Pages that I have encountered throughout the week which relate to libraries, technology, theology, and anything else I found interesting:

• Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition via the Distant Librarian. Data in this report is based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e-book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter-library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e-books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers.
• Bibliomaniacs and the Medieval Book Curse. This site is based on a paper written by Sandra Anderson for a History of the Book course as a part of her MLIS degree at the University of Alberta. It includes a section examining “book curses as a library security measure that was used as a deterrent against bibliomaniacs for thousands of years but that is almost completely unknown today.”
• Get 91% Off Microsoft Office Ultimate [Deals] via Lifehacker. A Microsoft student promotion that slashes 91% off a copy of Office Ultimate applies to anyone with a .edu email address—and most universities offer .edu addresses to their alumni for free. Microsoft Office Ultimate, which retails for $680, is available to students for only $60 until May 16th.
• Firefox plug-in personalises search results via Pandia Search Engine News. SurfCanyon is a Firefox plug-in that claims mind reading capabilities. Even though there’s no actual magic involved, this nifty little app does a great job of digging though the search results for the hits you need, even though Google buried them on page 12.
• Sofas and schoolwork
• LifeWay Is Going To Use Twitter via Said at Southern.
• Stanford and Deep Web Technologies Partner on Federated Search via Library Technology Guides.
• WAMPANOAG REVIVAL via languagehat.
• Music Made from Microfiche. That’s right. Learn how to take the humble library microfiche, translate the light and dark values into MIDI, and feed it to a Casio keyboard for playback. But why?
• C&RL preprints go open access via Steven Cohen. College & Research Libraries (C&RL), the bi-monthly scholarly journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries now provides its articles online in full-text.
• DIY Bookmaking: The Book Binding Guy via MAKE. I do old-wold bookbinding with Amish-made tools in my off-time. And now so can you.
• Puppy Linux 4.0 Released [Linux] via Lifehacker. The latest version of a Linux distribution that can be run entirely from a thumb drive.
• 8 Top Alternative Search Engines via iLibrarian.
• Web 2.0 Predictions for 2008 via Don Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog.
• Wikipedia vs. Subscription Reference Sources via Digital Reference.
• MIT reinvents the Post It Note via Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology.
• Oxford University Library Services chooses MetaLib by Ex Libris via Library Technology Guide Automation Update.
• 15,000 Classical Hebrew Books for Free Download The non-profit Society for the Preservation of Hebrew Books announced that it added two ancient book collections to the Friedberg-Ryzman collection of more than 15,000 Hebrew books and works of Judaica online. HT: Data Security: Internet Privacy Blog
• Next Generation Data Format via Planet Code4Lib. Issues related to the next generation catalog.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Commonplaces, Web | Leave a Comment »

I have a vested interest in the future of libraries and will understandably rage against the dying of their light. My interest is both professional and personal, and though the professional literature says I should be concerned that my bibliographic responsibility and bibliophilic personality may soon be at odds, and though part of me laments this reportedly dubious future with an increasingly sentimental sigh, I am made more willing to see the centrality of bindings and casings go somewhat peacefully into that good night because of an even greater affection and purpose. The unique experience of encountering true eloquence in words and true elegance in print, though regrettably irreplaceable, is not the reason why I am a seminary librarian.

Kenneth Kantzer, in a 1983 Christianity Today article, recounted his perspective on the role of a library in preparation for ministry:

I began my own advanced study for the ministry when I graduated from college in the 1930’s. I sought an accredited school committed to a consistent biblical theology, with a scholarly faculty, a large library, and a disciplined intellectual atmosphere. I couldn’t find any. The nonevangelical schools had great libraries, strong scholarly faculties, and impressive reputations as accredited centers of learning. The evangelical schools had no libraries to speak of, unknown faculty (J. Gresham Machen, the last evangelical scholar, had just died), and no tradition of high scholarship. (”Documenting the Dramatic Shift in Seminaries from Liberal to Conservative,” CT 2/4/83)

Access to a large library caused Kantzer, at least in part, to choose Harvard over an evangelical institution for his Ph.D. studies. Other options did exist. Just not any with large libraries.

