Final News Report
"Downturn Puts New Stresses on Libraries"
Susan Saulny, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/us/02library.html?_r=1
The Library in Arlington Heights in Illinoise has tried make itself as user friendly and up-to-date as possible in these modern times. Lately, however, it seems that the patrons frequenting the library are in need of more than just a helping hand finding a book. It seems as though the economic crisis that is plaguing our country today is affecting the library in an unseen way. People, apparently with no job and nowhere to go are turning to the library more and more as a sort of haven in these toubled times. And while this increase in patronage can be seen as good thing, it is in reality a mixed blessing. Recently on April 1st two homeless men fought eachother for some unknown reason on the steps of the library and their altercation ended with one man being stabbed six times and let for dead. The librarians of Arlington library feel ill-equiped to deal with this new aspect of their job; afterall they are librarians and not counselors. The stresses have become so pressing that a staff theripist is going to employeed to help the librarians deal with these new matters. It is the fervent hope of all involved that "things get better" soon.
To me this is nothing new. The town where I grew up in always had a few homless people hanging around in the local library. While I see this increase as unfortunate and unaccptiable, I also find it knid of lame that it is not being better delt with. The homless in my town who were at the library often found employment there because they knew the place so well. And if not employment they found education and skills to help them find jobs. I think that instead of fretting and wringing our hands we should be helping these people as well. It isnt reall all that difficult to try. To get resulst, maybe, but it is not hard to get the ball rolling.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Willinsky, John. The access principle : the case for open access to research and scholarship. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
John Willinsky, noted author of multiple books on the subject of scholarly communication, explores in his book The Access Principle then newest development in scholarly communication. In this book he argues that the open access initiative is a good thing for the scholarly community and the general public as well. He claims that this new development can benefit both the frustrated researcher and the mundane high school teacher as well. These beneficial aspects are covered in depth in the chapters entitled “Public” and “Politics” respectively. This is a fine book for seeing how exactly the Open Access Initiative is able to be applied to the wider spectrum of society.
Andresen, Deborah Lines. Digital scholarship in the tenure, promotion, and review process. N.Y.: M. E., Sharp, 2004.
An Associate Professor of information studies at the University of Albany, Deborah Andresen explains the difficulties of digital scholarship. Of particular interest is part II of her book where she writes on the history of digital scholarship. However the most relevant part of her book in regards to the scholarly communication crisis is the third section where the author writes on tenure, promotion, and review. This section is important as it gives critical insight into one of the cogs of the communication crisis. By understanding the why’s and how’s it may then become apparent a way to solve the problem.
Abel, Richard E. Scholarly Publishing : Books, Journals, Publishers, and Libraries in the Twentieth Century. N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Richard E. Abel, known to many as “the father of the modern library approval plan”, addresses in his book the history (in regards to the twentieth century) of publication and scholarly communication. His book is a collection of fifteen essays that evaluate the contributions of the prominent figures of publishing in the twentieth century. Also in his book is what he calls the evolution of college textbooks. The most pertinent chapter, however is the fourteenth; wherein he specifically covers the impact of library budgets on the communication crisis. This text is very important in understand how the crisis came about and where t is headed now.
Alexander, Alison; Potter, W. James; Anderson, James A. How to Publish Your Communication Research: An Insiders Guide. California: Sage Publications,
2001.
Professors at the Universities of Georgia and California (respectively) their book covers the nuances and pitfalls of scholarly publishing/ communication. They admit that it is a brutal process and as such they have provided this guide, as it were, to help those new to this field. The aime of the book is to aid not only scholarly publication, but mundane publication as well. While the book doesn’t seem to address the communication crisis specifically, its contents provide insight into this rather nasty business. It may also provide moving arguments in favor of moving away form the whole high priced scholarly publication issue.
John Willinsky, noted author of multiple books on the subject of scholarly communication, explores in his book The Access Principle then newest development in scholarly communication. In this book he argues that the open access initiative is a good thing for the scholarly community and the general public as well. He claims that this new development can benefit both the frustrated researcher and the mundane high school teacher as well. These beneficial aspects are covered in depth in the chapters entitled “Public” and “Politics” respectively. This is a fine book for seeing how exactly the Open Access Initiative is able to be applied to the wider spectrum of society.
