'People view librarians as peons' James Nye

James Nye in conversation with The Telegraph's Sanjib Mukherjee

"Known for his efforts in documenting thousands of records relating to South Asia, James Nye, the bibliographer for south Asia at the University of Chicago Library, was in Bhubaneswar to speak at the Odisha Knowledge Lecture series hosted by the state government. His connection with India began in 1960s, and since then, he has been coming to this country twice every year. His initiatives also include making the records available online. Anwesha Ambaly of The Telegraph spoke to him on various issues related to archiving of documents and his association with India's history ...
♦ Do you feel that the role of a bibliographer is significant in India as it is in western countries?
There is also a cultural problem where people have viewed librarians nothing more than peons. There is a deep need for people across all the fields in library sciences. From people selecting or cataloguing to administrators, who could run library as organisations, the needs are rising but the gap is huge. But, there are great opportunities and the country needs to realise that...." Full text here and here

On the same shelf:

• The Indiana Jones of words, In a telephone interview, with MEHER MIRZA, The Hindu
• Conservation of cultural assets need of hour: Nye Indian Express

  "Delivering the fifth lecture of Odisha Knowledge Hub (OKH) in the State Secretariat here, Nye emphasised on conservation and open access to cultural assets and heritage." [also here]

Elements of Digital Literacy - East and West

PS. This is a note to remind everyone that there is no one size fits all. Eastern/developing nations need  a different strategy, and different approach, as agains the rest of the developed world. The following is excellent in the latter case:

•  Digital Literacy and Multitasking @ startek

Extract: :About three years ago Doug Belshaw came up with the Eight C’s of Digital Literacy: Cultural [Cu], Cognitive [Cg], Constructive [Cn], Communication [Co], Confidence [Cf], Creative [Cr], Critical [Ct], and Civic [Ci]. This article briefly describes how each of these eight strategies might look in the classroom."

Read more »

British Library sets out to archive the Web

Extract:

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Capturing the unruly, ever-changing Internet is like trying to pin down a raging river.
But the British Library is going to try.
For centuries the library has kept a copy of every book, pamphlet, magazine and newspaper published in Britain. Starting Saturday, it will also be bound to record every British website, e-book, online newsletter and blog in a bid to preserve the nation's "digital memory."
As if that's not a big enough task, the library also has to make this digital archive available to future researchers — come time, tide or technological change.
... "Stuff out there on the Web is ephemeral," said Lucie Burgess, the library's head of content strategy. "The average life of a web page is only 75 days, because websites change, the contents get taken down.
... Like reference collections around the world, the British Library has been attempting to archive the Web for years in a piecemeal way and has collected about 10,000 sites. Until now, though, it has had to get permission from website owners before taking a snapshot of their pages.
...
Tenner says keeping up with technology is only one challenge the project faces. Another is the inherently unstable nature of the Web. Information constantly mutates, and search engines' algorithms can change results and prices in an instant - as anyone who has booked airline tickets online knows.
"It is trying to capture an unstable, dynamic process in a fixed way, which is all a librarian can hope to do, but it is missing one of the most positive and negative aspects of the web," Tenner said.
"Librarians want things as fixed as possible, so people know where something is, people know the content of something. The problem is, the goals of the library profession and the structure of information have been diverging."
British Library spokesman Ben Sanderson acknowledged that this is new territory for an institution more used to documents written on parchment, paper and the fine calfskin known as vellum.
"Vellum - you don't need an operating system to read that," he said. Continue reading the full article, via abcnews.

