How cool is this? The SLS shared online catalog, SWAN, is now integrating digital images! Tony just got this working for Brookfield Zoo's upcoming collection of images, so you can see an example of a Postcard of a Hippopotamus and Day Old Calf from circa 1941 (Bebe and her calf, Puddle)!

I can't wait to see the rest of the collection come online! Way to go, Tony!

As we begin preparing for our new grant software that will give us blogging, news aggregation, and oh-so-much more for our web site, SLS experimenting with Movable Type blogs in order to gain experience and understand the dynamics of the medium. Therefore, I'm quite happy to announce that we've launched the first blog (that I know of) devoted to Interlibrary Loan News. It's Kate Boyle's baby, and you can subscribe to its RSS feed, too! It will have some items of interest mostly to SLS member libraries, but it will also have general interest ILL news.

And we've got another blog coming next week. Hoo-hah!

Danny Ayes is keeping a running list of RSS news aggregators that support authentication. This is going to be important as commercial content moves into this space. (If I'm paying you, I want the full content in my aggregator, thank you very much.)

It also gives me hope that library patrons could access commercial content via the library's subscription. Read headlines of interest and click out to the full article fully authenticated by their library barcode number. [via the Aggregators Yahoo Group]

FYI, Beth Faulkner from the Tinley Park Public Library posted the following information to the RefList mailing list:

"I just wanted to make everyone aware that the Chicago Heights Public Library has an alphabetical index of all obituaries that have appeared in the Star newspapers since 1907. Although there are many local editions of the Star, the obituary section is the same in all editions.

Patrons wanting copies of these obituaries can call the Reference Dept of the Chicago Heights Library directly or they can go through their local library. There is usually no charge unless the request is for more then 4 or 5 copies.

The index is continually being updated, but there is about a one month lag.

You should keep in mind, though, that a person's obituary probably won't have appeared in the the Star unless their community was covered by one of the Star newspapers at the time of their death."

More details when I get them, but the Heritage Trail Library System and SLS and will be bringing Steven Cohen to Chicago for a presentation on October 9, 2003. He will duplicate the workshop he gave at the Computers in Libraries conference last March. I saw it, and you should attend. Trust me on this one. Thursday morning, October 9, at SLS.

FYI, it's Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Day at SLS. Brownies and movies at lunch!