[LISNews] The LISNews For February 12th 2010

[The LISNews Librarian News By Email]

Happy Friday! It's the LISNews for February 12th, 2010...

 Let's look at the top headlines from the past week:

-[1] - Did You Meet The Love of Your Life @ Library School?
   http://lisnews.org/node/35859/
-[2] - Three Dollars a Month Is...Too Much
   http://lisnews.org/node/35869/
-[3] - Sarah Palin follows the lead of Cliff Stoll
   http://lisnews.org/node/35899/
-[4] - A Search Engine That Relies on Humans
   http://lisnews.org/node/35880/
-[5] - Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use
   http://lisnews.org/node/35917/


And here's the latest from LISNews:


--The New World of Copyright?
- http://lisnews.org/node/35941/
-Blog Entry by Martin Posted Friday February 12th at 12:49 PM
-Read 4 times - 0 Comments
A novel by a 17-year-old in Berlin has risen high on the best-seller list and become a finalist for a major book prize, but
the author has also received scathing criticism because she lifted some passages from someone else’s book.  She even admits
having copied an entire page with only a few changes.  Although she has apologized for not being more open about her
sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches
from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new.  "There's no such thing as
originality anyway, just authenticity," she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html?partner=rss&emc=rss 


--E-Readers and Eye Strain
- http://lisnews.org/node/35940/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Friday February 12th at 12:44 PM
-Read 50 times - 0 Comments
Despite what your mother might have told you, doctors say that looking at an electronic screen doesn't hurt the eyes.
Ergonomics and lighting play a much bigger role in eye strain.  Full piece at the NYT Bits Blog


