Words

For people who love words, and I'm sure there are a lot of us, there are a few new sites up.

First is Wordie - which describes itself as "Like Flickr, but without the photos". Wordie lets you make lists of words - you can have more than one list - for example, words you like, words you hate, strange words, words to do with biology or whatever. No definitions - though there are links to definitions of the words on various online dictionaries and Google and Wikipedia.

Verbotomy, found via Walking Paper, is a great site where they give you a definition, and you have to come up with a word for it. Results in some very very silly words, obviously.

This reminds me of The Meaning of Liff - that wonderful book by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.

DingQuote has been described as "Flickr for words", but is in fact for keeping quotes - not so much ones from famous folk - but more for things you've heard people say. You can tag the quotes, and even submit them by text.

If you do like words, then you might also like to have a look at:

WordWizard - a resource for the origins of words, and their usage - includes sections on insults, quotes and slang.

WordAssociation.org - Play word associations with the computer - type in the first word that comes into your head.

The Random Word Generator will generate a random new word for you, should the current set of existing words prove inadequate.

Dictionary.com's Word of the Day is always good for learning new words, or to feel smug if you already know them!

The Free Dictionary has a customizable home page in the style of Google, with word of the day, quote of the day, a little game called Match Up, where you match words with their synonyms, and a hangman game. All good fun, and you can add their widgets to your Google home page too.

Christmas

is coming, so here are some games with a Christmassy theme.

• Snowball fight
• Festive Turkey Scoffing Game
• Christmas Space Invaders
• Pudding Man
• Santa vs the Turkeys
• Chimney Packer
• Christmas Bounce
• Christmas Shuffle
• Present Bounce
• Gift Worms
• Sleigh Ride

Cilip

Phil Bradley's post on the pronunciation of Cilip was interesting - I'd never considered it could be said any other way! But thinking about it, I don't talk about it very much, if at all possible, because I don't like it. It sounds stupid. I'm a member of Cilip. It doesn't roll off the tongue nicely (however you pronounce it).

But we're not alone. It's not just us information/library folk that suffer. Other professional bodies have terrible names. The IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers, generally referred to as the I-double-E) recently changed its name to IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). Spare a thought also for NACGT (National Association of Careers and Guidance Teachers), IMBM (The Institute of Maintenance and Building Management), RCVS (The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and BWDMA (British Web Design and Marketing Association). At least we have an acronym that is pronounceable.

Advent calendar

Richard Sellmer's (a German advent calendar company)Online Advent Calendar museum has a history of the advent calendar, and examples of lots of old advent calendars.

Lots of advent calendars available online. Some of the better ones include:

NorthPole.co.uk have one with puzzles, jokes etc. You can open the 'doors' before the correct date (if you are the sort of person who likes to do that).

Woodland's Junior School have an educational advent calendar, with facts about other countries. I'm assuming - it's India today, but you can't peek ahead.

Harpold.com provides a Christmas related item every day - today it is a poem. No peeking here either.

Billy Bear provides two advent calendars - one Special Advent Calendar, with no peeking, which provides free clipart, games, and programmes, and a Wallpaper Advent Calendar, with downloadable wallpaper.

BBC Radio 3 has Bach Advent Calendar with a quiz and music clips.

There are loads more.

Christmas gift ideas for Librarians

I love these Book chairs! Not too sure how comfy it would be, but it looks cool.







T-shirts, Jewellery, mugs, stationery, Librarianimals and more at Teasecatalog.com.

Men of Texas Libraries calendar - actually, a bit worrying this one!



Cafe Press has some fantastic librarian items, including badges, mugs, t-shirts, magnets etc, with some funky designs:

Google Book Search: added extras.

Google have updated their Book Search “In an effort to make online book reading easier”. I think it worked.
Check out Nathan Naze’s Google blog entry: A new way to browse books, where he explains that you can now:
• Zoom in (and out)
• View the whole book on one web page (so you don’t have to load a new page for each new page)
• View the book two pages at a time (like an actual book)
• Scroll through the book using the scrollbar or your mouse wheel, or keyboard
• Find other books of interest
• See other books which cite or refer to a book.

It all sounds good, and from what I’ve tried so far, looks pretty good too.

• The zooming-in function is great, because it works quickly and easily.


• Having the whole book on one page, so you don’t have to click to the next page, is great, and makes it much easier to read, though the book I tried (Mansfield Park) was still a bit slow (a few seconds, but enough to interrupt the flow) to load up, even if it was all on one page.
  (Plus, there are still problems with the actual scans of the books: )


• The two-page view is ok - makes you feel almost like you’re reading a real book - but you can’t scroll down to the next two pages, you have to click on the arrow button to move on, which is a shame.


