It is a pleasure and an honor to be able to introduce this, the
second issue of Code4Lib Journal. See:

   http://journal.code4lib.org/

Each article in this issue has a little bit of something for all who
call themselves a librarian or work in a library. Each identifies
some sort of library problem to be addressed, and offers one or more
solutions. Many are complete with code snippets. After all, this is
Code4Lib.

For example, people in public service may be interested in Edward M.
Corrado and Kathryn A. Frederick's review of database-driven subject
guide applications. Kenneth Furuta and Michele Potter describe a
simple help system that brings librarians running to the reference
desk. Margaret Mellinger and Kim Griggs explain how library resources
can be organized into course pages without the need of HTML knowledge
and yet sport Web 2.0 features. Nancy Fried Foster, Nora Dimmock, and
Alison Bersani shed light on participatory design.

For those of us who enjoy cataloging and metadata issues, Jonathan
Gorman outlines how he modified VUFind to exploit Wikipedia and
cataloging authority records to enhance information about authors in
a library catalog. Chris Freeland, Martin Kalfatovic, Jay Paige, and
Marc Crozier illustrate a different use of Library of Congress
Subject Headings by integrating place names with Google Maps. Carol
Jean Godby, Devon Smith and Eric Childress describe a technique for
crosswalking just about any metadata format into just about any other
metadata format.

For the systems librarian in you, Dan Scott and Kevin Beswick share
how they used Linux live CDs customized as kiosk browsers to provide
laptops as 'quick lookup' stations at their library. Andrew Darby
takes advantage of the Google Calendar API to easily manage the
display of library hours. Jody DeRidder exploits Google sitemap
technology and static HTML pages to make content in the "deep Web"
more accessible.

We hope you find these articles useful, stimulating, and relevant to
your daily working lives.

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame