Yay, LibGuides!

Take a look at our Consumer Health Guide (click the blue Consumer Health link in the widget below), the library's latest masterpiece. It was created by librarian Liza Ly with the assistance of the LibGuide software. Our relatively inexpensive subscription to LibGuides enables us to create these fantastic-looking sites, all without benefit of html or xhtml knowledge or whatever the heck it takes to build websites,and about which I know nothing.

We think the applications are endless, and not just for libraries. Plus, LibGuides has a mobile site builder which enables you to create a mobile-enhanced site, the sine qua non of web presence these days. Let me know if you want more details about this product.

Google Vs. Librarian

This is the message that greets you (imprinted on the carpet) when you step in the door at the Gungahlin Public Library in Canberra, Australia. Ironically, I immediately Googled Neil Gaiman to see who he was and what his credentials were for making such a strong statement about the value of librarians.

Turns out he's one of the top ten living post-modern writers, according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography. So he should know what he's talking about, I would say.

That being said, I would also say there's no contest here: no adversarial relationship between Google and librarians. Google is the librarian's best friend, and I frankly can't remember what we librarians did in the days before Google. I do remember, though, that it took us a lot longer to do it than it does now.

Yea for National Academies Press

The National Academies Press, the organization that publishes reports for the National Academies of Sciences, the Instutute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, announced last week that it is making all of its published reports freely downloadable to all. They used to provide free content in underdeveloped countries, but the policy change now makes their content free to everyone everywhere. This includes their current offerings plus all future reports published by the Press.

According to NAP's Executive Director, Barbara Kline Pope, "Our business model has evolved so that it is now financially viable to put this content out to the entire world for free. This is a wonderful opportunity to make a positive impact by more effectively sharing our knowledge and analyses." The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website, http://www.nap.edu/

Happy National Library Week

That's right, all week this week, you'll find us librarians celebrating in the stacks. And those of us who don't have stacks will be feeling equally festive in front of our computer screens.

A recent blog post by CNN Librarian Kerith McFadden pointed out that librarians are not only heroic (example: Alia Muhammad Baker, the chief librarian of Basra, Iraq, who removed 30,000 books from the city's main library before it was destroyed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq), but also powerful. According to a character in Spider Robinson's "The Callahan Touch", one of "Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Never piss one off."

Michael Moore adds this more ominous note, "I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. ... You think they're just sitting at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them"

So we'll carry on here with the celebrating. LOUD and PROUD as my friend and colleague Lauren Maggio, Clinical Librarian at Stanford's Lane Medical Library, suggested on the back of the above postcard she sent me. Thanks, Lauren. If you hadn't sent that card, the entire week might have gone by without celebration.