Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Disruptive Library Technology Jester

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Peter E. Murray

Library technologist, open source advocate, striving to think globally while acting locally

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  • What Makes Google Tick? A Pointer to an Analysis

    Why does Google do what it does? A report by the faberNovel management consulting firm describes Google's "key success factors" and how it goes about achieving them. The report talks about "Google as platform" and goes on to describe how it makes money serving the network effects of that platform …

     Posted on  December 05, 2008
     and last updated December 05, 2008
     ·  2 minutes reading time
  • LITA Announces an Unconference for May 2009

    Earlier this week, LITA announced its unconference event: LITACamp. The meeting is scheduled for May 7-8, 2009 at the OCLC Conference Center in Dublin, Ohio. (Map of conference center and surrounding facilities.)

    For those that don't know, the unconference meeting format is one where the topics are picked by those …

     Posted on  December 05, 2008
     and last updated December 05, 2008
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • Google Book Search Settlement and Library Consortia

    The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement includes two points where library consortia come into play: discounts for institutional subscriptions and receipt of digitized books by members of a consortium. The Google Book Search Settlement calls such consortia "Institutional Consortia" and the definition of that phrase and the places in the …

     Posted on  November 25, 2008
     and last updated November 25, 2008
     ·  5 minutes reading time
  • More About OhioLINK's Discovery Layer Desires

    On Friday, OhioLINK released an addendum to its inquiry for a comprehensive discovery layer that answers questions submitted from potential bidders. This is a distilled version of that addendum -- posted here with the desire to reach others that may be interested in submitting a bid. Please note that this posting …

     Posted on  November 24, 2008
     and last updated November 24, 2008
     ·  11 minutes reading time
  • Preliminary Court Approval of Google Book Settlement; Final Approval Hearing Set

    The Associate Press reported on Monday evening that the court has given preliminary approval to the settlement negotiated between Google and book authors and publishers over the use of copyrighted materials in the Google Book Search Library project. In giving preliminary approval, Judge John E. Sprizzo authorized the publication of …

     Posted on  November 22, 2008
     and last updated November 23, 2008
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • OLE Project Webcast, Workshops Scheduled

    Coming out of the face-to-face meeting in Rutgers earlier this month, the OLE Project has posted a number of announcements for upcoming events. The first is a webcast on Nov. 20, 2008 from 3:00pm to 4:30pm Eastern Standard Time, US, free of charge and open to anyone. The …

     Posted on  November 17, 2008
     and last updated November 17, 2008
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • Google Book Search Settlement: Public Access Service

    One of the very relevant aspects of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement to libraries is the provision that allows for free public access to the full text of books in public and academic libraries. The Notice of Settlement summary says: "Google will provide, on request, 'Public Access' licenses for …

     Posted on  November 11, 2008
     and last updated November 11, 2008
     ·  7 minutes reading time
  • Is OCLC's Change of WorldCat Record Use/Transfer Policy Related to the Google Book Search Agreement?

    Update

    On the Code4Lib IRC channel Thursday afternoon, Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer at OCLC Programs and Research, said that there is absolutely no connection between the policy change and the Google Book Search settlement.

    The Original Post

    Two big and seemingly unrelated things came to light on Tuesday of …

     Posted on  October 30, 2008
     and last updated October 30, 2008
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • Google Book Search Settlement: Reviewing the Notice of Settlement

    Beyond the public pronouncements of the Google Books Settlement ((See the bottom of this earlier post on DLTJ for a complete list)) are the documents that form the meat of the agreement. The full text of the proposed settlement agreement is 141 pages plus another 162 pages of appendices. The …

     Posted on  October 29, 2008
     and last updated October 29, 2008
     ·  24 minutes reading time
  • George Mason University Issues Statement on Reuters/Zotero Lawsuit

    George Mason University issued a statement this morning regarding the lawsuit filed against it by the Thomson Scientific division of Reuters. It looks like GMU intends to fight the lawsuit. It has restored the functionality that allowed Zotero to understand the EndNote® citation style file format and announced that it …