Nation's First Bookless Public Library in Texas

Nation's First Bookless Public Library Could Be in Texas

Nation's First Bookless Library Set To Open

All-digital library system is planned for Texas community

Completely Paperless Public Library Could Come to Texas

U.S. digital project signals the rise of versatile e-textbooks

Michael Geist, Toronto Star, February 27, 2011 

"The technology community is fond of referring to announcements that fundamentally alter a sector or service as a “game changer.” Examples include the debut of the Apple iTunes store in 2003, which demonstrated how a digital music service that responds to consumer demands was possible, and Google's Gmail, which upended web-based email in 2004 by offering one gigabyte of storage when competitors like Microsoft's Hotmail were providing a paltry two megabytes...." continue reading in Toronto Star

International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC)

About the consortium: In July 2003 the national libraries of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, The British Library (UK), The Library of Congress (USA) and the Internet Archive (USA) acknowledged the importance of international collaboration for preserving Internet content for future generations. This group of 12 institutions chartered the IIPC to fund and participate in projects and working groups to accomplish the Consortium’s goals. The initial agreement was in effect for three years, during which time the membership was limited to the charter institutions. Since then, membership has expanded to include additional libraries, archives, museums and cultural heritage institutions involved in Web archiving. For a complete list visit our members page.

In the news / on the same shelf:

Archiving the web ~~ Born digital: National libraries start to preserve the web, but cannot save everything, coninue reading: The Economist

New Library Technologies Dispense With Librarians - WSJ.com

"In this suburb of St. Paul, the new library branch has no librarians, no card catalog and no comfortable chairs in which to curl up and read. Instead, the Library Express is a stack of metal lockers outside city hall. When patrons want a book or DVD, they order it online and pick it up from a digitally locked, glove-compartment- sized cubby a few days later."

The Battle of Building Library's Digital Collection, Revisited

Chennai now boasts South Asia’s largest library : The Anna Centenary Library (ACL)

M R Venkatesh, Chennai, Sep 15, DHNS: Deccan Herald

In a big boost to book lovers, the publishing industry and to the public library networking concept, the Anna Centenary Library (ACL), a magnificent eight-storey structure said to be South Asia’s largest and most elegantly designed state-of-the-art library, was unveiled here on Wednesday evening. continue reading

See also:

Free access to Anna Centenary Library initially

Now entire library on chip developed by Indian-American

By IANS, 29 April 2010

Washington: An Indian-American scientist has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data - enough to hold an entire library.
The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in computer-memory technology.
"We have created magnetic nanodots that store one bit of information on each nanodot, allowing us to store over one billion pages of information in a chip that is one square inch," says Jay Narayan, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU).
Narayan, a product of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, conducted the study. continue reading Economic Times

Nalanda Digital Library, NIT Calicut

Nalanda Digital Library, NIT Calicut is an integral constituent body of National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala and started functioning as the largest digital library of India since 1999. It renders its undistinguished services to about 3000 users from all walks of life including undergraduate, post graduate students and research scholars of different branches of Engineering and Faculty and Staff from various departments of the institute and Neighboring Institutions. Continue reading

Pangea Day: Kenya sings for India

Info courtesy: SHIRIN S. BADLANI & Suresh Lalvani @ http://www.spectrascribe.com/

Pangea Day - May 10, 2008: A Global Film Event Harnessing the ...
Can Your Film Change the World? Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion, uniting millions of people to build a better ...

What other bloggers are saying:

Says Chris Anderson, TED Curator

Take a look at these films. They are each just one minute long. They feature a choir in one country singing another country’s national anthem: a simple idea that packs surprising emotional power.

France sings for USA
Japan sings for Turkey
They were shot by film directors looking to support the landmark TED project Pangea Day (which I hope you have calendared for Saturday, May 10)

Pangea Day Hopes to Bring the World Together Through Film
15 Apr 2008 by Paul

Is Pangea Day Coming to Your Library?
14 Apr 2008 by Nancy Dowd

Connections, Sharing of ideas, Pangea Day, May 10, 2008
1 Apr 2008 by Steve Doyne

Browse more via Google Blog search

Multicultural Canadian Website: Promotes History of Indo-Canadians

The Government of Canada Supports Simon Fraser University Library under a project called "Documenting and Exploring Multicultural Canada".

"This project on the study and exploration of Canadian multiculturalism involves upgrading the Multicultural Canada website by digitizing various documents that record the contribution of different ethnocultural communities to Canadian society. Among other things, the website will bring together documents, newspapers, and sound clips currently scattered throughout different libraries and archive services. The site will be a unique source of information on the history of the Chinese, Ukrainian, German, Hungarian, Vietnamese, and Indo-Canadian communities in Canada. Information will be provided in English and French and in the language of each community."

