The Distant Librarian

Author: Paul R. Pival

  • Co-browsing tools to try

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    Paul R. Pival
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    These have been taking up space in a couple Firefox tabs all week, and I have yet to get around to trying them.  First up, theory.isthereason points to Vyew.com, a free, browser-based web meeting application.  They tout “Unique real-time photo charing, One-click screen & file sharing, Whiteboarding for all participants, No downloads, and Unlimited use.” …

  • Webcast – Just-in-Time Tutorials using ViewletBuilder

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    Paul R. Pival
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    The Partnership is a relatively new network of provincial and territorial library associations across Canada. One of the services they offer is a series of online webinars called The Education Institute, and one of the upcoming sessions will be of interest to distance librarians – Karen Hunt from the University of Winnipeg will be presenting…

  • Free Full Text

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    Paul R. Pival
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    The Librarian in Black posted about an interesting resource called Free Full Text, which has a tagline of “A supplement to every library catalogue on the planet!”  Basically this is a non-searchable directory of “over 7,000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by anyone…”  Here at the…

  • Olympic update – Curling rocks!

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    Paul R. Pival
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    OK, time for a brief bout of edumacation from my adopted home (Canada).  Jonathan Coulton has released a song about Curling – it’s quite catchy and I think you’ll like it.  But you need to know more about curling to truly appreciate it.  First, you should rent Men with Brooms.  Or maybe first, cause it’s…

  • TechSmith Astoria Project (beta)

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    Paul R. Pival
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    TechSmith, makers of screencasting software Camtasia Studio, is looking for beta testers for a new product that appears to be geared towards remote usability testing, but I signed up for the beta ’cause I want to see how easy it is to use with remote library database users – might be a useful tool for…

  • HarperCollins online

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Two months ago I posted about how HarperCollins was going to go it alone, scanning their own titles and making them available to search engines, but keeping the content themselves instead of having Google or Yahoo scan the books.  The first title in this experiment seems to have hit the web – The aptly titled,…

  • I’m it

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    Paul R. Pival
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    This is my first time being tagged with one of these memes. Whenever they go around I always wonder if I’ll ever be tagged, but secretly dread the possibility, as to participate would lay bare my currently rather uneventful existence for all to see.  But hey, let’s just go ahead anyway and see if you…

  • Meredith rolls another wiki – Computers in Libraries 2006

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Meredith Farkas, who first appeared on many radar screens last year after starting up the first Unofficial ALA Conference Wiki, has produced another conference-related wiki, this time for Computers in Libraries, 2006, held in the DC area March 22-24.  She’s investing just a little less of her soul in this one, opting for a PBWiki…

  • Librarian named as Director of Online Information Resources for Ask Jeeves

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Gary Price, of SearchEngineWatch, ResourceShelf, and DocuTicker, has been named Director of Online Information Resources for Ask Jeeves!  You can read about his new duties, which include outreach to the library and education communities and product development.  Should be interesting to see what library-related/friendly stuff comes from Jeeves in the near future.  Good luck, Gary!

  • The Search

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    Paul R. Pival
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    I’ve been home sick much of this week, and the only good thing to come of it is that I finally had enough time to finish John Battelle’s book The Search, which is about web searching in general, but mostly about Google.  I quite enjoyed it; lots of interesting background on the evolution of search…