Today, it would appear that quite a few evangelical seminaries have libraries that measure up well. As R. Albert Mohler points out, books are more affordable today than at any point in history. This glut of available print has enabled seminaries to build formidable libraries — and just in time for the digital age. I read at least an article per week about the dubious future of academic libraries and the varying theories on how to help your library survive. Serial subscriptions in academic libraries have been on the decline for years because of their digital availability and rising print costs. This availability renders the content more ubiquitous (or, at least, access to that content) and payment is often a bit more budget-friendly. This is just one example of the modern change and evolution of information delivery in libraries.

Modes of information delivery change and evolve. They always have. These changes in the means of information propagation are always accompanied by significant cultural progressions as well, though the order of these two is often debatable (see Paradigms Lost: The Life and Deaths of the Printed Word). The point is that we are in one of those times. That may be unfortunate for libraries (time will tell), but it is not necessarily bad for the reason why I became a librarian.

Would Kantzer have chosen Harvard today? Perhaps. But not if the tipping point is access to information in the form of a sizable library like he faced over a half-century ago, and neither will future Kantzers in the next half-century since the information formerly housed in physical silos will be more ubiquitously available digitally. The challenge of academic research during Kantzer’s time was the scarcity of information. Reference services were needed by students to help identify, locate, and access necessary works. Today, however, the challenge of academic research is the glut of information, not the lack of it. Reference services are needed in order to help navigate this glut to identify what is truly helpful and necessary. This is a marvelous problem — and one which will likely relieve evangelical seminaries from keeping up with the Harvard Joneses.

I did not become a seminary librarian in order to introduce pastors-in-training to books. I became a librarian in order to be a part of something much larger. The experience of losing yourself in a library of books is indeed marvelous (remember William of Baskerville’s lingering experience in the abbey library?), but the experience of losing yourself in order to gain Christ is of infinitely greater worth. If the library prophets are right and the coming generation will know less of libraries but have greater access to information, then seminaries — though filled with book-lovers — stand to gain the most. As the amount of available information increases with the ease of access to that information, more pastors will find a seminary theological education a viable option for them. Investing truth in those who will invest in others also is the calling of ministry, and the present revolution means that services such as our library’s new digital repository may help advance the purpose of the seminary and push resources, services, and training out into the lives of those desiring to be equipped for the work of ministry.

As for the library? I do hope we are not yet reading the library’s elegy and that the library’s remarkable ability to withstand the “forces of change and the power of princes” will indeed prevail, but as Matthew Battles rightly points out,

From age to age, libraries grow and change, flourish and disappear, blossom and contract–and yet through them all we’re chasing after Alexandria, seeking a respite on Parnassus, haunted by the myths of knowledge and of wholeness that books spawn when massed in their millions. The divine irony that Borges discovered while groping his way through the stacks strikes the sighted librarian just as powerfully: preserving themselves, the books elude us.

But to borrow from both Dylan Thomas and Umberto Eco, I will rage against the dying the light before we hold the empty name of yesterday’s rose. All the more, however, should I borrow from our Lord himself: “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30, ESV)

Popularity: 20% [?]

Books, Libraries, Poetry, Quotes, Research, Tech | 2 Comments »

I considered naming this a concatenate recapitulation, but decided that was too pretentious. This is a summary of links from the Dogeared Pages section in the sidebar which I hope to have as a weekly post. They are pages that I have encountered throughout the week which relate to libraries, technology, theology, and anything else I found interesting.

