The Corporate Librarian

Sorry for the delay in posting - a combination of honestly not having much to say, sending my faithful laptop in for repairs (broken hinge and a peeling top case) and focusing on job stuff.After three interviews (two by phone, one in person), didn’t land the latest job I was hoping for. Another four resumes sent out, a phone interview sometime next month and slow progress on the consulting website (I’ll include a link when it’s finished).  I’m helping the local chapter of SLA with their websites - so far I’ve gotten the tour from the person currently in charge along with another chapter member, we have to figure out when to get together and we have to talk to the person currently handling content for the website. If everyone’s OK with my taking that on, a great way to network and I’m told that a lot of the jobs in the area are gotten by knowing someone.Next post will be on the latest edition of Primary Research’s Corporate Library Benchmarks, once I’ve had a chance to go through all 118 pages. God help me.

Since I hadn’t seen this come up on the AIIP or BUSLIB lists.

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal had an article on the 2nd Circuit Court’s scrapping of a 2005 settlement between database operators and free-lance writers over a class-action lawsuit on unauthorized reproduction of the writers’ works. The issue was District Judge George B. Michael’s lack of jurisdiction over most of the claims (which involved infringement of unregistered copyrights).

The full opinion is here, for those more up-to-date on the legal wherefores. The case got sent back to the district court, with the operators and free-lance writers having up to 14 days to seek a rehearing before the whole circuit if they want to challenge the ruling of the 2nd Circuit Court.

The settlement had divided plaintiffs’ claims into copyrights registered prior to infringement, copyrights registered after the infringement but before December 31, 2002 and copyrights which were either registered after December 31, 2002 or not registered at all.

The database operators were still deciding how to proceed at the time of the article - affected companies include Dow Jones & Company, the New York Times Company, Reed Elsevier Group PLC and Voyager Learning Company.

The Freelance Rights blog is also covering the story, with alternative links to the majority opinion, a dissenting opinion and a note on why the 2nd Circuit Court judges did not recuse themselves despite being class members themselves. Yes, it’s a blog by objectors to the original settlement. I’m not sure why there’s nothing readily apparent on the National Writers Union website - it’s certainly covered on the Authors Guild site.

While I continue to look for work (interview next week), I try and stay in touch with the profession. Except that’s not as easy as it sounds.

SLA has the Annual Conference (June 2008, in Seattle) and Leadership Summit (January 2008, in Louisville). I have no idea when the next regional chapter meeting will be - I’ve volunteered to help with the website, to do more in the association and to meet more people, but that’s still largely up in the air. I don’t hear from the divisions or sections I’m in much, though I try to chip in on the IT Division’s Blogging Section blog and I made sure to meet Jill Hurst-Wahl at Internet Librarian. I’ve attended two conferences this year, which is more than many people get to, but it’s a big financial hit. I’m forced to carry a balance on my credit card, something I really hoped I’d never have to do.

Most of the big-name library blogs are for academic and public libraries, so I don’t really feel a part of the conversation there. Ditto for LSW on Meebo. Hell, this blog pretty much only gets comments from vendors wanting to push their products. At least Internet Librarian has sessions for corporate librarians, and I think a lot of Library 2.0 people could learn a lot from attending KMWorld & Intranets and learning from what’s gone on before.

Mailing lists? I’m on actKM, BUSLIB-L, the one for my SLA chapter and the one for AIIP members. I’ve chipped in on BUSLIB in the past, and may do so on AIIP if a topic comes up I feel comfortable with. But answering reference requests isn’t really what I’m after.

Where’s a venue for corporate librarians and knowledge management types to just hang out, talk shop and commiserate, regardless of geographic location on an informal basis?

TouchGraph is a neat Java app which graphs the connections between websites (blogrolls definitely are one factor, I’d have to see what else). For the heck of it, I decided to compare my connections with those of a real library blogger:

Discuss.

After talking it over with several friends, I’m going to the Internet Librarian 2007 conference in Monterey. I should have planned on this months ago, and gotten a different hotel and cheaper transportation, but hindsight is always 20/20.

