Libraries

Lately, I've been skipping lunch to drop a few pounds. Still wanting a break from my desk, I've been spending my time at the local public library. The Freeman branch of the Harris County Library System is busy center for the local community. It is always busy. Often it is hard to find parking outside and a seat in the library. Many folks I talk to do not even use the library because it is too busy. The computer terminals are busy, patrons are checking out videos and DVD's, reading magazines, checking out books, asking reference questions. All the natural activities of a library are being heavily used.

A new larger building is being constructed for the library. With increased parking and more seating, I expect use will go up. However, I'd bet it won't be too long before people are saying of the new library they don't use it because parking is bad and there are not enough seats. A person who visits libraries they will see they are community centers that are used.

Catalogs

Task Force Recommendation 2.3 Research and Design Review: Improving User Access to Library Catalog and Portal Information by Marcia J. Bates addresses:

Explore ways to enrich metadata records by focusing on providing additional subject and other access mechanisms (e.g., front-end user thesauri) and increasing granularity of access and display (e.g., by enabling progression through hierarchy and versions and by additional description [sic] information including summaries.

Seen on Current Cites.

Virus

This virus is getting tedious. Here are some things to do to stop it.

• Symantec has released a free Sobig.F removal tool. If your Windows PC may have been infected, download and run Symantec's removal tool.
• Close ports 995 to 999 and 8998 on your Internet connection. On XP enable the firewall. On other machines grab the free version of Zone Alarm.
• Check your machine for security holes by using Symantec's free tool (towards the bottom right of the page).

Librarian's Book Club

The book for September is Library: An Unquiet History. I've heard good things about this book. Ian recommended it to me. Blog Driver's Waltz has added to their reading list. Marylaine Block at ex libris gives it a positive review. Lots of buzz.

Thesauri

INGRID, the Integrated National Global Research Interactive Database is available from the Estonian Tartu University Library. It is in both English and Estonian. "Here you can see present subjects, look for genus subjects (hypernyms) and narrower subjects (hyponyms) of given subject, and of course, you can find records with given subject."

e-Mail

LIS-UKBIBS: new UK discussion list on bibliographic standards and metadata.

From Monday September 1st, a new discussion list, LIS-UKBIBS, becomes available for UK cataloguers, indexers and all those interested in the application of bibliographic standards and metadata in the UK library environment.

Supported on the jiscmail list service, LIS-UKBIBS will replace the old LIS-UKMARC list. It will have a wider scope than lis-ukmarc, and will include the following topics:

• MARC 21 - input from the UK library community
• Proposals and papers originating in the UK for amendment of the MARC 21 format (prior to submission to the Library of Congress)
• Comment and opinion on the numbered Proposals and Discussion Papers submitted for consideration by the MARC Advisory Committee (available on the Library of Congress website) (Note that for implementation, maintenance, changes, and development of the MARC 21 format the MARC Forum discussion list should be used. More about MARC Forum, including joining instructions)
• UKMARC - MARC 21 conversion problems and issues
• Legacy use of the UKMARC format
• Discussion, opinion, views and sharing information on the maintenance and revision of bibliographic standards and metadata issues including:
  1. AACR (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules)
  2. LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings)
  3. GSAFD revision
  4. Dewey, UDC and other classification schemes
  5. HILT terminologies
  6. Dublin Core

All users of the existing LIS-UKMARC list will be automatically switched to LIS-UKBIBS on September 1st. If you are not already a member of LIS-UKMARC and wish to join LIS-UKBIBS, please go to the jiscmail home page and follow the instructions "joining a list" after September 1st.

The e-mail address of LIS-UKBIBS will be LIS-UKBIBS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK.

FRBR

CONSER Task Force on FRBR and Continuing Resources Summary of meeting: Toronto (ALA/CLA annual conference), 20 June 2003 is now available. Seen on serials scene.

RSS

Steven at Library Stuff points to RSSlets - Functional RSS Feeds.

My ultimate vision for RSSlet is a service that allows users to generate dynamic RSS feeds that actually do something functional from any web page. I'm a big believer in iterative and interactive design and development. So in line with this, rather than developing the service in its entirety and then releasing it to the world, I'm starting with making some of my prototype explorations available for use and feedback.

The RSSlets go to FedEx, Google and those kinds of places. How about some that go to libraries? Something that checks if a book is available? Could this be tied into John Udell's LibraryLookup? Maybe something that could check several local libraries. I use two city libraries and a county library, something that checked all 3 catalogs would be nice. There must be many useful tools that could come from this.

OAI

OCLC is making an OAI tool available, OAICat.

The OAICat Open Source project is a Java Servlet web application providing an OAI-PMH v2.0 repository framework. This framework can be customized to work with arbitrary data repositories by implementing some Java interfaces. Demonstration implementations of these interfaces are included in the webapp distribution.

They are also making an OAI harvester available

The OAIHarvester Open Source project is a Java application providing an OAI-PMH v2.0 harvester framework. This framework can be customized to perform arbitrary operations on harvested data by implementing some Java interfaces. Demonstration implementations of these interfaces are included in the application distribution.

Faceted Classification

Tanya Rabourn has a discussion and some links about faceted classification. Seen on LibraryPlanet.

I think there is a place for this tool in our catalogs. In the public library, there are often patrons who read in a genre. It would help them if they could click on their genre, preferred format, and year. For example, Mysteries, large print, 2002 would provide them with a list they could scan. Should be easy enough to do. The MARC record has all the info, as long as GSAFD has been used.

SACO

The SACO manual is now available in Spanish, Manual para Participantes del Programa Cooperativo de Autoridades de Materias SACO, Adam L. Schiff.

Classification

Here is another classification scheme, the Optics Classification and Indexing Scheme (OCIS).

The Optical Society of America (OSA) is pleased to present the Optics Classification and Indexing Scheme (OCIS). OCIS provides a flexible, comprehensive classification system for all optical author input and user retrieval needs.

OCIS has a two-level hierarchical structure containing 36 main headers and approximately 700 sub-categories.

This 'Blog

The service that e-mails postings has been down for quite some time. I've sent them a few messages asking if they plan to resume the service but have not received an answer. I'm assuming they are no longer providing the service.

There does not exist another service that will e-mail postings to readers. However, there is a service that will send an e-mail alert that a 'blog has been updated the previous day. It is useful and very stable. I've been using it for quite some time with no problems. So, I'm replacing the Bloglet subscribe box with a Blogarithm subscribe box. It is the best I can offer. I will keep my ears open for another service that e-mails the postings and will offer that if one becomes available.

Metasearching

NISO has announced a pair of meetings The Next Generation of Access: OpenURL and Metasearch.

On October 29 and 30 NISO will hold two one-day conferences to inform you about the two leading standards initiatives that promise to re-shape information access for all actors in the information delivery equation -- publisher, aggregator, librarian, student, scholar and author. You can attend one or both events. Both meetings will be held at the conference center at the American Geophysical Union in Washington, DC.