ProfDev 21/11/05

The value and quality of email at work
40% of office workers spend 0.5-3 hours reading poorly written e-mail

ProQuest puts 19th Century periodicals online
ProQuest Information and Learning has started a project to digitise nearly six million article pages from 19th century British periodicals.
(CILIP Information Services)

Minister encourages take up of e-services
A national campaign designed to raise public awareness and encourage take-up of council e-services has been announced by Local e-Government Minister Jim Fitzpatrick. The campaign will launch in early 2006 and will highlight the benefits of accessing council services online.
(CILIP Information Services)

Adult education class fees to double
Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, has announced that fees for millions of adults to study at further education (FE) colleges will double as government subsidies are withdrawn.
(CILIP Information Services)

Richard and Judy help waitress on to book prize list
Rachel Zadok, a graphic designer, has been nominated for the £25,000 Whitbread Book Awards, alongside such established writers as Nick Hornby, Salman Rushdie and Geraldine McCaughrean.

Police 'spy' on library suspects
Microsoft and the BL have formed a partnership to digitise 25 million pages of content from the library's collections.

Libraries urge clarity on terrorism criteria
Leading library bodies, including CILIP, SCONUL (the Society of College, National and University Libraries), and CURL (the Consortium of Research Libraries) have issued a
joint warning that librarians and researchers could be criminalised unless the Terrorism Bill currently before Parliament is amended. A spokesman for CILIP said: 'in view of the wide and uncertain definition of what may constitute a terrorist publication, librarians and their governing bodies or institutions would be at risk of prosecution as the clauses currently stand'. The article also refers to the advice CILIP has recently published on how existing laws, including police powers to access library records, could affect members.
(CILIP Information Services)

I'm not a writer but a fool, says plagiarist
Judith Kelly, author of 'Rock Me Gently' speaks about what led her to lift long pages from Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre', and Graham Greene's 'Brighton Rock' for her own memoir. She blames it on ignorance and lack of education. More than 30,000 hardback copies of the book were sold before Kelly's plagiarism was discovered. More discussion and examples here.
(CILIP Information Services)

The British Library enters the dating business
shocking news that the British Library is entering the dating biz by offering a "Mingle" evening for singles who "like...to talk and wants to make friends."

1,082 books for $8,000?
Librarian replaces personal library lost in a forest fire.

Offering web-based Instant Messaging on public computers
As mentioned in the last Route A. Meebo allows public-use computer users to interact via IM without risking installations and all the security concerns that go along with that.

Library 2.0: what's next for library websites
At the Internet Librarian conference, over 100 library professionals speculated about how to survive in a world of Web-based, user-created content. They've dubbed their initiative Library 2.0.

Virtual Reference Conference
A report on Ask Colarado from the Virtual Reference Desk Conference.
See also...Text a Librarian, integrating reference by text message into digital reference.
and discussion of the new Question Point software options (as used by the Peoples Network Enquire service).

Chainreading
Library Stuff reports on the Chainreading site where you can suggest books to friends, and your suggestions will be added to a list that only they can see when they log in to the site.

Virtually unstoppable
As the world's favourite search engine opens its new London headquarters, Simon Jeffery steps inside the Googleplex.