This week's threads:

• Where should you keep your data? Your library can help with that answer!
• Use index cards for your next presentation's question and answer session -- it'll make for a better experience for you and your audience.
• What's that bird? There is an app for that! Give it your …

Welcome to the latest edition of Thursday Threads. This week's post has a continuation of the commentary about the Kuali Board's decisions from last month. Next, news of a fundraising campaign by the Ada Initiative in support of women in technology fields. Lastly, an article that looks at the relative …

You'll get the sense that this week's Thursday Threads is stacked towards cultural awareness. First is the view of a developer of the female gender in a room of peers at a meeting of the Digital Public Library of America. The second thread is a pointer to a story about …

This week's DLTJ Thursday Threads has just two pointers. First, a new volunteer web service to report problems with websites, which may be useful for not only our own sites but for the sites our patrons visit. Second, a nine-minute video that illustrates the reuse of themes and ideas in …

It was only a few months ago that I was teasing Dan Chudnov for joining Twitter. Now I've gone and done it myself. I don't expect to be using it much, but after observing the "Falls Church, VA" incident yesterday, I thought it would be an useful tool to have …

I've been collecting disclaimers that appear on the bottom of e-mail messages in a draft post on DLTJ for about a year now -- every time I'd get a new one with a different twist, I'd save it anticipating the day would come that there would be enough humor here to …

The American Library Association Committee on Professional Ethics is proposing changes to the Code of Ethics. ((Do those outside the profession know that librarians have an ethical code? We do! And it is part of what makes us special as a culture.)) Other than two minor changes (adding commas where …

Spotted in the Chronicle of Higher Education Online this morning is mention of two lectures by Wendy Seltzer that will happen today on the topic of copyright and fair-use doctrine. Here are the summaries and hCalendar events (the latter being useful if your browser and/or RSS reader understands the …

DLTJ featured a discussion last month on what I saw as the outcomes of "clashing values" between the interest of businesses and that of not-for-profit higher education. The discussion started with "Educational Patents, Open Access Journals, and Clashing Values" and continued with a focus on open access publishing specifically with …

Published in The New Yorker July 5, 1993.
Image from The Cartoon Bank

As the saying, now a part of Internet lore, goes: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." That may be true, but now we must add: "But we do know if you are from a major …

My posting on Friday about the clashing values of academic institutions and businesses prompted a comment from Bill Hooker about linking to his blog posting about the pricing structure at BioMed Central (BMC). His comment and the e-mail I received this morning from BMC (reproduced below) got me rethinking about …

This posting has two goals -- first, to introduce DLTJ readers to the notion of "Educational Patents" or "edupatents" and provide an update on events of this week. Second, to frame the sometimes contentious interaction between academic institutions and supporting businesses as one of "clashing values." The former serves as a …

Library Journal reports on the results of discussions among SOLINET ((SOLINET is the Southeastern Library Network, Inc. -- a not-for-profit multi-type library cooperative serving the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean.)) members to envision what their library of the future will be. The summary is available as a PDF document as …

There are days that I feel like Tom Cruise. No, I have no idea what it is like to be married to Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes and I don't have the secrets of Scientology. Let me rephrase: there are days that I feel like Jerry Macguire, the character Tom …

In case you haven't run across Gapminder.org yet, I encourage you to carve out about 45 minutes of a day to do so. Even before going to the URL above, your first stop should be this 20 minute video by Hans Rosling -- professor of global health at Sweden’s …

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University demonstrates principles of fair use to give an overview of U.S. copyright principles in A Fair(y) Use Tale -- a 10-minute video in five acts. Using clips from dozens of Disney films, Faden gives the historical perspective and underlying principles for copyright law …

"Participatory Digital Libraries" is the name of a talk Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio.org, gave this morning at OCLC's Kilgour Auditorium. Known as "The Public's Library," ibiblio is a large, diverse digital library. His talk offered insight on how ibiblio works and commentary for applying the same successful techniques …

So here is my role on the internet — a Connector: "Connectors combine a sense that information technology is good for social purposes with a clear recognition that online resources are a great way to learn new things." That definition comes from the Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users by …