May 2011
97 posts
3 tags
“It may be if a marketing guru says libraries shld be doing stuff we already are,...”
– http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda/status/70243809883201536
4 tags
“If someone suggested the idea of public libraries now, they’d be considered...”
– Peter Collins, The Secret Life of Libraries (via jingc)
3 tags
Seth Godin: The future of the library →
I think he’s got some good points, though I take issue with at least one part:
And then we need to consider the rise of the Kindle. An ebook costs about $1.60 in 1962 dollars. A thousand ebooks can fit on one device, easily. Easy to store, easy to sort, easy to hand to your neighbor.
Sure, the ereader is easy to hand to your neighbor; the ebook itself, not so much.
A few reaction...
3 tags
Consumerist: Author Pirates Copies Of Own Books To... →
Not only did he download his own stuff, he’s disappointed with what he managed to get! That’s awesome. :D
Most publishers and some authors believe online piracy robs them of potential income, but at least one writer has managed to turn the digital pilfering of his wares into a potential gain. He says he’s downloaded copies of out-of-print work with the idea of converting the...
4 tags
a few musings on 'digital' information
I find it interesting how often people, when presented with the information they seek in a digital format, immediately ask, ‘Can I print this?’
Today I realized that when I email people and tell them the document they want has been digitized and is available at X, I always include information on how to save/print the document… even when it’s HathiTrust and printing...
3 tags
boingboing: Piracy sends "Go the Fuck to Sleep" to... →
Except, it hasn’t been published yet. It’s reached the number one slot on the strength of pre-orders.
How did this remarkable thing occur? Piracy.
Some good points are made in the boingboing comments; click through to read the full article from The Bay Citizen. That article makes it clear the publishers haven’t spent a dime on advertising yet; this is a great case of the...
4 tags
The relationship between book bloggers & book... →
This seems like something that would work well for libraries, too… is this sort of thing done in public libraries? Or do libraries solely rely on the staff to promote various books/genres? (I don’t work in a public library, and I haven’t seen anything like this advertised for my local branch, hence the question.)
3 tags
“How to find out the future of the library: find out what your patrons want &...”
– http://twitter.com/cmz1018/status/70125057887834112
1 tag
1 tag
2 tags
Sociological Images: Kids, Surveillance, and the... →
…parents try to protect children from disclosure and exposure with surveillance tools that block and report content. This, Doctorow argues provocatively, only trains kids to accept surveillance as normal and unproblematic. Instead of spying on our kids, he suggests, we should be teaching them to manipulate and avert involuntary disclosure, such that they grow up learning to question...
1 tag
ZDNet: Google's Blogger outage makes the case... →
My question is, “What if this had happened to another Google service?” Say, Google Docs? What if every document you wrote and saved on Wednesday was suddenly taken offline on Thursday, and you no longer had your presentation or your notes or your research for a client meeting today? How does this promise from Google sound now?
2 tags
“work less, do more:
1. live on purpose
2. stop procrastinating
3. conquer...”
– 9 Ways To Work Less And Do More (via strangemonkey)
1 tag
“The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what...”
– Tobias Wolff (via petitchou)
3 tags
Salon: Why libraries still matter →
Let’s set aside the obvious rejoinder that many citizens can’t afford e-readers and, furthermore, can only access Google via a library computer. The anniversary of the NYPL’s main building is an occasion to talk about why the library needs to be a place as well as an ethereal mass of data residing somewhere in “the cloud.” Not everything we need or want to know...
1 tag
5 tags
Library Babel Fish: Confusing Excess with Access →
I love the food metaphor used:
Perhaps because on my campus we held a conference on food last fall, I keep thinking about things in terms of need for a sustainable, healthy, and secure food system. Once upon a time, libraries stocked our own pantries. We even set up a kind of pot-luck sharing system, relying on first sale rights to loan things among libraries. Now we outsource our...
5 tags
Change.org: Best-Selling Authors Criticize... →
Asked in February what he thought of HarperCollins’ decision to cash in on libraries by selling them “self-destructing” e-books, literary superstar Neil Gaiman tweeted back in just five words: “I think it’s incredibly disappointing.”
2 tags
Librarian by Day: Beware Your Information Bubble →
Eli Pariser talks about filter bubbles in this terrific TED Talk. As human beings were prone to bubbles, we gravitate to people like us, people with the same views, the same socio-economic class, the same habits etc. All sorts of studies show that if you’re likely to have similar habits and life-styles as the people you associate with. The web has been applauded as a way to escape that...
3 tags
Statesman Journal: Lack of librarians will hurt... →
Matching books to a kid’s interest is what our school librarians do. In my experience, they do it exceedingly well. Through programs like Battle of the Books, for example, and in many other ways, too, they strive to instill the joy of reading in every child. It’s not an easy task. Too many children come from a home without books. Too many children never even held a book before...