     Posted on  October 29, 2008
     and last updated October 29, 2008
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • Google Book Search Settlement: Introduction, Public Announcements

    Announced today was a settlement between Google and the plaintiffs -- the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and individual authors and publishers -- in the class action lawsuit about materials scanned for the Google Book Search application through the Google Book Search Library Project. This posting on DLTJ includes a …

     Posted on  October 28, 2008
     and last updated October 29, 2008
     ·  6 minutes reading time
  • Looking For a Comprehensive Discovery Layer

    Earlier today, Wright State University issued an invitation-to-negotiate ((Invitation to Negotiate: A competitive process whereby suppliers and contractors have an opportunity to initially submit pricing proposals for consideration. Once reviewed, the University has the opportunity to determine which proposers it wishes to conduct negotiations with for the purpose of arriving …

     Posted on  October 22, 2008
     and last updated October 22, 2008
     ·  7 minutes reading time
  • Specifications for Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE) published

    ORE Logo The first production version of the Object Reuse and Exchange from the Open Archives Initiative was published today. In the words of the release announcement, ORE provides "the foundation for applications and services that can visualize, preserve, transfer, summarize, and improve access to the aggregations that people use in their …

     Posted on  October 17, 2008
     and last updated October 17, 2008
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • Updates on the EndNote/Zotero Lawsuit

    This is a brief update on the EndNote/Zotero lawsuit. The story thus far: The Thomson Scientific division of Reuters, maintainer of the EndNote software, is suing George Mason University over the upcoming release of Zotero, the Firefox plugin for managing citations. More specifically, the complaint filed in Virginia state …

     Posted on  October 06, 2008
     and last updated October 06, 2008
     ·  6 minutes reading time
  • Clay Shirky on the Need for Better Information Filters

    Last month, Clay Shirky gave a presentation with the title "It's Not Information Overload. It's Filter Failure" at the Web 2.0 Expo. ((Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by TechWeb and O'Reilly Media, "is a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next …

     Posted on  October 05, 2008
     and last updated October 06, 2008
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • Two Weeks to Submit your Program Proposal for Ohio's Technology in Higher Education Conference

    Don’t delay -- submit your proposal and be part of Ohio’s premier higher education conference, The University System of Ohio’s Learning, Libraries & Technology 2009 Conference! Proposals are due by Wednesday, October 15, 2008 for the conference on March 1-3, 2009.

    The University System of Ohio’s Learning, Libraries …

     Posted on  October 02, 2008
     and last updated October 02, 2008
     ·  2 minutes reading time
  • XML Tower of Structural Metadata

    Jerome McDonough of the Graduate School of Library & Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented a paper this summer at the Balisage conference with the title Structural Metadata and the Social Limitation of Interoperability: A Sociotechnical View of XML and Digital Library Standards Development. ((McDonough, J. (2008 …

     Posted on  October 02, 2008
     and last updated October 02, 2008
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • Extracts from the Thomson Reuters Lawsuit Against Zotero

    Via a posting by James Grimmelmann, I found a link to the text of the complaint filed by Thomson Reuters against George Mason University in Virginia's state courts. The critical bits (to an untrained eye) are included below:

    Paragraph 12: George Mason University [GMU] entered into a site license agreement …

     Posted on  September 28, 2008
     and last updated September 29, 2008
     ·  6 minutes reading time
  • George Mason University Sued by Thomson Reuters over Zotero

    Thomson Reuters is suing George Mason University to stop distribution of the newest version of Zotero, a Firefox browser plugin for managing citation data. According to a story from Courthouse News Service, Reuters is claiming that George Mason is violating the terms of its license agreement by including a function …

     Posted on  September 27, 2008
     and last updated September 27, 2008
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • Seeking Details About Mystery Discovery Layer Company

    There is a message floating around the net with a link to a survey about "a completely new online resource discovery service." There is no identifying information information on the survey; obviously the entity that commissioned it wants to remain private. I, however, want to know who this organization is …

     Posted on  September 23, 2008
     and last updated September 24, 2008
     ·  2 minutes reading time