pr, hype & bs – Page 7 – librarian.net

sirsi corporation typos – yes I am a total adolescent

This may be the only time I link to a puff piece about the Laura Bush, but it was too good to ignore. Sirsi, the vendor that many of us use for our OPAC services at our libraries has managed to get not one, but two egregious typos in an article about the First Lady… or should I say the Fist Lady? Maybe they’ve just got a Democract doing data entry? As my friend Michael says “there are no such things as hunting accidents” in Vermont, does anyone really accidentally type “pubic library”? Apparently the “fist lady” appelation is not that tough to come by, neither is “pubic library“.

” I think everybody loves Barbara, and still loves Barbara Bush. She was a terrific fist lady”
“Offering her own philosophy on living, the woman who was called Fist Lady to the World leads readers on a path to confidence, education, maturity, and more.”
“Lucy Hayes was the first Fist Lady to have graduated from college.” [thanks owen]

OCLC says the future is all about collaboration.

Posted on 06Apr04 by jessamyn

An odd and potentially dystopic poem about technology and libraries is part of OCLC’s 2003 Environmental Scan report to their membership.

My Vision

To get to the library site,
type on the computer you’re on,
in the address box at the top,
www.libraries.com [thanks doug]

revolution?

Posted on 28Mar04 by jessamyn

One of the side effects of moving within anarchist circles is that you don’t take the word “revolution” at all lightly. This has made the past decade rough in terms of palatability of advertising. Sometimes when there is particular envelope-pushing, I am at least interested in marketplace revolutions. Reality Publishing claims to be on the forefront of just such a revolution… everyone chips in for the book’s publication, everyone helps write, everyone gets to share in the fruits of the labor. Their first project is about the Dean campaign. Nominally democratic [if badly copy-edited] I don’t know if I would call it a revolution, but anything that challenges current business models in publishing is a good start.

card catalogs for sale in seattle

Posted on 19Mar04 by jessamyn

Watch library history get sold to the highest bidder. More card catalogs for sale at UW Seattle [sorry, link no longer working, here’s a Google cache]. At some level I’m sure we know it’s a bit dorky to be in love with our furniture, but I like to think it’s the little designer in all of us. Sure we make noxious flyers with MS Publisher and recycle clip art until it’s fuzzy around the edges, but we keep our CDs in oak boxes that are 100 years old and steeped with history, and we know that literacy never goes out of style. [thanks leep]

but what is the best source for this…?

Posted on 02Mar04 by jessamyn

Vermont library company Fields of Knowledge wants to help people track down the best sources of information, not just the highest ranked on Google. Their project, The Infography is a searchable database of bibliographies created by experts. Some examples: bees, bats, Polish Americans. I have some reservations about the anonymity of the experts, but overall this is an interesting looking project.