Obviously the analogy I suggested yesterday for encouraging undergrads to use library resources instead of Google has problems. (It was, “Why eat at McDonalds when you can eat at a five star restaurant for free?”) Objections had to do with the fact that many students like McDonalds and want their info fast and in a … Read more or whatever
There’s a good little article in the new issue of In These Times on privatization of core library services and functions: “Public Libraries for Profit,” by Akito Yoshikane. Though it’s brief it hits the essential points about privatization and libraries: private, for-profit businesses lack accountability to communities and lack the commitment to intellectual freedom and … Read more In These Times on library privatization
Here’s a quick analogy for undergrads who want to just use Google for their research papers: “Why eat at McDonalds when you can eat for free at the five star restaurant of your choice?”
I am remiss not to have mentioned Siva Vaidhyanathan‘s new blog about Google and the implications of their projects: The Googlization of Everything. It’s really top notch commentary on Google, with further depth, detail and comprehensiveness than is usually found in a blog. Note that Siva says it is a book in progress.
Notwithstanding today’s earlier post and many other posts here about what is wrong in the world of information, I’d like to observe American Thanksgiving by noting that we have much to be thankful for. I think it’s right to say that our criticism of things that are happening in the information sphere tends to be … Read more Thanksgiving
Remember the National Endowment for the Arts study on reading in 2004, the one that noted a sharp decline in literary reading? One of the implicit causes was that computer use has distracted people from reading, so a natural response in the blogosphere was that the study was flawed for only looking at literary reading … Read more NEA study: all types of reading in decline
This is good news. Toni Samek, the subject of the last post here, has been picked for the first annual Library Journal Teaching Award. Read the article byLJ’s John N. Berry III….
The BCLA IFC blog has an interview with Toni Samek, who is a very progressive LIS professor at the University Alberta. Toni writes and teaches on topics in critical librarianship, and had a book published earlier this year from Chandos Press: Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-First Century Guide. The interview at the BCLA IFC … Read more Interview with Toni Samek
Library Juice Press now has its own Facebook Page…. Facebook Pages are different from Facebook Groups in that they are profiles that companies, organizations, or other entities set up in their own right. For example, anybody could set up a group for members of the ACLU, but only the ACLU (or a chapter) could set … Read more LJP Facebook Page
My first experiment as a publisher was a Pig Latin translation of the Book of Psalms and the Book of Proverbs. I have not been very public about this project, but as the months have passed I’ve gradually grown more comfortable with the idea of letting people know about it. I will say that it’s … Read more Pig Latin Bible
I found these on Arts & Letters Daily. A comment about that site after the links. First, an article from the New Yorker by Anthony Grafton: Future Reading: Digitization and Its Discontents. This is a thoughtful meditation on Google’s Library Project and the general effect of digitization on reading, from a well-informed historical perspective. I’m … Read more A couple of interesting links