This week’s 4cast:
1. Some Things About LibraryThing
LibraryThing, the popular social network site built around people and their book collections, recently concluded that their users are tagging books at a rate 10 times greater than on Amazon. LT continues to add nifty tools (like UnSuggester, which recommends books to you based on ones you dislike) and is sort of becoming THE online destination for book lovers.
- When tags work and when they don’t: Amazon and LibraryThing (Thing-ology)
- Comparing LibraryThing and Amazon’s Tags (O’Reilly Radar)
- Using LibraryThing in a Library (BiblioTech Web)
- Find books you like with books you don’t (Lifehacker)
2. Google Gets All Up in Microsoft’s Face
Last week, Google officially stepped into the business productivity software arena with the introduction of Google Apps Premier Edition. The new package includes everything from e-mail and calendar software to basic document and spreadsheet capabilities, all housed online instead of on local machines, and at a significantly cheaper cost. Should libraries make the switch?
- A Google Package Challenges Microsoft (New York Times)
- It’s G-Day: Google Launches Apps Premier (TechCrunch)
- Google manager: Google Apps replaced Microsoft Office at 100,000 businesses (iTWire)
- Google Apps: Should You Switch? (Wired News)
3. Does the Information Superhighway Need More Lanes?
Although half of all households in the United States will have high-speed Internet service by the end of 2007, this rate is still lower than a lot of other countries. Some observers are beginning to worry that the increasing popularity of bandwidth-intensive websites and online activities could create an Internet capacity crisis in the near future.
- Study: 2007 to Bring Broadband to 50% of All US Homes (CrunchGear)
- When It Comes To Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow The Leader (InformationWeek)
- Bandwidth hogs exist, but the light users are key, says report (Ars Technica)
- Videos have Net bursting at the seams (Chicago Tribune)
4. Opening Up the Library of Congress
Following in the footsteps of WPopac, Simon Spero has methodically queried almost all of the Library of Congress authority records, assembled them in MarcXML, and made them freely available. This is big news for library catalogers and others who want to make library data more accessible.
- Fred 2.0 (PDF announcement)
- Library of Congress Authority Files, Open! (Thingology)
- LoC Authority files, yours to keep! (librarian.net)
- OPAC Sesame! (the goblin the library)
