December 2005 Archives

Podcasting has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Podcasts are available from mainstream media such as NPR; on the other hand the kid down the street might also have his own podcast. Blogs and the web made it possible for anyone to be a publisher. Now podcasting is attracting those who have always wanted to be broadcasters, including librarians.

For example, Jim Milles may have missed his calling. He does a great job as talk show host on his regular podcast available on "Check This Out: Law, libraries and life in a northern border town."

Though it's generally academically oriented, but there's a little something for everybody. It's a great example of what can be done with podcasting.

Just an FYI, you don't have to have an iPod to listen to a podcast. I was able to listen to it on my computer via Quicktime. You can also listen to the streaming audio online at Podcast Alley, Podfeed.net, or Yahoo! Podcasts.

By the way, in Episode 6, the trend of offering class lectures or other faculty assistance via MP3 files is discussed in an interview with John Mayer, Executive Director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI).

Somehow I missed this announcement. I was doing a little research on FAST, the search engine used by Lexis TotalSearch, when I came across their offer to be a "safe harbor" for Verity customers who are concerned about the future of the Verity search engine because of Autonomy's (currently pending) purchase of Verity. A little melodramatic, you might say, since I doubt Autonomy is going to pull the plug anytime soon. By the way, Verity is the full-text search engine behind Interwoven (iManage).

The acquisition isn't final yet, though they recently got the go-ahead from the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission.

Lately, enterprise search has been fighting the public's perception that an easy to use Google-like search is all that should be necessary in enterprise environment as well as the web. See "How Google Has Changed Enterprise Search." It's not easy being an enterprise search company these days.