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: 14% [?]

I think they are starting to get it. I asked a few days ago when and whether academic publishers would start recognizing that increased accessibility to their works results in increased exposure and usage. I did not, however, mention that many of the Ivy League university presses here in the States do already seem to be moving toward making academic content available and accessible in full text free of charge, certainly hoping that the result will be greater exposure. The Princeton Theological Review and Harvard University’s arts and sciences faculty’s plan (see here and here) to post academic papers online for free access, unless scholars specifically indicate otherwise, are good examples.

Earlier this month I noticed that the State University of New York (SUNY) Press announced an initiative to sell .pdf files of new books for $20.00 through their “directtext” option, a trend that will no doubt increase as libraries opt to fill digital repositories rather than handing over $75.00 for a hardcover that will need to be squeezed into already packed library shelves. See also Cheaper by the .pdf, but still . . .

Stanford University Press, however, has gone even further and jumped straight into the deep end. Their blog announced last week:

Stanford University Press is pleased to announce that you can now search the full text of our books via Google Book Search. We are currently still in the process of uploading and scanning our backlist, but there are already over a thousand Stanford titles in Google Book Search. When the project is completed, all of our books will be searchable electronically. …[We] are excited to make it easier for readers to discover content and find books most suited to their interests.

Thanks to languagehat.com for pointing this out: STANFORD BOOKS FULLY SEARCHABLE.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Would someone please tell me why the December 2007 issue of Searcher, which is supposed to be “the magazine for database professionals,” is writing about charity knitting and crocheting? Their Internet Express column, which is usually a helpful discussion and comparison of useful online resources, has resorted to “We Knit the World: Charity Knitting and Crocheting on the Web.” The column starts:

The concept of creating three dimensional objects out of loops of string, aka, knitting and crocheting, fascinates me.

Oy. No fascination here. Now compare that to the magazine’s self-ascribed description:

Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals is a unique publication that explores and deliberates on a comprehensive range of issues important to the professional database searcher. The magazine is targeted to experienced, knowledgeable searchers and combines evaluations of data content with discussions of delivery media. Searcher includes evaluated online news, searching tips and techniques, reviews of search aid software and database documentation, revealing interviews with leaders and entrepreneurs of the industry, and trenchant editorials. Whatever the experienced searcher needs to know to get the job done is covered in Searcher.

I think most reference librarians and professional searchers have little professional need to read about how to participate in a group afghan project. Maybe our good friends at Information Today will stick to the point next time.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Let me start with a quote from Hugh Hewitt’s Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World:

What made it all possible? What gave Luther the ability to succeed in his reform where others had failed? What allowed Calvin to shape the thought of every generation that followed him? Print. In 1449 Gutenberg amplified the human voice such that it could be heard around the world. He provided the means by which one person could communicate with the masses without the interference of the institutional structures of the day. At last individuals could speak, and none could silence them.

For the Mainstream Media, it is 1449 and 1517, at the same moment. (p.59)

Hewitt’s point is that we have embarked upon the next wave of transformation in the dissemination of information, and like the Reformations of the Sixteenth Century, this transformation provides a broader voice.

What, then, does this mean for libraries? If we are tasked with not only provision of access to information but also the preservation of that information, what are we to do with this new form? Clearly, anybody who can get online can read a blog. But if blogs are the new media, then what of their preservation? Whose, how often, and in what form should blogs be archived? And who should be tasked with it? In a hundred years will today’s blogs be accessible like the preserved media of a hundred years ago?

My second question concerns the cultural and societal change which is being sparked by this change in media. William Sonn in his Paradigms Lost: The Life and Deaths of the Printed Word argues that with each major historical shift in the manner and method of information dissemination there has been a consequent, and often quite significant, change in society. To quote him:

For every time the way media were produced changed in the past, politics shifted. So did economics. Migrations and emigrations followed; even mating habits changed sometimes. It is hard to trace how one particular tool–the telegraph, the radio, a device that made printing cheaper–directly led to one particular change; but all hell seemed to break loose when a new communications device superseded an old one, or even when the nitty-gritty manufacture and distribution of old media changed. (p. 7)

So where, then, are we going? And who will record the journey?

Popularity: 15% [?]

Items I find interesting as I read my feeds in Google Reader now show up in the right sidebar as “Dogeared Pages.” I tried to add this about a week ago via the code provided by Google that imports the items I mark as shared, but Microsoft’s Internet Explorer just plain couldn’t handle it (ahh, Microsoft IE: the bane of web development).

Anyway, I latched onto the RSS feed and here it is. Everything from experimental library technology to daddy/daughter dance shoes right from the sidebar. Let me know if you see something helpful. Or immensely unhelpful. Either way, it’s still nifty.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I have for several years now been a fan of Nota Bene for academic writing in large part because formatting according to various styles (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.) were built-in, citation management was convenient through their Ibidem module, and bibliographies are a snap.

