Tag Archives: reference

Redesigning the Reference course

Please spread this post far and wide (I ask of the 4 people who are reading this)… I’d like to get feedback on this from as many corners as possible. I’m one of the two faculty instructors for INLS 501, … Continue reading

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Expertise swell in Wikipedia?

At the 2002 VRD conference, my now-colleague Phil Edwards (at the time we were both still mere doctoral students) presented a paper titled: Characterization of Volunteer Expertise Within the Internet Public Library Reference Service. In that study he found what … Continue reading

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EB Widgets

‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ Is Now Free to Bloggers, from the Chronicle Wired Campus The Great EB has gone Web 2.0: first, they have a new blog. And second, they’ve developed a widget that enables access to a topically-defined set of resources … Continue reading

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Slam the Boards + Yahoo Answers = frustration for your humble narrator

On September 10 there was a sort of guerilla action digital reference event, called Slam the Boards. This was “a day-long answer fest” where reference librarians would answer as many questions as they could in one day, using authoritative resources. … Continue reading

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Digital. Reference. Work.

I got back from JCDL a few days ago, and I keep meaning to write a post about some impressions & observations from the conference. Maybe I’ll even get around to doing that. But the first observation I want to … Continue reading

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Yet another commercial, non-expert Ask service

I got this email today from Amazon: You’re Invited! As a valued Amazon customer, you’ve been specially picked to get an early look at a new website Amazon has just launched called Askville. Askville is a place where you can … Continue reading

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WikiReference

Thanks to Jason for pointing this out (and yes, I’m more than a little behind on reading my regular blogs): Wikipedia has a Reference Desk. Apparently The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk. Though without the librarians, … Continue reading

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Conversation with Gary Price

Gary Price posted an item to ResourceShelf recently about Fred & my new paper in RSR. And when he did, he emailed me to let me know he had, which I consider to be very good blog netiquette. He did … Continue reading

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Britannica Strikes Back

Back in December Nature conducted a study comparing Britannica & Wikipedia, and reported that they are about equal in accuracy & error rates. Now — better late than never — Britannica has issued a retort to that study. (I’d love … Continue reading

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A reference source for your inner obsessive-compulsive

A Book for People Who Love Numbers, from the NY Times The new edition of Historical Statistics of the United States. …it weighs 29 pounds. It has five volumes. And it’s densely packed with more than a million numbers that … Continue reading

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