[NOTE: Click here to see the whole post.]

We received four very good proposals for hosting the 2009 conference, and now it is time to vote on them! Voting is open until 3am Eastern Time on Thursday, February 28th. We expect to announce results at the conference later that day.

1. Go here: http://dilettantes.code4lib.org:6789/election/index/3

The Code4Lib Journal (http://journal.code4lib.org) is looking to expand
its volunteer staff. We are looking for one or two new Editorial
Committee members, and one new Web/Tech Administrator. As we add more
staff, we are also interested in expanding the diversity of our staff,
especially in regard to types and locations of organization worked for.

The Editorial Committee collectively manages the entire business of the
Journal, including editorial as well as publishing/business functions.
Duties expected of Editorial Committee members include taking

Proposals to host the 2009 Code4Lib Conference will be accepted through Wednesday, February 20, 2008. A decision will be made the following week by popular vote. See the hosting information page for more information.

Traditionally (if two years can be called tradition) we hold a contest to pick the design for the front of the conference t-shirt. This year we did not receive many entries - in fact, we only had one official entry. Fortunately, it rocks (at least, I think so):

Design by Noel Peden

I wasn't sure I'd ever see the day that the UVa library would, as an institution, agree to open source Blacklight. But they did! [A dirty little secret is that the bulk of it, including a basic example MARC indexer, was open sourced last year during the preparation for the Solr code4lib preconference.]

I'll be leading a Solr workshop this February, in Taiwan, for the EBTI/CBETA Conference. This is a synergy of several interests of mine: library-related findability, Asian culture, and Buddhist philosophy. I'm particularly encouraged by the Integrated Buddhist Archives (IBA) proposal - seems like a perfect fit for Collex.

I'm honored to be speaking at the upcoming OLA Super Conference 2008. I'm presenting "Collex: Collecting and exhibiting scholarly materials" (session #406, Thursday January 31, 10:40am) and " Blacklight: the University of Virginia's Catalog on Solr" (session #1203, Friday, February 1, 2:10pm). I'm looking forward to demonstrating these projects and sharing their latest news.

Registration to the Code4lib 2008 conference is now open!

See https://secure.oregonstate.edu/ocs/register.php?event=274 (or the link from the conference page) to register.

Oregon State University and Code4lib are offering scholarships to promote gender and cultural diversity.

OSU / Code4lib Gender Diversity Scholarship

The OSU / Code4lib Gender Diversity Scholarship will provide up to $1000 to cover travel costs and conference fees for one qualified attendee to the 2008 Code4lib conference (February 25-28 in Portland, OR). This scholarship is eligible to any woman interested in actively contributing to the mission and goals of the Code4lib Conference.

The first issue of the Code4Lib Journal has been released: http://journal.code4lib.org