Libraries will vanish like the dinosarous?

Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859)

" The struggle for existence: Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult -- at least I have found it so -- than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind. Yet unless it be thoroughly engrained in the mind I am convinced that the whole economy of nature, with every fact on distribution, rarity, abundance, extinction, and variation, will be dimly seen or quite misunderstood. We behold the fact of nature bright with gladness, we often see superabundance of food; we do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life. . . . I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. . . . As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms (Chapter 3, "Struggle for Existence"). "

Information Storage Media :

Name	Symbol	Meaning	In bytes
kilobyte	KB	1024 byte	1024
megabyte	MB	1024 kibyte	1048576
gigabyte	GB	1024 megabyte	1073741824
terabyte	TB	1024 gigabyte	1099511627776
petabyte	PB	1024 terabyte	1125899906842624
exabyte	EB	1024 petabyte	1152921504606846976
Zettabyte	ZB	1024 exabyte	1180591620717411303424
yottabyte	YB	1024 zettabyte	1208925819614629174706176

1.2 petabytes of storage in 3.5-inch discs

He says he's the first person to solve non-contact optical spintronics which will in turn utlimately result in the creation of 3.5-inch discs with a million times the capacity of any hard drive - 1.2 petabytes of storage.

To put that into perspective, mega is 1,024 times kilo, giga is 1,024 times mega, tera is 1,024 times giga and peta is 1,024 times tera.

He says "Normally all the electrons could spin randomly working against the best electrical signal. The electrons are also capable of spinning in both directions a once. But my unique method for creating uniform in-sync spinning electrons will for the first time allow a whole new field of science and electronics to emerge.

"With the ability to control electron spin we will see much smaller electronic devices on the market."

Holographic Nanotechnology :

1 Colossal Storage 10 Terabyte Rewritable FeDisk will equal 100 - 100 Gigabyte hard drives, 20,000 DVD's WORMS , 4,000 Blu-Ray or China's 405-408 nm Violet Laser EVD WORM Disk's .

Future of libraries ????

"The Internet has expanded access to information, removing both teacher and student dependencies on a limited amount of information sources. Education is no longer bound by the limits of the teacher, textbook, or the books in the school library…Moreover, the Internet offers students in low-income and remote locations far more information than any single traditional library". [Microsoft]

The End of Libraries(Posted on Friday 8 September 2006 Infomancy)

" The end of school libraries came and went yesterday with little fanfare and hardly any notice. On September 7, 2006, the School District of Philadelphia and Microsoft opened the “School of the Future” with every possible space you could imagine…except a library. One of the stated goals from this pilot is to develop a ” replicable model that improves student achievement through holistic reform of secondary education [Microsoft].” Let me translate that administrative gibberish: We are going to create a school model that can be implemented across the country and we don’t need libraries to do it. Well, it translates to something like that. You can read the whole document if you can stand that much VisionSpeak.

But what’s that about the library? Oh yeah…the School of the Future doesn’t need a library. Libraries are a dead place, wasted space, just use Google (or MSN Search!). There are rather a lot of other “learning spaces” identified on the Learning Space Matrix: School District of Philadelphia/Microsoft School of the Future. The School of the Future recognizes the need for a distinct “Driver’s Education Lab” to “Develop skills that improve job-related prospects and advance employment opportunities” (within the field of Pizza Delivery?) [Microsoft]. But no library. There is something called an “Interactive Learning Center” but is this a library? Will there be a librarian?.

Avanti Library Systems released Avanti MicroLCS 1.0.1

Avanti Library Systems started in 1998 to develop a simple low cost open source library system for small libraries. This system gradually evolved into Avanti MicroLCS today. MicroLCS is an easy to use, powerful and configurable open source OPAC and cataloging system available. Though it is targeted for small libraries, its flexible and scalable architecture allows it to be used in libraries of any type. For both Windows and Unix platform.

Key Features

• Clean consistent and simple user interfaces that are easy to use.
• Flexible configuration. Title and holdings databases are 100 per cent configurable. No hard coded fields and not restricted to MARC record format. Any and all fields fully indexable.
• Platform independent. Runs on any computer that supports Java.
• Advanced searching capabilities support full boolean searching (with AND OR and NOT operators), nested searches and searching on all indexed fields.
• Powerful and easy to learn search syntax available in a single search mode -- no Basic/Advanced search dichotomy.
• Self contained. No third party software needed to install and configure.
• Complete source code is available.
• Small footprint. Entire system can fit on a floppy disk.
• Client-server architecture allows a networked deployment.
• Supports collections of up to 16 million titles and items.
• Text based command line client available as well as a graphical user interface.

At version 1.0 beta 4 MicroLCS is an OPAC only. It does not yet support circulation functions. These are currently in development. Circulation will appear in the full 1.0 production release.


Download link for Windows: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/microlcs-1.0.1.zip

Download link for Unix: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/microlcs-1.0.1.tz

User Guide: http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/manual/

For Source Code:http://www.avantilibrarysystems.com/microlcs-1.0.1.dev.tar

Knowledge Management: What has Wisdom got to do with it?

Professor Bruce Lloyd of the London South Bank University talking on "Knowledge Management: What has Wisdom got to do with it?" at a Gurteen Knowledge Cafe in London on 24th January 2006.

Introduction to the Semantic Web

Hugo Mills gives a short talk on the semantic web and RDF. This talk requires some very basic knowledge of web fundamentals. See http://www.hantslug.org.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TechTalks for more details and copies of the presentation that accompanied the talk. This talk was given at the Hampshire Linux User Group (HantsLUG) meeting on 3rd June 2006 at Southampton University.

