Interviews

Audio Interview With John Blyberg Creator Of SOPAC The Social OPAC

Blake — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:31:18 -0400

If you don't know about the Social OPAC application suite--an open source social discovery platform for bibliographic data, you're really missing out. SOPAC (Social Online Public Access Catalog) is a Drupal module that provides true integration of your library catalog system with the power of the Drupal content management system while allowing users to tag, rate, and review your holdings. User input is then incorporated into the discovery index so that SOPAC becomes a truly community-driven catalog system.
I Talked With John about SOPAC, and how it's used. (note: the recording got a bit messy, our voices end up overlapping towards the end of the recording).
Some of the other features of SOPAC include:
* Faceted browsing
* Ajax-empowered interface with native jQuery support
* 100% customizable interface via the Drupal template system
* Ability to remove search limiters
* Saved searches
* Integrated renewals, holds placement, and fine payment
* Ability to customize the user experience via the administrative control panel
* Ability to create custom functionality via a Drupal sub-module

Judy Blume speaks to BBC

StephenK — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:23:17 -0400

American author Judy Blume recently spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation and that interview wound up in their compilation podcast known as Global Arts and Entertainment. The time marker for the start to the interview is 22:08. Blume spoke about issues ranging from book challenges to the present presidential election contest and motivations behind writing.

The website for the podcast is available at the BBC's podcast portal. As the BBC World Service has not broadcast any shortwave signals to North America and the Pacific since the summer of 2001, this is a way to access such without a subscription to satellite radio. Some NPR stations carry parts of BBC World Service programming as can be seen here. Online streams are also available.

Jimmy Wales Interview on Open Licenses

zzshupinga — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:16:20 -0400

Ellyssa Kroski, who writes at iLibrarian, also teaches a class at San Jose State University on the Open Movement and Libraries (Fall of 2008). As part of the class shes has done interviews with such notable figures as Stephen Downes of the National Research Council in Canada, and Nicole Engard of LibLime. Her guest a couple weeks ago was Jimmy Wales. You can hear the full 10 minutes interview with Jimmy Wales here.

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #36

StephenK — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:06:45 -0400

This week's episode features an interview with new media strategist Tommy Vallier talking about Google Chrome, an installment of Tech for Techies discussing how to build a telephone bridge for recording interviews, and a commentary.

Librarian Interviews Amazingly Cool Open Source Guy, Now Online

shoe — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:15:14 -0400

I wasn't sure if this was going to come to pass, but it does appear that my interview with Mark Shuttleworth is now available online. I knew they put some content up, but had no idea how exactly they determined what content went where.

So why do I keep belaboring that interview here? Because Mark Shuttleworth is cool, and I think that there are a few things in the interview that librarians (and educators) might find interesting. Hold on to your hats, non-techie types... Not only do we never talk directly about Ubuntu, but we don't talk a whole lot about really overtly horribly bloody tech stuff in general.

For those who do love the tech stuff (there have to be a few of you, still, right?), I've launched into a podcast adventure with Lisa Hoover (of various tech media outlets) that can be found here if you're interested. Please note that we're librarians and writers, we're located at different ends of the eastern seaboard, and between Skype, my way too sensitive mic, and our inexperience with manhandling audio (this being our first podcast), it's a little rougher sounding this week than it will be next. We hope.

LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #28

StephenK — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:02:47 -0400

This week's episode is different from the usual fare. The thread holding this together is: "Authors You Didn't Hear at ALA Annual 2008". Authors David Weber and Piers Anthony were interviewed this week. Interviews ranged from talking about their works to how they view libraries to the future of books. The interview with David Weber is being presented in two parts with the remaining portion to air on a future episode. Both authors raised unique points when it comes to determining authorial intent relative to exposing children to their own works that might be otherwise objectionable.

A link is presented below for the Baen Free Library. That site is one where there are complete works available for reading without digital rights management software issues. Works by David Weber and others appear in that collection.

I got to interview Mark Shuttleworth

shoe — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:18:21 -0400

Yeah, no kidding, that Mark Shuttleworth. The interview will be in the July 2008 issue of Linux Magazine. Not sure how many libraries subscribe... Serials budgets being what they are, and there's that little issue we always had with niche magazines either getting totally forgotten about and ignored or stolen.

The magazine is also usually found at larger booksellers... Barnes and Noble, Borders, blah blah. Usually the current issue hits the shelves about a month beforehand. So it seems it'll be a first or second week of June roll out, if you should want to check it out.

I wouldn't have given it so much of a shout-out here, but because I am such a freakin' geek... There was a lot of stuff that Mark talked about that I thought a few of you might be interested in. Aside from that fact he's a really cool guy.

Charlie Brown and his authenticity

zzshupinga — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:57:10 -0400

Everyone loves Charlie Brown worldwide. Take a listen to this NPR weekend edition on just why people have fallen in love with lovable hero.

Librarian Idol in the news again

ADHD_librarian — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:32:23 -0400

Many of you no doubt already know Andrew Finegan of Librarian Idol fame. I can however say “I knew him before he was famous” or words to that effect. So while I wouldn’t usually be spruiking the competition (librarians who want to be comedians aren’t exactly highly called for) none the less I loved this piece in The Age about his Melbourne shows.
While it is ostensibly about his cabaret style performance, as someone who has recently moved out of the Public Library system (but still feels passionately about its raison d'etre) his quotes really ring true and it is very nice to know that Andrew has managed to present these thoughts to a wider audience.

"There's a big difference between academia and the real world. In theory, you're the repository of all this important professional knowledge, and a major aspect of librarianship is information literacy. Then you get into a library and realise that people just want to argue about their fines and internet access."

"Also, libraries attract a lot of people who can't read. It's actually a credit to public libraries that even the homeless and loonies feel comfortable. They aren't moved on but it makes you question your existence sometimes."

Read the whole piece.

PopMatters Interviews Librarian/Author, Scott Douglas

Anonymous Patron — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:15:05 -0400

PopMatters has an interview and review of Scott Douglas and his memoir "Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian."