LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

With the start of a new year, I have to make a call for suggestions on authors to interview. A thread has been opened at the Erie Looking Productions site for this. Why there? Disqus lets me export comments to Comma Separated Values which I can then import into a spreadsheet program and create a tracker. Tracking down authors for interviews can sometimes be tricky which is why such a bit of case management is needed.

Some of our previous author interviews:
Piers Anthony
David Weber

This week's episode brings a chat with Cameron Kaiser, the creator of Twitter client ttytter, as well as a piece from The Effing Librarian and a commentary written by the program's engineer.

Links:
Blog entry referenced in the engineer's commentary
The prepared commentary text that was presented
The Twitter client, ttytter
The book by The Effing Librarian
The blog by The Effing Librarian
One book by the podcast production team
Another book by the podcast production team

Welcome to 2009! This special episode features Blake Carver's outlook on 2009. A look at the events calendar is also presented and shows how busy the first couple months may well be.

The next regular episode of LISTen will be posted on or near 5:00 AM Coordinated Universal Time on January 5th.

Links:
LISTen budget needs for 2009
English Internet Regulation Case
openSUSE
Mandriva
Ubuntu
CeBIT
Inauguration Website by District of Columbia municipal government

This week's episode doesn't have a single theme. First up is an interview with John C. Dvorak about a sad situation with Google Docs. Following that is a brief report about the impending demise of podcasts hosted on Podango. After the Podango update a commentary is presented on utterances made by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, & Sport in the United Kingdom.

Links:
Post referenced in discussion with John C. Dvorak
Mashable on the Podango situation
LISNews post containing multiple links to stories on the situation the commentary references
Direct link to the Christmas Special if you missed it

No spoilers.

One could blame it on the holidays. One might blame it on the news being slow. In the end, this episode is a brief one. Computer complications delayed the post to where it could not post on-time either.

The episode begins with a recap of the top ten stories of the past week at LISNews. Following that the sixteenth installment of Tech for Techies is presented discussing some recent remarks by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Homeland Security as they might relate to libraries. A review of openSUSE 11.1, which is available for purchase as well as download, is then given. Wrapping up the episode included a note that a Christmas special may or may not happen. Decisions have not been taken yet on that.

There will be an episode released at the usual time on December 29th. It should be remembered that CNET as well as the TWiT Network will not have podcasts coming out at that time with current coverage as they are on holiday breaks. A LISTen special for New Year's Eve is under discussion as to its specifics. Further details will be announced once they are available.

This week's late episode brings interviews concerning technology. The first interview was with Jerry Bell of Cytec Corporation about PodboxxTV. The second is with the CEO of Mahalo, Jason Calacanis, about the newly launched Mahalo Answers. The zeitgeist round up is not repeated in this bit of audio but can be found here.

Barring further complications the next episode of LISTen will be released on or near 0500 UTC on December 22nd.

I just want to throw out there a brief survey Survey closed as of 2037 UTC on December 16th as we have gotten more responses than viewable at our unpaid access level. The survey's purpose is to help ascertain how you reach LISNews most of the time. In light of the recent backslash issue, getting a feel as to whether people visit most through a feed reader or instead directly visiting the site makes a difference. When site software upgrades and/or changes happen knowing about such use patterns help with understanding how to serve the audience best.

Questions are not specific to only the use of feed readers and also encompass questions concerning the podcast.

Explanation as to why there is no audio post. Also, subscription options for videos posted

Donation link for mdoneil pie in the face fundraiser