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How is it that we only today noticed the little alert on our beloved iGoogle page saying that the service was going away?  It was shock.  Then horror.  Then sadness.  With all of the flops Google has released in recent memory (Wave, Buzz, Plus . . . ), the personalized homepage feature that is iGoogle was by far one of our favorites.  It was so nice to go to one place to get an overview of our e-mail, calendar, news feeds, and a whole host of fun and informative widgets (Confucius Quotes anyone?).  NOW WHAT WILL WE DO?

If you are an iGoogle user, you have until next November (yes, 2013) to wean yourself off of it.  The mobile version will be gone sooner.  You can read the announcement here.

We haven’t felt this vulnerable since our AOL homepages were taken away.  There is no joy in iBraryGuyville tonight.

Talkback Tuesday is your chance to be heard! 

This week: Has Amazon locked up the solution to local deliveries?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Amazon is looking at a new way to deal with the problem of no one being home to receive a delivery.  According to their intel, that solution is none other than local lockers.  Yes, lockers!  You can read the story here.  It is certainly is a novel approach.  But is it practical?  Give the story a look and then take our poll below.

[polldaddy poll=6446943]

When you need help getting something done, finding reliable assistance can be a real problem.  You can ask family and friends.  But how many of us have been let down by the well-intentioned?  You can hire through a professional services provider.  But that can be expensive.  Yes, you can also post something on a basic internet bulletin board.  But how can you be sure the folks answering your ads are safe and trustworthy?  With everything that could wrong, there is some real credence to the notion that you are better off doing things yourself.  Luckily, you do not have to, thanks to the folks at TaskRabbit.

TaskRabbit is a site that let’s you get the help you need from safe, reliable, vetted individuals. No task is too small or too silly.  You post what you need done and how much you are willing to pay and the site’s corps of “TaskRabbits” will literally bid to do your bidding.  And just who are these folks, you might be wondering.  Well, according to the site:

Every TaskRabbit goes through our application process, which includes a video screening and a multilayered background check.

TaskRabbits and TaskPosters use their real identities online, so everyone knows who they’re dealing with. TaskRabbits are also reviewed and rated on the Tasks they complete, so it’s easy to ensure that good TaskRabbits are always busy.

We recently used TaskRabbit to get help moving some heavy items of furniture.  They guys who took the job were friendly, came prepared, and were very enthusiastic about their work with the site.  It was an amazing experience to say the least.

There are even smartphone apps that let you post tasks while you are on the go.  Can it get any easier?

iBraryGuy is proud to have served as guest editor and curator of FreePint’s latest report, “Enterprise Collaboration”.  The folio consists of a series of four insightful articles from the company’s vast archives.  Featuring stand-out works from industry luminaries such as Stuart Barr, Andrew Rieder, Connie Crosby, Joanna Ptolomey and Lauren Currie, as well as editorial remarks and additional resources from iBraryGuy editor, John DiGilio, the report is available for purchase from FreePint.com.  Based in the U.K., FreePint publishes practical articles and reports about information practice, content and strategy.  If you have not seen their product line, it is definitely worth a look.

Here is an excerpt from DiGilio’s  introduction to the July report:

“From coworking to crowdsourcing, collaboration in its many forms and degrees continues to shape and, in some senses, even redefine the way we work. The old adage of two heads being better than one has given way to the even grander concept of something taking a whole village…”

Check it out today!

After many years of standing-room only crowds and rave reviews, the wildly popular “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” is ending its run at the annual SLA Conference & INFO-EXPO this year. Hosted yearly by SLA’s Legal Division, 60 sites features a fast and furious exploration of some of the hottest and hippest sites for information professionals. If you want to get a seat, you are going to want to get their early.

60 Sites in 60 Minutes is a labor of love produced by John DiGilio of Reed Smith LLP (A.K.A., iBraryguy) and Gayle Lynn-Nelson of LexisNexis. They have been collaborating on this session for several years now and have been humbled by the overwhelming response it has received. No matter how big the room has been, there has never been enough seats. Attendees have literally sat on the floor between sections and stood several deep in the back of the room.

“It’s been an amazing run,” said DiGilio, “But we wanted to take a break and open the floor to new blood and newer, more innovative presentations.” Whether this is good-bye forever, or just for now, remains to be seen however. “I can certainly envision this being re-imagined and rebuilt with the changing market in mind,” he said, “For now, though, we are looking forward to bringing down the house one last time.”

60 Sites in 60 Minutes: The Last Dash!

Monday, July 16, 10:30am – 11:30am @ Convention Center, Room E451B

This wildly popular session that explores new and under-utilized Websites returns for another year. Fast-paced and fun, if offers a glimpse of what you may be missing on the Web.

MODERATING:
Tricia Thomas, Alston and Bird LLP

SPEAKING:
John DiGilio, Reed Smith LLP; Gayle Lynn-Nelson, LexisNexis

PRESENTED BY: Legal Division
SPONSORED BY: Fastcase, Inc.

Google today announced the latest enhancement to its industry-leading search – a new feature designed to help users find the right information faster and with less fuss.  Enter the “Knowledge Graph”.  More than a mere update to the seach interface, it is a radical and interesting change to the way Google will deliver your results. 

The easiest way to explain what Knowledge Graph does is through a simple example.

