Tim Wu book and Terry Gilliam

As mentioned previously, I'm going to see Tim Wu discuss his new book The Masters Switch. I'm presently reading the book (and highly recommended). Whilst reading the book on one chapter it discusses the invention of the Hush -a-phone sold by Harry Tuttle. Harry was stopped by AT&T in the 1930's from selling this product (which kept phone calls private). AT&T monopoly meant that Harry Tuttle was stopped from selling this product, even though in court he had a young engineer called John Licklider pointing out that it worked and caused AT&T no problems (for those who don't know Licklider you should read this.
But in the book Harry is a guy fighting 'the man' (or AT&T), just like the character Harry Tuttle in Terry Gilliam's great film Brazil.

The Shallows, a book to read in my opinion

I have just finished Nicholas Carr's new book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember. The book looks at the impact of our use of the internet upon our brain. The book also looks at how we have used our brains in the past in using books and even how Aristotle was against the written word. The book also looked at Neurological studies about how the brain trains itself to collect data from bboks, learning and the internet.
In looking at the Internet, Carr note's how the brain can not keep its mind on doing one thing, and how we multi-task. Also, how the Kindle is not just a Book in electronic form, but changes the whole way we read.
Really fantastc book that cheered me up (not). Hopefully, my next book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) will cheer me up?

Time off and a good book

From tomorrow, I'm off until friday. Therefore, I was going to do loads of stuff. Instead I think I'll finish Carl Honore's excellent book In Praise of Slow. I had heard of the book previously in my Library course, but only just got around to reading it. Certainly make's me reappraise myself. It even got me using my pasta maker yesterday, as the book discusses the delights of home cooking. Anyway, most likely will try an get a few post outs whilst home. Can't wait to have a break from work.
By the way, Carl left a comment on my twitter account when I said I was reading, which is a nice touch.

Walt Crawford to release Liblog Landscape 2007-2010 next week

Walt Crawford will be releasing Liblog Landscape 2007-2010 next week. Not sure if I will be buying it, but Will's previous book on the subject was called But Still They Blog. Anyway, for those interested in library blogs, its well worth a look.

Librarians, patrons, archivist, second lifers....read Marilyn Johnson's book

Having previously mentioned Marilyn Johnson's book This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All I thought I would give it a quick review. Then after reading it I thought giving it a quick review would be a great disservice to someone who writes so eloquently on our profession.
The book is a tour de force of librarianship of the modern generation. I have read Battles book and Nicholson Baker to. Both seem set in the past in comparison to this book.
Johnson's reason for writing the book we are told come from her first book Dead beat, which looked at Obituaries. She found librarians had the most interesting, such as Frederick Kilgour and Henriette Avram and longest.
Johnson wanted to see why librarians do there job. What was there role. What where the changes.
She looks at the power of library blogs and spoke to many pro and anti library bloggers out there. All the blogs she mentions in the book can be found here. She talks about the time Michael Stephens felt slightly stalked when to blog followers discovered his whereabouts whilst paddling in a lake
She spoke to library Avatars on Second life, and the reference work they did there and the free work they do there.
The radical reference group whose mission statement is :-

Radical Reference is a collective of volunteer library workers who believe in social justice and equality. We support activist communities, progressive organizations, and independent journalists by providing professional research support, education and access to information. We work in a collaborative virtual setting and are dedicated to information activism to foster a more egalitarian society.

The role of David Smith at the New York Public Library, and how the NYPL seems to becoming a more digital and modern hub.

The penultimate chapter, she speaks to archivists. This is a sad chapter about Sue Hamburger, an archivist who is archiving her recently deceased husbands writings, and wondering if anyone will accept them.

There are other chapters, but all have one thing in common. She admires our profession (and its quirks). She seemed to have enjoy writing this book. But not half as much as I enjoyed reading it. My only one qualm on the book? I wish I was as good as many of them. 10 out of 10.

Echo chamber? All I hear is good news about libraries

Recently Wikiman had an interesting blog discussing the echo chamber within libraries.

Plenty has been talked about the image of librarians and libraries etc, but how do we go about addressing the misconceptions on a wider basis? At the moment, I reckon a very (very) crude representation of library advocacy might look a little like this:

The point being, the library skeptics aren’t really being reached, and many of the excellent ideas we have are going into the echo-chamber of our own Information Professional community.

This maybe true but recently all I seem to hear are positive things about libraries and librarians. For example, Librarian by Day has a post entitled Librarians Play a Vital Role in 21st Century Literacies which points to two papers one from the Report from the Knight Commission:

Recommendation 7: Fund and support public libraries and other community institutions as centers of digital and media training, especially for adults.

