rmcdonal's blog

Today marks the entry of Amazon's Cloudfront Beta. This new service brings cloud computing to the masses see - http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront

I am currently in a great session on virtualized server environments presented by a panel from Baylor University. If you are looking for a session please come by W230CD in OCCC.

Yesterday the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) announced the HathiTrust project. This project is a large-scale shared digital preservation program that includes all of the CIC Libraries as well as the libraries of the University of California System (California Digital Library) and has currently two replicated nodes at Indiana University and at the University of Michigan. The press release for the HathiTrust can be found at http://www.hathitrust.org/press. Further press on the trust program can be found in the Chronicle at http://chronicle.com/free/2008/10/5061n.htm

Components of the HathiTrust will be discussed at the upcoming Educause Annual Conference in Orlando. For more on that session please see -

http://net.educause.edu/E08/Program/14627?PRODUCT_CODE=E08/SESS004

If you have not seen Aza Raskin's video blog entry on the new Firefox Ubiquity tool then you should check it out. Could do more for the basic Web since Netscape.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

I am posting this position because I think it is such an interesting approach to data management from one of the largest academic data repositories.

Is anyone using Leximancer as a knowledge management or data mining tool in their org? And if so how are you using it?

http://www.leximancer.com/

Today is the last day for advance registration for an upcoming pre-conference that I am doing with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the Texas Advanced Computer Center. See registration link and details below.

Today's (Feb 11, 2008 9am - 5pm) PREMIS Metadata Tutorial being held at the University of California, San Diego will be broadcast with live audio via skypecast. To join this skypecast go to https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=3841334

To find out more about the tutorial please see - http://chronopolis.sdsc.edu/premis.html

If you want to follow along with the course materials you can go to

http://pigpen.lib.uchicago.edu:8888/pigpen/41

You will need to log in:

username: linus

password: lucy

NISO is sponsoring a forum on digital preservation titled Digital Preservation Forum: Planning Today for Tomorrow’s Resources. It is a very interesting agenda see http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/digpres08/agenda.html

The Oregon State University / Code4lib Gender Diversity Scholarship will provide up to $1000 to cover travel costs and conference fees for one qualified attendee to the 2008 Code4lib conference (February 25-28 in Portland, OR). This scholarship is eligible to any woman interested in actively contributing to the mission and goals of the Code4lib Conference.

For more information please see:
http://code4lib.org/node/208

February 11, 2008, 9:00-5:30

UC San Diego Geisel Library, Seuss Room, UCSD, La Jolla, CA

The UC San Diego Libraries, the California Digital Library, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the PREMIS Editorial Committee are sponsoring a tutorial on the PREMIS Data Dictionary Feb. 11, 2008 at the UC San Diego Geisel Library on the UCSD campus in La Jolla, CA.

The MetaArchive Cooperative has established a new mailing list for discussion of distributed/federated digital preservation issues and strategies. This list will work toward building cross-community relationships for a variety of federated digital preservation organizations.

I put this up earlier today and the list was not quite ready for subscription.

However, you can now subscribe at:
http://listserv.emory.edu/wa.exe?SUBED1=distributed-preservation-l&A=1

Just heard about an interesting pre-conference at the American Library Association's midwinter meeting in Philadelphia, PA. It will be a two day course (January 10-11, 2008) on user-centered design by Brenda Reeb from the University of Rochester. Should be a good beginning and intermediate introduction to the processes that have culminated in the open-access monograph that Rochester has recently produced, Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester.

For more info see: http://litablog.org/2007/11/13/lita-workshops-at-2008-ala-midwinter-meeting/

At this year's Educause Annual Conference there were a variety of sessions on millennials. I thought I would list them all here for those interested in this topic. I may have missed a few, if so let me know.

McDonald, Sweeney, Thomas, Walters www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/SESS047

Deturck, Griscom www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/SESS019

Somerville www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/SESS061

Donald, Hardin www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/SESS098

Campbell www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/CI15