--The Teaching Librarian Versus The Teacher
- http://lisnews.org/node/35939/
-Blog Entry by Anonymous Patron Posted Friday February 12th at 12:44 PM
-Read 2 times - 0 Comments
by Susan Ariew, University of South Florida  As someone who has been both a classroom teacher at the secondary school level
and at the college level as well as a teaching librarian, I have observed that the culture of the library as a teaching
environment is more complex than the culture of school and university academic departments. The differences between the
classroom teaching environment and the library teaching environment as well as the differences in questions of identity that
arise for librarians presents unique challenges, opportunities and barriers for those librarians who teach.   The Complexity
of the Library Environment   The teaching mission of academic libraries and their librarians is not a given in the same way
it is a given in academic teaching departments. In fact, much of what is done with teaching depends on how high a priority
library administrators, academic faculty on campus, as well as college and university administrators give to library
instruction.  Indeed, the entire teaching role of librarians has been challenged by the likes of Stanley Wilder a few who
feel that “information literacy” is just bunk created by librarians to make themselves feel more important than they are
(see "Information Literacy Makes All the Wrong Assumptions" in the January 7, 2005 Chronicle.  It would follow that because
the teaching role of the library varies from library to library and institution to institution, the way in which librarians
embrace the role of teaching would also fluctuate a great deal. Unlike the classroom teacher who is assigned so many
classes, so many students, and so many credit hours a semester, much of what started as traditional BI and then later
evolved into information literacy was created not from an internal imperative, but from external demands. Unlike teaching
departments on most campuses, much of what has happened with the instructional mission of academic libraries has been
defined, shaped and created in response to forces outside the library, forces like academic faculty requests for library
instruction and faculty frustration with students who lack skills in evaluating their sources.   Thus, the new and changing
role of the teaching library and librarian is much less established (or even autonomous) than other traditional library
functions such as cataloging, interlibrary loan, circulation, reference, special collections, or collection development.  
One of the reasons that the teaching mission of academic libraries might be called into question relates to the multitude of
competing roles, responsibilities, and obligations of librarians in academic libraries. How do those non-teaching librarians
in academic libraries view those who do teach? Does the teaching mission seem like an important priority to them too? 
Typically large university library departments become specialized and isolated. Such isolation offers more efficiency in
terms of library operations, but it can also result in interdepartmental fragmentation, and with that fragmentation a lack
of communication or understanding among personnel across departments.  Thus, those who involve themselves in instructional
efforts can be isolated from those who do not. Moreover, the importance of teaching and other instructional efforts is not a
universally shared value nor is it recognized by everyone in the library.   In contrast, if you are a teaching member of,
say, an English Department where everyone teaches some writing or literature classes, the sense of fragmentation and even
conflict about priorities and resources isn’t quite as much a problem.  There may be lack of understanding about faculty
research in academic departments among colleagues, but everyone is pretty much on the same page with regard to understanding
teaching responsibilities and the commitment to the mission of instruction.  One question that arises from all this is how
can the teaching mission of large academic libraries be embraced as a fundamental value in all areas and departments of
academic libraries?    Conflicting Identities--Librarian as Teaching Faculty  Along with fragmentation among librarian roles
in large university libraries, one also sees a fragmentation among librarians with regard to how they perceive themselves as
faculty and as teachers. At one institution where I was employed, several librarians had a different views of what it meant
to be “library faculty.” As a teacher-librarian, I saw a faculty role in what I did each day as I taught classes, helped
students with their research either at the reference desk or during one-on- one consultations, or worked in my college on
committees and special projects. I actively collaborated with academic faculty in the field of education and enjoyed a
collegial relationship with them, sometimes even more than with my librarian colleagues within the library.  However, there
were some librarians who stated flatly that they didn’t see themselves as being like academic faculty at all, “faculty”
title or no title, nor did what they do bear any resemblance to faculty. Some of these colleagues were librarians who had
never been in the classroom, or who had become librarians long before instruction had been a priority within the library.
Still others took the position that librarians shouldn’t be wasting their time engaging in research or scholarly activities.
 Many of these librarians viewed my collaborative activities with academic faculty as “going native” and did not feel that I
stayed within proper boundaries assigned to me. If you explore the literature about librarians, faculty status, and tenure,
you still see an identity crisis, one that has yet to be resolved satisfactorily. Who are we? What are we? How do we fit
within the context of our institution? These are questions that continually plague academic librarians. They are not the
kinds of questions that plague academic faculty  Librarian as Teacher  The identity problems of academic librarians also
relate to their teaching roles. Some librarians have resented the onset of the information literacy movement simply because
it makes more complicated the instructional challenges presented to them. What once was sufficient as “BI” or “library
training” is now no longer considered meaningful.  As the information literacy imperative has grown, more and more demand is
placed on integrating library instruction into the college and university curriculum and on providing quality instruction in
a systematic and programmatic way. This may place demands on librarians who do not have sufficient background in teaching
and learning to meet those demands.  Moreover, if some librarians do not see themselves as faculty, how can they see
themselves as teachers? Are the two identities and roles related to one another and if so in what way?   In contrast, those
who are classroom teachers have less of an identity problem. Their teaching roles are clear. The role of faculty is defined,
though instructors and junior faculty may have concerns about their faculty rank within that role. While academic faculty
have a research appointments along with teaching, there is never a question about whether teaching is essential work for
them to be doing or whether the support for their roles as teachers is a given.  While support for library instruction is
now part of most academic library cultures, the extent to which librarians are actually supported in their roles as teachers
can vary greatly.   Conclusion  My own duel career as a librarian and as a high school/college level English teacher has led
me to reflect upon the contrasts between the teaching librarian and the classroom teacher.  There have been times where I
have felt like a displaced teacher when working in the library environment and like a librarian out of her element as a
classroom teacher. In the end, however, I find that my experiences in both arenas have complemented one other tremendously. 
Examining the similarities and differences of academic faculty vs library faculty roles and identities might be a way to
illuminate the challenges and therefore assist librarians in meeting those challenges proactively. Perhaps, in defining
clearly what a “teaching library” is all about, librarians and administrators can integrate the instructional mission of the
teaching library beyond the limited boundaries of just the instruction/reference librarians and departmental activities.    
   


