A personal word or two about the country where the newest member of ARL is located at the end of this post.
Word from DuPont Circle in D.C. (where ARL HQ is located and only a few steps from Krispy Kreme) that the University of Ottawa accepted their invitation and joined the Association of Research Libraries.
The invite/decision process began at an ARL membership meeting that took place in Seattle at the end of April.
The University of Ottawa will be home to the 125th member of ARL.
“It is with pride and a great sense of commitment that our Library becomes a member of the Association of Research Libraries,” says Allan Rock, president of the University of Ottawa. “As Canada’s university, we understand that supporting our library is critical to our institution’s success in research and learning.”
The vote of membership followed a multi-year review process of the uOttawa Library that considered both qualitative and quantitative documentation and involved site visits. The review also examined the breadth and depth of collections, uniqueness of research resources, services to the Library’s community, potential contributions to scholarship, and leadership in the library and information science profession. The review committee noted in particular the sustained growth of the institution and its support for the Library over the past decade.
[Snip]
Charles B. Lowry, executive director of ARL, added, “ARL is delighted the University of Ottawa accepted our invitation to become a member of our association. The unique position it brings to membership in terms of location and language are of benefit to the Association and to the students, the faculty, and their scholarly colleagues and researchers throughout North America.”
The announcement has more info about the itself. Also, here links to the UOttawa homepage and library. While "virtually" visiting the library make sure to take a look at their new catalogue (based on Endeca) that's in beta mode.
Other Canadian Members of ARL Include:
+ University of Alberta Libraries
+ University of British Columbia Library
+ University of Calgary Libraries and Cultural Resources
See Also: Here are a few Bird's Eye Images of the University of Ottawa Campus #1 ||| Campus #2 ||| Library
Btw, if you've never used Bing Maps, the images your looking at are called "Bird's Eye." These images are in addition to the satellite imagery that's also available. As you might expect they can be moved by dragging, rotated by clicking on the compass, and more. While not worldwide yet, there is more and more Bird's Eye imagery coming online each month.
The End of This Post
While some are Francophiles or Anglophiles, here at ResourceShelf we are Canadaphiles or as Stephen Abram likes to call us, Canuckaphiles. So, while we love our country and have been fortunate enough to see many parts of it, our wonderful neighbors to the north are also something very special.
So Nanaimo Bars,Tim's, and SCTV reruns to all of you and let's move on. . More Canada talk later, we promise. (-;
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
