Author: James

Jeeves and Wooster Collection

Jeeves and Wooster collection (all)

I have long been a fan of P. G. Wodehouse and his Jeeves and Wooster series.  In the US it was always difficult to buy these books—even though most of the stories were published here, sometimes before the UK release.  I already owned Life with Jeeves, a compilation of three books: The Inimitable Jeeves; Very Good, Jeeves!; and Right Ho, Jeeves.  But the only other Jeeves book I found in stores was The Jeeves Omnibus, a compilation of Carry On, Jeeves; The Inimitable Jeeves; and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves which I didn’t buy because I already had one of the three titles.

Late last year (2015) I decided to spring for the entire set from the UK.  I already had compiled a list of titles and so I signed on to Amazon UK one evening.  Ordering was easy and the books were due to be “dispatched” in short order for a January 2016 delivery.  I chose to have the books shipped together to save money.  The entire order cost £173.53 (£121.70 plus £51.83 shipping) or $271.29 for 16 books.  Worth every pound and pence. Continue reading Jeeves and Wooster Collection

The Library as Publishing House Chapter Published

Last year I submitted a proposal for a chapter to a book on the 21st-century academic library. My subject was institutional repositories and how libraries were now functioning as publishing houses by providing a platform for digital journal publishing.

“The academic library takes on the new role as institutional publishing house using institutional repository services to manage journal publishing and conference planning. Librarians must know the journal publishing workflow including online article submission, peer-review, editing, publishing, dissemination, and marketing. To manage conference planning functions, librarians need to understand event functions such as presentation submission, program scheduling, registration and third-party payment systems, proceedings publishing, and marketing.

Librarians at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University launched an institutional repository not only to showcase intellectual output, but to digitally publish new and existing journals and centrally manage professional conferences for university faculty and students.” Continue reading The Library as Publishing House Chapter Published

Customizing LibAnswers to Create a Recommended Websites Service

When we learned that the university’s ColdFusion server was getting old and the IT department wanted to decommission it, I began “Project Abandon ColdFusion” to migrate all of our home-grown ColdFusion applications to other services. The last of these services was our “Recommended Websites” service.

I searched many options. The service needed to be free, easy to use and maintain, and preferably something the library was already using. This led me to LibAnswers and its FAQ groups. With a bit of customization, it could be made to function as a Recommended Websites service. So with some advice and help from Kelly Robinson, the site structure and layout was built. Research librarians on the Recommended Websites Committee entered in website names and descriptions and assigned topics and keywords.

The new Recommended Websites service launched on August 20, 2015. Continue reading Customizing LibAnswers to Create a Recommended Websites Service