Library Blogs Buzz Weekly

There are some really interesting posts in the third week of 2012.

Google Launches Good to Know Campaign for Web Safety( ReadWriteWeb)
Good to Know, is the name of Google's latest campaign to educate users how to stay safe online, manage data and learn more about data on Google and on the Web.

Jerry Yang Quits Yahoo (Search Engine Watch)
It is never for good when a founder leave his company, but let's see where this will bring Yahoo from here on.

U.S. House of Representatives Launches Transparency Portal (INFOdocket)
"Making good on part of the House of Representative’s commitment to increase congressional transparency, today the House Clerk’s office launched http://docs.house.gov/, a one stop website where the public can access all House bills, amendments, resolutions for floor consideration, and conference reports in XML, as well as information on floor proceedings and more."

Apple Announces iBooks 2 (CNET Video)
The new iBooks2, launched by Apple last week promises to revolutionize text books and the learning experience for users by introducing multimedia. Take a look at the CNET video to see how it works.

New White Paper from Springer: “STM eBooks: Librarian Perspectives on the First 5 Years” ( INFOdocket)
In 2006 the popular publisher Springer decided to create its own e-book collection with the consultation of leading librarians, now the publisher brings out a free white paper, which emphasizes on best practices, implementation and future for e-books.

Google Maps Now Highlighting Borders Of Cities, Postal Codes & More(Search Engine Land)
Google Maps is now highlighting different borders as part of your search, including city and postal code.

Congrats to Luis Herrera, LJ’s 2012 Librarian of the Year ( Tame The Web)
From Library Journal: "Herrera is LJ’s 2012 Librarian of the Year because of his joyous spirit and infectious optimism about libraries and his willingness to communicate that optimism to all those involved, especially the citizens of San Francisco."

Innovations continue for 3M Cloud Library (Library Technology Guides)
3M is the only vendor that offers a complete platform for downloading digital content and e-books through 3M Cloud Library Apps (Android and iOs), 3M Discovery Terminals, 3M eReaders, and 3M Cloud, and simplifies the way users download materials by eliminating the need of Adobe ID, requiring only a valid library card number.

Encore Release 5 brings social networking capabilities to discovery platform (Library Technology Guides)
Encore, the one search discovery tool for libraries with Millennium ILS platforms is adding new social networking features: "like" ans share content on social networks, with the option to share personal website, reading lists and access reviews from other users.

Introducing discipline scoped searching and customizable search widgets for the Summon Service (Library Technology Guides)
"With Summon, librarians can now easily create, customize and embed discipline scoped search boxes and search widgets in any web environment—including research guides, course management pages, collaborative research portals and more—to provide users with the ability to search for highly relevant materials from a discipline focused setting."

This Is How You Defeat SOPA/PIPA: 7.5M People Sign Petitions, 40K Call Capitol Hill ( ReadWriteWeb)
The battle to stop SOPA/PIPAis is not over but it is encouraging when millions of users are against the bill, even nineteen senators who now oppose PIPA, "including seven who formerly co-sponsored the bill".

New OCLC WorldShare License Manager combines knowledge base with linking technology to offer new approach to electronic resource management (OCLC News)
From OCLC press release: "Built on the OCLC WorldShare Platform and WorldCat knowledge base, License Manager helps library staff more effectively manage the selection, purchase and availability of databases and e-resources. This new service consolidates link resolution, subscriptions, licenses, vendor information, access and rights management to enable Webscale management, discovery and delivery of licensed and electronic resources."

Yahoo is having problems lately, but it seems to me that it is not fair for Google and Microsoft to steel all the attention, so here is briefly what occurrs with the second most popular search engine.

Bloggers today are posting about Yahoo's decision to close one of its travel websites FareChase( seen here from Internet Archive) and redirect the site users to Yahoo Travel. TechCrunch has more info.

The service let customers perform comparative searches for pricing on flights, hotels, cruises and cars, but it was apparently not enough of a strategic product enhancement for Yahoo Travel, hence the company discontinuing it altogether to tighten its focus and cut costs in these difficult times.

A month ago Pandia Search Engine news blog discovered that Yahoo is testing a new feature called Search Pad, which allows users logged into Yahoo account to take notes.

“Our user studies show that people often use word-processing documents, sticky notes, emails, bookmarks (or a combination of the above) to record what they find on the Web. These methods can be quite cumbersome and require extra steps which are time-consuming and distracting.”

Search Pad is currently in testing, but you can take a look at this video to figure out how it works.