Phil Bradley's weblog

Latest IRN out now.

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 175 September 2009 is now available - just follow the link. Always a useful resource, and never an issue goes back that I don't find something really good to go off and explore.

Top 25 Free e-books Sites, the Definitive List

Top 25 Free e-books Sites, the Definitive List. I don't know for sure just how definitive it is, but it's a good collection with a brief description of each site. If you're into ebooks this is a page to bookmark!

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 173 June 2009

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 173 June 2009. This is now available for your reading pleasure.

Library & Information Update blog

Library & Information Update blog. The latest issue is now available, and Matthew Mezey is inviting comment, suggestions and so on. You can comment if you're not a member of CILIP as well by the way, which is very welcome. The magazine is available online, but you can only see the ToC if you're not a member, which is fair enough.

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 170

The ever useful Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 170  is now available. Quotes, notable websites, book review, leisure material. Always worth a read!

WEB 2.0 the magazine. That doesn't really use Web 2.0

WEB 2.0 THE MAGAZINE: Home. This is a new venture, first published this year. it's got some interesting articles in it - Enterprise 2.0, Welcome to the cloud, features and so on. There are also weekly updates. What is odd though, and this is addressed in the latest weekly update is that they don't actually use Web 2.0 technology! Admittedly they've started to use Twitter, but very limited so far. While they're open to participation on the part of their readers they're not quite prepared to take that leap yet. As for an RSS feed - well, there just isn't one. There IS a subscribe option which takes 2 clicks to get to a form, with *7* mandatory fields to fill in plus 5 others. I'm sorry, but there is no way I'm going to fill out a form - that's just madness!

This is a real shame, because the magazine has some good and interesting content, but while they are focussing their "resources on traditional process and content" I really do think they're missing out on the bigger picture. They also stress that they're first and foremost a magazine (their embolden) and strive to always maintain a magazine metaphor. So, they'll be doing this all in print format that I can purchase from a news stand will they? All very odd.

Library & Information Update blog : How to get the most out of Exalead (beat Google?) - Phil Bradley

Library & Information Update blog : How to get the most out of Exalead. As some of you may know, I write a monthly Q&A column in the CILIP update magazine. Recently I've moved to writing a full page, instead of half a page, but rather than answer more questions I've started a section called 'Searchlight' which takes a look at some lesser known, but still very useful search engines. As you can see from the heading, this month I'm looking at one of my most favourite engines Exalead.

A Selection of Social Media Search Engines

 My latest column is in Ariadne Issue 57.  As the name suggests, I've looked at a variety of different social search engines, specifically Twitter Search, Social Mention, tuSavvy and Delver, with mentions of a few more.

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 165

Internet Resources Newsletter: Issue 165. This is now available at a monitor near you.

Main Articles: 'Search Engines: Google Still Growing', Ariadne Issue 56

My latest article in Ariadne is now available: 'Search Engines: Google Still Growing',  I've written about some of the new search elements that have been added to the search engine in the first half of this year, although it's already out of date - the feature listing football team fixtures and results has already been dropped. Also particularly worthy of mention (although everything in Ariadne is worth reading) is an article from my favourite librarian in black, Sarah Houghton-Jan on dealing with information overload.