The AcqWeblog Archives

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: a particularly useful site for Acquisitions and Collection Development

February 25, 2001

• AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors has just been updated. This time we have 217 new listings, plus we passed a couple of milestones. First, gophers are now history. We replaced or deleted our last five gopher links today. We must confess to a certain sadness, as we have always had a soft spot for this now almost defunct technology. On the other hand, thanks to Zagier & Urruty Publications, we now have links related to every continent, including Antarctica.

  Special thanks go to Lisa Arm, Collection Development Librarian at Boston University Law Library, and Stewart  Unwin of the National Library of Australia for the many helpful links they passed along.

  AcqWeb Site: Directory of Publishers and Vendors

February 24, 2001

• More Web Newsfeed Challenges. The news lines in our webfeed haven't changed since Monday. We are not happy. What's the point of a newsfeed we wonder? Also this morning there was a broken image link showing on the page. It referenced a graphics file on their server not ours (the "moreover_wizard_link.gif" for those who might care), but of course it looks like the problem is at our end. We've gone ahead and deleted this rogue image, but suspect the problems may be linked. This may be the death knell of our trying a newsfeed.

• WATCH: Writers, Artists, and Their Copyright Holders, a joint project of The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of University of Texas at Austin and the University of Reading, is a "database containing primarily, but not exclusively, the names and addresses of copyright holders or contact persons for authors and artists whose archives are housed, in whole or in part, in libraries and archives in North America and the United Kingdom." Given the number of possible authors, the database appears to be small at this point, but it's a wonderful concept, with the potential to be of enormous value to librarians, so we will be interested to see how it grows.

  AcqWeb Site: Library Science :
  Copyright & Licensing

• Have you met The Shy Librarian? If not, this is a must-see site. Joseph Cadieux, a librarian with a flare for Web design, has pulled together photos of librarians dressed up as Miss Clavel, belly dancing at their own wedding, on Harleys, sky-diving and so on. Our personal favorite of the moment is the Book Cart Drill Team. Now he has a new section on "Library Dreams." To quote the Shy Librarian: "The world must take neither libraries, nor the librarian, for granted"

  AcqWeb Site: Library Science : Diversions

February 19, 2001

• More thoughts on our "web newsfeed." We've noticed the little gray box is slowing our load time. That's a definite point against using this cool new, not to mention free, technology. On the other hand, this very minute it's pulling up three interesting stories from Publishers Weekly ("Book, Music Execs Talk e-Commerce," "Crown Books Files for Bankruptcy Again," and "Sales, Earnings Fall at Simon & Schuster") -- which are different than the three it pulled up this morning. This morning's offerings struck us as a bit peculiar, including "Abortion, deceit, gonzo journalism" (MSNBC) and "Minister hits out at second book ban attempt" (The Advertiser). The former turned out to be a round-up of book reviews, while the latter was about Australia's Arts Minister.

• We are experimenting with a "web newsfeed." The gray box above is it. We've picked up the coding from Moreover.com, using their category Book publishing. We'll keep our eyes on what appears in this little gray box over the next few weeks. If you like it and we do too, then we'll keep it.

• PRESS RELEASE: Taylor & Francis Group plc acquires Gordon and Breach Publishing Group.

• Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.
  The inimitable Walt Crawford has done it again: here's a new theme and variation on his print columns -- now in PDF format for the Web. In case you haven't read Walt's columns before, they are an assortment of his insightful and opinionated thoughts and reviews of the latest in computing and libraries. This Web version continues his 'Crawford's Corner' column of Library Hi Tech News

  AcqWeb Site: Journals

February 11, 2001

• 2000 Search Engine Watch Awards.
  Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, the best search engine resource we know of, has recently recognized some outstanding achievements in web searching. We were particularly pleased to note that Google, our favorite searcher, received both the "Outstanding Search Service" and the "Most Webmaster Friendly" awards.

  And speaking of favorite searchers, have you tried Opera? It's our current favorite browser. We're not using it because we worry about Microsoft's dominance (though we do) nor because we are tired of Netscape (though we are), but simply because we find it better. It's been around for a while, but only recently became freeware. It's particularly good for opening multiple windows, so we can toggle back and forth as we verify URLs and update our site. It also loads in a heartbeat and includes the Google search form in its navigation bar.

  AcqWeb Site: Search Guide

February 8, 2001

• PRESS RELEASE: Library of Congress to Begin Its First Electronic Archives. From last December, but we still thought it noteworthy.

February 4, 2001

• Rare Books on the Web is a helpful set of web links and sundry information compiled by Albert Masters of the University of Toronto Libraries. It includes a Rare Book FAQ, plus links to various special collections, bookdealers, general rare book resources and more. Thanks to Jack Montgomery for the pointer.

  AcqWeb Site: Library Science : Preservation

January 20, 2001

• BibliOZ.com is our first "Antiquarian Agent" for verifying rare and o.p. materials from Australia! It currently has over 10 million listings. While the BibliOZ search engine is new, its owner is BiblioQuest International, an antiquarian Australasian search service (there's a mouthful!) since 1994. In addition to its search engine, it has a variety of links and tools for bibliographic checking, particularly for Australasia and the Pacific.

  AcqWeb Site: Reference : Antiquarian Agents : Australia

January 14, 2001

• Fast Facts: Almanacs/Factbooks/Statistical Reports & Related Reference Tools.
  Thanks to the Scout Report for finding this helpful general reference resource compiled by librarian Gary Price (George Washington University). As well as linking to expected fact finders, such as census data, it also links to a wide variety of other factual resources, covering, for example, librarianship, weather, and financial services.

  AcqWeb Site: Reference : General Sites

January 13, 2001

• Regional Alliance for Preservation (RAP) is a new Web site on conservation and preservation. Their mission is "to provide comprehensive preservation information to cultural institutions and the public." To that end, they have provided (under "Publications") such resources as an extensive annotated bibliography of publications and a "Starter Kit for Collections Managers."

  AcqWeb Site: Library Science :
  Preservation & Binding

Until next time, wishing you all a pleasant cyber-day,