"The goal of this project is to preserve and provide access to the record of individuals and communities of Canada’s peoples. Through newspapers, interviews, photographs, letters, family papers and oral histories, the people who have made Canada have documented their experience." Says Lynn Copeland, Dean of Library Services, Simon Fraser University Library. Project contacts

See also on the shelf:

• Library and Archives Canada: Multicultural Initiatives
• Japanese Canadian Story Telling
• The Historical Chinese Language Materials in British Columbia (www.hclmbc.org)

eBooks from European Libraries

eod eBooks - eBooks on Demand - is a European project to make millions of books in European libraries available electronically on demand.

From About eod: "Users will be able to order eBooks via the common library catalogues; the libraries will then digitise the requested item and send it to the user via the EOD service network. The books digitised in this way will simultaneously be incorporated into the digital libraries of the participating libraries and thus be accessible on the Internet."
Currently the project includes 13 libraries from 8 European countries. The UK and

France are not on the list of participating countries: Austria and Germany are.

Source: Gwen @ Internet News

Reading now: International and Comparative Studies in Information and Library Science

A Focus on the United States and Asian Countries

Series: Libraries and Librarianship: An International Perspective #3. Edited by Yan Quan Liu and Xiaojun Cheng

Introduction by Dr. Yan Quan Liu.

Contents:
NB. To read the following, point mouse over and scrolling stops!!!

'
Part 1: Research Methodologies
1. Comparative Librarianship Lalitha K. Sami
2. International Library and Information Science Research: A Comparison of National Trends Maxine Rochester and Pertti Vakkari
3. Comparison between the People's Republic of China and the United States in the Field of Library and Information Science Weina Hua
4. Introducing an International Cooperative Research Method Employed in Cross-Country Studies in Information and Library Science Yan Quan Liu
Part 2: Information Policy
5. The Impact of National Policy on Developing Information Infrastructure Nationwide: Issues in the People's Republic of China and the United States Yan Quan Liu
Part 3: Professional Education
6. Is the Education on Digital Libraries Adequate? Yan Quan Liu
7. An Investigation of LIS Qualifications throughout the World Pete Dalton and Kate Levinson
8. A Comparative Study of Library and Information Science Education: China and the United States Ziming Liu
9. A Comparison Study on the Confusion and Threat of the United States and Chinese Library Education Xudong Jin
10. Motivation to Manage: A Comparative Study of Male and Female Library and Information Science Students in the United States of America, India, Singapore, and Japan Sarla R. Murgai
Part 4: Information Organization and Services
11. Digital Library Infrastructure: A Case Study on Sharing Information Resources in China Yan Quan Liu and Jin Zhang
12. Cataloging Nonprint Resources in the United States and China: A Comparative Study of Organization and Access for Selected Electronic and Audiovisual Resources Yan Ma, Steve J. Miller, and Yan Quan Liu
Part 5: Academic Libraries
13. A Comparative Study of the Use of the Academic Libraries by Undergraduates in the United States and Taiwan Ting-Ming Lai
Part 6: Public Libraries
14. International Public Library Trends Nerida Clifford
15. The Use of the National Library Statistics by Public Library Directors Yan Quan Liu and Douglas L. Zweizig
16. National Public Library Statistics and Management: A Comparison between the United States and People's Republic of China Yan Quan Liu
Part 7: School Libraries
17. Teachers' Perceptions of School Libraries: Comparisons between Tokyo and Honolulu Yuriko Nakamura
18. An International Study on Principal Influence and Information Services in Schools: Synergy in Themes and Methods James Henri, Lyn Hay, and Dianne Oberg
Appendix A: Schools Offering International and Comparative Librarianship Related Courses
Appendix B: Journals Pertaining to International and Comparative Studies in ILS
Appendix C: International Conferences on Information and Library Science
Appendix D: Web Resources Relating to Information and Library Science Worldwide
Bibliography
Index

Picturing the Global Library: A Call for Photos of Libraries Around the World

Calling all globetrotting librarians!

