October 1999: Like Belle, Librarians Do a Little of Everything

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May 2007: Gardening with the Department of Agriculture

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October 2008: The Architecture of the Capitol

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March 2011: Gardening with the Department of Agriculture

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Stop the Presses!

Last month a new study commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) issued one of those “Duh!” reports. The new study (available here http://www. bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf) found that the “Google Generation,” or those brought up by computer wolves, is not very Web-literate.

Golden Apples of Deceit

Do you recall the myth about the Golden Apples of Deceit? It seems instructive to me during these trying, tense technological times. Atalanta had been warned by the god Apollo that she would lose herself if ever she married so she determined not to.

Library Permanently Closed: See Google

magine if you will the near perfect statefunded program. Yes, I know, such words sound like an oxymoron, given the track record of both state and federally-funded programs, past, present and undoubtedly in the future. Indeed, such words sound almost mythological in light of recent attempts by the federal government to spend us out of the current recession with still doubtful results (so far, a record deficit). Yet, you’re an imaginative individual and can put aside petty political persiflage and visualize such a program. Not only does this program do precisely what it said it would do, it does it so surprisingly well that, as a taxpayer, you’re completely astonished and whole-heartedly impressed.

The Future of the Book: Does It Have One?

While the book has been with us for two millennia, digital artifact threaten its permanence. Now we being to wonder if it has a future at all.

Here Lies The Book, R.I.P.: The Report of Its Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The declaration that print books are dead may have been premature.

What Do Academic Library Deans Do?

A recent discussion apropos of nothing set me to a thought-experiment: what is it deans of library services (or, as it often the case when I’m introduced, deans of library sciences) do? If one were to write up a short list of some of the most important general attributes of an effective dean, what would they be?

Vertigo, and a Void

Why the Internet is no substitute for a library.

Bordering on Disaster?

Borders, the bookstore, provides us with an instructive case study regarding our collective futures. While Amazon and Barnes & Noble made changes that both streamlined and changed their services, Borders followed the “business as usual” model. That led to Chapter 11, the closing of nearly a third of their stores, and a complete restructuring of all that’s left. Not many industry analysts think even this will be enough to keep the company afloat.

“The True University of these Days Is a Collection of …” eBooks?!

We do live in interesting times, don’t we? This is especially true of those of us who spend most of our working lives in libraries. The last ten years have been so filled with change that it’s almost become a byword: if you don’t like something, just wait a few hours and it will change. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation.

Study of copper complexes absorbed on a silica gel surface chemically modified with 5-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-thiol

The isotherms of adsorption of CuX2 (XCl-, Br-, ClO4-) by silica gel chemically modified with 5-amino-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-thiol were studied in acetone and ethanol solutions, at 25 degrees C. The following equilibria constants (in L mol(-1)) were determined: (a) CuCl2, 3.2 x 10(3) (ac), 2.5 x 10(3) (eth); (b) CuBr2, 2.9 x 10(3) (ac), 2.3 x 10(3) (eth); (c) Cu(ClO4)(2), 1.8 x 10(3) (ac), 1.2 x 10(3) (eth); ac, acetone; eth, ethanol. The electron spin resonance spectra of the surface complexes indicated a tetragonal-distorted structure in the case of lower degrees of metal loading on the chemically modified surface. The d-d electronic transition spectra showed that for the ClO4- complex, the peak of absorption did not change for any degree of metal loading and for Cl- and Br- complexes, the peak maxima shifted to higher energy with lower metal loadings. (C) 1998 Academic Press.

Study of the growth process of in situ polyaniline deposited films

Polyaniline (PAni) thin films were deposited onto BK7 glass substrates using the in situ deposition technique. The control of the time and the aniline concentration in the PAni polymerization reaction on the film deposition allowed us to prepare films with different thickness, down to similar to 25 nm. The film growth process was monitored by measuring the UV-vis spectra and the AFM height profiles of the film surface. The curves of adsorption kinetics were analyzed with the Avrami's model, yielding an exponent it n = 3, thus indicating nucleation of spheroids at the initial stages of polymerization that grow through a diffusion process. AFM images of the surface height profiles corroborate this hypothesis, with spheroids growing with no preferred orientation during the in situ deposition. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.