Lee Siegel's book review

Having read Lessig's new book Remixed, which was good if not a bit like his previous books. I felt a need for a change and got Lee Siegel's book Against The Machine: Being Human in the Era of the Electronic Mob. Its a very short book, but in many ways similar to Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur. Certainly some people might not enjoy the book. The book was enjoyable in that he criticised some of the web 2.0 outlooks and technologies. I was especially impressed in the debunking of Gladwell's tipping point book. He points out that the story of connectors and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere was untrue and historically incorrect. I really liked the book, even though I can't always agree with it all, but then as Fitzgerald said :-

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

So I highly recommend this book.

Hollywood librarian DVD for sale

Ann Seidl has informed us that she has released Her film the Hollywood Librarian as a DVD release. Hope it sells well. It deserves to.

Ebooks, reviewed and abused......

It the ubiquity of the ipod touch and iphone. Along with the news of the new Kindle 2, and release of the Sony eReader at Waterstones, there has been some debate about ebooks. Two interseting reviews have been described in some detail by library bloggers. Joeyanne in her review talks about one of applications she has used on apple's products, being Stanza. There is also Classics that has been released free as well. There is also a new one called beam it down. This new one has a few free books as well as some to download you pay for.
These reviews could be added to an interesting podcast I heard on Guardian Technology, which discussed the ereaders and ebooks would take off, in it author and games writer Naomi Alderman discusses her hopes and fears for ebooks as Amazon launch their new gadget - the Kindle 2. There's some interest outlook on the financial repercussion and who would the market be.
Thankfully, there is some criticism about ereaders to.

[Just Tweet It] New Listing On: Librarians.....the only emails I know seem to get

Since David Rothman informed us of the librarian twitter feed, I went and joined. I am know getting constant updates of new joiners. I am actually quite enjoying adding new feeds to my bloglines. Its been good to discover these new blogs. I love serendipity.

Oh dear, haven't I been here before?

oh my. I was reeding David Rothman's blog entitled Directory of Librarians Who Twitter. Its very good, and I obviously joind but I do feel I take these things up (note ning). Lets hope I can keep it going.

Death of the book, birth of the E-reader is upon us.....

The Guardian had a interesting story entitled Are real books nearing the end of their shelf life? Some gave it a good review saying:-

Another executive from Penguin Books, a company that has issued Sony Readers to all its editors, described hers as a godsend. "I now download virtually all my submissions on to my eReader. In some cases, it means the script is never printed out. The agent emails it and I download it."

Whilst one said :-

"I can't say I enjoy it very much. Using it at home feels too much like looking at a computer screen."

With ereaders, iphones and kindles filling this area, its an interesting topic of discussion (1,2,3).

Paul Miller Podcasts on the Big Switch author

Paul Miller was talking to Nicholas Carr on his podcast. Carr was the author of Big Switch. If your interested in cloud computing, Carr's book or IT history. Well worth a listen.

Emergent web2.0 tools: a seminar with TFPL

I got an email from TFPL which was offering a session will be:

a) Interactive: “Twitter generates mostly trivial chatter.”

In groups: you will form arguments using your own opinions and experiences to support and rebut the above statement in the following contexts:
Personal use.
Work use.

Arguments will then be compared and contrasted to those already gathered in the course of our research.

Its free too. Hopefully I will get to go.