TechEssence.info

I saw a note come through recently about a server that the University of Cincinnati Libraries had set up to be a "sandbox". What this means is that it is a place where new software (particularly open source software) can be installed for staff to investigate.

The sole admonition is to "Play nice together" and it currently has such applications as Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, WordPress, phpWiki, Tiki, and Moodle installed, among others.

I think this ia a wonderful idea and I'm glad to see that the University of Cincinnati Libraries takes their responsibility to help its staff learn new technologies seriously. I wish that more of our institutions did so.

Jessica Hupp at VirtualHosting.com has put together an amazing list of web

Reading the MIRACLE project report on institutional repositories today, I came across a survey question that asked respondents to rate various factors involved in choosing a repository platform. The exact phrasing of one factor: "Adherence to open-access standards."

This betrays a common and sometimes distracting confusion, which I will try to clear up.

Executive Summary

People have had the ability to put audio content on the Web for over a decade, but not until the term “podcasting” was coined (two years ago) did so many people start taking advantage of this. This can be attributed to both the incredible ease of use of newer recording and syndication tools and the incredible popularity of the iPod and other MP3 players. Go to almost any place where young people congregate and you will see the ubiquitous white iPod earbuds. Podcasting became popular so quickly that, at the end of 2005, podcast was named the Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

In a soon-to-appear Library Journal column, I discuss strategies for an uncertain future. One of those strategies is the topic of this blog posting, since I wanted to both throw this out there for discussion as well as to discuss it more thoroughly than I can in an 800-word column.

Since I'm in the middle of moving from one software platform to another (leaving JSPs and Struts for Ruby on Rails if you must know), software choices have been on my mind. But then I picked up my latest Business 2.0 that came the other day and there it was. An article on Coghead, which aims to make code disappear and even the most code-phobic person able to create applications.

Our Content, Their Device: Three Uses of the iPod - Sarah G. Wenzel, Columbia University

The librarians at Columbia University have developed a variety of library content that can be used on an iPod.

They created a call number guide (visual) that can be downloaded on an iPod. They made downloadable map photos of the stacks available. To explain how to use it, they used documentation from the iPod Subway Guide to explain how to download the resources onto the iPod.

Using RSS to Promote Scholarly Publications - Ken Varnum, Tufts University

RSS stands for real simple syndication. It's an xml-based data format for syndicating content. Way to send a title, URL and abstract to aggregators, websites, etc.

Roy Tennant - Never the Same River: Libraries and Technological Change

The October Conference's theme this year is Cool Tools and New Technologies and there is quite an exciting roster of speakers discussing a variety of tech tools. I will be blogging as much of it as I can (other than my own talk!).

Executive Summary

Tagging refers to the process by which users assign terms meaningful to them to a resource in the online environment. The rise of social bookmarking Web sites have skyrocketed tagging systems into the mainstream.