Archive for September, 2006

Participate in the Usability Survey of the ALA Website and ALA Web Updates

September 20th, 2006 by mfrisque

If you have visited the ALA website recently you may want to participate in the usability assessment of the ALA website. According to announcement I received, “the survey is designed to take a thorough look at the site, its problems, and its strengths, in order to guide improvements, development, and a redesign.” The survey will [...]

Praise for LITA Blog

September 20th, 2006 by Michelle Boule

LITA Blog got a bit of a mention in the American Libraries September issue. In Joseph Janes’ Internet Librarian column, on page 70, we are praised for doing a “stand-up job of reportage.” The reporting could not happen without a large number of volunteers who give their time to write thoughtful posts on sessions and [...]

LITABlog Hosting Requirements

September 12th, 2006 by ksclarke

We are in the process of evaluating LITABlog’s host and have worked up a list of requirements that we would like to use as a guide for determining what the needs of LITABlog are. These may help us determine that we are happy with our current host or that we would like to change [...]

Metasearch Bake-off

September 11th, 2006 by Roy Tennant

Metasearching is hard. Metasearching well is darn near impossible. Meanwhile, hapless libraries are left trying to sort out the good from the not so good vendor offerings. Wouldn’t it be nice if LITA put together a “bake-off” of metasearch applications? Like picking half-a-dozen or so databases that all must set up and then running [...]

Building the “next generation” library catalog

September 1st, 2006 by Eric Lease Morgan

How will we, the library profession, build the “next generation” library catalog, and to what degree will the process include vendor support and open source software?
I must admit that there are few things that do not succeed over time without some sort of commercial interest. Think OCLC. JSTOR. Even NOTIS. The only exception to the [...]