January 30, 2007
PL 7/07: Quick access to “Competition and marketing”
As a presenter this morning I was¨very impressed by the technical and social organization of the session: easy web access, nice overhead screen, full video capture - managed by competent and very friendly student hosts. The paper discussing marketing of digital reference services seemed to be well received.
The lecture notes were organized around eight main points
1. The background: VRS (Virtual Reference Services)
2. The problem: flooding
3. Reference as a market
4. The consumers
5. The suppliers
6. General and special circuits
7. Pedagogical reference
8. Reference for adults
The large font is meant for overhead projection.
For easy reference, I also give a link to full paper.
January 29, 2007
PL 6/07: A great keynote from a capital librarian
At the Opening Session, Tomas Rehak - Managing Director of the Municipal Library of Prague - held the keynote speech: “There are two kinds of libraries”. A great performance.
- I may not agree, but I was seduced by the lecture, Tor Henriksen - former Director of the library school in Oslo - told me.
PL 4/07: Marketing through search engines
Libraries are collections that are organized for retrieval. Barriers to retrieval defeat their social purpose. Since users frequent search engines, I find it reasonable to make library holdings visible through search engines.
January 28, 2007
PL 3/07: Spreading the word
When my paper was accepted, I was very happy to read the following in the letter from the organizers:
We would like to inform you that the presentation of your paper at BOBCATSSS 2007 will be streamed live and after the symposium it will be made availabe online as a video on demand via www.bobcatsss.org website.
Furthermore your paper will not only be published in our proceedings but will also be available for download from our homepage after the symposium.
Teaching by example.
PL 2/07: Strange days for librarians
For people devoted to books and information retrieval, these are strange days. Quiet brooks have turned into raging rivers. Amazon started as a bookstore. It is becoming the general market place.
Google is not a big-time player in the search and retrieval business. Google sets the rules of the game. Increasingly, people live in the Googlezone.
PL 1/07: Finding books
The thoughtful Peter Brantley, who blogs as shimenawa, has become Executive Director of the Digital library Federation, and has moved his blog to a new location in the process.
In his fascinating SF novel October the first is too late, Fred Hoyle wrote about a world where people lived in several parallell time zones. The twentieth century and the Roman empire coexisted.