Andresen, Deborah Lines. Digital scholarship in the tenure, promotion, and review process. N.Y.: M. E., Sharp, 2004.
An Associate Professor of information studies at the University of Albany, Deborah Andresen explains the difficulties of digital scholarship. Of particular interest is part II of her book where she writes on the history of digital scholarship. However the most relevant part of her book in regards to the scholarly communication crisis is the third section where the author writes on tenure, promotion, and review. This section is important as it gives critical insight into one of the cogs of the communication crisis. By understanding the why’s and how’s it may then become apparent a way to solve the problem.
Abel, Richard E. Scholarly Publishing : Books, Journals, Publishers, and Libraries in the Twentieth Century. N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Richard E. Abel, known to many as “the father of the modern library approval plan”, addresses in his book the history (in regards to the twentieth century) of publication and scholarly communication. His book is a collection of fifteen essays that evaluate the contributions of the prominent figures of publishing in the twentieth century. Also in his book is what he calls the evolution of college textbooks. The most pertinent chapter, however is the fourteenth; wherein he specifically covers the impact of library budgets on the communication crisis. This text is very important in understand how the crisis came about and where t is headed now.
Alexander, Alison; Potter, W. James; Anderson, James A. How to Publish Your Communication Research: An Insiders Guide. California: Sage Publications,
2001.
Professors at the Universities of Georgia and California (respectively) their book covers the nuances and pitfalls of scholarly publishing/ communication. They admit that it is a brutal process and as such they have provided this guide, as it were, to help those new to this field. The aime of the book is to aid not only scholarly publication, but mundane publication as well. While the book doesn’t seem to address the communication crisis specifically, its contents provide insight into this rather nasty business. It may also provide moving arguments in favor of moving away form the whole high priced scholarly publication issue.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Annotated Bibliography Part Three
Andrew Glass 3/30/09
Prof. Pemberton LIB. 103
Annotated Bibliography (Part 3)
N/A. “Scholarly Communication Crisis.” Library Mosaics. 14.6 (2003): 23-23.
Despite the notable lack of author in this article, it can be used as a reliable and pithy introduction to the concept of scholarly communication and its current crisis. Perhaps intended for faculty room reading during a lunch break, this one page article dives right into how the scholarly communication cycle begins and how it ends; that is it starts when a faculty member does research and needs to have it published and ends when the university has to pay the publisher for the research its own faculty member wrote about. From here the article goes into the fact that the publishing costs have “skyrocketed” over the past fifteen years, and increasingly libraries are finding that they simply do not have the funding to spend on the subscription. Next is mentioned the various ways libraries are trying to manage this problem; from relying more on online databases to simply subscribing to fewer journals. One of the more interesting features of this article has to do with the suggestions it lays out for dealing with this epidemic. The article suggests that faculty members try to protect their copyrights to their work. Or more specifically that they should bargain with the publisher to allow them to at least distribute their findings to their students and their library. It closes with the sentiment that this problem is going to take a lot of time and effort on the part of many individuals working together to fix it.
Yiotis, Kristen. “The Open Access Initiative: A New Paradigm for Scholarly Communications.” Information Technologies & Libraries. 24. 4 (2005): 157-162.
Kristen Yiotis, a graduate of San Jose State University and their library technologies program writes an article on a subject that she is well acquainted with: the scholarly communication crisis. While at its heart her article is about the crisis surrounding scholarly communication, it makes the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the “whys”/ “how’s” and jumps right into a suggested solution for the problem. In her article she discusses what is known as the “Open Access Initiative” (or OA for short), its origin, the basic mechanics that lay behind it, and how this initiative offers a second option for scholars who want to be published (but do not want to go to a publisher). While this article is written in plain English, one really should have a background in the subject that she discusses in order to get the most out of her article. While at times it can drift to personal opinion, Yiotis remains grounded in solid fact and her article can be used in furthering the discussion on scholarly communication fairly easily.
Milne, Patricia. “Scholarly communication: crisis, response and future: a review of the literature.”Austrilian Acidemic & Research Libraries.30.2 (1999): 70-88.
