If you haven’t yet seen the two cookbooks put out by MaintainIT, you should take a look. In addition to these resources, they have started a series of free, monthly, 30-minute webinars on topics pulled from the cookbooks.
The first was today, April 16th — Notes from a Laptop Circulation Program. It is archived, so you [...]
Excellent article on the things to consider while traveling with your laptop:
If you don’t have time to read it, here are the high points:
Keep it with you at all times
Use a cable lock if you have to leave it out – lock it to something permanent, not a table leg [...]
NISO has published a best practices document surrounding the implementation and maintenance of RFID use in US libraries (RP-6-2008). The recommendations include:
RFID tags should comply with the ALA/BISG Resolution on RFID Technology and Privacy Principles
Use 13.56 MHz High Frequency tags
Use passive tags, not active
Read range should not be substantially increased
Tags should use standardized AFI feature
AFI [...]
Google has created an open source environment for mobile phones — Android. Unlike the phone software currently in use, this software would be free for phone manufacturers and allow users more flexibility in loading the applications they want. Android includes:
Operating system based on Linux
Browser
Media support
GSM telephony
Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, WiFi
Camera, GPS, compass
Development environment
There are other features, [...]
This has been out for a while, but in case you missed it, here’s a shirt that shows you the strength of the nearest wifi connection — the WiFi Detector Shirt.
The animation on the shirt is removable and shows the signal strength for both 802.11b and 802.11g.
MaintainIT posted a checklist for wireless policies, courtesy of Louise Alcorn. In an earlier post, she states:
Policy is a good issue, though I think some libraries over-policy the wireless. If you have a good library computer/internet use policy and a good library conduct policy, you are largely covered. You need some wording changes for [...]
Nielsen Media Research issued their Top Ten Lists for 2007. Within it, they cited a study of the number of adults who read or contributed to a blog in a 30-day period of time. The top cities were:
Austin, TX: 15%
Portland, OR: 14%
San Francisco Bay area, CA: 13%
Seattle, WA: 13%
Honolulu, HI: 12%
San Diego, CA: [...]
The World Wide Web Consortium has renewed the work of the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group. Their charge is to . . . “produce guidelines, checklists and best practice statements to enable the reach of the Web to be easily extended onto mobile devices.” They have already published three documents:
Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 [...]
The Winnipeg Public Library is charging patrons for use of the wireless access to the Internet. There is no charge for access to the library resources like the catalog or databases. However, access to the Internet is $3 Canadian per hour. This is to help pay for the installation of the Internet, which was $23,000.
At [...]
The 2008 Olympics will be using Windows XP on most computers and will be using only wired connections.
Lenovo, a sponsor of the Games, wants to use reliable and stable technologies, e.g., Windows XP, for functionality that is critical. They will use Vista on PCs in the lounges for the athletes’ use. In addition, there will [...]
