Category: Digital Culture

Categories
Digital Culture

Microsoft Academic Live Search

Today, Microsoft launched their answer to Google Scholar: Microsoft Academic Live Search. It’s an interesting product, but clearly young. Google Scholar is much larger (Academic Live currently only indexes a few scientific sources), and seems to have more integration with libraries. But the interface for Academic Live is much better, from a librarian’s point of view. Here’s a quick roundup of the important differences:

  • Academic Live allows sorting of results…Google Scholar only sorts by relevance
  • Academic Live has a much better interface, and allows customization of what you see…Google Scholar does not
  • Academic Live has built in support for citation managers like EndNote…Google Scholar doesn’t
  • Academic Live does a very poor job of letting you know if a paper is available freely, or via library subscription…Google Scholar is far ahead in this area

In all, it’s nice to see some competition, even if it is from the evil empire. Librarians will definitely have to keep an eye on this, and see how we can integrate it into our search strategies. Things I’d like to see:

  • RSS feeds for common searches…Google does it for News, why not Scholar?
  • Live Bibliography: using GreaseMonkey or some other client side script, enable an automatic search of information in a bibliography of a paper…being able to look at a bibliography, and link out of it to another Google Scholar search would be amazing

Last thought: in the FAQ, Microsoft Academic Live suggests that if a library is interested in getting their OpenURL resolver attached to Academic Live, they contact their link resolver company. This strikes me as a completely unrealistic expectation. We’re supposed to drop our provider a line, and then expect them to provide Microsoft with our IP range? Seems easier to do it the Google way, and have each school contact Google if they want listing.

Categories
Digital Culture

HigherEd BlogCon

HigherEdBlogCon 2006

Just a heads up that the Library & Information Resources Section of HigherEd BlogCon is going on this week, with yours truly being featured on Friday. There’s more going on than I can keep up with, but the sheer amount of good stuff is going to keep me busy for weeks. That’s the amazing thing about a virtual conference…it’s all there, whenever you want to come back to it. Archival of the conference for future visitation, blog format for interactivity and feedback, no travel necessary…I’m beginning to think it might be superior to a traditional, live conference experience in a lot of ways.

Categories
Digital Culture

My last two weeks

…in pictures.

Wrestlemania 22
My view at Wrestlemania 22.

Bealt St.
The UTC Reference Team on Beale St. in Memphis, TN.

Hail!
Driving back from Memphis through the worst storm system in years. Over 40 tornadoes, winds over 60 MPH, hail in places the size of baseballs…and we were driving home. This was the scene during one part of our drive….a sudden hail storm left this in its wake.

Fish
And finally, fishing with Dad on Tim’s Ford and Guntersville Lakes.

I’m ready for some quiet time at home.

Categories
Digital Culture

Still travelling

This week has been a complete blur. From my trip to Chicago, I was home for one day, and then me and the rest of the UTC reference crew headed off to Memphis to the Tennessee Library Association/Southeast Library Association joint conference. Thus far the conference has been less than useful…I’ll ruminate over the difficulties of legendarily introverted librarians giving presentations at some other time. For now, let me just say that the sessions have been not particularly informative.

Our presentation is tomorrow, and tonight there is a reception at the Memphis Rock and Soul museum. But first, there will be ribs!

Categories
Digital Culture

Going away

For the next several days, I will be off to Chicago, to enjoy the company of friends, judge the Raw Deal World Championship, and watch grown men roll around half naked.

I’m going to see Wrestlemania while in Chi-town.

I understand that most people think this is silly. Let’s just say that I enjoy the deconstruction of storytelling, while maintaining the tropes present in classical narrative forms. It’s self-referential, and wonderfully postmodern in its technique. Plus, HHH is so going to pwn Cena it’s not even funny.

Categories
Digital Culture

Eating words….

Just when you thought you’d seen everything, the Interweb brings you another stunning example of the odd.

This gentleman is determined to eat the entire works of Neil Gaiman. I do mean eat. Yes, the literal books.

There truly are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of….

Categories
Digital Culture

Justin is famous!

Not only has everyone’s favorite Watt been featured on his local TV affiliate, but he’s right now on the front page of BoingBoing AND he’s in the most recent USA Today. There’s still time to get more parodies out there, if anyone is interested.

Un-freakin-believable, and a huge story for free speech, copyright issues, and blogging. Way to go, Justin! I can say that I knew you when… đŸ™‚

UPDATE: And, evidently, in the New York freakin’ Times. Very nice.
Justin in the NYT

Categories
Digital Culture

Back…

…from a whirlwind birthday weekend (thanks for all those who sent their well wishes!). Spent some time in Nashville (Thanks, MeFi!), and picked up a couple of used books, as well as a few interesting kitchen gadgets. After that, a fun time watching some march madness with Betsy’s family, and then back home with nieces in tow for the week.

Busy week ahead, as I have to finish up my HigherEd BlogCon presentation (anyone have Captivate tips that they want to throw my way?). Hopefully some time for blogging…I feel like I’ve been absent for a long while.

Categories
Digital Culture

A return to patronage

After reading the recent Wired report on The Pirate Bay, I had a thought: will, after everything shakes out legally, the copyright battles lead us back to a form of patronage?

Imagine a world where individuals pay artists directly, without the corporate middle man eating the artists profits. If I like a song, I can send the artist a micropayment via my computer or cellphone saying “thanks”. Music could be shared, and musicians could be rewarded by increased attendance at their live performances, sales of other merch, and the goodwill of the fans. I know that I for one would be FAR more likely to paypal $20 a couple of times a year directly to Ryan Adams or Counting Crows than I would to buy their CDs. The CD feels dirty by the time it hits shelves, and the reality is that the artists see very little of the actual cash made by their work.

Categories
Digital Culture

Xbox Media Center rocks my face off

So I spent nearly all of today working with my old, non-360 Xbox trying to make it a useful part of our entertainment system. I am A friend is now the successful owner of a system running Xbox Media Center, and connected to my home network.

I already have an Airport connecting our music to our surround sound system, and we use iTunes to stream all over the house. But I’ve got a decent amount of video/photos that I’d love to be able to access on the TV, and now, I my friend can.

Overall, I my friend followed this walkthrough, although because of the DMCA and other laws, they can’t actually link to the software necessary (which means, of course, that finding it is difficult, but not impossible). Part of the software completely eluded me my friend (the bootloader that actually makes linux a possibility on the xbox). However, there was another version, not mentioned in the walkthrough, that allowed me to bootstrap myself into XBMC, and streaming happiness. I My friend has no idea how it manages it, down deep, but it’s played every single video type I’ve thrown at it, perfectly. No stutter, no issues…just played them. I’m incredibly impressed.