Patricia Milne, a long-time libraian and writer for Austrilian Acidemic & Research Libraries first sets out in her article to do what many other authers in this field attempt to to: simply define what the scholarly communication crisis is and how it came about. In truth there is only so much
one may say about the means by which this present dilemma came to be; it’s the same the world round be it here in the US or over in Australia. However the interesting feature that stands out in her article is that she examines not the common three pronged explination to this problem (that being scholar, publisher, impoverished library), but rather she looks at, in addition to these concepts, what she calls the “learned societies themselves”. Milne also strives to examine how the digital age in which we live exasperates the situation by making unclear the “once-clear distinctions and relationships between them [“them” being the aforementioned elements of the crisis”]”. On the whole her work is intended for intorductory audiences to this subject.
Albert, Daniel M. MD, Liesegang, Thomas J. MD, and Andrew P. Schachat MD. “The Open Access initiative in scientific and biomedical publishing: Fourth in the series on editorship.” American Journal of Ophthalmology. 139. 1 (2005): 156-167.
The three authors of this article Albery, Liesegang, and Schachat are Editors in Chiefs of Archives of Ophthalmology in Madison Wisconsin, American Journal of Ophthalmology in Jacksonville Florida, and Ophthalmology in Baltimore Maryland (respectivly). They provide another intorductory, yet highly authoritative, look into the Open Access Initiative (OA); a hopefull soultion for the communication crisis. In their article they set out to outline the basic concepts of OA, it’s history, and “the value of the traditional print model”. They argue that it will be a financial impossibility to maintain both the traditional print model of publishing an dthe newer digital method. In either case they maintaine that pains must be taken so that knowledge is not lost, and that it can be disseminated as needed. While this is an introductory work it is still important that the audience has some prior understanding of the subject.
Prof. Pemberton LIB. 103
Annotated Bibliography (Part 3)
N/A. “Scholarly Communication Crisis.” Library Mosaics. 14.6 (2003): 23-23.
Despite the notable lack of author in this article, it can be used as a reliable and pithy introduction to the concept of scholarly communication and its current crisis. Perhaps intended for faculty room reading during a lunch break, this one page article dives right into how the scholarly communication cycle begins and how it ends; that is it starts when a faculty member does research and needs to have it published and ends when the university has to pay the publisher for the research its own faculty member wrote about. From here the article goes into the fact that the publishing costs have “skyrocketed” over the past fifteen years, and increasingly libraries are finding that they simply do not have the funding to spend on the subscription. Next is mentioned the various ways libraries are trying to manage this problem; from relying more on online databases to simply subscribing to fewer journals. One of the more interesting features of this article has to do with the suggestions it lays out for dealing with this epidemic. The article suggests that faculty members try to protect their copyrights to their work. Or more specifically that they should bargain with the publisher to allow them to at least distribute their findings to their students and their library. It closes with the sentiment that this problem is going to take a lot of time and effort on the part of many individuals working together to fix it.
Yiotis, Kristen. “The Open Access Initiative: A New Paradigm for Scholarly Communications.” Information Technologies & Libraries. 24. 4 (2005): 157-162.
Kristen Yiotis, a graduate of San Jose State University and their library technologies program writes an article on a subject that she is well acquainted with: the scholarly communication crisis. While at its heart her article is about the crisis surrounding scholarly communication, it makes the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the “whys”/ “how’s” and jumps right into a suggested solution for the problem. In her article she discusses what is known as the “Open Access Initiative” (or OA for short), its origin, the basic mechanics that lay behind it, and how this initiative offers a second option for scholars who want to be published (but do not want to go to a publisher). While this article is written in plain English, one really should have a background in the subject that she discusses in order to get the most out of her article. While at times it can drift to personal opinion, Yiotis remains grounded in solid fact and her article can be used in furthering the discussion on scholarly communication fairly easily.
Milne, Patricia. “Scholarly communication: crisis, response and future: a review of the literature.”Austrilian Acidemic & Research Libraries.30.2 (1999): 70-88.