--The Age of Shorter Books
- http://lisnews.org/node/35938/
-Blog Entry by stevenj Posted Friday February 12th at 10:56 AM
-Read 85 times - 0 Comments
In this blog post Ezra Klein suggests that in the digital age, much shorter (or smaller as he calls them) books will become
more acceptable - and a better option for long drawn out works of non-fiction that contain too much filler or are hardly
better than the shorter essays on which they are based. Klein writes "The length of the average book reflects the economics
of the print trade and educated guesses as to what book-buyers will actually pay for, much more than it does the actual
intellectual content of the book itself...All this may be changing as we move towards an electronic book publishing system.
The economics of electronic text production are not the same as the economics of book production (as best as I understand
either), and there aren’t the same pressures towards standardization of length. I suspect that people who would feel cheated
if they paid ‘book’ price for a long essay (say around 20,000 words or so) will feel less so if they buy an electronic
version." Read more at: http://crookedtimber.org/2010/02/09/towards-a-world-of-smaller-books/ 


--Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall 
- http://lisnews.org/node/35937/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Friday February 12th at 9:22 AM
-Read 182 times - 1 Comments
NYTimes VAIL, Ariz. — Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in this desert
exurb of Tucson, and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats)
and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates).  On buses equipped with Wi-Fi in Vail, Ariz., officials say more homework is
getting done, and there's less rowdy behavior. Armando Lagunas finds the bus a place for quiet pursuits, even when he isn't
online.  But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are
quiet, typing on laptops.  Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile
Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus,
and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed
what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.  Up
Next: Wi-fi access from the bookmobile?


--School Librarians...They're Not Just 'Hanging Out @ The Library'
- http://lisnews.org/node/35935/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Friday February 12th at 8:28 AM
-Read 219 times - 0 Comments
Librarian Cathy Collins writes in the Santa Rosa, CA Press Democrat:  I have worked in public schools for 14 years now,
just “hanging out in the library,” as one Santa Rosa trustee recently summed it up, with students in grades pre-K through
12.  Unfortunately, the role of a school librarian is frequently misunderstood. Like custodians, cafeteria workers and
campus security staff, much of our work takes place behind the scenes. Though school librarians have master's level training
in best educational practices, we are not assigned official classes, nor do we test or grade students.  The way I see it,
every student is my student. I am responsible for ensuring that every student I serve graduates with highly developed
critical thinking skills, an appreciation for literature and the knowledge of how to effectively locate and evaluate
information from both print and electronic sources. In a nutshell, I am a specialist in information literacy. School
librarians collaborate with teachers, administrators and staff to ensure that students are efficient and effective users of
ideas and information.


--International Amateur Scanning League will rescue our video treasures!
- http://lisnews.org/node/35934/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Friday February 12th at 7:20 AM
-Read 178 times - 1 Comments
International Amateur Scanning League will rescue our video treasures! We took a big step forward today with the birth of a
new club in Washington, the International Amateur Scanning League. These volunteers, organized by members of the DC
CopyNight and by employees of the Smithsonian doing volunteer work after hours, is going out to the National Archives and
Records Administration and copying over 1,500 DVDs to be uploaded to the net.   What makes this grassroots digitization
effort so remarkable is that it has the full support of the government. Indeed, David Ferriero, the U.S. Archivist, joined
me in the initial meeting where we taught volunteers how to rip DVDs!  


--Library Unseals Letters Offers  Glimpse of Salinger
- http://lisnews.org/node/35933/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Friday February 12th at 7:01 AM
-Read 170 times - 0 Comments
Now, two weeks after Mr. Salinger’s death at age 91, the letters are being made public. They are likely to be among the
first batch of many such correspondences, given Mr. Salinger’s history of letter-writing, that will surface and deepen — or
perhaps even alter — the public’s understanding of one of the 20th-century’s most puzzling, and puzzled about, literary
lights.  


--Denying My Profession
- http://lisnews.org/node/35932/
-Blog Entry by Anonymous Patron Posted Thursday February 11th at 7:10 PM
-Read 185 times - 1 Comments
I'm a librarian. In May I will begin my eighth year as a librarian. I also write a weekly column for a small town
newspaper. This I have been doing since Christ was a pup. Hopefully that note will not offend any other Christians as much
as it does myself, but I digress. One of my two library bosses (classic case of too many Indians and not enough chiefs --
again, if you find that offensive let me note that I'm a lone librarian in the only public library located on this
particular Indian Reservation) knows I write said column. Who knows what the other boss knows. This regional library system
keeps secrets better than the CIA. In fact, it keeps them so well, sometimes it's years before us lone librarians hear of
them. Usually policy and procedure nonsense of little or no consequence. Usually.  My patrons are better than most. I am a
bitch. Former substitute teaching has to be the best training for a lone librarian who takes over the reigns of a library
gone wild. Kids on the Internet looking at porn (yes, this was prior to the infamously bad filters), people speaking very
loudly (the former librarian boasting that this was the "loudest in the system"), books in disarray, and yes, the prior
librarian will come back and kill me if she got wind of this, so let's not spread it around. Today my library is quiet
enough to read. And being one large room, this is really a plus. Just the presence of the chess set on the back table
screams QUIET. Just the way I like it.  Sure, I've scared off some of the wild kids -- and good luck to them. Sure I've
busted a teenager for smoking in the bathroom (which I'm pretty sure was pot, but I'm not a cop) -- and had to give a "time
out" ("See you in 30 days, Mac."). And sure I've seen the look on the bloke's face when he realizes that this isn't the
liquor store ("That's next door, Buddy."), because I've also bartended in my day. Another fairly good pre-librarianship
position. Gets you used to the crazies.  When I was a girl my mother said I should consider becoming a librarian. I told her
she was nuts (ah, the 60s). And here, decades later, I've become what I scoffed at in my youth -- a librarian and damn proud
of it.   So as darkness falls with two more hours to put in, I'll finish this break (which, being the only one in charge
here, really isn't a break) and leave you on a happier note. I'm happy as a clam in my crazy library -- making my patrons
happy, too. Well, at least the ones I haven't busted.   Regarding the denial -- my readers of my column know nothing of my
library profession, and vise versa. I'd just as soon not have the paper's readers know where to find me, and keeping my
political and innermost thoughts from my patrons here is probably a wise choice as well. Maybe this library system has
something correct -- the left hand not knowing what the right is doing may, in fact, be a good thing.


--Google Purchases Aardvark
- http://lisnews.org/node/35931/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Thursday February 11th at 4:10 PM
-Read 251 times - 0 Comments
On Sunday LISNEWS had a story about the search engine Aardvark. Aardvark, a social search company, is developing a new
paradigm for Web searches that taps into social networks, not automated formulas, to provide answers to queries.  Today
Aardvark has been purchased by Google. Story in the Washington Post.


--More Tools for Sifting Through Government Data
- http://lisnews.org/node/35930/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Thursday February 11th at 4:01 PM
-Read 223 times - 0 Comments
In a blog post on Wednesday, Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, discussed the “data flood” coming out of Washington
and the need for more applications to deal with the new era of government information.  Sunlight Labs is part of the
Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a goal of digitizing government data and building Web sites to help make
the current data deluge more manageable. The foundation hopes to help solve some of these data overload problems with new
tools, including a Web site they are currently testing: nationaldatacatalog.com. It will organize government data sets and
try to give more context to this information.  Full story at the NYT Bits Blog


--Do School Libraries Need Books?
- http://lisnews.org/node/35929/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Thursday February 11th at 3:42 PM
-Read 250 times - 0 Comments
In the NYT  A Room for Debate forum on what happens when students stop reading printed books.  Full piece  


--A Lot of Misplaced Passion Surrounds the Anne Frank Diary Fracas
- http://lisnews.org/node/35928/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 3:41 PM
-Read 226 times - 0 Comments
A lot of misplaced passion surrounds the Anne Frank diary fracas It was the word “pull” that stirred things up so much.
That conjures up the word “ban” which really stirs things up. But what has now become abundantly clear, no Anne Frank books
ever were removed from Culpeper schools.  


