blogosphere, but luckily someone told me about it. If you're not sure what a blog is, or how they might be relevant, it's a good summary of what it's all about.

On the BBC News site this interview with Tim Berners-Lee also talks about blogs.


*It may be in the archives by now, or gone. That's the internet for you, things come and go...

The blog generation?

I emailed a few people asking if they thought the ML107 blog was a good idea. Most replied, "I will be out of the office between..." It's that time of year. One claimed not to be of the 'blog generation'. (And I am!?!)

I'm inclined to agree with Martin Röll who writes on SAP Info "The blogger scene has become as diverse as society itself. From journal-writing adolescents via IT specialists through to university professors – all kinds of people blog. "

Anyway to bring this back to library matters, the term 'blogs' has now been added to our library catalogue key word list, and the latest book on the subject to arrive in stock is Buzz marketing with blogs for dummies.

Fear in the library

Yesterday I went to an interesting presentation on the effects of fear, both in the workplace and in life in general.

Libraries can be pretty scary places, especially for new students. They can be scary places to work in too! All the new developments, in technology especially, mean that there can be a fear of not being able to keep up with it all. There can be a temptation to react to this by clinging to old established ways of doing things, and insisting they are the still the best. I don't think we suffer from that here, we've integrated ejournals and ebooks into our collections and always seem to be considering different ways of using technology. Some of us are even blogging! But maybe there are areas where we could be more innovative?

Don't be afraid to post a comment on this!

What future for ebooks?

Later this year I'm going to be attending a course on 'Developing and Managing e-book Collections', and I'd appreciate any feedback on the subject.

Do you think we should be developing our collection? Should we be buying more print books instead? Which titles would you like to have as ebooks? What do you like or not like about ebooks?

Use the comments feature to let me know what you think - I'll let you know of anything useful that I find out from the course.

If you haven't used our own ebook collection before, just go to the library catalogue and type in 'ebooks', then on the next screen add a subject keyword for a list of ebooks on that topic. Click on a title for a link to the ebook itself.

New books - Beyond Bullet Points

Atkinson, Cliff. Beyond bullet points: using Microsoft Powerpoint to create presentations that inform, motivate, and inspire.

Would you like to do something more interesting with Powerpoint than the usual bullet point slides? Find out about storyboarding, dividing your presentation into three acts, using graphics and more techniques to give your Powerpoint presentations more appeal.

Courses - Defining the Digital Roadmap

'Defining the Digital Roadmap' was organised by the eInformation Group of Cilip (1.) - it was a day packed with the latest live issues in internet searching and related areas.

Something that came up in several sessions during the day was the impact of blogs and RSS feeds. Blogs seem to be the big issue in digital information currently. One of the new roles of many librarians is to use a blog as a way of keeping their organisation up to date with developments. So here are a few of the highlights.

New services keep on coming from GoogleLabs. Following on from Google Scholar and Google Print, context specific help with searching is now available with Google Suggest while Google Maps allows you to zoom in on any part of the world you choose, right down to street level. Some concern was expressed over security issues with Google Desktop. This allows you to search your own pc, which is excellent if you're not that good at keeping your files and folders organised, but take care that you know what it's keeping in it's cache! Especially if you are working with confidential information.

While Google may have captured the market for general internet searching there are also many specialist search engines. Ever wanted to find an American radio programme? You can find NPR (2.) programmes using Speechbot. Unfortunately this won't find BBC or other UK radio programmes. Want to find a VR model? You can sketch your search into Princeton's 3D Model Search Engine.

All of which, fascinating as it is, just adds to the information overload we all have to deal with. If you're struggling to work out where it's best to go to find the information you need, don't hesitate to contact us in the library.

The highlight of the day for me was this video - a cautionary tale of where trends towards personalisation and customisation in digital news might be taking us. It reminded me to dig out my copy of Neil Postman's classic Amusing Ourselves to Death.

(1.) Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
(2.) National Public Radio

New resources - The IDS HR Case Study Library

We now have access to a new service - The IDS HR Case Study Library. It can be accessed using the same password as for our other IDS resources.

Business library blog!

This is our new business librarians blog. We hope to use it to keep staff and students, and anyone else who might be interested, informed about business information resources available from the Southampton Institute Library. We'd be grateful for any constructive feedback: use the comment feature to let us know what you find interesting or useful, and what you'd like to know more about.