I have many friends who use the mobile location-based networking site Foursquare to broadcast exactly where they are at various points during their day using the GPS on their phone. In my Twitter feed, I see posts stating that one friend is at a conference, another is out to lunch, and another is at the … Continue reading Too Much Information?
In 2001, American Libraries published Mark Herring’s “10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library.” The article, a celebration of the importance of physical libraries in a digital age, was a hit. It hasn’t aged well. Yesterday BoingBoing published a photo of a poster made from that list, and the commentary is, … Continue reading Revisiting “10 Reasons”
London-based blogger, science-fiction author, and digital-rights champion Cory Doctorow opened Day 2 of the Conference on Privacy and Youth via Skype. “There comes a day when kids have to use their good judgment,” he said, arguing that adults are unwittingly undermining that goal by berating young people to guard their personal information while subjecting them … Continue reading Conference on Privacy and Youth: Day 2
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom's Conference on Privacy and Youth, currently meeting March 24–25 in downtown Chicago, is bringing together some 50 librarians, privacy advocates, educators, authors, artists, and policy experts to discuss the work they are doing to engage and educate young people in privacy protection so that they can make informed choices … Continue reading Conference on Privacy and Youth: Day 1
At my library, I’m in charge of collection development for our largest academic division. Sometimes I find the task daunting as I struggle to find a balance between buying things that will likely get used today and anticipating what might be needed in the future. The choices I make will influence the long-term health of … Continue reading Let’s Not Borrow Trouble
While ALA Midwinter 2011 was starting in beautiful San Diego, I was on a plane to a different, but equally sunny destination—Las Vegas, Nevada—to attend the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show . . . me, and 160,000 others. CES is the largest consumer electronics show in the world, with journalists, retail buyers, and manufacturers all … Continue reading CES: The Librarian’s Takeaway
In anticipation of the U.S. Senate reconvening February 28, American Library Association President Roberta Stevens has issued this call to action through ALA’s Washington Office: “I am writing to you today to enlist your participation in an association-wide advocacy campaign to protect funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Improving Literacy … Continue reading Action Alert: Protect Library Funding, ALA President Urges Library Community
When I first received my library degree, I religiously kept up with blogs and journals in my areas of professional interest. I’d read blogs through an RSS reader—in my case, Google Reader—and I’d try to remember to read the journals I was most interested in when they came out. Now, as the mother of a … Continue reading Keeping Up, 2.0 Style
The 2011 Midwinter edition of Top Tech Trends brought together five technologists from libraries and the library technology marketplace to discuss their views on the current and future trends in libraries. The one common thread weaving through the entire discussion, almost as if they’d planned it that way, was the high potential for making library … Continue reading Data Gets Personal: Top Tech Trends at Midwinter 2011
I had a splendid time at the Internet Librarian conference last fall (and not just because I made it into a birthday-celebration weekend in Monterey, though that and the yummy meals didn’t hurt matters any). It’s a crisply conducted conference and draws a varied and eager crowd. This year, I was particularly attracted to an … Continue reading No Relax
There probably isn’t a person alive who’s read the Terms of Service (TOS) of every technology or service they use. Those TOS statements are usually quite long and full of boilerplate legalese that any company must include. When you’re quickly trying to load and use new software, reading a TOS statement is not a priority, … Continue reading Read the Fine Print
With the media reporting new threats of terrorism in Pakistan, security was tight as we made our way to the first of many meeting venues in Islamabad. Check points and blockades, inspections and screenings are the norm for foreigners, according to the U.S. State Department, even for a representative from the American Library Association in … Continue reading Pakistan Libraries Struggle with Image, Technology, Politics, and Disaster