• Navigation (in one-page view) is easy. You can scroll through in lots of different ways, scrollbar, mouse wheel, pressing the space bar or page down moves you to the next page - or rather to the line above the last visible line, so you can find your place easily. But, you can’t go through by Chapter though, just by Section, which seems arbitrary (eg in Mansfield Park Section 2 is Chapter VI).


• They have cleaned the page up a bit too (except for the navigation and buy this book stuff) - and what is even better you can view in full screen and get rid of everything but the book and the page navigation. Or, you can download as pdf.


• The information (About this Book) page has changed too - this is where you can see related books, books and scholarly works which refer to the book. Plus you can search within the book, and click through to view the full (or preview) text.

For more articles see:
Inside Google Book Search - What we've been working on

Greg Notess, SearchEngineShowdown - New Google Book Viewer

Search Engine Watch Blog: Google Book Search Catches Victorian Plagiarists

And to keep up to date with changes, check out the Google Book Search Blog.

To compare with the old version, take a look at these screenshots.

Phil Bradley

Oh no! Phil Bradley has yet another blog - this one a less work-related, more personal one. And it's funny. Damn it, now I'm signed up to three of his blogs. I feel like a stalker!
Oh well. His first few postings have been amusing, very weird, and fun. Here's looking forward to more.

Justis 2.0

Justis 2.0 is up and running, and seems good so far. The links to JustCite are probably very good if you also subscribe to JustCite, otherwise, seems pretty much the same as the old Justis, with a few added bits and bobs (ie JustCite style links to related cases) - though it does look quite different. You can't download as rtf anymore by the looks of things, just html or pdf (not a big problem). A Quick Search tutorial is available.

Content hasn't changed:

• Official Series (Queens Bench, Kings Bench, Appeal Cases, Chancery Division) 1865 -


• Weekly Law Reports 1953 -


• The English Reports 1220 - 1873

Searching is easy - there is a quick search box on the front screen, which (if you have the box ticked) will suggest as you type - this can be useful if you're not sure of the spelling of a party. Otherwise you can click on Cases to bring up a structured (and very like the old Justis') search page. You can still browse, if you so desire.
The results screen gives you the option to print, email or download multiple documents (in html format only).
Or you can click into a result to view the document. You can Print, Email, or Download directly from this screen using the options (again html only), or you can open the document as a pdf and then print or save from there. The pdf version is scanned from the original text and is admissible in court.

The document screen has some green tabs at the top. Clicking on these gives you further information related to the case:

• the 'Also Reported in' tab provides a list of other report series which reported this case


• the 'Cases Considered' tab gives a list of cases which this case considers


• the 'Subsequent Cases' tab lists later cases which refer to this case (for checking the case history)


• the 'Legislation Cited' tab is only available to JustCite subscribers, who can link to any legislation cited in the case


• the 'Related Articles' tab is also only available to JustCite subscribers, who can link to any articles cited in the case

The My Justis tab remembers your previous searches/documents history (with a calendar!), which can be handy. You can also save searches and set up alerts.

Generally, I like it. I think that it looks a bit messy (the top sections of the results and document screens seem a bit cluttered), and it is annoying that you have to have the Legislation and Articles tabs even if you don't subscribe to JustCite (ok, so only annoying to non-JustCite subscribers!), but otherwise, it's good. The help section is thorough (if not a little over the top, especially the way it slowly slides out). I like the history sections under My Justis (though not the name My Justis, anymore than the name Justis 2.0). Basically, it works fine (which is the most important thing) - there are no problems with the functionality, searches and downloads are quite speedy, and the related cases tabs are useful.

Librarians: images and stereotype busting

Librarians: we're not what you think is an essay about librarians and their public image, and how great we are basically. It has lots of fun pictures too of librarians from the web, movies, and TV. Yes, Giles is there! Of course.

Librarian Avengers has blogged about a couple of Librarian outfits - including a Sexy Librarian outfit from Zoogster Costumes, and a Librarian Costume from Target. Not sure whether to be pleased we are moving away from the old stereotype of old woman with a bun, or just very very scared.

And of course, Ms. Dewey, who, while not being particularly good as a search engine (and therefore not exactly helping the image - we're much better than she is!), is again a step forward from old lady with bun syndrome.

Sites that challenge the stereotypical image of a librarian:
Lipstick Librarian
Illustrated Librarian
Wear lipstick, have a tattoo, belly-dance, then get naked: The making of a virtual librarian - Impact magazine
The Image of Librarians in Pornography!
Librarians in the Movies

Plus, lots of Librarian pictures (many of which are flattering or funny) from a Google image search!