--LISNews Librarian Essay Contest
- http://lisnews.org/node/35927/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 3:39 PM
-Read 269 times - 1 Comments
The first ever LISNews Librarian Essay Contest invites librarians to write an original essay about issues that impact
librarianship. The contest will run for the entire month of February, 2010, with the fabulous prizes awarded sometime in
March. Winning essayists will receive one of several prizes including Amazon or Borders gift cards, and a year of hosting
from LISHost.org. 


--With Revenue Down and Demand Up, Libraries Are in a Tough Spot
- http://lisnews.org/node/35926/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 2:57 PM
-Read 268 times - 1 Comments
With revenue down and demand up, libraries are in a tough spot For libraries, difficult economic times are a catch-22 —
their popularity skyrockets, but their funding, which comes primarily from property and consolidated sales taxes, plummets. 
“There’s a direct correlation between our high usage and high unemployment right now,”


--Life is a Drag Queen for London Librarian
- http://lisnews.org/node/35925/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 2:54 PM
-Read 266 times - 0 Comments
Life’s a drag queen for London librarian The life of London librarian Mark Rodenhurst will be told on stage tonight after
he won an Evening Standard competition.   


--Scott Brown Plans Book
- http://lisnews.org/node/35924/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Thursday February 11th at 1:09 PM
-Read 245 times - 1 Comments
You gotta have a book. And the man with the truck will soon be the man with a book.  Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), the
party's hottest  elected official, has decided to write a book that combines memoir and inspiration (of what sort I
wonder...).  Gail Gitcho, his new Senate communications director, tells POLITICO, “Senator Brown is honored and humbled to
be approached by many people who want him to tell his inspirational personal story about his life leading up to his election
as a United States senator from Massachusetts. He will tell his story in a book in hopes of providing insight and
encouragement to others and also to ensure that the record is complete and accurate.  "Part of the book proceeds will be
donated to charity," Gitcho continued. "Senator Brown will work with a collaborator so he can continue to focus fully on his
service to the people of Massachusetts, which is, and always will be, his first priority.”  Brown has hired Williams &
Connolly's Bob Barnett, the city's leading counsel to politician-authors, to help him through the process. 


--Librarians seek linguistic key to unlock mystery book
- http://lisnews.org/node/35923/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 12:06 PM
-Read 303 times - 0 Comments
Librarians seek linguistic key to unlock mystery book There's a mystery at the main branch of the Reading Public Library.
And it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to suspect it involves a book. Above, Librarian Kathy J. Hess handles the mysterious
book, written in an unknown script and language, that she found in a room at the Reading Public Libary. Behind her is
Reading Public Library Director Frank Kasprowicz.  The book, with its frayed and flowered fabric cover, has yellowed pages
filled with handwritten black and a faded orange cursive script, evoking a highly decorative ancient manuscript in Hindi or
Sanskrit, perhaps from India or Persia. 


--E-Book Price Increase May Stir Readers’ Passions
- http://lisnews.org/node/35922/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Thursday February 11th at 11:31 AM
-Read 274 times - 1 Comments
In the battle over the pricing of electronic books, publishers appear to have won the first round. The price of many new
releases and best sellers is about to go up, to as much as $14.99 from $9.99.  But there may be an insurgency waiting to
pounce: e-book buyers.  Over the last year, the most voracious readers of e-books have shown a reflexive hostility to prices
higher than the $9.99 set by Amazon.com and other online retailers for popular titles.  Story in the NYT