Other programs seem to be catching on. In particular, Microsoft Word 2007 has an integrated citation manager and auto-formats references according to most major styles, including Turabian. From the Word Blog:

As I write my paper, all of the citations that I have been inputting are stored in this awesome tool called the source manager which can be accessed by clicking “Manage Sources”. This means that instead of my list of books I have been pouring over going into the ether I call index cards, all of my work is stored in one little handy database. Enter incredible time savings.

I’ve finished my paper and input my information as I’ve gone along. I know that everything I have been working on is stored in my source manager is safe and sound and ready to be put to good use. Well, all I need to do is click the “Bibliography” drop-down and choose whether I want a bibliography or works cited. Word will then pull the information that you have in your current list and auto generate the information you need into a formatted bibliography (or works cited). It really is that easy.

There are some really cool power features that I didn’t dive into that live in the source manager like the ability to keep a master list (great for students working on papers that often pull from common books or articles) and the ability to search my running bibliography or even preview a particular citation.

It will be interesting to see where this goes and what the folks at Nota Bene do to push usability even further. I have not actually tried the MS Word 2007 features, and so I will continue to recommend and use Nota Bene — especially since all appearances indicate that Word 2007 will not import citations from another system… Yet.

Other (but FREE!) options include:

• Zotero. I LOVE Zotero. This Firefox plugin has saved me countless hours of work since it not only identifies bibliographic information when viewing a book in a catalog or on Amazon, but it also will export that information as BibTex. I used this when compiling the WikIndx that will be going live at our library soon.
• BiblioExpress. is a simple reference manager for researchers. It is the freeware edition of the company’s flagship product – Biblioscape. BiblioExpress can be used to collect literature references of different types, to explore bibliographic resources on the Internet, as well as to serve as a free viewer of bibliographic data. BiblioExpress can format records in several popular styles, including ACS, APA, and MLA. BiblioExpress is designed to be small and efficient. You can run BiblioExpress from a floppy disk.
• Projects and products related to the ShareRef Project which in one way or another provide bibliographic management features to end users.
• SourceAid builds your reference list online for free in the major styles.
• Bibus Bibliographic Database is an open source bibliographic and reference management software that works with Open Office.
• OttoBib creates bibliographies from ISBN numbers. Turabian compatible.
• JabRef is an open-source client for bibliographic citation management.
• BibDesk is a bibliographic citation management tool for Mac users.

Citation format tools that I use include:

• KnightCite
• Citation Machine

There are many, many other tools available, and they are becoming more numerous by the day. Please feel free to leave a link and description to others in a comment if you like.

Popularity: 48% [?]

College students live on Facebook. Our seminary has a college. We want to provide reference and research services to our students where they are. We are now on Facebook. We are the SBTS Library Rats.

Coming soon – pushing library content into eCampus via RSS feeds.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Michael Stephens, an Instructor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University, and the author of Tame the Web (one of my favorite LIS blogs), pointed out back in June the first academic library in South Carolina to be using Meebo for IM Reference.

Hmmm. Not to be outdone, in our continuing efforts to set the bar in academic theological librarianship (tongue-in-cheek), I give you our version: SBTS Research Help – Live.

Toot.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Last week I posted this 1946 essay by George Orwell lamenting the degradation of the English language at the hands of political speech. Today I read “Reviving Anorexic Web Writing,” an article which applies similar thoughts to the web’s contribution to the degradation of the English language. The author is Amber Simmons, a writer and a web designer at the University of Texas at Austin, who writes elsewhere about many things including “theology and faith” — but from a perspective unsympathetic with biblical theology. What she has to say about web programming at intersection with society, however, appears to be rather helpful. She writes in her lament over the web’s contribution to the degradation of the English language:

As our culture becomes increasingly digital, the art forms that support it must be constructed with the same care, deliberateness, and gusto as our traditional media. Intelligent content is the literature of our time. It is not enough that our printed books and magazines are ardently written and meticulously edited. Our culture loses much if we encourage online writers to sacrifice grace and personality on the altars of pith and scannability. Perhaps better advice is to encourage writers to say exactly what they mean with precisely the words required, however many they may be.

This article was published in the online magazine A List Apart (ISSN: 1534-0295) which explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.

Popularity: 18% [?]

A BBC News website poll which asks readers to identify ten classic English novels based on their first lines is more difficult than you might think. Their website explains:

Leading literary firms failed to recognise the work of Jane Austen when it was sent in by a prankster. The opening chapters of three novels were submitted under an invented name, with titles and character names changed. Think you can do better? Try our opening line quiz.

Take the BBC poll and try from yourself. I scored a 6 out of 10. Perhaps this previous poll was wrong.

Popularity: 20% [?]