Library & Literary Miscellany

The Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) chose Catch the Reading Bug (kids) and Metamorphosis@Your Library (teens) as the 2008 theme, and it’s now in full-swing (it almost being July after all). A couple of recent posts I particularly enjoyed relating to the CSLP are By the Cover: June Bugs at Proper Noun (which also links to a longer insects booklist at Mindy’s Book Lists wiki) and Speaking of Crafts and Bugs at Library Voice (includes multiple images of some really fun looking bug crafts and displays).

A few sites offering related resources include:

• A to Z Kids Stuff: Bugs–songs, crafts, snack ideas mainly for bees, ladybugs, and caterpillars/butterflies
• Librarian’s Internet Index–Insects and Arachnids links
• LibraryPalooza–this is the site that I was led to the link to download the 2008 theme song that you hear in the videos by Billy Gorilly
• NetState.com’s Official State Insects list
• Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s 2008 SLP Training Workshop–includes display ideas , myriad downloadable breakout session handouts, and more

So you can see that there’s a plethora of buggy fun and/or information out there, but I thought I’d add a couple of 30 second promotional videos in case anyone needs any more ideas. I created them using Animoto just like my previous Mysteries at Your library video.

Animoto’s simple and it’s fun, although the Animoto shorts don’t allow for quite as many pictures as I’d like. But for the cost of free, it’s a great resource to spark creativity and create content for a variety of purposes.

Enjoy and feel free to remix, embed, or create your own (Video Production: Animoto; Songs: Billy Gorilly). Also feel free to leave comments if you have any feedback and/or resources to share relating to enticing people of all ages towards libraries and summer reading. Without further ado, here are the video shorts for kids and teens respectively (you’ll notice that I chose the instrumental version for the teens video : ))…

Catching the Reading Bug

Metamorphosis @ Your Library

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Here are some links to useful overviews of Adobe’s Acrobat.com (I’ve included a sample from each post, so you can get the gist before clicking):

Mashable: Adobe Launches Acrobat.com; Email Attachments Go On Death Watch

From Mashable’s post: “At the heart of the new launch is Buzzword, the web-based word processor that Adobe acquired last year…Different permissions can be assigned to each collaborator, and edits all tracked and saved with version control. Of course, since this is all done over the Web, these documents can be accessed by anyone from anywhere – a big shift from the days of emailing documents back and forth – much like what Google is attempting to do with Google Docs, and Microsoft with Office Live Workspace.”

PC World: First Look: Adobe’s Acrobat.com Document Collaboration Service

From PC World’s post: “Acrobat.com has four principal components: a word processor called Buzzword; online file sharing via a feature called Share; a file converter that lets you convert up to five documents per month, free, to PDF format (offered within Share); and ConnectNow for personal Web conferencing. Adobe also makes APIs available for developers so they can create service mash-ups more easily.”

ReadWriteWeb: Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9

From ReadWriteWeb’s post: “Adobe is has just launched their version of an online office suite available at Acrobat.com, complete with word processor (Buzzword), web conferencing/whiteboard app (ConnectNow), online file sharing (Share), file storage, (My Files), and PDF converter. To complement this launch, Adobe has also announced a brand-new version of Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat 9, the biggest release since the initial one that introduced Acrobat to the world. The remarkable change in this new version is that Adobe is now incorporating Flash into the PDF experience.”

TechCrunch: Adobe Launches Acrobat.com

From Tech Crunch’s post: “Acrobat.com is a combination of three recently launched online services: Adobe Brio (online meetings), Adobe Buzzword (online word processor), and Adobe Share (online file sharing). Thus with the public beta launch of Acrobat.com, Adobe is taking on Google Docs, Microsoft Office Live Workspace, WebEx, and GoTo Meeting—all at the same time.”

ZDNet: Adobe’s Acrobat.com could be an Office killer; Will interface matter?

From ZDNet’s post: “Adobe has tied together its online office suite with the beta of Acrobat.com and the user interface is the big differentiator. What remains to be seen is whether online office users care about aesthetics.”

