King of Pop Passes on...

The iconic King of Pop Michael Jackson passed away yesterday June 25. He was a phenomenal and influential figure in my early years as an ardent listener of pop music. I sang along with all the songs in the mega album Thriller and stayed glued to my television set whenever one of his music videos aired. I would like to express my condolences to the Jackson family. May his music and legacy live on ...

Three new search engines on the horizon

WolframAlpha - described as a computational knowledge engine. Enter your question or calculation,and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the answer.

Google Squared is an experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, similar to a spreadsheet. If you search for [roller coasters], Google Squared builds a square with rows for each of several specific roller coasters and columns for corresponding facts, such as image, height and maximum speed.

Microsoft Bing - Bing makes an extra effort to help searchers with some targeted topics such as shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research which have been identified as areas in which people wanted more assistance from a search engine in making key decisions.

ACURIL 2009

I attended the ACURIL (Association of Caribbean University Research and Institutional Libraries) annual Conference which was held June 1-5 in Guadeloupe. This provided an excellent opportunity to network with my colleagues from the English, Dutch, French and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands.

They were very receptive to my ideas outlined in my presentation Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0 - Innovative Services for Sustainable Caribbean Libraries.

Click here for the Powerpoint presentation

Click here for the Conference paper which includes examples of Libraries using Web 2.0 technologies and a list of free Web 2.0 resources on the Internet

Podcast interview with Sarah Long on the book Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century

My colleague Shamin Renwick and I talked to Sarah Long (Director of the North Suburban Library System) about our book Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century: Changes, Challenges, and Choices. Sarah's podcast, "Longshots,explores the world of libraries through interviews with key library figures and commentary on issues that matter to libraries.

Click here to listen to the podcast