Late last week OCLC pulled an absolute blinder and released millions of records in WorldCat under an open license as linked data! Its a great step in the evolution of library data publishing, building upon past efforts. Here are three reasons why this is much more just another release of bib data. 1) – The … Continue reading »
Academic libraries in ‘mainstream’ media …
Many librarians have felt pretty bitter towards the mainstream media of late. We’ve had a spate of poorly researched articles focusing on public library closures. These have not exactly done the situation justice and barely focused on librarians themselves. Its refreshing then to see two articles in a mainstream tech blog like Ars Technica, (more … Continue reading »
What I’ve been up to
A quick overview of recent activity: Publications Investigating Faster Techniques for Digitization and Print-on-Demand I’ve had my first ever article published in the New Review of Academic Librarianship (Vol. 18, Iss. 1, 2012). Its a targeted write up of some of the findings from my 2010 Arcadia Fellowship. Despite some doubts about the true value of LIS research journals, I’m really pleased … Continue reading »
National Level Resource Discovery services?
I’ve spent a large portion of the past couple of years working with a local discovery layer (Aquabrowser) and am currently investigating equivalent ‘webscale’ discovery index solutions such as Summon, Primo Central or EBSCO Discovery that may supplement or replace it. I’ve occasionally found myself explaining the two solutions to non-library techy or developer colleagues. … Continue reading »
Why do we need Linked Open Data?
Europeana explains all.
OCLC EMERC 2012, linked data in mind, heads in clouds and hand in pockets?
This week saw a flying visit to Birmingham to attend one day of the excellent OCLC Europe, Middle East and Africa Regional Council Annual meeting at the fantastic Town Hall. The morning was given to optional plenaries, which meant I missed a lot other exciting talks as I was busy giving a brief overview of … Continue reading »
LIS professional ethics and online academic publishing
It seems Elsevier, the quintessential ‘Big Deal’ publisher is under more heavy fire at the moment with a growing petition of academics boycotting the Dutch firm. In a recent interview, Elsevier themselves have recently published a clarification on their approach to Open Access following a dip in share price. The debate has gone mainstream with … Continue reading »
Emerging LIS professional communication models …
I’ve recently submitted an article to a professional journal, my first ever. I’m quietly thrilled about it and hope it gets published. Writing and submitting was a useful experience both in understanding the information needs of academic users and in focusing my ideas. Based on a piece of research I wrote over a year ago, … Continue reading »
Open Biblio 2
Happy 2012! After swearing off any JISC funded projects into Open Data publishing, I’ve somehow found myself involved in four this year. Safe to say my new years resolutions include learning how to say no in a better fashion. The first to kick off in earnest is Open Bibliography 2 headed by the Open Bibliographic … Continue reading »
Where academic libraries need to go in order to survive
A massively informative presentation and a great summary of the change motivators and challenges we face in library HE. Should be required reading for anyone thinking about entering profession. Redefining the Academic Library View more presentations from ted lin