Also, here’s one from C-Net News about the release of Adobe Acrobat 9: Adobe Acrobat Takes Big Online Leap

From C-Net News’ post: “Adobe unveiled an online community Monday with a word processor; file storage and sharing; and deep tie-ins to a newly Flash-enabled Acrobat 9.”

And, finally, from the Acrobat.com Blog: Welcome to Acrobat.com - Work. Together. Anywhere (you get the idea of the post from the title).

Basically, it seems that Acrobat.com offers some interesting features that will compete with extant offerings from other large (e.g., Google, Microsoft) and smaller but still significant (e.g., office-Zoho, ThinkFree; documents-Scribd, DocStoc; web conferencing-WebEx, GoTo Meeting). And as others have pointed out, Acrobat.com does have a nice look and feel to it, so you might want to check it out.

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I finally got around to messing about with Yahoo Pipes (as opposed to messing about in boats; plug classic literature here: “`Nice? It’s the ONLY thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING–absolute nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,’ he went on dreamily: `messing–about–in–boats; messing—-’” The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame).

So here’s the result (Note: the pipe output may take a moment to appear; I’ll also be posting a larger version on its own page under the Books Buzz tab for those miss out on this post; I decided not to post it on the main page as it increased page load time significantly):

My pipe is fairly rudimentary; I figure now that its created I can continue to revise. So feel free to comment if you have ideas regarding pipe alteration, for example, suggestions about feeds to add, filter additions/subtractions, or otherwise.

And now with the pipe created, I am heading to the great outdoors to take a walk. Using my own powers of ambulation is no boat ride, but still, it is outside activity and it is a beautiful day :).

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Need to remember something or just want to track your activities? Evernote is there (and we’re not talking paid insurance services of the State Farm variety here, although Evernote does offer insurance of sorts in the remembering things category). Evernote is there for you via its desktop (Windows and Mac), web, and mobile offerings.

Besides its mobility, a few other features to note about Evernote:

• Evernote plays well with other applications such as Jott and Skitch (and who can tell what the future holds?)
• Evernote has admirable text recognition of captured items (thus making the text searchable and the items findable)
• Evernote’s captured content can be of a wide variety (Evernote’s examples of “things to capture” being: Webpages, Wine labels, Whiteboards, Scribbles, To-dos, and Photos)
• Evernote notes can be entered multiple ways such as manually typing, captured images (webcam), clipping web pages or pictures, email, and/or voice.

From the Evernote Corporation Getting Started:

Evernote is a Web Service that helps users manage all the digital information most relevant to them. The Service can be accessed through free, user-friendly Evernote software running on a personal computer or mobile device, or any Web browser.

If you’re like many people in the world today who are trying to keep up with an ever increasing onslaught of information, whether personal or business, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of all the information that you care about - and to find it when and where you need it.

Evernote can help. Our services and software are so simple, easy to use, and valuable that you’ll wonder how you ever got by without them. You’ll always have access to your information, even as the devices and applications that you use to access them changes over time. Imagine, no more manually reentering or copying information, no more digging through pieces of paper and software applications to find photos, that favorite restaurant review, a research report, scanned documents, web clipping, and much more.

So if any of that sounds interesting, here’s how to proceed. First, request an invite. Then sit back and wait for your invite to arrive (it didn’t take me too long to get mine, and I don’t think it’s solely because I’m irresistible…). Perhaps you could sleep a little, enjoy a good meal, or read a good book (perhaps even try one I have reviewed ).

Also, in the meantime, you can get started watching these YouTube videos by Evernote Phil and reading other reviews of Evernote. My review wasn’t that extensive, because why reinvent the wheel when others have already provided such enlightening synopses, for example:

