“My town officials think all we’re running here is a babysitting service” a librarian recently shared in a moment of frustration. She went on to mention studies about the proven impact on cognitive abilities when toddlers are actively engaged in library programs like Lapsit versus passively engaged with toys & videos.
This was news to me;
Posts under ‘Technology’
Are public libraries glorified babysitting services?
On Web2.0 and Talking vs Doing
David Crotty’s Scholarly Kitchen post, Science and Web 2.0: Talking About Science vs. Doing Science describes patterns beyond the publishing industry. Check out some of what he says about scientists’ use of Web 2.0 technologies:
Discovery, doing research, gathering and interpreting results, that’s the very nature of being a scientist. There are people whose
ALA/PLA – this is unacceptable (a rant)
I’m generally not given to public rants, but sometimes you just gotta let one rip… Today I came across a PLA announcement for a two-year grant of $750,000 from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. The ALA/PLA will be awarding mini-grants under a program entitled “The American Dream Starts @ your library”.
The announcement directs libraries
iPad is a gamechanger for libraries
I’ve not chimed into the conversation on mobile devices, in part because plenty of people cover that beat and also because smartphones and ebook readers, in my opinion, would not have been all that disruptive to libraries. You see, despite the numerous discrete conveniences delivered by both device types, they don’t significantly change the relationship
Adapting to the information ecosystem
In this post from the Scholarly Kitchen, Joe Esposito urges publishers away from retrenchment in “Publishing in the Google Ecosystem“.
Google is now the defining entity in the information landscape. To flourish, as best as publishers can hope to flourish, it’s necessary to find a place within the Google ecosystem. There is no world
U.S. information consumption in 2008
A newly published report from the Global Information Industry Center of UC San Diego offers a few interesting statistics:
In 2008, Americans were exposed to 100,500 words/day, nearly 2½ times more than in 1980.1
Television remained America’s leading source of information exposure.
1Americans were exposed to approximately 4,500 trillion words in 1980 versus 10,845 trillion (100,500 words/day per
About those awful websites
In late August I gave a shout out to a new ALA initiative, the Privacy Revolution. By then I’d been following libraries long enough to feel reticent about endorsing a web effort, however the early site—which was more like a wireframe than a live site—seemed promising1. So I went out on a limb on this
Librarians moving up the value chain
Here are some great examples of librarians moving up the information value chain:1, 2
The team at In the Library with the Lead Pipe just keep on doin’ it. Brett Bonfield’s recent post about the publication’s first year is a veritable primer on collaboration, editorial practice and the Wordpress publishing platform. And the latest by Hilary
The impact of library mythology
In The Future of Reading, information consultant Tom Peters lays out a lofty library agenda. He exhorts libraries to “be part of [the] reading revolution, supporting and defending the rights of digital readers.” Peters warns “If readers don’t assert their rights in the dawning e-reading era, someone else will snatch up those rights” and suggests
Digital Campus on future of libraries
The moderators at Digital Campus, from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, recently hosted a terrific discussion on the future of publishing and libraries. Josh Greenberg, director of digital strategy and scholarship at the New York Public Library shares impressions & questions like this one, along with creative responses:
The
