alexlent

November 11, 2009

xxiv: Wired.com coverage of Google Library

Filed under: books/reading/writing, library, technology — alexlent @ 11:04 am

Wired.com has been covering Google’s Library of the Future project. Now Google has until this Friday, 13 November, to effectively pay off its critics.

“Critics, which include Google competitors Yahoo and Microsoft, point out that the settlement creates exemptions to copyright law that will apply only to Google. That’s unfair, they charge” (Wired.com Citation).

But Google’s project has supporters too. The University of Michigan just signed a deal with Google; UMich will receive a digital copy of every book in their library, whether or not that book was scanned at UMich or at another Google partner university. (Wired.com Citation)

Google says it wants to provide easy and sometimes free access to knowledge. Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive project thinks that Google’s library project goes against the philosophy of libraries:

“Giving control over such access to one company, no matter how clever or popular, is a danger to principles we hold dear: free speech, open access to knowledge and universal education. Throughout history, those principles have been realized in libraries, publishers and legal systems.
“There are alternatives. Separate from the Google effort, hundreds of libraries, publishers and technology firms are already digitizing books, with the goal of creating an open, freely accessible system for people to discover, borrow, purchase and read millions of titles” (Wired.com Citation).

I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I am a big fan of Google. They are a creative, experimental company that has done a lot of good. On the other hand, there are clear copyright violations and ethical problems with Google’s project.

November 4, 2009

xxviii: Library school is…

Filed under: library, school — alexlent @ 3:19 pm

Not as much fun as I thought it would be. I dropped a class because it was terrible (and I was a bit behind thanks to neglecting to buy the textbooks until several weeks into the class… I know, I know). The work isn’t very interesting and sits in this odd middle ground between theoretical and practical without being very much help in either case.

I’m growing to like cataloging more than I expected I would, partly because my professor is such a nice guy and partly because there are so many flaws in cataloging theory; it’s fun to find ways to improve the system. It’s also fun to find weird cataloging rules that are just vestigial relics of the card catalog age.

My technology class is interesting. It talks a lot about computing history, which is interesting but almost totally useless. The class is a bit frustrating because it provides additional knowledge without any additional skills. It *is* an introductory course, so the fact that it talks about technology without teaching us how to work with technology is understandable.

My archives professor is terrific fun and her course might be my best. I’ve been sick and injured (long, irrelevant story) and have not been able to go into my internship very much yet at all. When I put in more hours, I think I’ll enjoy the course more.

I miss working in libraries. For now, studying LIS is okay.

October 3, 2009

xxvii: Archival Series

Filed under: library, school, work — alexlent @ 12:05 pm

My archival science profession said today that there isn’t any particular order in which a collection’s series ought to be placed.

I’m sure she’s correct. But it seems like the following example is a very logical ordering.

Writings
Correspondence
Newspaper Clippings
Photographs

The reason I put them in this order is that series 1-3 are printed media and series 4 is not. The 1-3 are in order of relation to the subject of the collection (the first is most tied to the subject; the third is least). Writings by the subject are much more directly tied to the subject than newspaper clippings about the subject.

Just a thought. I’ll expand on it later.

October 1, 2009

xxvi: National Archives *may* have mishandled some data

Filed under: technology — alexlent @ 9:22 am

This article from Wired.com details how the National Archives sent out a harddrive for repair and recycling without first clearing it of its data.

I think this article points out a confusion many people have about “deleting” data. It’s not easy. When you delete a some data, all your computer does is erase the path to the data. Because the computer is merely purposely misplacing the data, the data remains on the harddrive. With commercial retrieval software, it’s possible to “undelete” the data.

This article points out that even smashing a harddrive with a hammer isn’t a sure thing.

So what to do? Well, for those of us who don’t have sensitive data on their HDDs, just recycle them after a basic wipe.

The National Archives should employ an in-house team of IT specialists to evaluate their HDDs in need of repair. If they can be repaired, terrific. If they can’t, the IT specialists will know what to do. It seems like a bad idea to send confidential data to a contractor, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does. Especially a contractor which also contracts out some of its own contracted government work. Oops!

xxv: Mobile Devices to Change Worlds of Publishing, Communication, and Knowledge Management

Filed under: technology — alexlent @ 8:37 am

http://ow.ly/s7xF

Here’s an interesting article from The Scholarly Kitchen about how the number of cell phones per 100 people is going to surpass 100 soon. The SK is advising publishers to take advantage of this ASAP.

“[B]roadband and wireless are largely what enabled Web 2.0, social media, and the real-time web. With broadband becoming more available and useful through pocket-sized computers (aka, phones), the communication and publishing world will likely change again.

“…With the connectivity gap being closed by common, cheap, and useful devices, the pragmatists among us should start planning the future now.”

www.ijcis.info/Vol4N2/pp58-62.pdf

The above article claims that “[Mobile-Knowledge Management] has its focus on “the seamless integration of mobile work into the corporate knowledge management loop, especially where knowledge is associated while performing tasks, tasks necessitate out-of-office work and tasks necessitate communication” (M. Grimm, M. Tazari, and D. Balfanz, “A Reference Model for Mobile Knowledge Management,” in 5th International Conference on Knowledge Management (I-Know ’05), Graz, Austia, 2005, quoted in Zuga, Slaidins, Kapenieks and Strazds, 2006).

I think I understand how this mobile technology will affect the communication world, but does anyone have any predictions about how it will affect the publishing world? The KM world?

September 23, 2009

xxiv: Public Computer Access Problems

Filed under: library, technology — alexlent @ 4:58 pm

Jeff Scott of Gather No Dust points out a few problems with the computers provided in public libraries.

1. Terrible bandwidth
2. Difficult to get funding
3. “[C]ritical fee programs … not … upgraded regularly”
4. Patrons do not all use the same file formats
5. Patrons are not all able to convert their files
6. Computers do not all have CD drives or floppy disc drives

I would add an additional problem:

7. Not enough computers

This problem can be abated by setting up wireless internet access and encouraging patrons to bring their own laptops to the library instead of using the public computers.

Bandwidth and funding are both serious problems though.

I think a number of the problems Scott mentions could be solved with simple and inexpensive solutions.

Take-home (and put next to your computer) fliers could provide step-by-step instructions about file conversions and how patrons ought to take their data with them to the library (CD? Floppy? Flash?). The same basic instructions could be provided at every computer.

I think Scott’s idea of selling flash drives and providing both Open Office and Microsoft Office is practical but possibly confusing to patrons. I can imagine less computer-savvy patrons not knowing which suite to choose when on a public terminal.

Another problem:

8. Mac vs. PCs

Smith College has solved this nicely by using Mini Mac computers with Intel chips. These are fairly inexpensive computers and the College has set them up thusly: “click here for mac. click here for windows.” Clean, easy.

What other problems can you see?

September 22, 2009

xxiii: Ebooks and Ebook Readers

Filed under: books/reading/writing, library, technology — alexlent @ 5:19 pm

Tim Spalding (aka @librarythingtim on twitter) tweeted the following on 8 September:

“I’m a tech entrepreneur. I’m more pro-tech than anyone I know. But I see ebooks as a disaster for everything I care about. Crazy?” (9:37 PM Sep 8th from web)

I like to think that I’m pretty tech-friendly as well, and I agree with Tim; ebooks make me a bit uncomfortable. Or, they used to. After playing with a Kindle for a bit and after realizing that I adore audio books, I’ve warmed up to the idea. Ebooks won’t replace books (certainly not picture books or books of art – although a different digital format might have better luck here), but they have their place.

Ebooks are very convenient. You can pick out a book on amazon and have it downloaded in under 60 seconds. That’s darn fast. Ebooks can be displayed in large fonts and some double as audio books. If you back up your ebooks properly, natural disasters should have less of an effect on your library.

There are lots of good things to say about ebooks. I find more problems with ebook readers.

I carry with me a netbook, an mp3 player, and a messaging/camera phone. I don’t want another device. Of course, having an ebook reader would mean that I wouldn’t have to carry my books. All well and good, but wouldn’t it be great if we could just have a single device? Yes. It would.

