Paul Otlet and classification

Meet Paul Otlet, the forgotten forefather of information architecture and co-creator of the Mundaneum.

[Otlet] wanted to penetrate the boundaries of the books themselves, to unearth the “substance, sources and conclusions” inside. Taking the Dewey Decimal system as his starting point, Otlet began developing what came to be known as the Universal Decimal Classification, now widely recognized as the first—and one of the only—full implementations of a faceted classification system. While Ranganathan rightly receives credit as the philosophical forbear of facets, Otlet was the first to put them to practical use.

job opening for displaced librarian, pass it on

ALA President Michael Gorman posted this to the Council list and I made a web page for it using pasta. Please pass this information, or this idea, on.

Temporary Librarian Position, For Librarian Displaced by Hurricane Katrina

In order to offer support to those in our profession who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, the Henry Madden Library of the California State University, Fresno would like to hire one librarian with an ALA accredited M.L.S. or equivalent who was displaced and/or unemployed because of the hurricane.

resources in a post-Katrina world

The LibraryLaw blog has some summaries of libraries’ efforts to get organized, find colleagues and get connected in the aftermath of Katrina. She points to the NOPL list [mentioned here already] as well as AALL’s LawLibAssist blog set up for law librarians to help friends and colleagues. The LA State Library now has a big list of links to help evacuees and refugees and librarians with all the aspects of their post-Katrina lives.