Patricia Milne, a long-time libraian and writer for Austrilian Acidemic & Research Libraries first sets out in her article to do what many other authers in this field attempt to to: simply define what the scholarly communication crisis is and how it came about. In truth there is only so much
one may say about the means by which this present dilemma came to be; it’s the same the world round be it here in the US or over in Australia. However the interesting feature that stands out in her article is that she examines not the common three pronged explination to this problem (that being scholar, publisher, impoverished library), but rather she looks at, in addition to these concepts, what she calls the “learned societies themselves”. Milne also strives to examine how the digital age in which we live exasperates the situation by making unclear the “once-clear distinctions and relationships between them [“them” being the aforementioned elements of the crisis”]”. On the whole her work is intended for intorductory audiences to this subject.
Albert, Daniel M. MD, Liesegang, Thomas J. MD, and Andrew P. Schachat MD. “The Open Access initiative in scientific and biomedical publishing: Fourth in the series on editorship.” American Journal of Ophthalmology. 139. 1 (2005): 156-167.
The three authors of this article Albery, Liesegang, and Schachat are Editors in Chiefs of Archives of Ophthalmology in Madison Wisconsin, American Journal of Ophthalmology in Jacksonville Florida, and Ophthalmology in Baltimore Maryland (respectivly). They provide another intorductory, yet highly authoritative, look into the Open Access Initiative (OA); a hopefull soultion for the communication crisis. In their article they set out to outline the basic concepts of OA, it’s history, and “the value of the traditional print model”. They argue that it will be a financial impossibility to maintain both the traditional print model of publishing an dthe newer digital method. In either case they maintaine that pains must be taken so that knowledge is not lost, and that it can be disseminated as needed. While this is an introductory work it is still important that the audience has some prior understanding of the subject.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Reading Report #5
“Information Navigation 101”
Andrea L. Foster
Chronicle of Higher Education
According to Andrea Foster, despite all the technical know-how that the college student of today possesses he or she is not so good in evaluating their source materials. In her article she and others reminisce about the days when the only authoritative source for information was your college library. From here she moves onto what institutions are doing to help their students today. This help comes primarily in the form of information literacy programs that are part of both high school testing and some college courses. This concept of information literacy (and its various courses) is not a new one. It has been banging around since 1974 when Paul Zurkowski founded his now extinct “Information Industry Association”. But Foster dog-ears the date 1989 as the time when information literacy really took off with the backing of the American Library Association; who advocated the incorporation of information literacy based courses and testing into public high schools and colleges. After brining us up to date on the information literacy back-story, Ms. Foster reasserts that students are inept at finding and evaluating their sources. While she holds this to be true, she draws our attention to an underlying issue surrounding information literacy: how to interpret it. There are a couple schools of thought that are mentioned here. One of them has to do with the fear that in defining information literacy too stringently all creativity and pleasure in the subject is snuffed out. Another thought comes from Stanley Wilder, an associate dean of libraries at the University of Rochester. In his opinion he thinks that information literacy should not be treated as a separate discipline, but instead (presumably) incorporated into the subjects already being taught. He goes on to say that the entire concept is something of a moot point in that gaining access to information is becoming such that things like “Boolean qualifiers” simply do not need to be taught. Yet at campuses like Fullerton faculty and staff feel that these courses are essential in a student body over dependent on Google. After this “debate” Foster goes into the actual testing of the students. Here she covers what the test consists of and to whom it is administered to (usually freshmen…go fig). The view of librarians on this test is that they are unsatisfied in its scope saying that the test focuses on only one aspect of information literacy. They are said to favor more diversified means of testing such as papers and presentations that really make the student apply their knowledge of information gathering. Others, like Richard C. Pollard, would wryly disagree saying that “it is the faculty members who need testing”.
My response to this article is one of insult. I cannot and hope never to have to speak for the rest of the student body, but I for one feel as if I can interpret my sources well enough. I must admit, however, that as I am writing this I have already gone through a couple of information literacy/ critical thinking courses to date. So maybe my indignation is a bit unfounded.
