Have you ever wondered if someone you knew was a criminal?  Or did it ever cross your mind that your neighborhood might be crawling with them?  Well, check out CriminalSearches and be prepared to possibly be a little creeped out.  For now, CriminalSearches is free to the public.  You can search by person’s name and even narrow the search geographically.  You can also search for a particular neighborhood to see if anyone in the vicinity has a criminal record.  CriminalSearches will give you the names and the general nature of the offences.  Neighborhood searches provide addresses and maps!  There are also searches specific to sex offenders.  CriminalSearches even maintains a database of criminal statistics and can be configured to provide you with criminal activity alerts.

Searching is easy and the site is extremely intuitive.  The information appears to be robust.  You can find some great information here … but beware… you might not want to know who is in your neighborhood.  Like me, it could keep you awake at night!

Tech news sites are literally a dime a dozen these days. So many seem to look and feel the same. When we first discovered Ars Technica, we were pleasantly surprised with its refreshing interface and interactivity. It was an even bigger surprise to learn that AT is a Conde Nast site. That’s right, it comes from the same folks behind so many of the popular travel and lifestyle magazines. These folks know media and they certainly know how to make AT stand apart in a crowded field of tech news services!

Ars Technica is not your run-of-the-mill technical news and reviews site. It’s contributors write with wit and honesty and with an eye on the arts as well as the technical sciences. In addition to the expected news and reviews, users will also find how-to tutorials and buying guides, as well as special features. The site is deftly organized into practical chunks, with sections dedicated to business, hardware, gadgets, media, and policy. There is even something for devotees of Apple, Microsoft, and gaming. The user forums round out the site’s offerings very nicely. We particularly enjoy their live feeds from major industry events, like the Apple unveilings. They’re the next best thing to being there!

If you are looking for a fresh approach to getting your tech news fix, look no further than Ars Technica. It breaks the proverbial online mold!

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR BOLD NEW LOOK?
 
If you have visited the iBraryGuy site lately, you certainly noticed something different.  iBraryGuy has a brand new look and a hot, new set of features.  Your support of our microblog and Twitter feed over the last 6 months has been overwhelming.  We cannot thank you enough.  In a sign of our appreciation, the iBraryGuy editorial team is delighted to be able to roll out a new look, more robust and interactive features, and share with you some big news about upcoming offerings.
 
The New Look and Features:
 
As of Monday, iBraryGuy has a brand new look and some cool new functionality!  Our single-column format has expanded to three columns of library and info goodness.  Our daily blog of news and reviews is still front and center.  However, our new mini-columns provide access to newsfeeds from Librarians.Collected (one of our side projects) as well as our own Twitterfeed. We have also provided access to our archive as well as an events calendar, tag cloud, and library photo stream.  We are particularly excited to add functionality that will allow you to share iBraryGuy features with your colleagues via a plethora of popular social networking platforms.  And check out the new Wibiya tool bar at the bottom of the screen for a truly interactive experience.
 
The Blogroll:
 
Worth special mention is our new blogroll.  Here you will find quick and easy links to some of our most popular side projects.  The iBraryGuy team scours the internet daily for hot and happening library and information blogs.  When we find them, we add them to one of two (or both!) of our aggregators.  You have probably read our postings on Libarians.Collected and LibraryVibes before.  Each takes a slightly different approach to bringing the best blogs under one roof.  We enjoy them both and are commited to keeping them up to date for you, our library colleagues.  Thanks to our new blogroll, they will each be a click away.  Is your blog listed?  Let us know!  Also, do not miss our link to the customized Google News section on librarians, libraries, and information.
 
Coming Soon – The iBraryGuy App!
 
Yes, coming soon to a smartphone near you is our first iBraryGuy App!  Designed to provide you with a mobile version of our blog, our new app is optimized for small screens.  As an added bonus, our app will also feature a live stream from Librarians.Collected.  Think of it as having all of the best library and info blogs right in your pocket!  The iPhone version is up first and is in its final approval stages.  Plans are underway for an Android version as well.  Best of all, our new app, like our sites, will be completely FREE!  We just ask that you let us know what you think and send us suggestions on how we can improve our services.
 
Thank you all for helping us make iBraryGuy a success!

Whether you are a law librarian, lawyer, law student, or just someone who works with legal information, the iBraryGuy has a hot tip to make your work just a little bit easier.  Actually, the Jureeka! plugin was a hot tip that came to us and with just a little bit of investigation, we found ourselves impressed!

Jureeka!, true to its name, is real revelation!  A plugin / extension for the Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, it is designed to turn the legal citations on the pages you view into actual links to the cases, statutes, and other primary sources themselves.  It does so simply, seamlessly, and rather powerfully.  We should also mention that it couldn't be much easier to use.  You install it and let it run in the background.  There is an optional toolbar that you can use within your browser to look up cases and items by citation (doig so returns a hyperlink to the material), covert PDFs to html documents with citation links, report bugs, and even tag legal information.  You do not need the toolbar, however, to have Jureeka! turn the citations on web pages into links.  The added functionality is up to you.

