From the UC Berkeley News: The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley is opening its doors this fall semester to the use of personal cameras in the reading room. The trial program, which is implemented at many other institutions around the country, allows students and other patrons to photograph any of the items in [...]

It's Busy in the Google Legal Department: + Google Settles Buzz Lawsuit, Allocates Funds for Internet Privacy Groups Google has entered into a settlement agreement (full text of agreement) in a class action suit concerning the social network service Buzz. With Buzz, Google made private email contacts of Gmail susbcribers publicly available without consent. Gmail users filed [...]

New from Thomson/Reuters and their Web of Science database. A very interesting report and a example of citation analysis that might be useful (because it's so timely) in not only sharing with others but also using as a teaching tool to students and new faculty. We think it might be ideal to show how citation [...]

From an Article in the Philadelphia Inquirer: There will be no James Patterson novels to borrow today, and no computers for job applicants to use. The Nancy Drews will be packed up, along with the heavy unabridged dictionary that sat open Tuesday to the letter "W" and words like "wulfenite" - a mineral named for an Austrian [...]

+ Google’s Schmidt: ‘Next Great Stage’ Of Search Is Autonomous, Personal (by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land) Matt writes: Speaking today at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a vision of the future in which search is fast, personal, and all-knowing — even to the degree of providing search results [...]

From an Article in the Yorkshire Evening News: Thousands of photographs from a collection belonging to playwright George Bernard Shaw are to be made available to the public online, the National Trust said today. The photographs include pictures of film stars such as Vivien Leigh, writers HG Wells and JM Barrie, and leading political and social figures [...]

From the Article: Two Los Angeles County teenagers are suing Facebook, claiming the social networking giant effectively sold their names and images to advertisers without parental permission. The lawsuit, filed Aug. 26 in Los Angeles, challenges a Facebook feature that allows members to note that they like an advertised service or product. Facebook broadcasts those endorsements to [...]

Two brief notes. Back in July we posted about several libraries in the U.S. and Canada that are lending e-book readers to users. We would be happy to hear about other libraries offering or planning to provide similar services. Here are two more Canadian libraries offering e-book readers to users. First, in Montreal, the McGill [...]

An announcement that the database was released today by the Wisconsin Democracy Project. From the Database Web Page: ...Wisconsin’s premier searchable computer database of campaign contributors to candidates for state office in Wisconsin. This database includes records of contributions of $100 or more from individuals to candidates for the Wisconsin Legislature as well as governor, lieutenant governor, [...]

From the Announcement: AIDSinfo (http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/), a US Department of Health and Human Services project managed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), now offers a mobile site that allows users to access its resources and information on-the-go. The AIDSinfo mobile site is available at: http://m.aidsinfo.nih.gov. Like the AIDSinfo Web site, the new mobile version is available [...]

Wikipedia for Credit Some professors believe Wikipedia has no place in the footnotes of a college paper. But could it have a place on the syllabus? The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that does fund-raising and back-end support for the popular open-source encyclopedia, says yes. So do the nine professors at prominent colleges who have agreed to [...]

A web site devoted to metadata about imagery. However, several of the ideas and concepts will also apply to other areas. Those who teach about metadata and its application might find some useful material here. From the About Page: In partnership with the Library of Congress, the Stock Artists Alliance created the Photo Metadata Project [...]

The page is new online today. Access the Health Topics: Bedbugs (A Collection of Web-Based Resources) Sections Include: + Bedbug prevention and removal info + News + Treatment + Journal Articles and more Health Topic pages are updated frequently. Source: MedlinePlus (National Library of Medicine)

From an Article in the Las Cruces Sun News: A plan by New Mexico State University to curtail its periodical and academic journal subscriptions has prompted unease among members of the campus community. The journals especially offer the most up-to-date, peer-reviewed research - the information usually appears in books much later - and serve as the basis [...]

This is not only a keeper for the rainy day file but might also provider some clues about how to market your library to the business community. We are always thrilled to read this type of article/column. From a Column by Harvey Mackay: When Ben Franklin founded the first public lending library in America in 1731, [...]

From an Article by Cameron Ford: Many of the University of Massachusetts students’ frequenting the W.E.B. Du Bois Library are unaware of one of the library’s special collections. The Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) is this hidden gem, residing on the library’s twenty-fifth floor. Despite holding “approximately 35,000 rare books, nationally significant manuscript collections, historic [...]

Limitations of the MEDLINE Database in Constructing Meta-Analyses by David E. Winchester, MD and Anthony A. Bavry, MD, MPH, University of Florida No abstract so a 100-word excerpt is available for this letter to the editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Note: Here's a link to the excerpt along with a link to purchase the article. [...]

The University of Virginia has released an iPhone that includes 22 subapps. One of those subapps includes access to a number of library resources. It also provides an augmented reality feature that can be used when on the U.Va. campus in Charlottesville, VA. Learn More About the App and the Subapps; View a Very Brief [...]

From the JISC News Release: Most of us have had formal or informal feedback throughout our lives. The way in which we have been assessed very likely has had a fundamental effect on our learning and career progression. Assessment is one of the most important parts of learning and teaching and whether institutions get this right [...]

New available on the IFLA.org web site are links to the presentations from "Marketing Libraries in a Web 2.0 World." It was organized by The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the Management and Marketing Section, in collaboration with the Stockholm University Library, The pre-con took place in Stockholm on August 7, 2010 [...]