Andrea L. Foster
Chronicle of Higher Education
According to Andrea Foster, despite all the technical know-how that the college student of today possesses he or she is not so good in evaluating their source materials. In her article she and others reminisce about the days when the only authoritative source for information was your college library. From here she moves onto what institutions are doing to help their students today. This help comes primarily in the form of information literacy programs that are part of both high school testing and some college courses. This concept of information literacy (and its various courses) is not a new one. It has been banging around since 1974 when Paul Zurkowski founded his now extinct “Information Industry Association”. But Foster dog-ears the date 1989 as the time when information literacy really took off with the backing of the American Library Association; who advocated the incorporation of information literacy based courses and testing into public high schools and colleges. After brining us up to date on the information literacy back-story, Ms. Foster reasserts that students are inept at finding and evaluating their sources. While she holds this to be true, she draws our attention to an underlying issue surrounding information literacy: how to interpret it. There are a couple schools of thought that are mentioned here. One of them has to do with the fear that in defining information literacy too stringently all creativity and pleasure in the subject is snuffed out. Another thought comes from Stanley Wilder, an associate dean of libraries at the University of Rochester. In his opinion he thinks that information literacy should not be treated as a separate discipline, but instead (presumably) incorporated into the subjects already being taught. He goes on to say that the entire concept is something of a moot point in that gaining access to information is becoming such that things like “Boolean qualifiers” simply do not need to be taught. Yet at campuses like Fullerton faculty and staff feel that these courses are essential in a student body over dependent on Google. After this “debate” Foster goes into the actual testing of the students. Here she covers what the test consists of and to whom it is administered to (usually freshmen…go fig). The view of librarians on this test is that they are unsatisfied in its scope saying that the test focuses on only one aspect of information literacy. They are said to favor more diversified means of testing such as papers and presentations that really make the student apply their knowledge of information gathering. Others, like Richard C. Pollard, would wryly disagree saying that “it is the faculty members who need testing”.
My response to this article is one of insult. I cannot and hope never to have to speak for the rest of the student body, but I for one feel as if I can interpret my sources well enough. I must admit, however, that as I am writing this I have already gone through a couple of information literacy/ critical thinking courses to date. So maybe my indignation is a bit unfounded.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Reading #3
“The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google”
Steven Bell
Chronicle of Higher Education
In this article the author, Steven Bell, makes the argument that the search engine Google is beginning to challenge the place of academic libraries in terms of patronage. This is compounded by the fact that people, in particular students, are begging to ignore their libraries to the point of being surprised that they actually have one available to them. In essence Bell makes his argument that “the academic library has clearly lost its monopoly as the campus information gateway”. However he maintains that this need not be the case; libraries can revamp themselves to draw back wayward patrons and students. But the question is how exactly to do this? One way is to simply make finding information easier. It seems one of the main complaints students have is that when they search a library data base they get frustrated with how difficult it is and in that frustration give up their search. Now, however, libraries are trying to “Google-ize” their data bases to be less restrictive and broader in their search results. While this is a good idea, many libraries don’t wish to “lower” themselves to Goggle standards. Instead they are coming out with programs to help their students make sense of the complicated methods in which they can find information at their libraries. Programs like “the information-literacy initiative” try to teach students how to trudge through electronic and paper resources; but for the most part many more people are of the opinion that libraries should simply get with the times.
Personally I have never had too much trouble finding the information I needed at a library. This may be due to the fact that both my parents were teachers and I spent many a weekend of my childhood in a library while they did research for one thing or another. I recognize that most people don’t have this…background, and so I sympathize with them and support the modernization of the library catalogue.
Steven Bell
Chronicle of Higher Education
In this article the author, Steven Bell, makes the argument that the search engine Google is beginning to challenge the place of academic libraries in terms of patronage. This is compounded by the fact that people, in particular students, are begging to ignore their libraries to the point of being surprised that they actually have one available to them. In essence Bell makes his argument that “the academic library has clearly lost its monopoly as the campus information gateway”. However he maintains that this need not be the case; libraries can revamp themselves to draw back wayward patrons and students. But the question is how exactly to do this? One way is to simply make finding information easier. It seems one of the main complaints students have is that when they search a library data base they get frustrated with how difficult it is and in that frustration give up their search. Now, however, libraries are trying to “Google-ize” their data bases to be less restrictive and broader in their search results. While this is a good idea, many libraries don’t wish to “lower” themselves to Goggle standards. Instead they are coming out with programs to help their students make sense of the complicated methods in which they can find information at their libraries. Programs like “the information-literacy initiative” try to teach students how to trudge through electronic and paper resources; but for the most part many more people are of the opinion that libraries should simply get with the times.
