Author Archives: Michael Lynch

Friday Links Roundup – October 21, 2011

RIAA et al are biggest threat to innovation – Attempts by the content industry to pass legislation like the Protect IP Act are the greatest threat to technology innovation, a senior US Senator has told delegates at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.

For iPads in the enterprise, hassles aplenty – In various talks yesterday, Gartner analysts highlighted a series of gotchas that need to be considered before jumping on the enterprise tablet bandwagon.

The Educause Center for Applied Research has just released The National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011. The report sheds light on how information technology affects the college experience. Because of the widespread interest in and importance of this topic, ECAR has made this report publicly accessible upon release.

In Praise of Librarians – So I come to today’s digitally confused world of information from what is now a reasonably obsolete perspective. When I agreed to show up at a library meeting, I expected to be unhappy with the new digital universe and dismayed by the changes in my beloved library world. Fortunately for my psychic tranquility, the librarians are ahead of me, they are on the case, they are transforming our world of information with creativity and imagination.

Friday Links Roundup – October 14, 2011

Steve Jobs’ 100-year legacy: Humanizing technology: What will the legacy of Steve Jobs be a century from now? It won’t have much to do with business or marketing. Learn what it will be and why.

From the Harvard Business Review Blog: A Kodak Moment to Reconsider the Value of IT.

From TechRepublic: The Cloud isn’t a strategy.

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Midcat unavailable Wednesday evening 8/31/2011

Midcat, the library catalog, will be unavailable for several hours starting around 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 31st while we upgrade to a new version of the operating system.

There are three options for identifying items in our collection when Midcat is down (thanks to Barbara for the Summon reminder):

  1. Using Summon search. (you won’t be able to see availability of items.)
  2. Searching NExpress (limit your search to Items located at Middlebury College.)
  3. Searching WorldCat (check the box that limits your search to Items in my library.)

LibX updated to include Summon searching

Middlebury’s version of the LibX browser extension has been edited so that it can now be used to search Summon.  LibX provides:

  • Toolbar & right-click context menu: Search your library catalog directly from the LibX toolbar or using the right-click context menu.
  • Support for off-campus access via EZProxy/WAM: Using the Library’s off-campus proxy, you may reload a page through the proxy, or follow a link via the proxy, making it appear as though you are coming from an on-campus computer.
  • Quick full text access to journal articles: LibX uses Google Scholar to search for articles and directs the user to the electronic copy subscribed to by your Library. Select a citation, then drag-and-drop it onto the Scholar button on the toolbar. You can use this feature even from inside a PDF file, which makes retrieving papers referenced in a PDF file a snap.
  • Support for embedded cues: LibX places cues in web pages you visit if your library has resources related to that page. Whenever you see the cue, click on the link to look at what the Library has to offer. For instance, book pages at Amazon or Barnes & Noble will contain cues that link to the book’s entry in Midcat. Cues are displayed at Google, Yahoo! Search, the NY Times Book Review, and other pages.

Friday Links Roundup – July 29

Some thoughts on the differences between approaches at Apple (“a design company”) and Google (“an engineering company”): a recent post at The Scholarly Kitchen.

Coping with uncertainty?  The Harvard Business Review blog offers five tips for companies dealing with the uncertain economy, but they seem like good ideas for any organization facing similar challenges.

A new search engine for finding visual data/infographics

With the understanding that sometimes those whose names appear as contributors may be doing favors for others who wish to remain anonymous, the following are offered in retort to the “Internet in 2015” link from last week:

Microsoft suggests heating your home with ‘data furnaces’ and

Galactic-scale energy

Wireless in the dorms

There are approximately 60 buildings classified as dorms here at Middlebury providing beds to over 2400 students in 5 Commons.  From a ‘wireless’ perspective these dorms can be divided into three broad groups in terms of how many Wireless Access Points or WAPs they have:

  1. those that have moderate coverage
  2. those that have minimal coverage, typically in lounges only
  3. smaller houses that require only one or two WAPs

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