Current Cites for Dec. 2018

 Current Cites for Dec. 2018 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about a library research project where the investigators decided to scrap everything and go back to the drawing board. Highly unusual (at least for published accounts).

Grandfather's Diary Entry (Berlin, 1917)

Grandfather Leopold Klein, born in Chicago but too sick to leave Berlin at the U.S. entry into WWI, wrote in his diary:

"This 'World War' must end soon. When it does come to an end, the principles of justice, mercy and, above all, reason - which dictates all the rest - must guide the nations concerned in the establishment of peace. Otherwise, these nations will only lay the foundation for later, and greater, world conflict.... If a true peace is not made when the shooting stops, the result may be a truly worldwide conflict - thrusting its horror to the four corners of the earth, a World War which will be the greatest catastrophe humanity has yet experienced." (Berlin, 1917) 

Current Cites for Oct. 2018

Current Cites for Oct. 2018 is out! You can find the issue here...

I recommended an article on a new initiative from Europe promoting open access journals. Given the high cost of research journals and databases, this kind of topic is always interesting. In fact, the original link to this article was forwarded by a colleague where I work.

Thank-You Present

 

Thank-you present from student after doing a research consultation. #RefDesk

First Saturday of the Year

 

First Saturday of the school year -- with Jim from Access Services!

Westlaw Edge Plus Raffle Winner

 

Had a great time at the Westlaw Edge (Thomson Reuters) demo today. Breakfast was good, the people were engaging, the presentation was informative. They ended things with raffles for an Amazon Echo, an Apple Watch and an Apple iPad. Guess who won the iPad :-)

Update: Going through some old equipment, I came upon this portable keyboard. How convenient!

Current Cites for June 2018

Current Cites for June 2018 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about an interesting usability study published in Journal of Web Librarianship measuring the effectiveness of library research guides. I guess the best take-away from the article might be, 'know your audience'. 

Today's Funny du Jour

 
[At the Salvation Army book section]: Not sure if the Chicago Manual of Style fits in with the other tour guides to Chicago. Will have to talk to Cataloging at the Salvation Army.

Make It Hard to Update Software? Guess What: Then People Won't

Ars Technical reports on the vulnerability of 115,000 Drupal websites to 'hacker takeovers'. This even though a software patch has been available for over 10 weeks.

All I can say is, I'm not surprised. I mean, updating Drupal software is not an easy thing. There is no link or button you can click on which gets the job done. Instead, the programmers have built a command-line interface using Drush (or whatever) thus coming up with a method which only a programmer would love. For this reason, when you go through comparisons of CMS's routinely making the rounds, 'easiness of updating' for Wordpress rates as 'easy' while for Drupal, it rates as 'difficult'.

"Difficult"? Is it any wonder then that an almost predictable result is a significant time lag before updating? This is not rocket science.

Current Cites for May 2018

 

Current Cites for May 2018 is out! You can find the issue here...

MIT Technology Review devoted its entire May/June issue to blockchain and cryptocurrency. It's something that's getting a whole lot of press so if ever there was a opportunity to actually read anything on it, this is it.

Mentioned in Book

 I see I was mentioned in a book (link). The book's title (translated) is "Spirited Resistance from the Outside: Austrians in US Propaganda Units in WWII", written by Florian Traussnig (source). Mention of me comes from a blog post I wrote a few years ago where I discussed my father's role in the allied broadcast program called ABSIE. Interesting. Daddy is mentioned often in write-ups like this; first time however that I ever saw a reference to me.

Google Redefines Email (& Your Rights) :-(

So Google comes out with a number of changes to its Gmail service including "Confidential Mode". As XDA-Developers explains:

"A new Confidential Mode allows you to remove the option for the recipient to forward, copy, download, or print an email. You can also make the email expire after a set period of time."

Huh? Email that someone sends you that self-destructs? Anyone see a problem here? (Ripe for deception & fraud, lack of privacy on the part of the recipient, etc.) Hello, Google, but if someone sends me a message, it's me who decides what to do with it -- not you. 

Interesting Front Page from today's Chicago Sun-Times

 

Interesting front page from today's Chicago Sun-Times. (And yes, I subscribe to their 'digital' edition.) More info here...

Opening Day T-minus-1

Waiting for that $10 ticket... (Update: Game delayed a day due to inclement weather.)

50 Years of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL)

Congrads on 50 yrs to the LITA Journal ITAL (more here)! The 50th anniversary issue includes a short review of tech articles from the 1960s as well as two pieces on (what else?) present-day social media [1], [2].

UPDATE (4/1/2018): I listed the articles as well as the issue on this month's Current Cites.

Current Cites for February 2018

 Current Cites for February 2018 is out! You can find the issue here...

Being involved with Citation management at DPU, I found an interesting study which actually polled faculty as to what system they use. Although the response rate wasn't great, it is a good example -- at least a beginning -- for evaluating reality in these services.

Featured on Good Day DePaul (1/24)

 

A few thoughts on Net Neutrality featured in the student news program 'Good Day DePaul'. My part begins at 8:13:  https://player.vimeo.com/video/252359196#t=493s

1st Saturday of 2018

 #RefDesk: 1st Saturday of 2018! Cold outside so IM was chugging away.

2018 -- So much better than 1918

Some things are just so obvious.