Google OneBox

The final part of SearchEngineWatch's four-part series on instant answers - A Closer Look at Google OneBox Results is published on their website.

Law Librarians - Useful Blogs & Sites

Just a list of Law Librarian blogs, and a couple of other useful sites:


Blogs:
Batgirl was a Librarian
Binary Law
Law Librarian Blog
Lo-Fi Librarian
Vancouver Law Librarian Blog


Other:
A Day in the Life of a Law Librarian
RSS Tutorials for Law Librarians
US Law Library Blogs and Blogs by Law Librarians or Law Library Associations
Want to be a Law Librarian?

Useful things

Ok, I've been away, so no blogging, and I come back to a massive backlog in bloglines. Massive! Anyway here are some useful things:

PDF Pad provides useful forms and templates to print in pdf format - calendars, graph paper, sudoku puzzles. A really good idea, very handy, and nicely free.

Zamzar - Free online file conversion - fantastic. Just select a file, select the type of document (eg html, xls, pdf, gif, tiff, mp3, avi) that you want the file converted to, and Zamzar converts the file to the new format.

Research Beyond Google lists useful databases and other resources, both paid for and free sites, grouped by subject. A handy resource, though US-centred (there's a surprise).

Librarian: Return To King Solomon's Mines

Librarian: Return To King Solomon's Mines - the sequel to Librarian: Quest for the Spear - Noah Wyle returns as the eponymous hero. Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Yahoo Shortcuts

Part three of SearchEngineWatch's four-part series on instant answers - A Closer Look at Yahoo Shortcuts is up. Goes through the Defined Shortcuts (apparently there are thirty two of these, eg Local, Map, News) and the Open Shortcuts - where you can set up your own.

Yahoo's search blog also has an article on this - More Open Shortcuts

Law Library 2.0

How can librarians working in law-firm libraries use web/library 2.0?

I recently attended Phil Bradley’s course on New Technologies and Library Services at the British Library, which gave me much to think about regarding Web/Library 2.0 and the law-firm library. Here is the result of my musings:

Law firm libraries don’t face the same challenges as public or academic libraries. Posting pictures of the latest/most popular books onto the library webpage is not as relevant to a law firm library as it is to a public library, for example. However, there are so many different aspects to the whole 2.0 ‘thing’ that there is something for everyone.

Keeping up-to-date:
Keeping up to date is something which is important for everyone within the library community. In fact, for the law-firm librarian, there is so much to keep up with, in so many different areas (libraries generally, law libraries specifically, search-engines, library technology, laws, etc etc) that the ability to have the news sent directly to you, without having to go to x number of web pages each day, is a godsend.
A number of government departments now have rss feeds (and more are being added all the time), enabling you to receive the latest news from the Department for Constitutional Affairs and get an update from OPSI every time there is a new Act or SI added to the site.
There are a huge number of useful and relevant feeds available - from librarian bloggers, CILIP, Google have their own blog, there are blogs on new search engines, and various news sources (BBC, Times, Guardian etc) have a number of different feeds available. You can search on Google for relevant blogs, or you can steal them from other people’s “Blogrolls” (a list of the blogs they subscribe to in Bloglines - and that they will publicly admit to). For a huge list of possibly useful ones, see Phil Bradley’s Blogroll (he admitted at his course on New Technologies and Library Services that he has over 200).
It is ridiculously easy to add these feeds to a reader such as Bloglines, or Google Reader. (There is a comparison of different readers available on CNet) These have the advantage of not only being very simple to use, but they are a central resource for all your news, you can tell at a glance what is new, and, with Bloglines (which is the one I use), you can have a little notifier which will tell you when there is something new, you can tag an item to keep it new, to come back to later, and you can ‘clip’ an item, to keep it indefinitely in a folder, which is really really useful.
Alternatively, you can add the rss feeds directly to your own webpages. There are various resources that let you add RSS to your page - take a look at RSS to Javascript which lets you to enter a feed's URL and then creates a short piece of Javascript for you to copy and paste into your page. For the more techy/adventurous folk, take a look at this article on XML.com Never Mind the Namespaces: An XSLT RSS Client - and for the javascript/xml/xslt-savvy out there, it is so easy to write your own xslt to transform the rss feeds (which are basically xml), using Javascript to enter it neatly into your webpage. Adding feeds to your own pages means you can keep your colleagues and lawyers as up-to-date as you are.