So where does Jureeka! get its cases and materials and just how good is the coverage?  Well, according to the creator's blog, it links out to materials hosted by public sources such as Precydent, Public Library of Law, Justia, and others.  It essentially searches the web for cases and materials, saving you the time and trouble.  As for coverage, it is fairly impressive, providing links for US federal and state materials, international law, specific US law reviews, and even materials unique to the UK and Australia.  You can find detailed information on dates of coverage and sources here.

Jureeka! was created and is maintained by Michael Poulshock, a public interest lawyer located in Pennington, NJ.  It is currently only available for Firefox and Google Chrome, but is essentially available for free . . . though donations to help Mr. Poulshock maintain Jureeka! are welcome.

It's a great day to be a librarian!  Then again, isn't every day?  But days like today are special.  When library service providers come together and collaborate, it's almost like the planets themselves are aligning.  It usually means great things for librarians and info-pros everywhere.  Thanks to the good folks at Library Resources Group (LRG) and Library Associates Companies (LAC), today is one of those days!
 
It was announced today that LAC will be powering the new Career Center offered by LRG on its excellent Library Works site.  If you have not been to Library Works, it is actually a portal to some of LRG's most valued content.  This site provides searchable access to the full text of The Librarian's Yellow Pages and its well-loved directory of vendor profiles, demos, product information, and special offers.  It also provides access to LRG's monthly newsletter of library product news, best practices, and advice, INFOcus.
 
Library Works' new Career Center, powered by our friends at LAC, features a listing of open library positions around the United States.  The list features hyperlinks to job descriptions and can be browsed as a whole or by category.  Simple, yet efficient and comprehensive.  We dare say, that with the current economic and jobs pictures, that its arrival could not be more timely!  Whether you are looking to get into a position or make a change of positions, this is one resource that should be part of your plan of action.  It will also be a welcome new resource to our colleagues in library and information science schools as they anxiously prepare to enter the job the market.  Kudos to LRG and LAC for putting this together!
 
The LRG is no stranger to the needs of the library community.  Library Resources Group's mission is to help you make informed, cost-efficient decisions about products and services for your library. The LRG family of resources, provided free of charge, is designed and delivered to enable you to identify best practices, discover special offers and discounts, and learn of new technologies and services in a timely manner.  Anyone who has ever used The Librarian's Yellow Pages knows how valuable a partnership our industry enjoys with the folks at LRG.
 
LAC was a natural fit for LRG in bringing the Career Center to life.  Though we have featured them on iBraryGuy before, it is worth singing their praises yet one more time.  Library Associates Companies (LAC) is a premier provider of consulting, executive search, recruiting, staffing, and project management services within the information, knowledge, intelligence, library and research fields. Their clients range from government agencies and public institutions to Fortune 500 corporations, law firms, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, media organizations, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations. For 23 years, it it has been going strong, growing, and doing our industry proud.

Are you a newshound who is fiendish for fact checking?  You can admit it.  Most of us in the library and information professions are.  We unflinchingly warn our patrons to cast a critical eye towards such concerns as authority, accuracy, and authenticity (the "three As" of facuality).  Mistakes among our trusted resources are often sure to send shivers down many an info-pro's spine, as well as raise a hue and cry on our listservs and discussion boards. Yet, we are often hit with the reality that errors in reporting, especially in the media, are rampant today.  Regret the Error is a site dedicated to helping us stay abreast of the "misses" – you know: miscalculations, mistatetements, misrepresentations, etc.
 
Launched in 2004, Regret the Error reports on corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications in the media.  It also covers trends regarding press accuracy and honesty.  The man behind the site is Craig Silverman, a freelance journalist with some excellent credentials.  In addition to serving as editor of Regret the Error, he is also a columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review and an associate editor for PBS MediaShift.
 
Regret the Error is by no means a lightweight site.  Though it can be entertaining, it is also shocking at times.  Silverman is serious about his role as fact-checker.  His book, Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, won the Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism from the National Press Club.
 
In our industry, we like the facts to be facts and are all too well aware of how costly mistakes and poor reporting can be.  Regret the Error is an excellent resource to not only help us get to the truth, but also remind us that we have to be ever vigilant as purveyors of the facts that we get from and for others.

Location-based services are certainly getting a great deal of buzz these days.  From the race to become a “mayor” or “supermayor” on Foursquare to cracking the top-ten visitors to a place on Gowalla, people are REALLY getting into these services.  Is it a sign that the world is getting smaller yet again or just passing fad?  We want your input.

Location-based services / apps are designed to essentially do two things.  First and foremost, they track your whereabouts.  All of the services that we tested required you to “check in” and log your location.  Secondly, they take that information and, well, socialize it.  They let others know you are there, ask you to rate or review the place, let you know where your friends are, and attempt to make the whole thing fun.  Some let you chat or interact with others in the same location (on the system mind you . . . not neccessarily in person) and some evern reward you for being there.  For those who are new to location-based apps, it can be overwhelming to conceptualize.  For hard core privacy protectionists, the concept can be downright scary!  Do you really want people to know where you are?

