Andy Rhinehart continues to keep the Spartanburg Herald-Journal out in front of the bigger newspapers, this time with a blog of breaking news, the Workday Journal.

"Workday Journal is updated Mon.-Fri. from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., filled with updates from GoUpstate.com, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal newsroom and its content partners. Breaking news, weather forecasts and interesting local tidbits of information will all find their way into the WJ. Also included is the latest news from the Associated Press, updated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

You Be the Reporter

Got a news item that you think deserves to be read? See a breaking news event and happen to have your digital camera handy? Why not be a reporter - email us your news or news photos at goupstate@shj.com. Include your name and daytime phone number in case we need to contact you for verification. We'll review your submissions and post some of them here in Workday Journal."

RSS feed is forthcoming. Very nice! The one thing that isn't right about the site is the intrusive and way too long registration process just to read the articles. It's free, but it's quite a barrier. As we were instant messaging about the site this morning, Andy noted, "our entertainment writer just emailed me an item for the daily blog.  That, and the fact a user emailed us last week asking if we had an RSS feed, convinces me that maybe we're on to something here."

The hope is that this blog will be as successful as their SCPigskinPrep site:

"We've used this technique all season on Friday nights for high school football. Phenomenal response. The cool thing is, we're getting flow back from users. People listening to games on the radio are emailing us scores, a couple of other media entities are calling in scores. Sometimes I'm able to track 20-30 games this way."

So while the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other papers sit on the sideline debating if blogs can help big "J" Journalism, Andy and GoUpstate.com are out there providing an answer, especially on the local scene.

I came home from the ILA Conference to find a copy of Carrie Bickner's long-anticipated book, Web Design on a Shoestring, waiting on the doorstep, courtesy of The Rogue Librarian herself. From the introduction:

"Web Design on a Shoestring tackles every aspect of web production from the point of view of a professional who needs to deliver a magnificent site but doesn't have lavish financial resources. Each chapter addresses one of those site production aspects (project planning, user testing, writing, design, content management, HTML markup, and web hosting) and suggests strategies about making the most of it on a shoestring budget.

I have tried to focus on one or two main cost-savings strategies for each chapter, and then to break down these strategies into several techniques that you can put to use immediately....

You'll find that each chapter begins with a 'Chapter Checklist.' Use these checklists as guidelines to help you move more efficiently through the chapters.

Short sections called 'Spinning Straw into Gold' punctuate the book; these sections highlight appoaches to the money-saving aspects introduced in each chapter. I have also defined terms and phrases throughout this book; skim the sidebars to familiarize yourself with new terms and concepts."

Although you do need to have some familiarity with HTML (and even a little XHTML), it's well worth it for the busy librarian that is also in charge of the library's web site (or any web site, but there is a definite need for such a book in the library community). It's a slim volume, only 215 pages including the index, but that's because Carrie really zeroes in on the issues and provides succinct explanations and instructions.

For example, a quick skim of the "Content Management on a Tight Budget" chapter has already provided me with new information, and the CMS software descriptions are very helpful. If you're on the fence about going with a content management system, this is a great place to start.

Highly recommended!

P.S. On page 116, Carrie asks the question, "Do you need an RSS feed?" but leaves the answer up to the reader. If you have a "what's new" page or one where you post press releases (at the very least), then just trust me that the answer is yes. As Carrie notes, the more ways in which you provide access to your site, the more options your readers have for getting at that content (especially us RSS bigots).

damned noisy birds

"Some people find the shushing action figure hilarious. Check out this shushing scarecrow at the North Scituate Public Library." [librarian.net]

Love the scarecrow (hmmm, something new to add to the mix for the Halloween festivities at SLS?), but personally I'm fashioning a cape for my librarian action figure!

Excellent - Audible now has The Time Traveler's Wife (sorry I can't link directly to it, but the one goofy thing about their site is the URLs)! In other Audible news, the New York Times again takes notice of the consumer-friendly company that could.

Audible Service Could Teach Music Industry a Lesson

"Reasonably priced secure downloads. Compensation for writers and artists. Peaceful alliances between publishers and online distributors.

A utopian vision for the music industry? Perhaps. But that approach, which appears to be the goal of Apple Computer's iTunes music store and others like it, is already a reality for delivering audio books and other spoken word offerings over the Internet, as created by Audible, a small company in Wayne, N.J....

On Thursday, Audible's reach grew with the announcement that thousands of hours of its offerings will be available from Apple's iTunes music store....

Persuading audio book publishers and radio producers to allow him to sell their content online was not easy at first, Mr. Katz said, particularly because many publishers were still feeling the sting of failed experiments with the CD-ROM. But unlike the record industry, book publishers agreed to share their rights long before a free alternative like Napster or Kazaa came along to make copyright violations as easy as clicking a mouse." [The New York Times]

Of course, I'm a big Audible fan because they are so willing to work with libraries. More on this soon....

"Please see Donna Wentworth, Cory Doctorow, EFF, and Digital Consumer on the broadcast flag proposal currently pending before the FCC. Then see Senator Ernest F. Hollings' request that the FCC act "absent legislation" to implement the broadcast flag. Then see Leo Laporte's comment, "Even Microsoft is against this one." Then do what comes naturally." [Bag and Baggage]

I haven't been around much to stress the importance of this, but the broadcast flag the entertainment industry is shoving through Congress is a capital-B Bad thing. Besides the fact that this legislation will cost us the ability to do the things we do now with television shows, movies, and our own home videos, it will cost consumers money to buy new equipment that in order to lose those rights. Help fight for your own fair use rights, as well as those of your kids and grandkids by filling out the EFF form to Stop the MPAA's Broadcast Flag.

After a walk through some forest preserves yesterday, I couldn't stand it anymore so I went to Best Buy and bought a new digital camera. (I ended up staying with the familiar and getting a Sony Cybershot DSC-P8 for those that are interested.) I talked to several of the kids working there, and none of them knew anything about DRM and copy protection embedded on the Sony MagicGate Memory Stick Pro media. No surprise there.

They've rearranged the store since I was there last, though. One of the first things you walk into now is a "Kid Tech" section that includes a table and seating for playing with LeapPad products. That's a bit of a surprise, but it makes sense.

The biggest surprise, though, was that when no one knew anything about the MagicGate sticks, they called someone in one of their stores in Florida to ask the question, and they used a Vocera device to do it. Pretty nifty, except it didn't really work. One guy's exact words were, "It sucks." Not ready for prime-time quite yet, as he noted the poor reception and he said you can barely understand what the other person is saying (if you're lucky). He agreed they'd be better off with Nextel phones for push-to-talk connectivity. It was still kind of cool to see a Vocera up close and personal out in the wild, though.