The Distant Librarian

Author: Paul R. Pival

  • A Tale Of Two Travel Agencies

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    I can’t quite place it, but this story sounds vaguely familiar…  Hmmm, what was it… A Tale Of Two Travel Agencies For years we’ve been hearing stories about how the ease of online travel booking meant that there was no more need for travel agents. It was one of those classic case studies about how…

  • Rex Libris

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Great link found on Stephen Abram’s site – a new graphic novel with a librarian as a hero 🙂 A librarian seems to be an unlikely hero and protagonist for a comic series. Thoughts? This is just what they want you to think. There’s a lot librarians don’t want you to know. Everything that’s been…

  • Still no shakes!

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Since my return from vacation a week ago I still haven’t gotten through all the backlog in my aggregator.  I’ve checked in on most of the feeds, and while I can’t quite let myself just mark them all as read, I’m really pleased (and a little surprised) to find that I’m not suffering symptoms of…

  • Canada Library Mail Rate update

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Yes, I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks – was actually completely offline for at least a week, which is the longest I’ve gone for 5 years – whew!  It really wasn’t so bad  🙂 Here’s some document delivery-related news from the Canadian Library Association – there’s been some worry that we were…

  • Narrowcasting 101: Using Blogs, Podcasts, and Videoblogs in Higher Education

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    No specific mention of libraries here, but interesting topics nonethless, and some that will likely impact distance education.            Link: EDUCAUSE | EDUCAUSE Live! July 21, 2005. A key element of the new Web is narrowcasting, which includes Weblogs, podcasts, and video blogs. Practices surrounding narrowcasting that use RSS feeds and aggregators…

  • Libraries that are IMing?

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in ,

    Sarah and Aaron would like your help identifying Libraries that are IMing. There are two wiki lists of libraries offering virtual reference. LibSuccess’s list of libraries using IM reference & Jybe LIS Wiki’s list of libraries providing virtual reference services (including IM, web-based chat, Jybe, etc.) Aaron at Walking Paper and I are trying to…

  • Free Public Domain and Copyrighted e-Books Online

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Sam Vaknin offers a really nice roundup of places to find free eBooks online.  We’ve all seen some of these repositories, but a good number of them were new to me, and may be to you as well.  Check it out! Link: FreePint Newsletter 186 – eBooks and Knowledge Management.

  • Library clips :: Document Delivery with Furl :: July :: 2005

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Library Clips presents an interesting idea to use Furl to track document delivery requests.  In the end the idea is discarded, but I like the thought process. Link: Library clips :: Document Delivery with Furl :: July :: 2005.

  • Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    The earlybird registration deadline for the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison is fast approaching.  As per usual there’s not much related directly to library support of distance education, but this is reported to be just an excellent conference for all things related to distance education.  Some more details: 21st Annual Conference…

  • Microsoft Live Meeting

    —

    by

    Paul R. Pival
    in

    Learning Circuits has a fairly extensive review of Microsoft Live Meeting, which appears to be another possible virtual reference solution.  Seemed to be a somewhat mixed review, and as usual, library use of this product looks like it’d take a little tweaking to squeeze it into our exact purpose, but if you’re a Microsoft shop…