• Library Use of E-books, 2008-09 Edition via the Distant Librarian. An evaluation of the use of ebooks in academic libraries during the past year.
• QOTD: Trees, books, rights via Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog. An interesting and short article on book swapping sites in the Guardian.
• 50 Awesome Open Source Resources via iLibrarian.
• del.icio.us: The Intellectual Property Disclosure Process: Releasing Open Source Software in Academia | code4lib via Planet Code4Lib.
• Unlock USB Support for VirtualBox in Ubuntu Hardy Heron [Ubuntu] via Lifehacker.
• Cambridge University Library Launches WebFeat system capable of searching more than 300 of the library’s databases via Library Technology Guides automation update.
• Coming up: Google Ocean via Pandia Search Engine News.
• Where You Find the Time to Spend Online [Time Management] via Lifehacker. A video of a brief talk by Clay Shirky at the recent Web 2.0 conference in which he decries television and its drain on time management.
• Major PC Vendors Push For Open Source Drivers via Slashdot.
• In Love With the History Our Teachers Never Told Us via the New York Times. About Tony Horwitz’s new book on the American history most Americans never learned.
• New Library Journal Service via the James P. Boyce Centennial Library.
• Congress Considers Reform On Orphaned Works via Slashdot.
• Essay: You’re an Author? Me Too! via the New York Times.
• Convert Word Documents to Cruft-free HTML [Microsoft Word] via Lifehacker.
• Back of the envelope via Marginal Revolution. A fascinating post about Wikipedia (or more specifically, the information contained therein) and the man-hours involved in its creations and maintenance.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Web | Leave a Comment »

Given the upcoming superhero movie, Iron Man, which opens tomorrow, I thought perhaps you might be interested in the Iron Duke, Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington. He was born on this day, May 1, in 1769. A native Irishman, the Iron Duke was a British Army Commander who shared in the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, thus becoming “conqueror of the world’s conqueror.”

Wellesley later became Prime Minister of England as a Tory, during which time he saw the passage of the Catholic Emancipation and even fought (and apparently won) a duel with another duke. He also served as chancellor of Oxford, constable of the Tower, master of Trinity House, and as Queen Victoria’s father figure. Not bad for a man that history has recorded as an “honest and selfless politician.” Britannica Online writes of him:

Some modern historians have objected to the posthumous title Iron Duke on the reasonable grounds that he was neither cold nor hardhearted. Yet he himself often boasted of his iron hand in maintaining discipline. His engaging simplicity and extraordinary lack of vanity were expressed in a favourite saying, “I am but a man.”

Please note: The good folks at Britannica Online have generously granted me a free subscription to their service. Please pay them a visit and consider subscribing — especially if you home-school. This information about the Iron Duke comes from them. More posts of this nature are forthcoming, deo volente.

Popularity: 11% [?]

History | Leave a Comment »

Jason Fowler, one of my gifted colleagues here at the library, has been diligently working away at developing an application that would take the tables of contents from our library’s most frequently used theological journals, make them available online, (wait for it……) publish RSS feeds for them, and (wait for it……) even publish discipline-specific RSS feeds for them! From our library’s announcement:

The James P. Boyce Centennial Library would like to announce the beta test of a new web service designed to deliver the table of contents from some of our most frequently used journals and serials to our faculty and students. JTOC, short for Journal Table of Contents, is a an application that provides online delivery of this content through a series of web pages and RSS feeds. JTOC allows students and faculty to keep abreast of what the library acquires in their field or favorite journals. To begin using JTOC, please visit http://library.sbts.edu/jtoc.

The library’s goal in designing JTOC was to create a simple system that would allow the content to be delivered in a quick and timely manner. Because text entry is generally a time consuming exercise, and because scanning is quick, the library’s staff decided to use images to distribute the content.

How should one use JTOC? The most useful way to use it is probably through setting up JTOC’s RSS feeds in a feed reader. Most often, this can be done within JTOC by simply clicking on an RSS feed button that looks like this –> . JTOC offers a variety of feeds. The main feed allows you to keep up with the library’s most recently received journals, but JTOC also serves feeds for specific journals and subject areas.

When you click on a feed button within JTOC, Firefox will give you several options for managing your feeds. Many find the most useful method for keeping up with feeds to be Google Reader. If you select this option in Firefox, and you have a Google account, you can add the feed directly to your Google Reader. When you use Google Reader, you do not even have to visit the JTOC site to see the new journals the library acquires.

The library hopes that you find this new service valuable to your research. Please keep in mind that JTOC is still in a beta test phase. We ask for your patience as we discover any issues that might arise with it.

Well done, Jason.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Libraries, Research | 1 Comment »