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In: Commons, Library, open access, video

Matthew Daley and Chris McHale (along with other UF Library folks, and maybe others–I only know a couple of the people in the video so I’m not sure who everyone is) made an INFO ZOMBIES film for the SPARC Video Contest. Since the SPARC contest centers around information sharing, the idea of sharing information as a viral-need, like the Zombie urge to eat brains, is a nice, funny combination of information needs and zombies. It’s also neat to see a zombie-cure in the form of information. Zombies are always fun, especially when they’re INFO ZOMBIES!Read More →

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In: Academia, Commons, Digital Library, open access

On November 15, Stephanie Haas (the Assistant Director for UF’s Digital Library Center) and Matt Mariner (our Institutional Repository coordinator) will be presenting at UF on UF’s Institutional Repository. Underlying their presentation and the IR itself is Open Access. Open Access is the academic’s version of Open Source, it demands that scholarly materials be presented at no cost, quickly, permanently, and completely (full-text) online. This PowerPoint video shows how the Open Access movement is growing as it spreads across the world. UF is one node in the larger Open Access network, which shares information for all. Stephanie and Matt’s presentation on UF’s IR will beRead More →

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The Times Select is now free, which is great even if it is a little late. What’s better than this material being free is the reasoning behind it, which recognizes that having the material freely accessible is more valuable than requiring people to pay for the material. As more businesses realized that creating and sharing information openly can be profitable–as with Open Source Software where the software is free, but industries are built on top of them selling optimal support documentation, support services, and more–then hopefully, hopefully, businesses could soon function with more awareness of gift economies and their model for operation. This in turnRead More →

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LibraryThing just announced that they’ve teamed with publishers to provide advance copies of books in exchange for reviews. After so many publications cut back or cut book reviews, it’s nice to see that some publishers are making sure their books are reviewed and that those reviews are shared. This is also part of what we may see more of as companies and mental models move from print-oriented thinking to web-thinking.  Book reviews are great, but it makes more sense from a distributor point of view to include them online where they can be slurped into other systems, shared, and distributed. Since book reviews imply literacyRead More →

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In: Commons, Digital Library, Library

UF Libraries now has a Library 2.0 Working Group and we’re investigating what Web 2.0 apps/concepts best map to libraries. Our wiki will hold our notes and progress, so it may be helpful to others. Of course, our use of any technology is directly in relation to our current systems – how we work, what we have, what we most need – so it also may not be useful as other than a case study. At any rate, it’s very interesting and useful for us.  Plus I get to chair the committee, so I’m sure I’ll be thinking and asking about all sorts of randomRead More →

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I’m the digital projects librarian in the University of Florida’s Digital Library Center. This blog chronicles my work with the Digital Library Center. In the DLC, I get to digitize various materials including books, paintings, manuscripts, objects (like this biscuit), audio, and more. Digitizing materials is only part of my work, though. I’m largely working on projects to help people better access and use the collections, which includes writing lesson plans, grants, creating learning objects, creating mashups (like adding materials from the digital collections to Google Earth and Maps), and more. Working in the Digital Library Center is fascinating and it’s not what many peopleRead More →