Creatures From the Web Lagoon: The Blogs

"MSNBC.com, consistently ranked among the top news destinations on the Web, is about to invest a chunk of important virtual real estate into the blog concept. MSNBC.com has killed its discussion boards, with their 18 million posts per month, and instead plans to establish by the end of August what it will call "Weblog Central," a portal of regularly updated lists of blogs from throughout the Web, arranged by subject. It will include links to MSNBC.com's own blogs as well." [National Journal]

Wow - portal of regularly updated blogs arranged by subject. I sure hope they brought in some librarians and information architects to help build it.

Question: is there a way for a library to provide its own toolbar (similar to Google's) that would let users search the library's catalog and web site? I'm talking about more than just a javascript-based bookmark/favorite like the one Noble provides, although I think that's a great widget, too, and I adapted it for SLS use.

To take it one step further, is there a way to embed authentication in such a beast so that a user with a valid library card number could search the databases to which the library subscribes?

Wow - while I was on vacation, I missed the release of myRadio.

"This Tool extends the Radio Userland aggregator from rss to any networked data (xml, html, soap, personalized services, etc), and any layout. It is exceedingly simple for developers to add functionality to the framework. The GUI (screenshot) is reminiscent of My Yahoo! and other server based personalization tools.

The goal of this project is to very quickly bring all the functionality of server based personalization to the client, then use the client based architecture to develop way beyond!"

That's one giant leap....

If you've installed this tool, can you please let me know how it's working for you? My mind is exploding with the idea of how to set up this type of digital dashboard for each member of our staff at SLS. Of course, masukomi is correct that we need authentication built into aggregators for the next logical steps in this process.

Imagine if database vendors RSS-ified their databases so that you could offer authenticated monitoring to your patrons. For example, what if my library subscribes to NewsIllinois (a database available to millions of Illinois residents, thanks to subsidized funding from the Illinois State Library) and I want to monitor it for items about libraries. If I could enter my library card number into my aggregator and the database sent out RSS notifications, summaries of new items could appear in my aggregator automatically. I could click on the link to view the full text because the link would already have the authentication embedded in it.

Just think what this type of functionality could provide for lawyers, doctors, journalists, and other specialists. All flowing through the library's resources!

Network-enabled Tivo

"I recently got networkworking on my Tivo. This allows me to do a lot of things I couldn't do before. For example, I can control the Tivo from any computer that's connected to the Internet. I can add season passes remotely, control what's currently playing, delete shows, etc. There are a lot of possibilities.

One thing Tivo people like to do is compare and contrast the things their Tivos record for them. So I figured I'd make it easy for people by putting all that information up on the web. On my new Tivo page, you can see what's currently playing (even if nobody is currently watching it). You can also see the full list of shows now showing, all of my season passes and the todo list. Maybe someday I'll even get a screen capture of what's currently playing." [lukwarm.com, via life - listed chronologically]

I am strangely fascinated by these lists on Lukas' site. I want this for my ReplayTV!! We need neighborhoods, aggregators, and rankings for sharing these types of lists.

I actually probably would share my ReplayTV lists because I wanted to, but not if the entertainment industry demanded it. Too bad they don't understand how to work with their customers instead of repeatedly antagonizing them.

Bloodhag @ Your Library

"On NPR this morning, Bloodhag in a public library. According to their website, 'BlöödHag is a band from Seattle, WA. They are dedicated to the promotion of literacy in a Heavy Metal format. All their songs are short speed metal bios of some of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. With songs such as 'J.R.R. Tolkein and 'Michael Moorcock' they will blow your illiterate ass right back to the library.' ...you can hear this spot at All Things Considered online.

Their website is php-driven, by the way, and was somehow a real pain to look at with IE5.x ... it kept disappearing each time I scrolled. I don't know why. Just be forewarned." [Libronaut]

Breaking News: Law Librarians as Newscasters

"If librarian newscasting is the solution to the problem of information overload for legal professionals, how is it accomplished? By using any and all media available....

The hottest new method of sharing information on the Internet -- known as 'blogging' -- could be adapted by law librarians in order to share news with members of their organization. Blogging, or a Weblog, can be a type of online diary used to share some details of their personal lives or summaries of entire industries with links to full news stories published elsewhere on the Internet.

For example, as a librarian surfs the Web, he can instantly post information concerning newly discovered Web sites to the log. Later, as time permits, this information can be transferred to sections of the intranet as official, categorized and organized 'links.'

Or, a librarian could conduct ongoing discussions with members of a particular practice group. By posting questions to the group and gathering answers in one place, the information will be useful not only to members of that group but also to members of other practice groups with similar interests.

By producing a type of Weblog, a law librarian can quickly provide ever-changing information to information hungry, time-pressured legal professionals." [Law.com, via Morgan's Web Wanderings, via Ernie the Attorney]

This is true for any library, not just law libraries. Academic and school libraries could provide subject-based blogs in support of specific classes or departments. Other specials such as newspaper, government, or medical libraries could follow the model noted above for law libraries. And public libraries can provide a general blog for their patrons.

A weblog devoted to tracking sites that don't understand the web:

"Don't Link to Us! links to sites that attempt to impose substantial restrictions on other sites that link to them. The Linking Policy for Don't Link to Us! precludes us from requesting permission to link to a site, and compels us to link directly to the targeted page (i.e., a 'deep link') rather than to a site's home page. Descriptions of sites' linking policies generally are accurate (though often not complete) at the time they are posted here but are likely to change over time. On occasion a web site will modify its linking policy in response to public ridicule. Perhaps their appearance in Don't Link to Us! will help encourage some of these sites to move forward into the 20th century."