In terms of preconference workshops, I’m tempted by one or more of:

• Simple Solutions for Dynamic Web Services Using RSS, 1:30-4:30 PM, October 27th
• Searchers Academy, 9:00 AM-4:30 PM, October 28th (which conflicts with everything else, grr)
• Wikis: Basics, Tools, & Strategies, 9:00 AM-`1:00 PM, October 28th
• Integrating RSS into Your Web Site, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, October 28th
• Project Management for Libraries, 1:30-4:30 PM, October 28th

Monday, I’m looking at:

• A Super Searcher Shares 30 Search Tips, 10:15-11:00 AM
• What’s New with Federated Search, 2:15-3:00 PM

Tuesday I’m looking at:

• Deploying Enterprise Social Software, 10:30-11:15 AM
• Next-Gen Corporate Library Web Site, 11:30 AM-12:15 PM
• Librarians as Knowledge Managers, 3:15-4:00 PM
• Developing a Taxonomy, 4:15-5:00 PM

Wednesday I’m looking at:

• Alternative & Customized SEs, 10:30-11:15 AM
• What’s Hot with RSS!, 11:30 AM-12:15 PM
• Folksonomies and Tagging: Libraries and the Hive Mind, 1:45-2:30 PM
• Content Management Systems (CMSs), 2:45-3:30 PM

The way I see it, I get several benefits out of it. It gives me a chance to meet some of the merry pranksters of the Library Society of the World whom I only know from Meebo. I can hand out business cards, show people my resume and otherwise gladhand. And as Bill Cosby warned, I might learn something before it’s done. Hey hey hey!

Last week I got an e-mail from Sheri Larsen of Northern Light about a new product they’re offering, Analyst Direct. I mention this not to preen and go “How cool am I?,” but to see what questions you’d like answered about it.

From the little I played with it before Library Camp, it looks to be a decent search engine for and aggregator of IT market research - rather than opening a tab for Forrester Research’s site, for IDC’s site, etc. you can enter your site logins and access lots of IT research through Analyst Direct. And even if you don’t subscribe to a given company’s research, you can still see basic information on reports and purchase them. I’ve got permission to use screenshots, so check out a few snaps I took below.

There’s also a feature I haven’t played with at all, which auto-magically extracts business issues and analyst sentiment on companies and industries from industry trade periodical coverage.

I’m on a Mac and don’t have Windows handy, so I’m afraid I can’t experiment with how it works in different browsers on a PC. I do have Flock (Mozilla-based) and Safari, and could probably scare up a copy of Internet Explorer.

Screenshots (apologies for the other tabs):

The beautiful but deadly Rikhei asked on a chat room I hang out on:

So, is there a list somewhere of databases and which vendors provide them? That says, for example, Hey, Ebsco, OVID, etc. provide access to Medline?

This would seem something tailor-made for a wiki. Anyone know:

• If such a source already exists?
• If not, which existing library-related wiki might be suitable?

And if there is a suitable wiki (or one can be hosted), who’s interested in helping Rikhei build the list?

It’s being hosted by Northern Arizona University, and Dan Lester is transitioning the list to Tina. She’s new to list management, so please be patient.

And don’t go into outbursts like this:

I have tried all the normal methods of unsubscribing.

Is somebody monitoring this list?

Get off your ass and stop the flood of out of office messages and other trash you are sending out!

AND UNSCRIBE ME RIGHT NOW!!!!

You can subscribe/unsubscribe/change mailing list options at http://list1.ucc.nau.edu/archives/buslib-l.html. If you’re getting messages from the list, you’re subscribed.

Courtesy of the beautiful but deadly Dan Smith, some library-related artwork. Now you can see what I really look like.

OK, I’d actually seen the meme before, but give the man some referrer love!

So the idea is that I list 5 non-library blogs I follow and this gives you penetrating insight into the very fabric of my being. Make something of this!

1. Medgadget, because I find medical developments more fascinating than what the latest cell phone can do
2. Infocult, in which my mad doomed friend Bryan attempts to digest every possible permutation of information for the benefit of society. That’s him in the comments to my previous entry.
3. Eric Rice - Official Site, because after ‘meeting’ him on the #joiito IRC channel and seeing him across a crowded room in Brooklyn he’s become my go-to guy for what’s happening with social media. Also, I’m curious to see what happens when his blog gets hit by a swarm of librarians.
4. Final Girl, the best non-professional commentator on horror movies. And better than several professional commentators whose work I’ve had the misfortune to read.
5. William Buehler Seabrook discussion, both because LiveJournals don’t get enough respect and because William Buehler Seabrook is not well-known enough for my liking.

And because I love you so, and because Numbers 2 and 3 could be said to be library-related:

1. The Spy Who Billed Me, a blog I recently found through an online acquaintance’s LiveJournal, about the outsourcing of intel.
2. meine kleine fabrik, what Boing Boing would be like if it had many fewer posts and were worth following.