The Corporate Librarian

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.

I was surprised to see the news in the latest digest of BUSLIB-L that the list has to move from its ancestral home at Boise State by December, preferably to another place where it can run on LISTSERV. Dan Lester’s managed an amazing resource which has been serving librarians for 19+ years. Here’s hoping he finds a new home for it, and thanks Dan. 

From a gentleman named Doug Strock, VP of Market Development for GLTac, Inc.:

“I represent GLTac, Inc., a language translation company based in Midland, Michigan. We will have a booth (451) at the SLA Info-Expo 2007 in Denver. I have a free pass that will allow someone admission to the exhibit floor for a single day. I would like to send you a copy (.pdf format) so that any librarian could attend if they are within easy travel distance of Denver. I work with many corporate librarians who request translation of the documents they find in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. back into English, as well as going from English to over 70 languages. Without exception the librarians are knowledgeable and friendly to work with, and I would just like to give someone a price break if they wanted to attend, but felt they couldn’t afford the cost of admission - on top of the gas it takes to get there!

 Here is the pass form.”

SLA Exhibit Floor Free Admission Pass

“All they would need to do is list GLTaC, Inc., booth 451 in the appropriate space as the “Received Pass From” company. They can include my name Doug Strock also if they prefer.

Hopefully this will allow someone to attend who otherwise wouldn’t.”

A bit of a departure from the blog’s focus, but I wanted to note that Jeremy’s set up a social network for library and information school students, Learning Librarians Network. It includes personal and community blogs as well as file-hosting space.

I think it’s built using Elgg Spaces, but I’m not positive. Anyway, check it out!

Tagged by Dave Hook, and waiting to hear back from Brooklyn Public Library, the Corporate Librarian pulls back the curtain and reveals five things about himself you didn’t know!

1. The Corporate Librarian can put his feet behind his head. This is absolutely useless, but did seem to impress the other kids at the summer camp the Corporate Librarian went to.
2. The Corporate Librarian has been on a TV quiz show in high school.
3. The Corporate Librarian would have been on the PATH under the World Trade Center on 9/11, except he took a different PATH train that day from the one he normally took. OK, it’s a lame thing, but it’s what I’ve got.
4. The Corporate Librarian won an award for a poem his teacher submitted to Cricket magazine when he was very small. He was subsequently mortified that he had to read it in front of the entire school.
5. The Corporate Librarian cannot blow bubbles with bubble gum.

The Corporate Librarian tags - whoever feels like joining in - because he’s a nice guy that way. Just link back, because the Corporate Librarian is also shameless.