Open Source Software: CollectiveAccess

Presentation, Part 1: Description and Context



Presentation, Part 2: Downloading and Conclusions



CollectiveAccess

Unusual library!

Reanimation Library

"The Reanimation Library is a small, independent Presence Library open to the public. It is a collection of books that have fallen out of routine circulation and been acquired for their visual content. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles, and given new life as a resource for artists, writers, cultural archeologists, and other interested parties."

from the 1974 book Soft Sculpture and Other Soft Art Forms

from the 1927 Sixth Annual of Advertising Art

The library's website was created only with Open Source software (although they do admit to using PhotoShop as well).  The site is full of fascinating and somewhat crazy images.  The library uses social media, so you can friend them on Facebook.



Definitely worth a virtual visit!

My Blackberry Is Not Working! - The One Ronnie, Preview - BBC One

Teach Parents Tech

Here is a fun website (from Google!  I know, not my favorite big brother...) called Teach Parents Tech which is a lighthearted and mildly sarcastic way to give low-level tech support to the computer-challenged in your life! 

http://www.teachparentstech.org/

You fill out a short note to the challenged person, choose an instructional video, and e-mail it off!

I learned about this site from a ProfHacker blog on the Chronicle of Higher Education website called Technology 101: The Basics No One Ever Tells You.  Enjoy!

Merger of EBSCO Publishing and H. W. Wilson Company

The announcement this week of the merger between publishers EBSCO Publishing and H. W. Wilson Company has the library world all a twitter (in the old-school twitter sense).  Some sources describe it as EBSCO acquiring Wilson.

Here is the Library Journal's take on it:

Wilson operates a similar business to EBSCO offering abstract/index records and fulltext databases via its proprietary platform, Wilson Web, but it is a much smaller company with about 200 employees and sales that are less than 10 percent of EBSCO's.

Databases from Wilson will be integrated with EBSCOhost over the coming months, and, eventually, the WilsonWeb platform will be eliminated, the companies said in a press release. EBSCO will maintain WilsonWeb until all Wilson databases are available on EBSCOhost and customers have been transitioned to EBSCOhost.

(read the rest of the article here).

Steve Lawson, Humanities Liaison Librarian for Tutt Library at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, has a slightly more sarcastic take on the "merger" in his blog, See Also...

Personally, I don't get the depth of the issue, but it seems to be BIG in the library world!