Open Source: Events: FOSS(Free and Open Source Software ): Bangalore

FOSS.IN is one of the world's largest and most focussed FOSS events, held annually India. Over the years, it has attracted thousands of participants, and the speaker roster reads like a "Who is Who" of FOSS contributors from across the world.

Where and When

FOSS.IN/2006 will be held on November 24-26, 2006, at National Science Symposium Centre of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India.

Speaker and talks registration for FOSS.IN/2006 is now open.

Read about FOSS.IN/2006 at

http://foss.in/2006

then read the Call for Participation at

http://foss.in/2006/info/Call_for_Participation

and then register at

https://foss.in/2006/cfp/speakers/

Please remember that the last date for putting in your talk proposals will
be October 8th, midnight GMT+0530.

Application of RSS in Library Services

The past few years that advances in information technology so many of the changes libraries face in the digital environment, amount information available in internet tremendously increased, to retrieve and manage this information we are using different tools. In this process we are using number tools like library automation tools, digital library tools etc,. now days we talking about Semantic Web ...... in this way, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) one of the best tool to use in libraries for to keep track online information if want track your favorites ,library catalogs, library news letters, and so on, no need to visit each site throughout the day, no need to bookmark your favorites because of RSS. If you have used the customizable web portal services like My Yahoo, you are already ahead of the game with RSS feeds.

What is RSS?

Definition: A machine readable XML file format.

Has several meanings: Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, grammar of XML or RDF Site Summary, where RDF stands for Resource Data Framework,etc. But don’t confuse with RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh).


We can say It’s a method of summarizing the latest information from a website that can be easily read by many aggregators or readers. Now, libraries are discovering that RSS might be a good way of providing new services and reaching out to users.

How it is useful in libraries?

1. Track favorite authors or subjects from the library catalog
2. Customized information services
3. RSS saves user time (save the time of the reader- S.R Ranganathan 4th law)
4. RSS feeds contain only links, headlines, or brief synopses of new information. That means that the small amount of data found in an RSS feed can be sent to any XML-compatible device, a cell phone, pager, or handheld computer, without a lengthy download process.

5. SDI Services,e-journals updations, database updations, new arrivals ,current events etc,.

Examples of RSS using libraries :

e.g: http://www.spl.org/
http://libraries.ou.edu/rss/
http://www.hclib.org/

Popular RSS aggregator software programs are :

Many RSS aggregator/feed reader programs are free or cost very little, and are easily to download and install.

For Windows:
i) Feedreader – Version 3.05 is latest release of Feedreader. It contains all bells and whistles that you will possibly need. If you do not know what version to get, then this is the right version to download. Didn’t have to be an experienced techie to set-it-up.

for download - http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1027544364/1

ii) NewzCrawler- http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/
iii) Bloglines : is a web-based one.- http://www.bloglines.com/
iv) AmphetaDesk- http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/

For Linux

AmphetaDesk- http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/

For Mac

AmphetaDesk- http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/
NetNewsWire - http://www.newzcrawler.com/

weblogs and RSS in information work

Very good article on this topic : Rich Site Services: Web Feeds for Extended Information and Library Services

weblogs and RSS in information work

Reading more on Rss

Case studies: Libraries using RSS

RSS Benefits for You and Your Library

RSS Benefits for You and Your Library is a 2 hour self paced fee based course offered by OCLC.


Topics covered include:

1.Importance of RSS to libraries and library professionals
2.Specific ways libraries and library professionals can use RSS to their advantage both as consumer and producer
3. Examples of successful implementations of RSS in various library settings
4. The steps to consider when implementing a RSS feed for your library
5. Definitions and variations of the term RSS
6. Comparisons of RSS to other web communication tools
7. How to manage information through RSS readers
8. Definitions and comparisons of RSS readers

References:

1. http://blogs.fletcher.tufts.edu/rss4lib/
2. Very useful site is Moreover.com
3. RSS 2.0 specification, http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/

5.EZproxy by Useful Utilities, http://www.usefulutilities.com

6.http://hangingtogether.org/

Workshop:Open Source Movement and the Use of DSpace Software : November 28 - December 01, 2006 (Tentatively)

Indian Association of Special Libraries & Information Centres(IASLIC)
Kolkata – 700 054

going to organise a Workshop on "Open Source Movement and the Use of DSpace Software."

Date : November 28 - December 01, 2006 (Tentatively)

Objectives of the Workshop :

1. To provide background knowledge of the digital library and its related
concepts.
2. To offer hands on experience on Linux .
3. To offer hands on experience in using Dspace Software.

Areas to be covered in the Workshop:

Open Source Movement, Digital Libraries: Current Scenario, Different Digital Library software and comparative study, Overview of Linux, Overview and Installation of DSpace, DSpace Users: Anonymous, Members & Authors, Lucene Search Engine, DSpace Administration, Dublin Core and OAI-PMH, Persistent Handles, DSpace Customization, Unicode and Indian Languages

Target Participants:

Library and Information Science professionals with working knowledge of Information Technology. The Workshop is confined to a limited number of participants and will be filled strictly on first come first served basis.

Venue:

National Institute for the Orthopaedically Handicapped (NIOH), (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt of India), B T Road, Bonhooghly, Kolkata- 700 090.

For further details contact :

Dr Pijushkanti Panigrahi, Workshop Coordinator and Secretary, Education
Division, IASLIC, P-291, CIT Scheme No 6M, Kankurgachi, Kolkata – 700 054. email:
panigrahipk[at]yahoo.com, Mobile : +91 94342 43522