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Free access to all Gale products during National Library Week

See this announcment on the Gale site. Free access will run from April 10 to April 16.

MindManager

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been preparing for a mid-term exam in my course in Russian history this week. As I've been creating outlines of my lecture notes, I've been using MindManager to help me display visually some of the more complicated material. I've just put together a really great chart that shows the three main groups of opposition to the autocracy in the late 1900s1800s (the liberals, the marxists, and the populists) and notable members of each group (e.g., the populists included Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin, and the Land and Freedom party).

I've been enjoying a free trial of MindManager; now I think I'll go ahead and purchase it. I can imagine many uses for it in library workshops and course-related lectures that I teach where I want to use visuals to explain the interrelationships between related things (such as a chart displaying what peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, and trade journals have in common).

If you take a look at the website for MindManager, you can see examples of the kinds of charts you can create with this software.

Wizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger

I wish the blogging software I use had a built in trackback feature. It doesn't, but I just found the Wizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger, which allows those of us without trackback to look we have got it. Don't know what the hell I am talking about? I didn't either until I read this nice explanation of trackback about five minutes ago.

School libraries now turning to chat reference

Sarah Houghton alerted readers of her blog today that she has recently written a nice introductory piece for school librarians thinking about offering chat reference services.

An early adopter of SMS reference

A while back, I mentioned that there's a product out that allows libraries to manage a reference service based on SMS (user sends question via text messaging on their phones, a librarian replies using their e-mail program, the software then transforms the e-mail to a text message sent back to the user's phone). From a recent posting on Dig_Ref, I've learned that Southeastern Louisiana University is going to launch such a service. I'd love to hear how it goes.

Libraries at Penn State University switch to 24/7 Reference

Susan Ware at Pennsylvania State University e-mailed me to let me know the listing for the libraries there on my chat reference index needs to be updated. They are switching from Virtual Reference Toolkit to QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference. Our library here at Baruch College has been using 24/7 Reference for the past two years and has benefitted from it. I hope that Penn State joins our library in the chat reference cooperative that 24/7 Reference has been running for the past three or four years. Our users love being able to log in at all hours of the night.

Please note that due to the increasing complexity of my life (namely, becoming a father two years ago and starting a masters program in history at Hunter College shortly before my son's birth), I have given up trying to update the chat reference index at all. I am more than happy to post here on my blog any announcements from libraries about new chat services they are launching, ending, or modifying (such as switching software). Please contact me at webmaster at teachinglibrarian dot org with any such announcements.

Cheeky library flash movie

If you have fond memories of early 80s new wave music (e.g., Visage, Gary Numan, Ultravox, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, etc.) and you're a librarian or a fan of libraries, you might enjoy this cheeky, Flash-based video.

Speedy launch of chat reference service

I love what Bill Drew has done at the web site for the library at SUNY Morrisville College. Clicking the "Need Help? Talk to a Librarian" button launches AOL IM on your computer (if you've downloaded it) and opens a chat window addressed to the library's AOL IM account and with a message already typed in ("Can you help me") all set for the user to add to or modify. Talk about a speedy launch of chat service! One click (from the home page, no less) and you've got a chat window up on your computer. Nice job!

More wishes for reference

There are two more items I'd like to my reference wish list, both of which fall under the section related to chat reference software:

• RSS feeds (for the administrator only) of all new chat sessions (right now, I have to log in to a web page and run a report whenever I want to see chat sessions from a given day)
  
• software that is not affected by any authentication systems we might use (we had to turn off EZ Proxy from authenticating users before they could launch chats, as it was interfering with the co-browsing software)
  

NYPL Digital Gallery

Thanks to Jeffrey Zeldman for alerting me that the NYPL has just launched its new Digital Gallery today. Now go get lost (in it).

Update on 24/7 Reference/QuestionPoint merger

A few weeks ago, a number of virtual meetings were held to allow members of the QuestionPoint/24/7 Reference community to get caught up on the merger process. You can now listen online to these meetings.