--The Importance of Word-Sense Disambiguation in Online Information Retrieval
- http://lisnews.org/node/35921/
-Blog Entry by Anonymous Patron Posted Thursday February 11th at 11:04 AM
-Read 307 times - 0 Comments
By Jeffrey Beall  The Problem  Word-sense disambiguation is the ability of an online system to differentiate the different
senses, or meanings, of words in online searching. Say for example that you need information on boxers, so you access an
Internet search engine and enter "boxers" in the search box. The search engine then finds documents that contain
the word "boxers" and returns those documents to you as search results.  You probably already see the problem here
-- the word "boxers" is a homonym with several different meanings, and the search engine doesn’t know which
meaning you want. Boxers are a breed of dog, a category of athlete, and a kind of men’s garment. It’s also the possessive of
a surname, as in "Barbara Boxer’s bill …" Finally, boxers were those who participated in the Boxer Rebellion in
China from 1899 to 1901. There may be additional meanings.   Information retrieval in libraries has transitioned from the
high precision and recall that legacy library systems offered to the probabilistic and linguistic free-for-all that internet
search engines now provide. One of the great values of legacy library databases was that they effectively handled polysemy
-- the ability of a term to have multiple meanings -- in searching. Because online searching needs word-sense disambiguation
to be effective and precise, it’s important for all librarians to understand the problem and its solutions.   The Past 
Traditional library systems deal with word-sense disambiguation deterministically. Controlled vocabularies, such as the
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), artificially force multiple concepts known by the same word to be expressed
differently and unambiguously in metadata.   Take the word "poles" for example. It can mean a tall, thin
structure, such as a light pole, and it can mean people from Poland. To separate these concepts out, LCSH creates metadata
records that use "Poles (Engineering)" and "Polish people" to name the two concepts, instead of the
ambiguous "poles." In this way, it eliminates the ambiguity and creates unique headings for each concept. In the
past this disambiguation has been known as an element of "authority control," but I hesitate to use that term
because it makes some people instantly stop reading. The term "word-sense disambiguation" comes from information
science and has become the more current term for this aspect of authority control.   Search Precision  Disambiguation in
databases is directly related to the concept of search precision. Precision here is the proportion of relevant items
retrieved in a search to the total number of items retrieved in the search. For example, you may search "tanks" to
get information about military tanks, but if your search results are mainly about water or fuel tanks, the search suffers
from low precision. Ideally, databases should only include relevant hits in search results.   The Solutions  --     Users
There are several solutions to the homonym problem, and each has its advantages and weaknesses. First, users themselves
often solve the problem by adding additional words to their search terms. For example, if you are looking for information
about cookies, that is, the files that some web sites put on your computer, you might enter "cookies computers" to
increase the precision of the search. Similarly, if you are searching for information on edible cookies, you might enter
"cookies recipes" to eliminate many of the hits that deal with computer cookies.   --     Vendor Databases Second,
some library vendor databases, such as Ebsco’s Academic Search Premier, attempt to algorithmically separate out search
results by concept when the searcher enters a homonym as a search term. Usually this works by the system generating a column
with links grouped by subject. For example, a search on boxers might generate a link to "Boxing (Sports)" and
"Boxers (Dogs)." The problem with this approach is that is a probabilistic guess that the search engine makes, and
these guesses are often wrong. They only work to a certain level of accuracy.   --     Other Algorithmic Approaches Third,
much research has been carried out on word-sense disambiguation in large textual corpora. This solution is expensive to set
up, but after the programming is done it’s cheap to re-use it. Much of this type of word-sense disambiguation is done using
ontologies (mappings of concepts and relationships), so it works best when it’s limited to a specific domain or area of
study, such as mathematics, for example. This approach also is probabilistic and is therefore always less than 100%
accurate.   --     Legacy Library Systems The final approach is the one used in legacy library systems such as online
library catalogs. For example, the fields of psychology and chemistry each use the term sublimation to mean two different
things. In psychology, according to WordNetWeb, it means "modifying the natural expression of an impulse or instinct …
to one that is socially acceptable." In chemistry, the term refers to a change from solid to gas without passing
through a liquid phase. In LCSH, these terms are differentiated using glosses:   Sublimation (Psychology)  Sublimation
(Chemistry)    Of course, the weakness of this authority control approach (oops, I said it again) is that it requires humans
to perform the indexing, so the process is often too expensive for large databases.  Ultimately, the most successful
solution may be one that incorporates the best of both manual and algorithmic processes such as automated processes that use
manually-created authority records to carry out the disambiguation.   The Future  Word sense disambiguation is an important
and crucial element of online information retrieval because it saves a searcher’s time and because it increases search
precision. As online databases grow exponentially in size, word-sense disambiguation will garner more attention among
library and information scientists, who will improve existing solutions and who will develop new solutions. Library users
and online searchers will come to benefit from the greater search precision that word-sense disambiguation provides.    
Jeffrey Beall is Metadata Librarian at the University of Colorado Denver.  Email: jeffrey.beall at ucdenver.edu


