Stay in India for free via blogger Web site

Tony Tharakan , Reuters & CanWest News Service, 27 Sep 2007

Hotel rooms in India tend to be expensive and hard to find, but a new Web site is helping visitors find a bed, with a warm conversation thrown in, all for free.

While most hosts on http://www.extrabed.in/ offer a spare bed and an Internet connection, some offer sightseeing tours, endless cups of coffee or even a game of Scrabble to add that personal touch.

The Web site was born after its founder, Kiruba Shankar, randomly contacted bloggers in Mumbai to see if anyone would put him up. He found several. continue reading

see also:

ExtraBed on NDTV

Library ditches microfilm in favour of RIAs

By: Briony Smith
ComputerWorld Canada (30 Aug 2007)
Nestled up in the northern interior of British Columbia, even the small town of Terrace isn’t untouched by the rich Internet applications trend — the local public library has recently recreated its newspaper archiving system into a digital version that’s getting rave reviews. continue reading

Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive

When Willings Multimedia needed help building an interactive web-based library for the Terrace Public Library in British Columbia, Canada, they contacted Integration New Media (INM). The two companies worked together to build the “Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive”, a dynamic and interactive web application that allows users of all ages and technical capabilities to search through and read newspapers online.

Google goes desi, starts online Hindi software

Click here for this Google Hindi page

अब तो हिन्दी मैं लिखना असान हो गया है.
मगर सब को क्या मालूम के यह कैसे कम करता है?

Samiran Saha, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, August 20, 2007

The world’s hottest search engine has gone desi. Now you can type in English and get the script in Hindi on Google. You can also search for local content in Hindi and 13 other Indic languages. Engineers at Google have developed software that helps online usage of "Indic" language scripts.

The term "Indic" refers to the Indo-Aryan languages that form a sub-group of the Indo-Iranian languages.

"Indic" is used in the context of the Indo-European linguistics, and is not strictly a geographical term.

Hindi transliteration was launched on the blogger service earlier this year, and the latest service http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic/ is a standalone offering of the same technology.

By launching its search in Hindi Google is looking at the wide base of Indian Net users, a large section of which comprises of those proficient in Hindi.

Google’s new products come from its Bangalore based research and development centre and its other laboratories based in different parts of the world. The two products -- Google Local Search and Google Business Centre -- launched by Google on Monday are specifically designed for those proficient in Hindi.

The Local Search is a tool for Indian users looking for relevant information on the web. With the launch of these products users will now be able to search for information on local businesses like restaurants, shops and hotels by simply searching on http: //local.google.co.in and its Local Business Centre is available at www. google.co. in/local/add.

To switch to Hindi, the users will be aided by the Indic on-screen keyboard software which can be installed by users on their personalised iGoogle pages. Typically, when a user types in English and hits ‘enter’, the script appears in the Indic script through transliteration. Google's Indic transliteration allows the user to type in Hindi using phonetically equivalent English text entered through an English keyboard. Users can create Hindi content and use it in any of the applications including mails and documents.

See also

Google Trends: The Great Desi Survey May 23, 2006, Mayank Austen Soofi

Google News Goes Desi - Launches Hindi News Service
March 16, 2007, Aaman Lamba

Google unveils India Labs, local search
INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 2007 03:12:44 PM]

ALA ALCTS Foreign Book Dealers Directory on the web

The ALCTS Acquisition Sections Publications Committee is pleased to
announce that its Foreign Book Dealers Directory is now available as a single, searchable Web publication. Most recently available as three distinct Web sites, the information has been combined into a single file, with access points by vendor name and country (or countries) whose materials each vendor can supply. To replicate the three previous regional versions, there are also lists by region that can be accessed by either the point and click world map on the home page, or by a pull-down menu. The original three regions, Eastern Europe-Soviet Union, Asia-Pacific, and Africa-Middle East, are now six regions: Eastern Europe, Central Eurasia, Asia, The Pacific, Africa, and Middle East.... continue reading
Find suppliers of library materials from many parts of the world with our searchable lists of vendors regularly used by university libraries in the United States.