Personally I have never had too much trouble finding the information I needed at a library. This may be due to the fact that both my parents were teachers and I spent many a weekend of my childhood in a library while they did research for one thing or another. I recognize that most people don’t have this…background, and so I sympathize with them and support the modernization of the library catalogue.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reading #3
Reading #3
“The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation”
Thomas Frey
http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120
Beginning with the turbulent story of how DaVinci’s works have come down to us through time, Frey gives credit to libraries for preserving as much as they did. He then goes on to tell how the book evolved from a precious asset to be guarded to something that was widely available with the advent of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455. Finally he marks the time between 1883 and 1929 as “the turning point” in the development of libraries we see today. However those libraries and what they stand for are beginning to change in definition as information is made more ready on the internet to those who seek it. To expand on this Frey lists ten trends that are “affecting the development of the next generation of library”. The first trend has to do with communication and the way people get their information. In this point he states that all technology has a life span and that with the birth of the internet (along with search engines like Google) perhaps books and writing have reached their end. This leads into his second point that with the end of one technology (in this case the book) the beginning of a second arises. In essence this is a cycle without end. Third Frey suggests that it is only a matter (pun intended) of time until we discovery the smallest particle in which we can store information in. Finding said particle is important because it will literally shape the libraries of the future and how people interact with it. His fourth trend is that with the increasing complexity of technology, the role of the librarian in helping people to find what they need will also increase in importance. Fifth he writes that as people become busier their needs will change, and the libraries of tomorrow will have to change along with them. For instance keyboards will become obsolete as they take too long to use. Next is the trend that we will become a verbal society with computers that have human characteristics. The seventh trend he writes of is a growing need to know about the rest of the world and its other cultures. We will need this information, he claims, in order to be apart of the international community. Hand-in-hand with this is the concept that we will become a homogeneous world; with laws and customs that stretch across the board. His ninth point is that we are switching from a “product-based economy” to one that is founded on experience. In other words the new economy will be founded on feedback from its patrons. Finally Frey states that libraries will change from places of information to places of culture. These new libraries will monitor the needs of the community and address them accordingly. He closes with the thought that libraries and their services are changing even now towards the above end. In the spirit of this change he gives a list of recommendations aimed at libraries so that they will be able to do what is best for them. Among these suggestion are that they “embrace new technologies” and play around with physically arranging the library to meet the new needs of the community (i.e. pod casting rooms, blogging stations, etc).
As I am a student of history I found that the beginning of this article very interesting. However I found that my attention waning as the article went on. It is not that I was disinterested, just that it seemed that much of what Frey wrote of has already taken place; or at the least is well on its way to that end. While I cannot say for sure when this article was written, it seem to be fairly recent; at least within the past half decade. As such it seems that much of this article need not have been written. Also it gives not real concrete hint as to what physical manifestation this library of tomorrow will take (not even an Orson Scott Card shot in the dark), and that lack of speculation is frustrating. Or perhaps he did venture a guess and I missed it? Either way it was a good article for the most part even if it did reiterate concepts that are somewhat commonplace.
“The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation”
Thomas Frey
http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120
Beginning with the turbulent story of how DaVinci’s works have come down to us through time, Frey gives credit to libraries for preserving as much as they did. He then goes on to tell how the book evolved from a precious asset to be guarded to something that was widely available with the advent of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455. Finally he marks the time between 1883 and 1929 as “the turning point” in the development of libraries we see today. However those libraries and what they stand for are beginning to change in definition as information is made more ready on the internet to those who seek it. To expand on this Frey lists ten trends that are “affecting the development of the next generation of library”. The first trend has to do with communication and the way people get their information. In this point he states that all technology has a life span and that with the birth of the internet (along with search engines like Google) perhaps books and writing have reached their end. This leads into his second point that with the end of one technology (in this case the book) the beginning of a second arises. In essence this is a cycle without end. Third Frey suggests that it is only a matter (pun intended) of time until we discovery the smallest particle in which we can store information in. Finding said particle is important because it will literally shape the libraries of the future and how people interact with it. His fourth trend is that with the increasing complexity of technology, the role of the librarian in helping people to find what they need will also increase in importance. Fifth he writes that as people become busier their needs will change, and the libraries of tomorrow will have to change along with them. For instance keyboards will become obsolete as they take too long to use. Next is the trend that we will become a verbal society with computers that have human characteristics. The seventh trend he writes of is a growing need to know about the rest of the world and its other cultures. We will need this information, he claims, in order to be apart of the international community. Hand-in-hand with this is the concept that we will become a homogeneous world; with laws and customs that stretch across the board. His ninth point is that we are switching from a “product-based economy” to one that is founded on experience. In other words the new economy will be founded on feedback from its patrons. Finally Frey states that libraries will change from places of information to places of culture. These new libraries will monitor the needs of the community and address them accordingly. He closes with the thought that libraries and their services are changing even now towards the above end. In the spirit of this change he gives a list of recommendations aimed at libraries so that they will be able to do what is best for them. Among these suggestion are that they “embrace new technologies” and play around with physically arranging the library to meet the new needs of the community (i.e. pod casting rooms, blogging stations, etc).