Blogging:
Of course, if you want to personalise the way you keep your colleagues up-to-date you can always start your own blog! It is quite simple to set up a blog, there are numerous free (including Blogger) or paid for services (eg Typepad) you can use, and they generally let you create an RSS feed so you can add it to your home page, and other people can see your news and views.

Searching:
Searching is something that librarians tend to be pretty good at. We get a lot of practice. We know (or at least I hope we do) that Google is not the only answer. We know how to use advanced searching to really home in on what we are after. We know about Ask, and Exalead, etc etc. But now, with Web 2.0 we can make our own search engines! There are a number of these available - Rollyo (Roll Your Own - reminds me of Pick Your Own, so always makes me think of strawberries!), Eurekster (Swikis), Resultr, and Google, all let you create your own search engine - specify sites to search, assign weighting to different sites, etc. They are worth playing around with. You could set up a search to search for US case law, for example, and provide it with various sites (Findlaw, LII, US Courts sites etc), so that you (and your colleagues/lawyers) can search for a case, and know that the results will be from relevant sources.

Wikis:
I’ve not been too convinced by Wikis so far - particularly Wikipedia - the idea that anyone can add or alter any information is ok, as long as you can trust everyone’s knowledge and motives - which you obviously can’t. But within a library community, a Wiki could be a valuable tool. For example, you could have a Wiki on your intranet, to which all the library staff could have access, and you could use it for adding useful websites found during research, information on procedures, etc. It would be easy to update, and would mean no waiting for the web/intranet librarian (or in some cases the IT department) to get around to adding things. Again, worth exploring. Have a look at WikiMatrix to compare Wiki software, and see what fits your needs.

Bookmarking/History:
How many times have you been annoyed with yourself for not saving as a favourite that really useful site you came across the other day? The one that would just answer this enquiry you have now? There are loads of ways you can bookmark or save a page, and it is well worth doing so. Of course, you can add things to your Favourites/Bookmarks folder. It is quick and easy. But if you have loads of links then it can be difficult to find the one you are after - either you have a great long list, or you have put things into myriad folders, and then (if you’re like me anyway) forget which folder.
If you know you did a search on Google (and you have a personalised Google account), then you can look in the Search History, which remembers the searches you did, and when you did them, and what results you clicked into from the search. Obviously, this is more useful than just running the searches again - but you have to remember which day you ran the search, and in some cases, if you clicked into lots of results before finding anything useful, there may be lots to wade through before finding that useful page again.
Bookmark sites, such as Del.ici.ous (which I dislike only due to the way they write their name) let you save a bookmark as you would to your favourites, but it lets you then ‘tag’ the bookmark, share it with others. Another bookmarking site - Furl is a great way to bookmark things, because not only does it let you bookmark a page, it saves a copy of that page (you get 5 gigabytes of space). You can then search your ‘archive’ using any word or phrase from that site you remember. You can see other people’s archives (if they’ve made them public), and see what they think are useful sites.


Other 2.0 things
Flickr - try as I might I cannot quite see how pictures will be useful in a law-firm environment (other than just searching for pretty ones to go on the website/intranet!). Shame. If anyone else thinks of anything, please let me know!
Podcasting - again, not too sure. We could provide legal research training via podcasts, but it is much better to do it in person (old fashioned, I know), as you can never tell what questions someone might have, or what problems there may be with the system. We could also do library tours this way, but again, person to person is better.
Google Gadgets - these are great! I love them. I’ve personalised my Google page, and have two tabs so far (one worky-looking one, with intellectual looking things (quotes, news, weather etc), and a fun one, with games (or at least, the few that will work through our pesky firewall), and cartoons and things)! You can add Google Gadgets to your webpage. Some of them could be useful for work - but the best ones I’ve found tend to be more frivolous.
Library Thing - This isn’t really very useful for work - you could add your library catalogue to it, but it doesn’t seem to have the cover pictures for very many legal books, so it wouldn’t be particularly exciting. It is fun for your personal library of course.

There are more 2.0 ideas coming all the time, lots of mashups etc, and it is worth keeping up to date with what is out there, and taking a minute or two to consider if it is potentially useful to you/your colleagues/customers etc. Plus, a lot of it is fun.

Googling or Asking?

Google are upset at people using the term Google to mean searching generally: Do You Google?
It's ok to say "I googled him on the well-known website Google.com", but not "I googled him on Yahoo".

