AkLA 2007: Want a good OPAC? Talk to Darla!

A short but interesting program at the 2007 Alaska Library Association annual conference was a brief demo of the Bering Strait School District (BSSD)’s Koha based Intergrated Library System ILS. The public catalog is available online.
Presenter Darla Grediagin (dgrediagin@bssd.org) said that using Koha, an open source library catalog, had dropped her annual ILS maintainance [...]

AkLA 2007 – Why Pay Money?

Mike Robinson of University of Alaska at Anchorage did a very nice show and tell about open source software for home and library.
I think the presentation lived up to his blurb:
“There are a lot of great open source applications that are perfect for libraries. This session will cover range of software packages from nifty tools [...]

AkLA 2007 – The Unshelved Guys

The keynote speakers at the 2007 Alaska Library Association conference were the “Unshelved Guys”, Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum. I was laughing too hard for most of their presentation, especially after their “Unshelved Library Simulator” to take great notes, but here are some impressions and funny quotes.
“Librarians prefer the shadows”, Gene Ambaum, explaining why he [...]

Econ 101 by OCLC Western

One of the talks I attended at the Alaska version of the OCLC Western Users Group Meeting was Econ 101, presented by Pamela Bailey.
A few points out of this interesting talk:
Discussions about library economics revolve around:

Public value versus public good
Justifying our costs
Defining our worth

[...]

Snapshots Alaska by OCLC Western

While attending OCLC Western User Group meeting for Alaska, I attended a presentation by Margi Mann called “Snapshots Alaska.”
As you might have guessed, it was a lot of statistics about libraries in Alaska. They were presented in a quiz format which kept interest high throughout Margi’s presentation.
Here are some highlights:
According to OCLC, Alaska libraries have [...]

AkLA 2007 – Where People and Libraries Intersect

For the next several days, I’ll be posting about events related to the 2007 Alaska Library Association conference being held in Juneau.
The next few entries will relate to the OCLC Western User Group Meeting for Alaska that was held February 21st. If you have a chance to go to one of the remaining meetings, I’d [...]

Libraries 5, Netflix 0

In this world of Netflix of which I’m happily a member, it is important to note times when libraries can outperform the commercial sector.
I’ve come to depend on Netflix for finding rare movies. But today Netflix disappointed me. I’ve been listening to the podcast of a nonviolence course at Berkeley “PACS 164B – Nonviolence [...]

What are your three reasons?

NJ librarians are trying to get the most commented video on YouTube. Watch the video, then make your comment giving your three reasons for loving the library. Must be a registered YouTube user to comment, but registration is free.
Librarians and friends, unite in an affirmation of library love!
What are MY three reasons? You’ll have to [...]

Not so far away – your academic library

Check out this new YouTube commercial for a small academic library:

Clever with good music. I would have liked to see a little more information about the two libraries, but basic contact information is provided and the video probably produces enough curiosity to get students to surf on over.

Republican Heroes

Republican Heroes
Today I salute those 17 House Republicans who put nation and democracy above party. 17 Republicans who chose to stand with the 63% of Americans who oppose escalation in Iraq by joining Democrats in voting for H CON RES 63.
So, here is a huge thank you to these Republican heroes:

Michael Castle, Howard Coble, Tom [...]