OpenScholar is a new framework developed at Harvard that will allow scholars to build and maintain high quality websites. The idea is to allow academics to easily create useful, and elegant websites which showcase their publications, classes, blog entries, biography, calendar of events, and many other items. Here is the test example from the video. [...]

Tomorrow a group of librarians and library enthusiast from around the world will try to make the hashtag #biblioteca one of the Trending Topics on Twitter. The event will take place August 10, 2010 and will last an hour (10-11am EST). This experiment was conducted exactly a year ago, and they almost achieve their goal, [...]

I just learned about This Week in Libraries (twil) an online TV series about libraries all over the world! (Does it get any better than this?!) Twil is hosted by Erik Boekestejin and Jaap van de Geer, both from the DOK Library Concept Center in Delft, Netherlands. With each episode the two hosts interview  librarians, [...]

The ALA (American Library Association) just established Choose Privacy Week (May 2 -8), which is part of Privacy Revolution. This new event aims at creating awareness of the digital environment we live in and how to best manage it. Before many of us adopted all the digital tools that help facilitate our work, daily chores, [...]

Boston Public Library (BPL) branches  are on the cutting board; sad but true. The first USA city to offer its residents the service of public libraries is now planning on cutting 15 out of the 26 branch libraries. Sadly, Amy E. Ryan, the BPL’s director, and Mayor Menino are all for this idea. Both have [...]

Jeff Howe has a large following on Twitter  – @crowdsourcing – and is trying to get as many people as possible to read the same book and discuss it. Sounds like a great social experiment. Right now the top choice for the book is Fahrenheit  451. To get the full details of this project read [...]

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson My rating: 5 of 5 stars I picked up a galley of this book while attending ALA Midwinter, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Marilyn Johnson became interested in librarians while researching her previous book on obituaries, and running into a few [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

It’s been almost fifty years since the Peace Corps first started sending volunteers around the world to help in a variety of projects. To commemorate this history and anticipating many new adventures to come, the Peace Corps has created a digital library which encourages current and past volunteers to submit photographs and stories of their [...]