I’d rather get a nice tablet computer that has the same shape and feel of a Kindle, has most of the capabilities as my Asus Netbook, can play music with headphones, and with which I can ditch my phone in favor of skype.

Ebooks are great. Ebook readers are unnecessary.

September 21, 2009

xxii: Quote

Filed under: quotes — alexlent @ 12:56 am

“In the matter of the spread of knowledge two conditions are prerequisites. There must be formal education. There must be literacy. Without these two, knowledge cannot spread.”
– Dr. B. R. Babasheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, vol. 3, p. 41

What would Dr. Ambedkar think of youtube, wikipedia, and blogs?

September 13, 2009

xxi: Experimental Blog Mirror

Filed under: library, planning, quotes, website — alexlent @ 3:49 pm

Note: As of 17 December 2009, my blog has been hosted entirely on alexlent.org.

If you’ve come here via my website, you may notice that the URL says “http://www.alexlent.org/blog.html”. That’s because I’ve been experimenting with mirroring my blog on my website. I’d like to set up a live mirror – a webpage that updates automatically when I update my blog – but that seems to be very tricky, so this will do for now.

The problem with static mirroring is that whenever I update my blog, I need to make a copy of my blog’s HTML and FTP it to alexlent.org. This isn’t particularly difficult, but it is not convenient. Also, without editing my blog HTML and copying the code from each blog page you can get to my main blog page (the only page I currently mirror), whenever you click any link on alexlent.org/blog, you get sent to the corresponding link on pw.net. This is supposed to happen, so nothing is wrong precisely, but it’s not what I really want to happen.

The reason I want a mirror is that I would like to consolidate my web presence. I’m also considering simply moving my blog from pw.net to alexlent.org. “simply”

Increasingly, this seems like the best idea.

Oh! I still need to blog about my library school classes. I’ve had three so far and they’re going swimmingly. But more on that later.

September 11, 2009

XX: Moodle and Trust

Filed under: library, philosophy, school — Tags: , , , — alexlent @ 11:56 am

My Library School features traditional, blended, and online courses. I’m taking two traditional, one blended, and one online. Both my online course and my blended course use a course management system called MOODLE, which is short for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.” I suspect the creators may have thought of the acronym before they thought of what it stood for.

A big part of blended and online courses (and of being a good citizen of the online world in general) is getting your fellow classmates (or citizens) to trust you (and to be worthy of that trust). One way that Moodle helps its users do that is with user profiles.

Most web 2.0 sites use similar profiles. But I’m pretty pleased with the little biography that I just wrote, so I’m going to post it here and put it as my about page on this blog.

First semester LIS student taking 415, 438, 465, and 488. I attended UMass-Amherst from September 2006 to May 2009, when I graduated with a BA in philosophy. I concentrated on Ethics and Logic and wrote my thesis under Fred Feldman on a practical form of utilitarianism I called Precedence Utilitarianism. While at UMass, I worked in Special Collections and University Archives at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Check out some of the work I did for SCUA on my website at http://www.alexlent.org/projects.html.

I took a gap year between high school and college from 2005 to 2006, working as a clerk and baker at the general store in my hometown of Petersham, Massachusetts. Before that, I attended Deerfield Academy (think Harry Potter without magic) and before that, Applewild School.

I’m currently reading The Manual of Detection by Jedidiah Berry and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. My favorite work of fiction is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The best YA book I’ve read recently is The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. My favorite book for grades 3 to 5 is Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe. My favorite picture book is Billy and Blaze by C.W. Anderson. One book I think every library should have is Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

I’m interested in trust in online communities. I think I will do some more research on this. There are some issues with the concept. For instance, what is trust? Can it be quantified? Who has it? How do you give it? These are philosophical issues (that, if I know philosophy at all, have probably been published into the ground). There are other, more practical issues, such as: Can online communities function without trust? How do you know who to trust? Can you be trusting while still protecting yourself from getting hurt (emotionally/technologically)?

More on this later.

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