I think Phil Bradley has the right idea: "I'm tempted to ask the Google lawyers if it's correct use to say 'Shove it up your Google'"

Ask have now added their amusing take on it - You Do and/or May, In Fact, "Ask" (or "ask") - with an interesting etymology of "ask" and an explanation of the difference between ask and Ask.
The best bits:
"Q: Can I Ask on Google?
A: No, no, and no. You are welcome to ask on Google, however.
Q: Can I ask on Ask?
A: You can ask on Ask.com, but remember that you can also search on Ask.com."

"Example: "While asking on Ask Yahoo, Timmy was referred to Google in hopes of googling for more answers. There he googled, and all was well."
Comments: What a wonderful time to be alive."

Search engines & Blogs

Part two of SearchEngineWatch's four-part series on instant answers - A Closer Look At Microsoft's Instant Answers is up.


Pandia has published a list of 5 great blogs on search and research


A new meta search engine: WebFetchPro - I've not had much of a chance to look at this one yet!


And of course, Microsoft's Miss Dewey - a little worrying, but at least they didn't pick an old lady in a bun to play the part!

Add RSS feeds to your page

There are all sorts of resources that can let you add RSS to your page - from the site RSS to Javascript which allows you to enter a feed's URL and will create a short piece of Javascript for you to copy and paste into your page, to writing your own using xslt, as in this article on XML.com Never Mind the Namespaces: An XSLT RSS Client.

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise may sound like it is explaining RSS and Wiki to Captain Picard, but is in fact a useful introduction to Web 2.0.
It also links to the article What is Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly, which is another very handy article to explain the basics of Web 2.0.

Squidoo has a reading list for a Library 2.0 course by the ALA which includes an article introducing Web 2.0 (with links to more articles, books and examples). It also has a number of definitions for Library 2.0, mostly from various Blogs, which gives it a nice web 2.0 feel! There follows a list (with summaries) of articles on Library 2.0, (far too many for me to talk about here - go and look!), flickr images, podcasts, you name it. A very useful resource for learning about Web and Library 2.0, and seeing things in action.

Exalead out of beta

The new and improved version of Exalead is up and out of beta (allegedly - the bottom of the page still refers to the beta). Looks good - it is nice that they give you options on the SRP to see thumbnails of page previews, text or extra info.
Various reviews:
Internet News
Resource Shelf
Search Engine Showdown (They have also updated their Exalead review)

Ask again

Yet more articles on Ask.com, it really is getting a lot of publicity at the moment!
First an article from Guardian Technology:A Closer Look at Ask's Smart Answers from searchenginewatch's searchday (again) is the first in a four-part series looking at various search engines' focused "answers" services - Ask's Smart Answers, Yahoo's Shortcuts, Google's Onebox results and Microsoft's Instant Answers. Brian Smith uses sample queries to test the usefulness of Smart Answers, dividing them into Fact/reference based, vertical search results, and expert/partnership driven groups. What Brian likes about it is that "Ask is trying to provide more than just basic information".
Next time - Microsoft's Instant Answers.

Bloggers to go to hell

Apparently I'm off to hell. http://www.cruel.com/weblog/18196/god-hates-blogs
Oh well, I can think of worse things. Probably helps that I don't believe in hell.

Library Quotes from Films

"now they're going to a library? What's next?" - Pleasantville

“You're right Ray...no human would stack books like that...” - Ghostbusters

"Look, I... I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am." "And what is that?" "I... am a librarian. " - The Mummy

"What is this? Slap the Librarian Day? " - Librarian: Quest for the Spear

"His library was his whole world. Now it's just a feeble memory. " - Ninth Gate

"Books can be good for something other than burning. " - The Day After Tomorrow.

"Don't you know the Dewey Decimal System? " - UHF

Ask.com

Much has been made recently of the redesigned Ask.com It came top of Pandia's list of alternatives to Google , and LibrarianInBlack wrote a compelling list of Ten Reasons Librarians Should Use Ask.com Instead of Google.
Ask.com's Senior User Experience Analyst is today interviewed on SearchEngineWatch's SearchDay newsletter, and gives the inside story on how the company successfully re-engineered its web site .
I don't know that anything will ever replace Google entirely, it is pretty good for quick and dirty searching, and its advanced options are handy, particularly site searching, but it is good to know what else is out there, for when Google doesn't have the answer, for when we want to be extra thorough (which, as a librarian, I know should be all the time, but really it isn't always feasible (or necessary)), and that we do have a choice. Ask.com is a good alternative, though one I haven't really used that much in the past. But I intend to have a closer look in the future, and add it to my list of Google alternatives.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.
Everyone else has one, so I wanted one too!

It will be home to articles on law-librarianism, libraries in general, web-stuff, random thoughts and entirely non-library related interesting things I happen to come across.