In 1961, America was all about the mission. A directive that sounds simple was but was anything but. The Space Race between the USA and the USSR was on. Both sides were engaged in a game of technological Can You Top This? and the Russians were winning. Cold War America was held in the grip…
I’ll just say that if you couldn’t make it to NYTSL’s Spring Program last night, you missed an excellent discussion. The program was “”Disaster Recovery and the Digital Library”, and as such, it brought a bit of real world application to the often abstract world of disaster planning. NYTSL’s guest speakers were Frank J. Monaco,…
Yes, it’s a bit of slacktivism, but my concern about Net Neutrality is real enough. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has made sending a comment to the Federal Communication Commission as easy as possible. Librarians should pay attention to this issue (and they are). We rely more than ever on internet resources for our livelihoods.…
I haven’t been around much the past few days. There are a few reasons for that. We’re starting to bind journals again for the first time in months. I’ve taken over a number of knowledge management duties for the library that are forcing all of the librarians here to rethink their work flow models. I’m…
First, a big WooHOO! to Factcheck.org for receiving domestic and international awards. If you haven’t subscribed to their e-mail news listserv you’re missing a lot. I love this site. If you’re looking for truly professional (i.e., fair and thorough) analysis of political ads and such, this is the place to go (or at least the…
In 1990 I found a wacky (and vaguely depressing) manga anthology by Joji Manabe (whose work I love) called "Dora." One of the stories in it (actually the first few pages of one of the stories in it) contained the germ of an idea I eventually turned into a short story called "Norma" (no relation…
I like the Center for American Progress. I really do, for the sheer level of research they utilize when writing any given bulletin they send out. I am in awe. Having said that, I’m not sure how I feel about their latest posts on what they call the Two-Tiered Internet. The NY Times has a…
Google Alert just dumped a link in my lap that I’m a bit conflicted about: it’s called "Metacrap" and it’s an angry and obnoxious attempt by Cory Doctorow to make what should be an excellent point. Namely, that not all meta-data is reliable and the level to which it is unreliable necessarily degrades its utility…