• The Apple Blog: Evernote=Ubiquitous Personal Memory by Bob Rudis (April 03, 2008)
• Ars Technica (the art of technology): A review of Evernote with invites, exclusive iPhone preview by David Chartier (April 29, 2008)
• Lifehacker: Jott Your Way to Evernote Bliss by Brad Isaac (March 30, 2008)
• MadPercolator: Evernote After the Initial Infatuation Wears Off (May 01, 2008)
• MakeUseOf.com: Become a Rockstar Note Taker with EverNote by Shankar Ganesh (April 22, 2008)
• Mashable: Evernote Public Bookmarks, and Invites for Mashable Readers by Kristen Nicole (April 29, 2008)
• O’Reilly Blog: Evernote: Notes Everywhere - Mac, Web, Phone by Todd Ogasawara (April 09, 2008)
• Salon: Software to Help you Remember Everything, Forever (at Machinist: inside tech, gizmo, and big ideas column by Farhad Manjoo posted April 16, 2008)
• TechCrunch: Extend Your Brain with Evernote (Private Beta Invites) by Erick Schonfeld (Februrary 21, 2008
• TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Blog): Evernote Universal Human Memory Extension by Brett Terpstra (March 20, 2008)
• Wikipedia: EverNote
• WIRED: Evernote is Noteworthy by Michael Calore (April 19, 2007)
• WIRED: Evernote A Database for your Life by Michael Calore (January 24, 2007)
• WIRED: Evernote Offers a Backup for Your Brain by Scott Gilbertson (March 14, 2008)
• ZDNet: First Thoughts on the Evernote Web Public Beta and the Incredible Search Technology (February 27, 2008)

You can also view Evernote’s What is Evernote or read the Evernote blog (or just request an invitation and play). On that note, enjoy (and have a great weekend)…

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What is Adobe Photoshop Express Beta? In brief, it’s a Web-based image solution for basic editing (touch-ups such as spot healing), sharing, and storing photos (2 gigabytes of storage no less!). While Express is by no means the full-featured, expensive Photoshop we all know (and love?), it does offer some alluring features such as tie-ins with Picasa, Facebook, and MySpace, and it is free. Adobe’s John Nack writes that it “Will remain free, with paid service adding more functionality.”

Find out more at Adobe Photoshop Express Support Center or read one of the following articles. Some of these articles contain comparisons and/or caveats about Express, such as WebWare’s wariness of the Terms of Service:

C-Net: Adobe Opens Shop on Web-based Photoshop Express

John Nack on Adobe: Photoshop Express RIA arrives!

Macworld: Adobe unveils Photoshop Express

Mashable: Adobe Photoshop Express - Good, But not Perfect

ReadWriteWeb: Watch Out - Adobe is Slowly Building an Online Empire

Terry White: Photoshop Online? Photoshop Express Beta - Now Online!

Webware: Review-Adobe Photoshop Express

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What do research database providers such as EBSCOhost and JSTOR as research database providers, Overdrive as a digital media service company, and Koha as an open source ILS have to do with each other? They all have some news worthy of mention, so I thought I’d mention it.

EBSCOhost and JSTOR: Interface Changes

The following are just a few of the highlights of the interface changes and/or enhancements (complete with links to find out more):

EBSCOhost 2.0

General Layout

Simple Search: Simplified search screen (patrons can display additional search options if desired such as the new “smart search”)

Collapsible panes: Collapse left and right hand panes to hide or show options (much like the way you can collapse panes in EBSCOhost’s visual search currently)

Relevancy Ranking: Improved relevancy ranking—sort results by relevancy or by date (level of relevance is graphically displayed using green squares)

Left column Features: The left-hand column enables faceted browsing through results (narrow results by source type, subject, author, or journal); this is much like is available on Worldcat.org currently.

Right column Features: The right-hand column includes limits, related articles, and related images. Limiters include the new date slider that allows quickly selecting relevant date ranges by moving the slider. Suggested related articles display beneath the limits (similar to PubMed related article feature).

Main Search Results Pane

Search History: When selected, search history displays above search results.

Preview Articles: Articles can be previewed by hovering over an icon in the results list (click on the magnifying glass/document image (this is the same idea as when you click on the binoculars image to preview search results at ask.com)).

Adding articles to Folder: Add articles to your folder directly from the preview window

Image Quick View: Results list includes thumbnails of images from the document. It will be great to know up-front whether an article has charts or an illustrations.

Customization/Saving Options Enhancements: Displays all citation methods (includes an easy copy to clipboard)

Folder: Users can now preview contents of folders from the results screen.

Useful links:

EBSCOhost 2.0 overview: includes link to an Enhancements Overview PowerPoint and an Enhancements Overview Flash Demo

EBSCOhost 2.0 flash demo

JSTOR

The JSTOR sandbox lays out some information about the new interface. It says, “Individual and organizational access to JSTOR will automatically transition to the new platform. We are testing thoroughly our various access mechanisms in an effort to ensure that this transition is as smooth as possible for all users, and we have already contacted those institutions that may need alternate methods.”

New features include: limit search by discipline, enhanced proximity operators in advanced drop down boxes (near5, near10, near25), search within these results, results page with multiple tabs (articles, images in JSTOR, images in ARTSTOR), article page navigation by clicking side arrows, a personalized account, and thumbnail views of article pages. Scroll to the middle of the sandbox page for a listing of the new features and for additional training resources.

JSTOR also makes available its presentations from the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting including: Michael Spinella’s “Welcome and JSTOR Updates” slides and audio; Beth LaPensee’s “JSTOR Redesign” slides and accompanying audio; and Javanica Curry’s presentation slides and audio about Aluka updates.

Both of the new interfaces seem to offer enhancements improving functionality and usability.

OverDrive: Compatibility Enhancements

Speaking of enhancements improving usability, OverDrive has plans to begin offering MP3 audiobooks (initially, at least 3000 books will be available in MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM)). Also forthcoming is an OverDrive console for Mac users. This is definite progress towards openness and playing nicely together on both counts, not to mention that it will benefit users!

View OverDrive’s own announcement: OverDrive to Distribute MP3 Audiobooks to Booksellers and Libraries or view the Library Journal article: OverDrive Breaks the iPod Barrier for Downloadable Audio.

Koha 3

In past iterations, Liblime’s Koha has had a lot to offer. As a full-featured open source ILS with no vendor lock in, Koha serves as a viable (and many would say desirable) alternative to high-priced vendor specific systems. Now Koha is available for download in its Beta 3 version. Visit Koha’s Koha 3.0.0 Beta Released announcement for the link to the download and to read about what’s new in 3.0.0.

Note (added April 01, 2008): Also changing is Ovid’s platform.  View the flash demo or the full list of training materials for more information about OvidSP.

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Microsoft and LibraryThing do not at first glance appear to belong in the same post title, but they do both have new offerings out this week that I want to highlight, so here goes…

Microsoft has had a big week what with Microsoft Office Live Workspace rising up to compete with the likes of Google Docs and with IE8 Beta coming out with new features to help it stay on the cutting edge of web browsers (and to finally make inroads with standards compliance).

Microsoft Office Live Workspace

On Monday, Microsoft announced its Office Live Workspace. The Office Live Workspace tagline is “An online extension of Microsoft Office.” So far, I’m rather enjoying the large storage and multiple workspaces the product has built in. To begin to understand what Micosoft Live Workspace has to offer, read the ReadWriteWeb post Office Live Workspace vs. Google Docs: Feature-by-Feature Comparison.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta

You can check out IE8 New and Exciting Features (not just new, but also exciting…). Particularly exciting, I think, are the WebSlices. Webslices enable users to subscribe to a web page such as Facebook or ebay and to be notified through the browser’s webslice when those sites are updated.

At any rate, you could download IE8 Beta right now. It does have an Emulate IE7 button built into the Command Bar, so that you can switch back and forth when browsing. But you could also just wait, because, as Microsoft says: “This beta release is available to everyone, but is primarily for Web developers and designers to test the new tools, layout engine, and programming enhancements”. It’s always good to have options :).

ReadWriteWeb’s post Internet Explorer 8 Has Arrived provides a more detailed look into IE8’s new features.

Okay, enough Microsoft for today, moving on…

LibraryThing Local

LibraryThing as a social cataloging site continues to expand its offerings. For instance, I just learned the other day that instead of having to tag books “currently reading” or “to read” you can now designate this using the Status field on the Book Edit page. Also, the recommendations and anti-recommendations for read-alikes continue to improve.

But LibraryThing has gone beyond social cataloging by adding LibraryThing Local into its offerings. LibraryThing Local seeks to provide information about local book-related events and venues. LibraryThing Local seeks members help in gathering location and other details about local libraries, bookstores, author readings/signings, and book festivals.

As yet, the majority of the data gathered relates more to bookstore locales than to book events, so it’s usefulness will depend on where you live and what you’re looking for, but, if it continues to collect data, it could become a useful resource.

As of this post, LibraryThing Local’s Stats are as follows:

8,651 total venues
3495 Bookstores
4883 Libraries
109 Fair/Festivals
164 Others
948 total events

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Blist “democratizes the function of organizing data”. To this end, Blist has been designed with features that enable anyone to build a database. As a rich internet application, Blist looks like a spreadsheet but goes beyond numbers, text, and dates in its functionality.

I’ve only created one Blist thus far in testing out its claims, but Blist so user-friendly that I may just be a user creates more blists in the future. Some of the features I particularly like about Blist include:

• Text columns are able to contain stored lists of infinite lengths in every cell (you can also have an entire table in a cell)
• Photos can be inputted as a column type
• Stored website URLs column type (thumbnail display of site upon rollover)
• Star ratings column type enables storing judgments of quality enabling you to later sort by rating
• Stored documents column type (e.g., Word documents, PowerPoint documents)

Blist can also be viewed in spreadsheet mode where all of the stored data is displayed or in page layout mode where individual records are displayed. In addition to allowing creating blists from scratch, Blist has recently enabled the ability to start from a file using data already stored in a CSV file.

For other peeks into Blist, see:

Mashable - blist: Making Spreadsheets Fun?

PC World - A Database for the Rest of Us?

Dan Farber of ZDNet - Web Apps for Mere Mortals

More recent news on recent Bliss funding:

Mashable Fun Spreadsheet maker blist gets 6.5M

ReadWriteWeb Blist Brings Bling to Databases and Spreadsheets

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Have you ever found yourself working on one computer and the file that you need to access is on another computer? Perhaps you were at the library doing research and you found a large PDF document that you would like to save and print at home, but it’s too large to attach to your email account and you have forgotten your flash drive. If these scenarios seem familiar to you, then keep reading to discover some tools that offer solutions.

Nowadays, users have web-based options in situations where files need to be transferred. File sharing services abound; the problem becomes selecting from among them. When you look at these services a little deeper, you’ll find that they vary quite a bit in what they offer–from free, basic, and/or unsecured to premium, secure, and/or customizable services. Some also have simpler, more intuitive interfaces and require fewer steps to be performed in order to share files.

As with anything else, the service you choose to use will depend on your needs. Fortunately, many people have already offered opinions and insight regarding the morass of offerings. Below, I have listed a few posts that offer recommendations; then I list my own preferences.

File Sharing Posts:

ExtremeTech’s 5 New Ways to Share Files–ExtremeTech compares Filecrunch, Pando, Tubes, Windows Live Folders, and YouSendIt.

MakeUseOf.com’s File Sharing Round-up: The Only Ones You need–MakeUseOf.com highlights five file sharing tools (Drop.io, Adobe Share, AllPeers, Pownce, and DivShare) that are evaluated in terms of features such as ease of upload/organize/access, anonymity, and browser integration.

Mashable’s Online Storage: 80+ File Hosting and Sharing Sites–Mashable proffers a list of more than 80 of the leading file hosting services with brief annotations. The list of services are separated into the following service categories: online backup, sending services, and storing/sharing services.

Master New Media: How to Send Large Files without Email: Best Services Online–Robin Good’s three pages worth of services and two pages of comments with additional services should provide enough file sharing options for anyone. The article nicely delineates what each of these file sharing services offers and what security features are available (compression, encryption, secure site). Also, see the more recent Master New Media article detailing Eatlime’s file sharing services entitled How To Send Very Large Files Across The Web: Eatlime Does It.

File Sharing Tools I Like and Use:

Eatlime: It was the “Eatlime Does it” article that got me to revisit the file sharing tools that are available out there, and I have to agree that Eatlime does have a lot to offer. A few quick points about EatLime:

• Free file sharing of large files up to 1GB in size
• Numerous file formats supported
• Ability to add and send multiple files at once
• Sharelink enables sharing data even as files are downloading

For the price (free), EatLime seems to have a lot to offer filesharers.

Adobe SHARE (beta): Another service that I like to use for file sharing/hosting is Adobe SHARE. SHARE launched in 2007 and remains in beta. The flash-based SHARE offers a superb visual and organizational interface (for those who don’t need the visuals or the diversity of file formats, then Google Docs performs many of the same functions). In a SHARE account, users can preview multiple file types (PDF, images, SWF, Open Office, Microsoft Office) before downloading them. The My Library section keeps track of all the files that a user has uploaded and shared.

In order to share with Adobe SHARE, you do need to register with Adobe and receive an Adobe ID. Registering entitles you to 1GB storage, and there is no limit placed on the size of any single file. Sharing privileges for uploaded files may be set to either open access or limited access (selecting limited sets access to only those you specify, but those users must also have an Adobe ID in order to view the shared files).

File Conversion

Now say that the problem is not how to get to the file, but how to get the file to be useful (i.e., in a format that is accessible for the computer you’re on and the software it has). The following online file conversion tools might come in handy when you find yourself faced with this situation; none of the tools mentioned require downloading and installing software on your computer.

KoolWIRE: “free file conversion service via e-mail.” Get files converted to a different file format by sending them as attachments to a specified e-mail address (e.g., from Word, PowerPoint, Excel to PDF: pdf@koolwire.com; from PDF to Word: doc@koolwire.com; from WAV to MP3: mp3@koolwire.com; from MP3 to WAV: wav@koolwire.com). Once Koolwire receives the file, they convert it and send it back to the sender.

YouConvertIt: Enables converting many media file formats (text, image, audio, and video). To convert a file, users type in their e-mail address, browse to the file to be converted, choose the resulting format, and click “convert.” The file is converted and a link to download the converted content is emailed. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be a limit on how large the uploaded file can be. YouConvertIt also has file sharing service capabilities like those tools mentioned above; just enter the recipient’s email address and you can upload the file to share without converting it.

Zamzar: Converts Word files to PDFs, Works files to Word, etc. Zamzar handles text, image, audio, and video file format conversions. The steps involved for conversion are similar to YouConvertIt. Multiple account options exist: free, basic, pro, and business. The maximum file size that can be uploaded for the free account is 100MB. Zamzar was listed in the WebApps category as one of PC Magazine’s Top 100 Undiscovered Websites.

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In addition to the wealth of information and training that’s offered to librarians through sites like WebJunction, other organizations and librarians are providing free e-learning opportunities to be aware of (some states also offer librarians training such as Illinois’ LibraryU). Some sites to try if you want to e-learn more for free include:

InfoPeople: InfoPeople “moving libraries forward” provides materials used in its past training freely. They state that those who use the materials in the Past Workshops section should credit the author and the funding source.

Learn More: Run by Steve Campion at Library Stream, the “Learn More is a series of self-paced discovery entries for library staff interested in venturing out on the social web.” Topics covered thus far include avatars, Flickr, Delicious, YouTube, tags and tag clouds, LibraryThing, wikis, social networks, Twitter, and blogs.

Learning 2.1: Expanding on the original Learning 2.0 23 Things, this site currently features things 24-47 and includes discussion around such useful tools as Animoto, LiveMocha, Photobucket, LetterPop, Zamzar, and Jott.

Learning 2.0: Learning 2.0 is “an online self-discovery program that encourages the exploration of web 2.0 tools and new technologies, specifically 23 Things.”

Online Programming for All Libraries (OPAL): “OPAL is an international collaborative effort by libraries and other organizations to provide web-based programs and training for library users and library staff members.” As such, OPAL offers a wide variety of online training sessions (e.g., pertaining to books, civic engagement, health, history, LIS, music, general training, etc.). View the schedule of upcoming events to attend a future live session or visit the archive of previous OPAL events for links to the slides and audio from past training sessions.

A useful list of e-learning opportunities is also available at the LibSuccess wiki on its Online Training Resources for Librarians page. The page discusses and links to both free and fee resources.

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