The editorial team at iBraryGuy sampled four of the more popular location-based applications.  Interestingly enough, we also eventually deleted them all from our phones.  Each started out fun and even challenging, but eventually became somewhat annoying.  Perhaps this is one area where we are just not “with it”.  Perhaps, given our enthusiasm for technology, it is a sign of the staying power of these services.  Who knows.  While we initially enjoyed the fun of trying to earn badges on Foursquare and pick up pins on Gowalla, the bottom line ended up being that it was a bit of pain to have to always remember to whip our phones and check in.  The social networking aspects of Loopt and Brightkite were equally as nifty at the outset.  However, we found that so few other folks were using these apps that it was pretty darned hard to be sociable.  Then there are the rewards . . . sure, you can meet new people and interact with folks who frequent the places you do, but the badges and pins are not like poker chips.  You cannot cash them in. [There’s an idea for any of you location-based services who may be reading this!]

So maybe we are missing something that the hypemakers are not.  What about you, our beloved readers?  Are you using any of these apps / services?  Take our poll below and please feel free to share your comments!

With the unimaginable crisis in Haiti weighing so heavily on people's minds, folks are looking to donate money and other items in meaningful ways.  Many are wondering whether the charities that are making appeals for Haiti are legitmate and just what kind of work these groups do.  Others worry about how much of their donation actually makes it to those who are suffering versus covering administrative costs.  These are all valid questions and rational concerns.  Luckily, we can do our homework and learn a great deal about the charities that are out there.  Today, we share some excellent resources with you for getting the inside scoop on charities.  When you give, give from the heart and give wisely.
 
BBB Wise Giving Alliance:  This site is hosted by the Better Business Bureau.  It provides simple searching for information on charities, provides a consumer center where you can inquire or make a complaint about a charity, and provides access to BBB Wise Giving Reports which rate charities based on BBB accountability standards.  The site also features a Wise Giving Guide and directory of BBB accredited charities.
 
GuideStar:  GuideStar's free nonprofit reports have been popular with researchers for years.  Searching GuideStar is easy and the information is thorough.  They even provide excellently formatted printable versions of their reports for your use.  The site even provides for user-submitted reviews.  GuideStar definitely has one of the best sites for nonprofit and charity information available.
 
CharityNavigator:  CharityNavigator provides a fantastic site that has the donor in mind.  It's "Guide to Intelligent Giving" offers a robust suite of services.  From charity information searches, to resources and articles on smart giving, to a database of charity studies, CharityNavigator is designed to empower donors and help them make good choices.

Dear Library & Info Colleagues,
 
By now, we have all heard about the devastating earthquake that has caused a staggering loss of lives and property in Haiti.  If you have had the stomach, you may have even seen some of the pictures and videos that are only now making their way to the media outlets.  The images are shocking and sad.  Haiti's capitol has been virtually destroyed, and with it, countless lives.  Our hearts and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters in this poorest of nations.
 
The editorial team at iBraryGuy is departing from our usual stream of library news and views today to call attention to the massive need that now envelopes Haiti.  We stand in solidarity with those who lives have been forever changed by this disaster.  We hope that many in the global library and info industry will join with us.  Below is a list of organizations that are taking donations now to help Haiti in this time of emergency and loss.
 
Haiti, the world is with you today . . .
 
To donate:
Thank You,
 
John & The iBraryGuy Team

Microblogging… It seems like almost everyone is doing it these days!  Not without good reason, mind you.  The turnoff to so many in the early days of blogging was the complexity.  Blogging sites and blogging generally required a good bit of work and maintenance.  Then along came services like Tumblr and Posterous with their easy-to-use interfaces and no nonsense journaling.  The microblogs made blogging fast and easy and we among the first services to let you do it on the fly.  The iBraryGuy blog is currently hosted on the Posterous microblogging service which allows us to e-mail in our entries and then even posts them to other services for us.  Easy indeed!
 
Well just when it seemed that blogging could not get any easier, along comes the bare bones – and we mean BARE – Txt.io.  There has never been a more spartan blogging service.  Yet its simplicity is its appeal.  No pictures, no videos, no endless lists of smileys to choose from, Txt.io is a basic text blog.  It bills itself as "elitist microblogging".  If by "elitist", the folks at Txt.io mean "no frills", then they have hit the nail on the head.  It does not even require its own unique login.  You log into with your Google password! 
 
It's actually a cool concept and ideal for those who just want to keep a simple blog of random thoughts and musings.  Do not let the plain black text on white background fool you though . . . Txt.io provides the one extra feature that most bloggers seek.  It does come with an RSS feed.  So your friends can subscribe to your postings.  RSS readers tend to ignore fancy formatting anyway!
 
So whether you are looking for a bit of old computing nostalgia or just want the most simple blogging experience possible, Txt.io is worth the look.  They call it a "microblog" for good reason!