National Library Week April 15 - 21, 2007

New data on U.S. libraries shows almost two billion served
Predicted demise due to Internet fails to materialize
For Immediate Release, April 16, 2007

"Ten years after some experts predicted the demise of the nation's system of libraries as a result of the Internet explosion, the most current national data on library use shows that the exact opposite has happened. Data released today by the American Library Association (ALA) indicates that the number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent between 1994 and 2004. According to the 2007 State of America's Libraries report, there were nearly two billion visits to U.S. libraries in fiscal year 2004. The study was released today by the ALA as the nation begins its observance of National Library Week, April 15-21. In the case of academic libraries, the number of visits exceeded more than one billion for the first time in 2004, up more than 14 percent in just the previous two years." More Info courtesy Thadakamalla Sujatha

Communities “Come together @ your library” to celebrate the changing role of libraries

National Library Week Sites

The American Library Association NLW Site

PLL's National Library Week Resources

@ Your Library

LLRX's Guide on the Side Column, "National Library Week: What's the Point?"

AALL RIPS 2007 Teach-in kit

MUCH MORE

NB. This post is dedicated to a user-friendly librarian, Gail, who knows about India and India's libraries much more than me!

See also:

My book review in ARBA: Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives

Is this yet another Wiki in Library and Information Science

My guess: that this "Wiki" is not open to all and free for all to hack, whack and crack. And, I see that it is limited by registeration and subject.
But, my librarian buddy, Baby Boomer Librarian, i.e, Wilfred Drew questions its credibility:

I was going to blog about this but had forgotten about it. As Sarah points out in her post at LibrarianInBlack, it is a wiki or wiki wanna be that is supposed to look at librarianship with a global focus. Don't waste your time. It is not even clear as to who actually owns the wiki when you look at it. There is no ownership information at all. A WHOIS query gets this information: ... READ MORE

There are others who are looking to find more authentic, authoritative info about this new foundland:

Librariansworld.com was sent to me by Amol, who tells me that it is a popular site in India, Pakistan, and the Far East. It’s the only site that I know of (please let me know if I’m wrong) that offers a social networking tool for librarians. It’s not a pure SN site, but it’s not that bad either. A good start.
Is anyone working on something like this in the states? One would think with all of the discussion about social software in our profession, it would be in the works. Steve

Librarians World
"Librarian's World is a network of Librarians & Information Scientists . It is a democratically managed site without any editor. It offers Social bookmarking, Expertise Exchange, Discussion Forums, Librarians Webpages and many other facilities with an objective of better networking & knowledge sharing amongst Librarians."

What others say:

Here is an interesting website for Library Professionals, gokhalesharad012 20 Feb 2007

Lets join and share, Iam Saravanan, Information Manager

I have read many topics on digital libraries on www.librariansworld.com, go ahead and get benefit. Venusgoody1 10 Mar 2007

Hello All, I have come across a very Interesting website www.librariansworld.com hope it will intrest you too. Thanks & Regards, Pranaykumar Soft-AID

Useful info on document preservation on www.librariansworld.com, Venusgoody1 pdflib 2007-02-21

P.S. I just received another update about the IASLIC website:
New IASLIC WEBSITE : http://www.iaslic1955.org.
Send your uggestion for its improvement
Regards
Dr Pilusjkanti Panigrahi
Dr Pijushkanti Panigrahi, Reader, Dept of Lib and Inf Science, University of Calcutta, 87/1 College Street,Kolkata - 700 073, West Bengal, India, email : panigrahipk@yahoo.com, (M) : +91 94342 43522. Secretary, Education Division, IASLIC; Associate Editor, IASLIC Bulletin, IASLIC, Kolkata-700 054

My most recent posts:

Copyrights and Copywrongs - Responsibility of Media and Academia

Wikipedia and Academia Hit News Headlines Again

Health Information and Libraries Journal 24:1 (March 2007)

Reviewing a blog - benchmarks?