While I was growing up in Colombia libraries were very scarce, the only library one ever heard mentioned was the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (BLAA), which I finally got to visit.
While the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango is owned by the Banco de la República de Colombia, it is very much a public library, and open [...]

Yesterday while I was riding the bus to work a new billboard caught my eye, one for Read.gov. Read.gov is part of the Library of Congress, and it aims to encourage reading of all kinds of material, by every age group. On the website you’ll find recommendations by age group, and for educators, and under [...]

My friend Alberto Martinez, who works at El Colegio de México, is always collaborating on great projects, the most recent one has resulted in free access to all the journals that the university edits!
The journals, which cover a wide range of topics, many of them relating to Mexican history can be accessed here. You can [...]

The Latin American Briefing Series is part of the University of Chicago’s Center for Latin American Studies; they regularly invites guest to discuss a wide range of topics and issues, and kindly makes them available through their website for free!
Look through their online archive to find videos of previous events. Some of these include discussions [...]

Today I spent the day at the Library of Congress and loved it. I was there with my mother and brother and we took one of the guided tours of the building. This tour starts off with a short movie including a number of brief interviews with some of the librarians who highlight many of [...]

On Thursday I attended the webinar titled “Opening up Library Systems through Web Services and SOA” which was co-hosted by WebJunction and ALA Tech Source, and moderated by Marshall Breeding. The session was very interested and presented three different cases of how Integrated Library Systems can be made more accessible, regardless of whether they run [...]

This Thursday Marshall Breeding will be moderating a webinar discussing whether a integrated library system be open without being open source. He will explore the ways that an Application Programming Interface (API) can help libraries wring data and functionality out of their ILS, extend its functionality, and interact with other applications.
The webinar is hosted through [...]

The European Library portal can help you search the online catalogs to all the major libraries in the European Union. The project originates from the TEL-project which was set up as a cooperative framework that would facilitate access to all the major national and deposit collection from Europe’s national libraries. The European Library is [...]

Yesterday the Guardian posted an article about a new database the BBC put together called Wildlife Finder. The site gathers hundreds of video footage, from over 30 BBC programs,of wild animals the world over. Videos are organized by type of animal, habitat, adaptation features, or ecozone.
Each entry also includes the animal’s scientific classification, adaptation information [...]

The Atlas database at the Louvre provides access to all the items exhibited at the museum, some 30,000 items. This database was first up and running in French, and currently functions in English thanks to financial help the American Friends of the Louvre. Each item can be magnified, and comes with a brief description.
You can [...]