International and Comparative Librarianship

DEDICATED TO PIONEERS   INCLUDING:
S. R. Ranganathan, P. N. Kaula, R. N. Sharma, J. F. Harvey, D. J. Foskett, J. P. Danton, M. M. Jackson, etc.
This Blogosphere has a slant towards India [a.k.a Indica, Indo, South-Asian, Oriental, Bharat, Hindustan, Asian-Indian (not American Indian)].

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

A Visible Pathfinder for Increasing Blog Traffic in 2007

The wise learn from their own experiences but the truly intelligent will learn from someone else's!" - Benjamin Franklin.

My 2007 resolution for return-on-investments in blogging is to have a two-way traffic. The prescription is, please:
1. post a comment--aka, visual signature--in this blog on whatever subject (spam and phishing EXEMPTED)
2. turn on your blog comments' button; I will reciprocate not once, but every post that you create in 2007. This is my own idea of live and let live. I do reciprocate; my 2006 ledger shows Bloggers, such as, Sukhdev Singh, K. G. Schneider, Nancy White, Nirmala Palaniappan, David Tebbutt, Peachy Limpin, Thomas Brevik, Steven Edward Streight, Neil Patel, Diane Levin, and more.


PUNCHLINE: Increasing Blog traffic is a major concern, even for many Gurus [e.g., Adrian W Kingsley-Hughes' Three simple actions that doubled my website traffic in 30 days]
Previous post:
  • Visualizing Comments on Blogs
  • Visualizing Traffic At My Blog Via Mapping The Pathways
  • Blog As A Teaching Tool

    Idea courtesy: Bloggers Compose Their Yearly Ledgers, By Jeralyn; and How to Pay for Blog Comments, @ usability blog of John S. Rhodes; So what'd you get? by Ryan Block


    Technorati Tags: blog comments   2007 blog   blog traffic   2007 resolution   2007 blogging     popular bloggers   popular comments   top bloggers   Reward-program   return-on-investments

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  • Thursday, December 21, 2006

    Night of the living dead librarian - with malice towards none

    PS. This video is not created by me. I found it an interesting way to look at international librarianship (with librarians as animated characters, and includes, Dewey, Ranaganathan, et al..)

    Night of the living dead librarian
             Category: Comedy Shelf: History Aisle: Future



    Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (2006) have predicted that in year 2021 jobs like librarians won't be there any more. This small movie is a satire about how two librarians in year 2021 got their revenge over the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies with help from a Super Blogger Girl. ... From Kingrss, March 08, 2006
    See also: Zombies - what will be gone in 15 years? @ Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

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    Saturday, December 16, 2006

    The Ten Library Stories That Shaped 2006


    Another year, another few thousand stories on LISNews! Libraries make
    the news constantly, and after going through thousands of stories from
    around the world we've summarized the best, the most popular, the most
    controversial, and the most entertaining of 2006.

    10. New UCLA Slogan: "Get Tasered @ your library"
    9. Ding Dong, Gorman Tenure Ends
    8. Library Weblog Explosion, Redux
    7. EPA Library Closure
    6. Library 2.0 Meme
    5. More Elephants in the Room
    4. Censorship
    3. 'Net Neutrality
    2. P is for Privacy
    1. The James Frey Fallout

    Full story @ LISNews
    LISNews is a collaborative weblog [aka blog] devoted to current events and news in the world of Library and Information Science.

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    Sunday, December 10, 2006

    ‘Truthiness' named word of the year 2006



    The word — if one can call it that — best summed up 2006, according to an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster. ...

    “Though I'm no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honour me,” he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. Continue reading


  • Merriam-Webster Word of the Year for 2005: integrity
  • 'Blog' is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2004
  • See also 2003

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  • Monday, December 04, 2006

    Blind man sentenced to library course

    source image and news: Zee News Limited

    Istanbul, Dec 03: A blind Turkish pensioner has been sentenced to a 26-day reading and writing course at his local public library after he failed to vote on time in an election for his village cooperative, his son said Friday.

    A prosecutor in the province of Kutahya in northwest Turkey sentenced Ismail Canseven, 73, to the education course after he did not show up for the election of the cooperative's board of directors in May, Isa Canseven told.

    "What am I going to do in a library? I can't see out of either of my eyes, and I can't read or write anyway," Friday's edition of the Hurriyet newspaper quoted Ismail as saying.

    Isa Canseven, 42, said he would appeal against the sentence served on his father. "My father can only find the bathroom by holding on to a piece of string we've tied to the (bathroom) wall," he said.

    In Turkey, people are obliged by law to vote in elections.

    Bureau Report

    Information courtesy:
    David Dillard
    Temple University
    DIG_REF@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU

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    Friday, December 01, 2006

    GCU Library website wins competition - first prize among Pakistani Universities



    The official website of the GCU Library Lahore has won the first prize among Pakistani Universities and declared the BEST LIBRARY WEBSITE in the competition organized by the Elsevier Publishing in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission. It also acknowledged the services and facilities provided by the GCU Libraries for having promoted the use of digital resources among the students and teachers. It is worth mentioned that GC University Library has the honour to win an International Competition ever in the history of Librarianship of Pakistan.

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    Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values

    Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values
    Libraries must consider changes in both policy and technology to remain
    relevant to the next generation of students, By Robert H. McDonald and Chuck Thomas, EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY • Number 4 2006

    Perhaps libraries need to revisit their cultural roots and adjust their systems and services from this perspective. Almost a century ago, S. R. Ranganathan articulated five laws:
    ■ Books are for use
    ■ Every reader has her book
    ■ Every book has its reader
    ■ Save the time of the reader
    ■ A library is a growing organism3
    These laws echoed the historical, core values of libraries, including openness, accessibility, and sharing. Today, Ranganathan’s “books” are a metaphor for all information accessible through libraries. The library itself is part of a larger, growing, networked organism, yet individual research libraries still provide a printcentric approach to finding and using information. Our systems and policies reinforce the notion of only being able to access what any particular library owns. Additionally, the interfaces and capabilities of these tools are strikingly inferior for a generation accustomed to video games and sophisticated e-commerce services like Amazon or Google.

    Despite a few encouraging exceptions, such as RLG’s RedLightGreen Catalog interface and OCLC’s Open WorldCat, most libraries have been reluctant to embrace or provide new capabilities for users. Features such as personalization and recombination of information resources are pervasive in the external software and systems world, but libraries generally have not demonstrated the desire or intent to adopt these capabilities for users.

    Info. Courtesy:
    Dr. John Jaeger
    Doctoral Research and
    Reference Librarian
    Dallas Baptist University
    DIG_REF@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU

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