Patent office announces surprising project!

The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Web and invite comments but also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file, for serious consideration by the agency's examiners. A first for the federal government, the system resembles the one used by Wikipedia, the popular user-created online encyclopedia. Read more here..........

Entrance Gates

Hi Everyone, Tired of resetting the gates? I thought our incoming gate was broken until I actually observed patron behavior.... In the last hour, FIVE patrons walked out the wrong gate-- just pushing through the resistance. One actually PULLED the gate open to enter. I've put up some makeshift signs. Sigh....

MIT Faculty and Libraries Refuse DRM; SAE Digital Library Canceled

I picked this off of LIS NEWS. Friday, March 16th, 2007 MIT Faculty and Libraries Refuse DRM; SAE Digital Library Canceled The MIT Libraries have canceled access to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ web-based database of technical papers, rejecting the SAE’s requirement that MIT accept the imposition of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/archives/category/subject-areas/engineering/ :) Sarah

Four COE staff and faculty recognized by UW President Emmert

David B. Thorud Leadership Award: Professor Eve A. Riskin, Electrical Engineering, Donald H. Wulff, Instructional Development and Research Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning: Professor Jan Spyridakis, Technical Communication, Engineering Distinguished Staff Award: Deborah Flores, Engineering Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award: Professor Rajendra K. Bordia, Materials Science and Engineering. For more information on the awards: http://www.washington.edu/president/awards/2007recipients.html.

A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source

From the New York Times, February 21, 2007. A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source "the Middlebury history department notified its students this month that Wikipedia could not be cited in papers or exams, and that students could not "point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors."" An interesting development. The article goes on to talk about how even the inventor of Wikipedia himself thinks this is not a bad thing. That students shouldn't be using Encyclopedias in general for academic research.

Printing Problems -- Any Ideas?

Hi All -- It seems like our AccessPlus machines (or whatever they are called) are one by one going off the deep end in regards to printing. I reported PC127 last week sometime and now PC 128, 129 are doing the same thing.... The patron goes to print and they do not get a popup box that asks them what printer or to name their print job -- the request just goes off into the ether. Does anyone know of a fix for these? --or should I submit new fix requests for 128 and 129... Patrons are understandbly frustrated...