LibraryTechtonics

Talis, a company across the pond, is “the market leading provider of products and services for public and academic libraries in the UK and Ireland”. To keep in touch with and help educate their clients on the products they provide as well as other stuff on the internet, they’ve developed a set of channels called the Talis Community, which includes a channel on blogs.

Along with the Talis blog, Panlibus, where the “Talis staff will muse, reflect, declare and who knows what about the library and information business and other loosely connected things”, they list other library related blogs, where I’m listed in the US section.

So very nifty! Thanks to Talis for the link, and for helping me discover another company that does good things for libraries.

Steven published an excellent post the other day on how he stays motivated to blog everyday, with some really helpful tips from a great article.

This week I came upon some other helpful and interesting bits on writing:

Fifty Writing Tools
[Poynteronline 14 apr '04 viewed 28 jan '05]
Roy Peter Clark is posting a writing tip every week for 50 weeks. He emphasizes that these are tools, not rules, and his tips span everything from proper grammar to character development to good journalism. Great quick reference if you hit a writing block. Alternately, use it as your own free online writing course. In terms of staying motivated, you can use one tip a week to focus on in your daily writing, so you have a goal to work towards.

Creating Policies for Results (CPFR) Workforms
[E-Learn Libraries c/o e-learning@PLA viewed 28 jan '05]
PLA and E-Learn have teamed up to develop and produce online courses for librarians based on the ALA Results series of books. A This page contains free workforms (developed for the class) that help you put together various policies for your library. If you’re at a loss for where to start in developing a policy, it can be really hard to get motivated to write it at all, and these forms are a nice place to start. I wish I’d had these for my collection development class in library school.

I just got the email newsletter saying that Kafka on the Shore: A Novel just hit the Harvard Book Store, and I am quite excited. I *loved* Norwegian Wood (it made me think of Banana Yoshimoto, who I also love), even though I found The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles a bit too dense and morose for me to even finish. (Nancy Pearl says that sometimes, you just need to go back and revisit a book at a different time in your life to be able to read it, so Wind-up Bird Chronicles is on that list.)

Since the book store has it, I checked to see if my library system has it yet, and it does, I just need to get it ILL. Yay!

[Note: I meant to post this on 21 jan '05, but the Random House site was down, so I couldn't get the links to the books. I decided to hold the post until I could get the links, because I'm a big believer in linking to the publisher, or directly to the author, if I can. I'm weird that way.]

So I’ve got a thing for comic books. And games, and computers. I’m product of the geek tribe, taken in like Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear, and raised to be one of their own.

A strange, exciting, and educational times for an English major.

In any case, I’ll probably start talking about comics and graphic novels on my blog, because they are of interest to me, and I was practically drooling all over the graphic novel and manga exhibit booths at ALA Midwinter. This interview with Alan Moore, writer of such greats as Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlement (the latter 2 were, unfortunately, butchered by Hollywood), is both interesting and entertaining including what comics he read as a kid, how he got into the business, and insights to his story lines, including the influence of British politics.

Alan Moore “Chain Reaction” Interview Transcript
[CBR News The Comic Wire c/o Blogdex 28 jan '05]

Even if you’re not into comics, take a walk on the wild side and check this out.

This would be of interest to bloggers as well as librarians, especially e-reserves folks.

New York Times weblog-safe link generator
[Boing Boing 25 jan 05]
“Mark Frauenfelder: Jon Lasser let me know about the NYT Permalink generator, which generates a non-decaying link to New York Times stories. When readers click on one of these links, they don’t have to sign into the NYT site, and they won’t have to pay a fee to read the story, even if it’s in the archives. Link“

Fancy that. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m wondering how it would work with something like bugmenot, which allows you to see a NYT article without having to register. Anyone?