Let’s say you wanted to search for information on the baseball team, “The Rockies”.  You may have baseball on your mind, but Google is no mind reader (or at least not yet).  In the current iteration of its search engine, simply searching for “The Rockies” will return a standard results list containing links to sites on the team, the mountain range, and several related institutions such as schools.  It’s a great results list, but you still have to do the legwork to get to just the stuff on the team.  Sure you could enter more terms, like “baseball”, to focus your search.  But wouldn’t it be sweet if Google actually knew the difference?  Thanks to the Knowledge Graph, it will!

When the new Knowledge Graph rolls out (and the roll-out has started!), Google will return those results in a compartmentalized fashion.  The results related to the baseball team will be kept together.  So will those regarding the mountains.  By choosing that grouping, you will limit the search to just the set you want.  Pretty cool!

My example was a simple one.  In its news release, Google used an even better one.  Their demonstration uses the term “Taj Mahal” and then asks whether you meant the landmark in India, the singer, or evern the Indian restaurant down the street.  Pretty profound differences, no?  It’s an innovative approach to results delivery.

Stay tuned . . . you will soon be seeing the Knowledge Graph on a screen near you.  It began rolling out in the USA today!

Welcome to Talk Back Tuesday on iBraryGuy 2.0.  This is your chance to make you opinions heard.  We invite you to take our poll and to sound off on timely topics by using the comments section below.

This Week:  Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes Totally Digital

After 244 years of publishing one of the most widely regarded encyclopaedias on the planet, the folks at Encyclopaedia Britannica have made a startling announcement.  There will be NO MORE PRINTED volumes.  Instead, the company will be focusing on digital media and applications that will deliver the same venerable and scholarly content.  The goal is to fully embrace the digital age and to solidify Britannica’s respected brand in the world of new media.  Was it a wise choice?

The company has reported that sales of its printed sets have been in decline for over a decade.  The public’s love of all things mobile and electronic is without question.  So it almost seems a natural progression for a publisher of Britannica’s stature to pursue such a progressive course.  Few in the public, however, saw this coming.  Reactions have been far ranging, with digital luminaries praising the leap, and old school book lovers lamenting the loss of a paper masterpiece.

So we are putting the question to you, our readers.  Has Britannica made the right decision or was it too much too soon?  Take our poll and share your thoughts in the comments.  It’s “Talk Back Tuesday” and we want to hear from you!

[polldaddy poll=6167912]

Posterous has been an iBraryguy favorite in the “microblogging” wars that have seen Tumblr rise to a place of prominence.  Though we certainly like Tumblr for its amazing ease of use, there is just something more elegant  . . . more professional . . . to the workings and look of Posterous.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced that it had acquired Posterous.  The initial question was what this meant for Posterous, moreso than Twitter.  Would the site survive?

According to the message sent to Posterous users, the site is staying available for now.  There was no mention of suture support and development however.  Not a good sign.  News outlets such as CNN are reporting the Posterous engineers have already been assigned to other projects within Twitter.  Also not a good sign.  Perhaps the most telling news is that Posterous has advised its users that any disruption in service will be preceded by a warning and that they are already preparing instructions to assist users who wish to migrate their blogs to other sites.

Though we would hate to see Posterous go, it appears that the handwriting is already on the wall … er, web ….  It will be interesting to see what happens next for both Posterous and Twitter.  Twitter has certainly picked up some new talent.  Sadly, it could mean the end of one of the web’s cooler blogging platforms.

Few things keep us info pros as current and connected as our beloved conferences.  From tradeshows to colloquia, there seems to be something interesting going on every couple of weeks.  Staying on top of it all can be more wearisome than the work week itself.  Thanks to Don Hawkins and his blog  The Conference Circuit, we can now keep current without having to leave our desks (except to attend a conference or two ourselves, of course!).

Readers of Information Today will know Don from his monthly conference column there.  Having worked in the information industry for over 30 years, he has come to be a bit of a conference maven.  Don knows where all the good meetings are and knows how to make the most of them.  As a conference blogger, he captures his experiences on the road with great detail, excellent insight, and a god bit of humor.  Through words and pictures, Don brings the industry’s best conferences directly to you.

Don recently covered the Special Libraries Association annual conference in Philadelphia.  It comes to life on The Conference Circuit through a series of very interesting posts and first-hand impressions.  Sure, our “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” session did not make Don’s blog.  But we will not hold that against him . . . this year.  😉

So keep an eye on The Conference Circuit for the conferences you can’t attend.  It is the next best thing to actually being there!

As a foodie and home chef, I am almost ashamed to say that I have stopped buying cookbooks.  I used to love and treasure them.  But with so many recipes available online these days, it almost seems a waste to spend the money.  Of course, some are indispensable and I have my favorites with which I will never part (I may have my vegan slow cooker book cremated with me when I go!).  But for the most part, I can find almost any recipe I want these days on the internet.  Thanks to Google’s new Recipe View, recipe searches just got even easier!  Mon Deiu, what would Madame Child say?

Using the new Recipe View is easy-peasy and the functionality works like butter.  [Yes, we are having a good time with this one!]  Simply run a Google search for a recipe name or ingredients.  When you get your list of results, simply go to the left-hand side of the screen and choose “Recipes”.  When you click, your list is culled to only those results that are actually recipes.  Want to refine your search further by focusing on specific ingredients, cook times, or calories?  You can!  Just go back to the left side of the window and use one of the new filters that has appeared.  It is easier than boiling water!

You can read more about Google’s new Recipe View here.  Now get cooking!