I’m indoors refusing to move more than about four feet from the box fan. I am also attending to the last few emails in my inbox from people who sent me links or things they thought I’d like. Also I got caught up with my RSS feeds fairly quickly and now I feel like I’m reunited with a bunch of people. Not bad. Hi! Here are a few things that are worth passing on.
- BC Library’s AskAway program has gone away as of June 30th after four years and 130,000 questions.
- Neat [and long] YouTube video about how the National Library of Australia’s Newspaper Digitisation Program has used volunteers to help them proofread and tag digital content. Here’s a short blurb if you don’t have much time.
- Have I already linked to the History of Reading website at Harvard? I don’t think I have. I also strongly suggest reading Gutenberg 2.0 an article from the Harvard Alumni magazine, talking about the role of academic libraries in a wired age. Many fewer platitudes than you’d expect, and a lot of real innovation going on there.
- Bookmobile porn: International Harvester, First American Bookmobile.
- I may not have linked to this before but I went to speak at the Library 2.0 Symposium at Yale last April. I gave a talk that I mostly forgot about, but just found it again ego-surfing. I make the same points I always make about rural access but I think it’s a good talk. Companion slides (all five of them) here.
- Karen Schneider makes a thinky pre-ALA post about Open Source. Money quote: [E]very librarian who engages in tool creation to any degree improves the state of librarianship for all of us.
- Five ways rural public libraries can position themselves to help revitalize and engage rural communities.