Tuesday, October 28, 2003

I've found an interesting database via a link in the "Education Librarian Weblog": the "Science Fiction & Fantasy Book List". It is "a comprehensive bibliography of science-fiction and fantasy authors and their books" and is updated monthly.

Monday, October 20, 2003

There was an interesting case of bibliomania in Germany I read about in the Salzburger Nachrichten, in the mailinglist Inetbib and in Yahoo News: Because of an alleged pipe burst, the fire brigades opened a flat in Kaiserslauten. But they had troubles with entering, because the whole apartment, including the bathroom, was crowded with books up to the ceiling. Only to the kitchen which seemingly also served as bedroom, a small passage was left void. As the building was acutely impending to collapse, the fire brigades and the police had to remove several tons (!) of books and store them temporarily in a depot. When the owner came home in his also crowded car, he suffered a nervous break-down and had to be supervised by a psychologist, as he couldn't bear the evacuation of his beloved books.
Apropos: You can read an article in the magazine "Spiegel" about the "Messie-Syndrome" or Eugene Fields "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac" online at the University of Virginia Library's Electronic Text Center.
ePSIGate is building up a database on national legal frameworks for the exploitation of Public Sector Information in the EU member states. ePSIGate, an Accompanying Measure funded under the EU eContent programme, is a portal whose objective is knowledge-sharing, alerting & advisory service targeted to the needs of all PSI stakeholders. There is a conference and a workshop named "Commercial exploitation of public sector information (PSI) in order to boost the private content- and multimedia sector" in Vienna on the 24th of October, 2003.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Nominations for the "Library Journal Librarian of the Year" are currently sought by the Library Journal Editors, "to honor a professional librarian for outstanding achievement and accomplishments reflecting the loftiest service goals of the library profession". I remember other rankings & ratings, for example the "Internet librarian Hall of Fame".
Ifyou want to read other library-related weblogs, have a look at the LIBDEX overview. There is just one Austrian library blog listed, namely the one of Horst Prillinger, a librarian at Vienna University. His blog is named "The Aardvark speaks".

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Some of Murphy's Library Laws (found within the humour section on the IFLA website):
- When a teacher recommends a library book to a student, you can be certain that the teacher has checked out the only copy and has lent it to a friend in Peru
- Make 17 subject headings for a book and you will find that you should have made 18
- If it's a good book, it's out of stock. If it's an excellent book, it's out of print
- If you made the system foolproof you discover that everybody has suddenly become geniuses
- No matter how long you keep an article or piece of information you will never need it till you throw it away
- Students always require a 400 word article for a 500 word essay

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Attention, advertisement: My best friend Barbara Mayer, a trained kindergarten teacher, offers something called "Bilderbuchkino" (~ picture-book cinema) to children who are between three and eight years old. What is that? The pictures of the book are projected on the wall, and the story is read to the children, who are thus able to see details in the pictures and are fascinated by the huge projection. It is a nice idea to have for birthday parties, kindergarten, public libraries... If you are interested, please have a look at her website and contact her for details.