Posts from — November 2006

UPDATE 1-John Wiley & Sons to buy Blackwell Publishing | Reuters.com:
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc.
(JWa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (JWb.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday it agreed to pay 572 million pounds ($1.08 billion) to acquire privately held Blackwell Publishing
Holdings Ltd., an academic and professional publisher. The deal, which is expected to close early in 2007, will create a publisher of about 1,250 scholarly peer-reviewed journals
in areas ranging from science and technology to medicine and the humanities.
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yes, well this is fairly interesting…

“For archivists with strong geeky tendencies”:
Yesterday saw the first meeting of the Data Standards Group of the Society of Archivists under its new name. It was formerly known as the EAD/Data Exchange Group. The new name reflects a new, broader remit for the group, which is now providing a focus for digital preservation as well as data exchange.
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Seems like an interesting bit of work they have going on.

PrattNews:
PRATT INSTITUTE SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND LIBRARY SCEINCE LAUNCHES COUNTRY’S FIRST ADVANCED CERTIFICATE IN MUSEUM LIBRARIES NEW YORK, N.Y.

November 8, 2006 – Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) introduced the world’s first program focusing on museum libraries this fall semester. The Advanced Certificate in Museum Libraries will yield a Master’s degree in a course of study that consists of four required areas of study: research/curatorial, digital technology, education and outreach, and field experience.

The Advanced Certificate in Museum Libraries, which was approved by the New York State Education Department in June 2006, will prepare graduates to assume leadership roles in museum libraries, and in a range of other cultural institutions, including research and academic libraries and “virtual” libraries.

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This is a new program. There are some interesting developments in this field. It will also be great to get more people involved with museum libraries.

The Bicycle Forest :: The HulaBike:
The HulaBike is another hand built creation from the Bicycle Forest.
Instead of a conventional drivetrain, the HulaBike uses an eccentrically
laced rear wheel. Because the hub is offset from the centre of the rim,
the bike can be propelled by hopping up and down with the right rhythm.
You may not get far on the HulaBike, but you’ll have fun trying.

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for some reason…. this is strangely enticing as a concept… but i can’t see every riding one.

LibraryThing: BookSuggester and UnSuggester:
Play with it a few minutes, and patterns emerge. Philosophy and postmodern literary criticism oppose chic lit, popular thrillers and the young adult section. Programming does not truck with classic literature. Memoirs of depression, like Prozac Nation, meet their match in the cheery The Night Before Christmas. Ann Coulter and David Sedaris do not see eye-to-eye. There is a strong disconnect between readers of much recent Protestant, mostly evangelical, non-fiction, and large swaths of contemporary literary fiction. For example, LibraryThing includes 2,300 readers who’ve logged Jeffrey Eugenides’ epic gender-bender novel Middlesex, and 222 readers of John Piper’s The Passion of the Christ: 50 Reasons He Came to Die. But the groups don’t overlap. No reader has both. Similar instances occur again and again.

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finally a useful tool… for book unsuggesting.

Library of Congress features new “Women Who Dare” Book Series:
The seven authors of the Library of Congress Women Who Dare series, which celebrates the lives of remarkable women who have shaped American history, will discuss their books at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 16, in the Montpelier Room of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. A book signing will follow the presentation, which is part of the Books & Beyond author series sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The Library’s Publishing Office, which published the books in cooperation with Pomegranate Publications, is cosponsoring the event. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required

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It might just be me, but I’m reading a whole secondary discourse into this ‘women who dare’ title. it implies to me that they shouldn’t dare, that they weren’t acting appropriately, and indeed that this was a part of their life that could have went drastically wrong. I think that is the wrong way to approach this. The title should simply ‘Women Changing the World’ or something else that does not imply a huge burden of normalization.

Hello World Programs.:

A very funny (and true) compilation of various “Hello World” programs from high school level up to CEO. Link – via digg

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pretty funny.

Boing Boing: Fly with rubber band ball, go to jail, forced blood test:
Fly with rubber band ball, go to jail, forced blood test

A traveller who had a rubber-band ball in his bag was pulled over by the TSA. They insisted that the ball had something metal at the center (it didn’t), then concluded he was on drugs. They put him in jail, forced a blood-sample from him, and continued to hold him after they cut open the ball and finished testing his blood.

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This is getting out of hand…. they should have seized the ball at most… this guy should sue … big time. There are clear procedures that TSA is supposed to follow in these and it reads like they broke someprocedural rules.

Office Space, Recut as a Thriller.:

This one’s going ’round the Net, done by What the Maynard: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube

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hah! classic

Kiwi!: