My project work at the Lab has time and again shown the crucial importance not simply of cataloged records, but of cataloged records created to a high standard.

On the bibliographic side, every new Library of Congress subject heading a cataloger adds to a record creates a rich set of connective possibilities downstream for people like me.

But also: the expertise which catalogers bring to the task of comprehensive bibliographic description has proven crucial to me as a reference resource in my work of designing software to harvest and process bibliographic information

I'm not making this up. This gravestone marker is from the Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery in Goldfield, Nevada. It marks the grave of the "Unknown Library Paste Man"

Data curation is defined as “the active and ongoing management of data through its lifecycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship, science, and education.” (GSLIS) The volume of scientific data is growing exponentially across all scientific disciplines. This phenomenon has been termed the “data deluge.” The data deluge is now a fundamental characteristic of e-science and “big science,” especially in disciplines such as physics, astronomy, and earth and atmospheric sciences. Moreover, stakeholders are beginning to recognize the value in sharing data assets with each other and in curation of data for re-use over the long term. Competent information professionals are needed to curate this data for future research and education requirements.

The Harvard Library announced it is making more than 12 million catalog records from Harvard’s 73 libraries publicly available.

Harvard Library announced its open distribution of metadata from its Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) scholarly article repository under a similar CC0 license.

“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said president and publisher Tom Doherty. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”

Here at paidContent, independent e-bookstore Emily Books‘ Emily Gould and Ruth Curry have argued that DRM is crushing indie booksellers online. And Hachette VP, digital Maja Thomas recently described DRM as “a speedbump” that “doesn’t stop anyone from pirating.”

He argues that DRM is a way for the Amazons of the world to create lock-in to their platforms.

The screen captures are fascinating — watch below as an off-campus user searches the library home page for the correct place to do an author search in the library catalog

Be prepared; watching a series of videos of unassisted users can dismantle your or your web committee’s cherished notions about how users navigate your site.

Paid accounts also have access to real time analytics, so libraries would be able to get a montage of what’s happening in the lobby as it is happening. Imagine being able to walk out and announce a “pop-up library workshop” on using the library catalog effectively after seeing the twentieth person fumble through the OPAC.