Bloglines Transfering Ownership to Merchant Circle

I received an e-mail from Bloglines/Ask.com informing me that they are transferring Bloglines to new owners MerchantCircle.com.

Per the Bloglines/Ask.com e-mail:

• Ask.com will maintain the current Bloglines service as is until December 1, 2010. After December 1, 2010, the service will transition wholly to MerchantCircle. During the month of December, you will be able to easily port your feeds over to the MerchantCircle-powered service. It's an easy process, and we.ll provide you with complete instructions well in advance.
• Logging-In: You will keep your same password as before.
• Current Bloglines features: Your Bloglines subscriptions will seamlessly transition to the MerchantCircle service, however, the Clippings Tab will no longer be available and you will not be able to transport saved articles to the new service. We're very sorry for any inconvenience this will cause; the infrastructure requirements and costs are simply too great to justify maintaining this type of archiving feature.
  

MerchantCircle is a directory of small and local businesses. The company offers services to those vendors such as advertising placement, web directories, web site hosting and other similar services.

I am really not clear on how this is going to be a good match. The general focus of MerchantCircle is to attract small business owners to help them connect with customers. Nothing wrong with that; support your local businesses when possible.

I have to be honest. When I did use Bloglines it was not to shop. It was to connect with those sites and blogs I needed to track or visit. I'm not totally opposed to ads that support a web business. I'm just not sure how these two different kinds of web services are going to mesh with each other.

My main concern is that I don't want my contact info transferred to vendors without my explicit permission. If I don't like it I want an easy Opt-Out process.

For more info you can visit the MerchantCircle blog or e-mail your questions.

Library Tech Program Students Intern with Pasadena Digital History Collaboration

Pasadena City College Shatford Library, Pasadena Public Library and the Pasadena Museum of History are working together in a collaboration to digitize Pasadena's historical resources using CONTENTdm software. The project is known as the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration.

The PCC Foundation awarded a grant (written by PCC Library Technician Jared Burton) to fund a workshop for 10 PCC Library Technology Program students and graduates, which served as a catalyst for an internship designed to provide experience in digital asset management using OCLC’s CONTENTdm software. The paid internship started in September and will run for 12 weeks during the Fall semester. The program meets on Saturday mornings at the library and is taught by PCC Librarian Linda Stewart, formerly of OCLC. In addition to gaining experience with digital asset management software, interns are becoming skilled at scanning photographic material and creating metadata to aid in discovery and management of these special materials. Carol Cooper, PCC Cataloger, has also contributed to the project by reviewing samples of the work done by the interns and establishing subject headings for the photo descriptions.

The images that the interns are working on will be added to the online database of photos, which you can view for free at http://www.pasadenadigitalhistory.com/. This collaboration offers a chance for the public to view rare photographs depicting Pasadena’s rich history, and the internship provides our Library Tech Program students the opportunity to acquire valuable and marketable skills as they enter the library field.




Library Tech Jared Burton with Files of Historic Photos for the Digital History Collaboration



Linda Stewart Working with Students

LT Progam Students Working Hard

Linda Stewart Working with LT Progam Students