--Library Anti-Valentine bash canceled because of complaints
- http://lisnews.org/node/35920/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 9:51 AM
-Read 394 times - 1 Comments
Hearts may be broken now that Anti-Valentine bash is canceled Teens who planned on protesting all things chocolate and
mushy at an Anti-Valentine’s Day Party will have to find another outlet for their angst.   The event, originally slated for
Saturday, was canceled Monday due to what interim library director LeeAnn Briese said was a misunderstanding about the
spirit and intent of the program, planned for ages 12-18 who don’t get excited about the holiday. 


--Wintry Literature for a Snowy Day
- http://lisnews.org/node/35919/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Thursday February 11th at 9:20 AM
-Read 242 times - 0 Comments
A four minute piece from NPR's All Things Considered.  Story mentions many of the classics, such as Ezra Jack Keats "The
Snowy Day", Laura Ingalls Wilder "The Long Winter" and Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" (in which the word snow appears maybe...500
times?? I'm still reading it).  Commentors added their 'snow' titles.


--Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use
- http://lisnews.org/node/35917/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 7:59 AM
-Read 666 times - 3 Comments
Ye Olde Resource Shelf pointed the way to a preprint of Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use. Libraries, in
the past few years, have begun to examine the possibilities available to them through social networking sites like MySpace
and Facebook as a tool for library awareness and marketing. As Facebook has come to dominate the social networking site
arena, more libraries have created their own library pages on Facebook to create library awareness and to function as a
marketing tool. This has spurred a large amount of how-to articles about the uses for Facebook in libraries as well as
research about how librarians and libraries use Facebook. This paper examines reported versus actual use of Facebook in
libraries to identify discrepancies between intended goals and actual use. The results of the 2009 study by Hendrix,
Chiarella, Hasman, Murphy and Zafron, about the use of Facebook in libraries, is used as a guide to gauge the perceived and
actual uses for Facebook in this study.


--Libpunk Mentorship
- http://lisnews.org/node/35915/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 7:33 AM
-Read 288 times - 0 Comments
Libpunk Mentorship Sarah Glassmeyer: "here is a compilation some of the best advice I’ve been offered by mentors through my
life – from high school through law school to present day." 1) Own Your Stuff 2) It's Okay to Say "No" 3) It's Okay to Cry 
4) Fake it Until You Make It 5) Forget'em if They Can’t Take a Joke


--Instantly online-17 golden rules for mobile social networks 
- http://lisnews.org/node/35914/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Thursday February 11th at 7:32 AM
-Read 237 times - 0 Comments
Instantly online-17 golden rules for mobile social networks  Instantly online-17 golden rules to combat online risks and
for safer surfing mobile social networks The EU ‘cyber security’ Agency - ENISA (the European Network and Information
Security Agency) today presents a new report on accessing social networks over mobile phones, ‘Online as soon as it
happens“. The report points out the risks and threats of mobile social networking services, e.g. identity theft, corporate
data leakage and reputation risks of mobile social networks. The report also gives 17 ‘golden rules’ on how to combat these
threats.  




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