John Mark Ockerbloom
Blog Posts
Changing the subject(s)
--When I implemented subject maps for browsing the Online Books Page by subject a while back, I had a big problem to face: I didn’t actually ha...
Celebrating freedom, in various ways
--This week marks both the anniversary of Canadian confederation (Canada Day, July 1), and the anniversary of American independence (Independence D...
Repositories: What they are, and what we use them for
--(Note: This is the second of an ongoing series of posts on repositories. The first post is here.) The JISC Repositories Support Project defines a d...
Now it’s official
--As I hoped, the good news was announced by Peter Brantley of the Digital Library Federation while I was away in Canada: the recommendations of the ...
A break, and coming attractions
--I’m about to head off to the wilds (okay, the farms) of Saskatchewan to relax with family on a much-welcomed break. I’ve got to the po...
100 years of the first sale doctrine
--On June 1, 1908, 100 years ago today, the US Supreme Court decided Bobbs-Merrill v. Straus, a case that established what would become known as the ...
Views of possible future architectures of cataloging
--PALINET convened a symposium today here in Philadelphia on the future of cataloging. There was a full turnout, with over 150 library professionals ...
An implementation of the DLF’s Basic Discovery Interfaces recommendation
--The DLF’s ILS-Discovery interface recommendation work, which I’ve been leading, continues. We’re now in the process of producing...
Everybody’s repositories (first of a series)
--The library where I work has decided to think long and hard about its digital repository strategy. Your library may be doing this too, or may have...
Acknowledging the public domain
--Many online publishers, particularly those that have been around for a while, now have large quantities of material that is in the public domain. ...
ILS-Discovery interoperation: New recommendation draft, last call for comments
--The new draft of the ILS-Discovery recommendations I mentioned in my last post is now out. You can download it, and read more about it, on our tas...
ILS-Discovery interoperation: It’s happening; more details coming soon
--As Peter Brantley, executive director of the Digital Library Federation, announced last week, we have an agreement with many of the developers and ...
Coursepack sharing: An idea whose time has come?
--For years, there’s been an uneasy truce between publishers and universities about the inclusion of copyrighted materials in universities̵...
Making your content findable
--The best library collections don’t do much good if people who may be interested in the content don’t find it. That’s why it̵...
Hurry, hurry! Free books, going fast! (And new site feature)
--Okay, it’s a trend: Feb. 9: Tor books launches their “Watch the Skies” program, where they send out free ebooks once a week to r...
The right to read, circa 1906
--For a few years in the early 1900s, some American book publishers came up with a brave new marketing paradigm. Instead of offering books for sale ...
Here, have some more Punch
--Punch was a British institution for well over a century. Founded in 1841, it was an irreverent weekly magazine of quips, cartoons, essays, stories...
We call dibs! (or, the genius of the Harvard mandate)
--The Harvard Arts and Sciences faculty recently approved a resolution giving the University permission to make their scholarly articles available to...
Improving the millions
--Michigan’s announcement earlier this month that they had over one million volumes from their collection digitized was widely hailed online. ...
And now, your turn to have a say in ILS interfaces…
--I’ve had my head down for the past couple of weeks for various reasons, but I’m happy to surface again and announce that the ILS discov...
Blowing the lid off the ILS (and the providers’ chance to have a say)
--It’s now hardly a secret that many large research libraries are increasingly chafing at their traditional integrated library systems (ILSs)....
