“If only we’d chosen 1944-12-02 08:45:52 as the Unix epoch, we could’ve combined two doomsday scenarios into one and added a really boring scene to that Roland Emmerich movie.”

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

I’m intrigued by the mandatory deposit/archive policy by some institutions and making it open access.  I wonder whether:

1. those deposited papers can now be considered as schorlarly
2. other researchers can cite them (rather than citing the journal article)

Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) invited about 25 individuals on February 2008 and had discussion with topic “How should we be rethinking the research library in a swiftly changing information landscape?”  It then published a report in August 2008 titled No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century.

This report contains “…a series of provocative essays, the proceedings of a lively and informed symposium earlier this year in Washington, and a set of recommendations extrapolated from both. While several of the subject headings are familiar—scholarly communication, peer review, preservation of data, and e-science—the conclusions and recommendations are not. The consensus derived from these efforts was unambiguous in calling for more aggressive intervention to better structure and manage the challenges we face.”

The report comes in two version: HTML and PDF (81 pages).  The first part contains the summary of the meeting and the recommendations, which you can read at http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub142/part1.html

I am very interested in the recommendation no.4, “Institutions need to support environments, within and external to libraries, that not only promote but demand change. More funds should be allocated for experimental projects and new approaches; staff with nontraditional or new areas of expertise must be hired.”  It fits nicely with my thinking that we need more staff to do research and development.  Yeah, any opinion/suggestion/conclusion that match with my opinion is always a good opinion/suggestion/conclusion. ;-)   The reality is, of course, no library should hire staff with nontraditional or new areas of expertise unless it is ready to support such staff (human resource and working infrastructure.)

I also support the recommendation no. 8, “Institutions should use studio and design experiences as the basis of a new library school curriculum. Students of library and information sciences should learn to participate in the design and delivery of information resources that serve the scholarly community. Academic librarians should be engaged in the process through project provision and supervision.”

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16559171

bears.etsy.com Mac Monkey

It’s either this (ranti):

or this (ranti junus):

So, I received an email from acm.org:

Congratulations on your 10th Anniversary as an ACM Professional Member! 

In recognition of that milestone, you will be receiving a complimentary gift from ACM, a 1GB USB flash drive pre-loaded with the 50th anniversary issue of “Communications of the ACM” magazine in its entirety. The issue features the memories, thoughts, and concerns of leading contributors and prominent voices in computing about the next important trends likely to emerge.

Thank you for your membership, and we hope you enjoy your gift. Your ongoing support is vital to the important work that ACM does to advance computing as a science and a profession. 

Thunderbird is nice, but Evolution also allows me to access my calendar on the Outlook Server.

I’m switching.

On one of the mailing list that I manage, I just received an interesting call for panel speakers announcement from SIG/CON (Coterminous Operation of neo-Nodes).

SIG-CON — Call for Panel Speakers

ASIST Annual Meeting
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
8:00 ? 9:00 pm
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Columbus, Ohio
United States of America
Third Rock from the Sun
25,000 Light Years from the Galactic Center

Introduction
SIG/CON is an award-winning Special Interest Group of the
American Society for Information Science & Technology. The
function of SIG/CON is to “explore the fundamental notions
of information science, and expose them for what they are”
(C.D. Batty, Remarks at SIG/CON, 1987).

SIG/CON has been in the forefront of research across all
areas of study, although the group is perhaps best known
for advancing the theories of baloonean logic and titular
colonicity. The roster of distinguished information
scientists who have made public (with startling and
refreshing lucidity) their research findings at SIG/CON
represent the diversity of national and international
institutions associated with this field.

Further information on this important Special Interest
Group can be found at:
http://web.simmons.edu/~schwartz/con/sig-con.html

Speaker Proposals
Proposals should reflect current research, or prospective
research. Originality is important, but creative
presentation styles are much more important. The proposal
should be three pages in length, single spaced, 12 point
Times New Roman font, with 0.75 inch margins, no footers or
headers, and headings of 14 point, Arial Black. You may use
blank pages in order to reach the three page required
length. Two pages is unacceptable, as are four or five
pages?the number is three.

The proposal should address one of these Panel Session
Themes:
- Information Seeking Behavior Models of the Dead and
Semi-Dead
- Taxonomies and Ontologies for non-Homo sapiens Species
- Alternate-Reality Historical Analyses of Information
Science
- Frustration-Affective Relevance Feedback for Web 3.0 IR
Systems

If you don?t like any of the themes listed above, please
feel free to suggest one of your own.

Proposal Due Date: Friday, 12th September 2008

Notification of acceptance will occur at the whim of the
session Chair?hopefully within a week, but you never know.
Feel free to bug him if you don?t hear back in a reasonable
amount of time. Potential speakers who annoy the Chair
increase their chance of acceptance.

Please email your proposal to:
Michael Leach
mrleach@fas.harvard.edu
or
leach@simmons.edu

Faxed or snail-mailed proposals will not be accepted.
Should you go ahead and send your proposal by any of these
methods, my 9 year old daughter will turn them into origami
animals.

Questions, comments, suggestions, complaints and other
useless communications can be addressed to the same email
addresses listed above.

Final Note
This is a real Call for Speakers, notwithstanding the
content of this Call. If you?ve attended a SIG-CON session
in the past, you have great understanding of the
intricacies of this Universe in which we inhabit. If you
have never attended a SIG-CON session, you have my
sympathies?and I invite you to attend this year.

Sincerely,
Michael Leach
Chair, SIG-CON
Past President, ASIST
Adjunct Faculty, Simmons College GSLIS
Head of Collection Development, Cabot Science Library,
Harvard University