Super Conference 2008 is lookingat the library experience around the world. Do you have pictures ofphotos of libraries you've snapped in your travels? If you’ve got somehidden away on your hard drive or in a photo album please help us bysubmitting them to OLA. Photos of any kinds of libraries (or librarians)in any location are good: modern, classic, grand, humble, old, new,familiar, exotic, famous, obscure...all are good!Photos will be used in a gallery on the OLA Super Conference Web site,at plenary sessions throughout the conference and, most particularly, atthe closing plenary on Saturday, Feb. 2nd during the luncheon in whichincoming IFLA President Ellen Tise from South Africa will be speaking.Photos can be submitted in any of the following ways:

* Send digital photos to superconference@accessola.com (in any format but as high a resolution as possible).

* If you are a Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) member, you may submit photos to the “Libraries of the World – OLA Super Conference Pool” Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ola_worldlibraries//.

Again, as high a resolution as possible.

* Send print photos to OLA, 50 Wellington St. East, Suite 201, Toronto M5E 1C8.

Photos can be picked up at Super Conference from the Information Desk in the Registration Lobby. Any photos not picked up will be mailed to their owners following the Conference.For each photo, please provide your name, e-mail, the location of thelibrary, its name if appropriate and a sentence or two about anythingyou want to point out, either about the library or about what is in thephoto.----------------------------------------

Mark Robertson, OLA Super Conference 2008 Coordinator

Checking Out Tomorrow's Library

In Paris, an International Working Group Shows Off the Prototype For a Multilingual 'Intellectual Cathedral' of Digitized Knowledge

By John Ward Anderson, Washington Post Foreign Service -- Thursday, October 18, 2007; A21

PARIS, Oct. 17 -- As ideas go, they don't come much bigger: Digitize the accumulated wisdom of humankind, catalogue it, and offer it for free on the Internet in seven languages.The first phase of that simple yet outlandishly ambitious dream is about a year away from being realized, according to a group of international librarians, computer technicians and U.N. officials who unveiled a prototype for the project, called the World Digital Library, in Paris on Wednesday.

Its creators see it as the ultimate multilingual, multicultural tool for researching and retrieving information about knowledge and creativity from any era or place. The WDL Web site ( http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/) will provide access to original documents, films, maps, photographs, manuscripts, musical scores and recordings, architectural drawings and other primary resources through a variety of search methods. ...

Info courtesy: "Ali Houissa"

Excerpts from the "Really Modern Library" blog entry:

"The goal of this project is to shed light on the big questions about future accessibility and usability of analog culture in a digital, networked world."

"Our aim with the Really Modern Library project is not to build a physical or even a virtual library, but to stimulate new thinking about mass digitization and, through the generation of inspiring new designs, interfaces and conceptual models, to spur innovation in publishing, media, libraries, academia and the arts."

The blog entry also mentions "plans for a major international design competition calling for proposals, sketches, and prototypes for a hypothetical 'really modern library.' " The blog entry goes on to describe this competiton as follows:

"The call for entries will go out to as broad a community as possible, including designers, artists, programmers, hackers, librarians, archivists, activists, educators, students and creative amateurs. Our present intent is to raise a large sum of money to administer the competition and to have a pool for prizes that is sufficiently large and meaningful that it can compel significant attention from the sort of minds we want working on these problems."

For more info, go to: the really modern library

Info courtesy: Bernie Sloan.

You a bookworm? Click and get your own library

Watch the video about the exciting free @ Gutenberg.org

10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL 2007)

10-13 December 2007, Hanoi, Vietnam

The International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL) is one of the leading international conferences in digital libraries research. Into its tenth year, ICADL 2007 will provide a forum for sharing ideas, research results and experiences in digital libraries, related technologies and associated practical and social issues. Participants from diverse backgrounds are encouraged. Previous conferences have included practitioners, researchers, educators and policy makers from a variety of disciplines such as computer science/information technology, library and information sciences, archival and museum studies, knowledge management, and many areas in the social sciences and humanities.

Info courtesy:
Ken Furuta
Reference/Information Technology Librarian - Rivera Reference
University of California, Riverside