As I am a student of history I found that the beginning of this article very interesting. However I found that my attention waning as the article went on. It is not that I was disinterested, just that it seemed that much of what Frey wrote of has already taken place; or at the least is well on its way to that end. While I cannot say for sure when this article was written, it seem to be fairly recent; at least within the past half decade. As such it seems that much of this article need not have been written. Also it gives not real concrete hint as to what physical manifestation this library of tomorrow will take (not even an Orson Scott Card shot in the dark), and that lack of speculation is frustrating. Or perhaps he did venture a guess and I missed it? Either way it was a good article for the most part even if it did reiterate concepts that are somewhat commonplace.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
News Report #3
News Report #3
“Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Their Information
Brian Stelter, NY Times
2/16/09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology
Due to a recent change in Facebook’s terms of service, a good many frequenters of the site are growing suspicious and uncomfortable; this comes in spite of being assured recently by the site higher-ups that the users are the ones who own their material. This sense of unease came about in part due to an independent blogger who shone an “an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading”. The reason Facebook users are in such a state of excitement over the new terms of service has to do with an older part of the terms being deleted and a new part added. More specifically what was removed was a proviso saying that people could remove their content at anytime. What this was replaced with was a condition that even when you cancel your account, Facebook still retains their license to the content of your account. When the site users reacted to this the president, while regretful of their unease, did not make any indication that they would revise the language. While Facebook stresses that they make no claim to own their users materials the evidence is all to the contrary.
I can easily see why people would be unhappy with this turn of events. Not too long ago I heard story about a girl whose picture was taken from her MySpace account to be used in a virgin mobile ad campaign. She said they took it without her remission and is suing, but the terms of service of that site do not seem to protect her. I can only imagine how she (and others) feel; knowing that people who are already rich beyond imagining are getting more so from her while she sees not a dime. It is getting to the point that so much personal information is just put out the on the web without any substantial laws to protect the people it belongs to. Overall I find it unnerving and infuriating that these sites are able to take advantage of people in that way and we have no real protection from them.
“Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Their Information
Brian Stelter, NY Times
2/16/09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology
Due to a recent change in Facebook’s terms of service, a good many frequenters of the site are growing suspicious and uncomfortable; this comes in spite of being assured recently by the site higher-ups that the users are the ones who own their material. This sense of unease came about in part due to an independent blogger who shone an “an unflattering light onto the pages of legal language that many users accept without reading”. The reason Facebook users are in such a state of excitement over the new terms of service has to do with an older part of the terms being deleted and a new part added. More specifically what was removed was a proviso saying that people could remove their content at anytime. What this was replaced with was a condition that even when you cancel your account, Facebook still retains their license to the content of your account. When the site users reacted to this the president, while regretful of their unease, did not make any indication that they would revise the language. While Facebook stresses that they make no claim to own their users materials the evidence is all to the contrary.
I can easily see why people would be unhappy with this turn of events. Not too long ago I heard story about a girl whose picture was taken from her MySpace account to be used in a virgin mobile ad campaign. She said they took it without her remission and is suing, but the terms of service of that site do not seem to protect her. I can only imagine how she (and others) feel; knowing that people who are already rich beyond imagining are getting more so from her while she sees not a dime. It is getting to the point that so much personal information is just put out the on the web without any substantial laws to protect the people it belongs to. Overall I find it unnerving and infuriating that these sites are able to take advantage of people in that way and we have no real protection from them.
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