Cuil is the new Lame

“Anybody who thought Cuil (pronounced “cool”) was this Google killer can really see now that no, that’s not going to happen today — and the likelihood is that’s not going to happen a year from now…”

read article

try cuil at www.cuil.com

Section 8 Housing Forms

People are coming in for these forms which we have at the Reference desk. The present “window” to apply runs until 11 August.

Let me know if we run low. We made some copies on blue paper, but we also ran some off on plain white.

LK

Medical Wikipedia due out by Year’s End

Seems everyone is jumping on the wikipedia bandwagon lately, and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.  The goal of Medpedia is to collaboratively build the living encyclopedia of health, medicine, and the body.  Physicians and biomedical Ph.D.s from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. are currently working behind the scenes, formatting and interlinking this content in preparation to open it up to all Editors by the end of 2008.

A preview is available now and if you enter an email address on the main page, you will be notified when the site goes live.

Printing at the Reference Desk

Just before closing time, I noticed that because Windows XP has been installed on the Reference Desk pcs, the default printer settings may be for COLOR FIERY (the color laser printer nearest Alan’s office).  The default printer SHOULD be HP Laserjet 2300dn.  The default can be changed by bringing up the printer dialogue box (use Ctrl-P or the FILE PRINT menu option).  This will reveal which printer is the default (look for the small check on the printer icon).  To change the default printer, right click on the proper printer icon (HP laserjet 2300dn) and choose the menu option for “SET AS DEFAULT PRINTER”.  If printing is a problem and these instructions didn’t work – i suggest consulting with any pc savvy person in the building

Jamie

Password creation is fixed!

PALS has told us that the changes made yesterday to the Staff WebOPAC have fixed the problem we were having with password creation on the public OPAC.  That means the only problems still pending are:

—the ability to freeze or cancel holds by patrons on the public OPAC

—the general slowness of the public OPAC

These problems still exist, and are being worked on.  When more information is available, I will share it.  -DH

Google launches Knol, Wikipedia competition

“What we want to get away from is ‘this last voice wins’ model which is very difficult if you are a busy professional,” DuPont said. Google wants to rank entries by popularity to encourage competition. For example, the first knol on “Type 1 Diabetes” is by Anne Peters, director of the University of Southern California’s Clinical Diabetes Programs. As other writers publish on diabetes, Google plans to rank related pages according to user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to specific pages, DuPont said.

Knol focuses on individual authors or groups of authors in contrast to Wikipedia’s subject entries, which are updated by users and edited behind the scenes. DuPont said that rather than competing with Wikipedia, Knol may end up serving as a primary source of authoritative information for use with Wikipedia articles.

http://knol.google.com/

Staff WebOPAC

There will be intermittent problems with the Staff WebOPAC today.  Innovative is making some changes to the server, so we may experience slowness, drops, no service, etc.  The patron OPAC will be functioning normally, so feel free to use the link from the home page instead.  I will let you know when normal service should resume.   Please do NOT contact anyone about these problems as we are already aware they will be occurring.  Thank you for your continued patience.  -DH

New Reference Challenge

What were the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union?   i.e. Armenia.

I know, I know. But we’re librarians, so correct spekking counts!

Good to go!

PALS has informed us that the problem with the bib locations and scoping have been fixed.  They were caused by human error, and thus should not recur.  Thank you for your patience. -D.

Scoping problems?!

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PALS is aware that all of the libraries are having problems with their catalogs not scoping properly.  They were attempting to correct a problem that occurred last night where some bib records did not scope properly and it has caused the scoping problem system-wide.  They are attempting to fix the problem as quickly as they are able.  When I have more information, I will let you know.