And a white paper from the MacAuthor Foundation

If anything, these traditional skills assume even greater importance as students venture beyond collections that have been screened by librarians and into the more open space of the web. Some of these skills have traditionally been taught by librarians who, in the modern era, are reconceptualizing their role less as curators of bounded collection and more as information facilitators who can help users find what they need, online or off, and can cultivate good strategies for searching material.

These seem to show were succeeding in some area's at least.

These along with Marilyn Johnson's book This Book is Overdue seem to represent libraries in a positive light. Johnson's book is getting a lot of deserved coverage (i'm half way through it already) from a wide audience.

But then, I don't think we are aklways that good in praising ourselves or selling ourselves at times.

Library Mash Ups review

Having mentioned Nicole Engard's Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Databook previously, and noted other bloggers discussing it, I was interested to read a review of the book here. For those who have not bought it, check the review.

Situationist humour at Amazon

(Found via here). A book written in French and recently written into English has taken Amazon by storm according to this article. It says:-

The book, which predicts the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, was inspired by disruptive demonstrations that took place over the last few years in France and Greece. It was influenced stylistically by Guy Debord, a French writer and filmmaker who was a leader of the Situationist International, a group of intellectuals and artists who encouraged the Paris protests of 1968.

I think they maybe having a laugh at the second hand price of £1,930.91!!!!

Mash up Podcast for librarians

(Found via here). Nicole Engard who released the Book Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data has a podcast out with Sarah Long of Longshots on how libraries can utilise mashups (podcast here).

Book of interest........

(Found via here). I was interested to hear about the book called This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. Rick Roche describes the book and author thus :-

While Johnson extols the virtues of the profession, she points out that it has some members that resist change, usually trying to preserve services and procedures that served well in the past. She also repeats the often heard cry that librarians fail to promote themselves well in our highly contentious world. Her praises, however, greatly overshadow her criticisms. She believes that most librarians knock themselves out serving their clients regardless of pay, institutional support, or appreciation from society at large.

The book is not due out until 10.02.10. Hears to the new year then.

Wikipedia.......the rising headaches hitting 3million makes

The Guardian has an article entitled Wikipedia approaches its limits, which looks at the rising problems Wikipedia presently faces, with its editors either being 'Deletionism and inclusionism'. I had read about this previously in Andrew Lih's interesting book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. Both worth a read.

Panlibus competition that rocks the mainstage

Panlibus have released their monthly podcast entitled The Library 2.0 Gang on Mashups. In it they tall with Nicole Engard of what I learned today blog (a must read blog). Obviously they discussed mashups, but also Nicole's new edited book entitled Library Mashups : Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data . There's a facebook page, a contents page of the twenty chapters and the release date (late september).

There is also a competition on Panlibus site, stating:-

This month’s show launches the Library 2.0 Gang Mashup Idea competition. To enter you need to send in your idea for a library mashup. It can be as simple or complex as you like. The only restriction being that it must include library data or functionality somewhere within it. The best three, as judged by Nicole Engard and myself, will each receive a copy of the Library Mashups book she has edited. Closing date is August 31st, send your entries to librarygang@talis.com.

I've put my entry in. I hope I win, but I rarely do.

An interesting book out on monday

Thomas Vander Wal releases his book on monday called Understanding Folksonomy: Catalyzing Users to Enrich Information. Most people know Thomas Vander Wal as the inventor of the term Folksonomy. It is well worth getting alongside Gene Smith's Tagging book.

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.

Is Print dead?

I have just finished Print Is Dead: Books in our Digital Age, which discusses the future of books in a digital age. I was interested in seeing what Jeff Gomez had to say. I was not that impressed. Firstly, if your writing about books check your quotes, because in a digital age any idiot can check this. So do not quote that Growing Up Digital: Rise of the Net Generation was written in 2006, that was another Tapscott book.
Then he goes on about how the millenials are turned off by magazines, books and newspapers, and turning to there sony readers and Amazon Kindles. The idea of the pleasure of using the text is discussed and rubbished. But, if the death of print is occured, why does he not discuss childrens books? Kids love the visual quality of books, the learning of colour on the page and the numbers and they also love being read stories. Gomez just paints over this issue. Wow, what a waste of my time, I even wished print was dead after reading this.

When the going gets tough.......

We all Start singing Billy Ocean. Well, after putting forward my idea's for the web 2.0 idea's, it seems it was a no go. A few idea's are being implemented but not as fast as I would hope. Well, as Michael Casey says in his book you always get doubters. I just got to try harder at the next meeting.
Anyway, I had my graduation and 40th birthday over the last few days. Milestones in my life. Although I was upset about not getting more stuff implemented, meeting with old friends soon put it into perspective.

An interesting idea for books?

Over on last100, they have an interesting article on Peter Gabriel's website The filter, which is described as:-

The Filter is the ultimate discovery service. Tell it the movie, music and WebVideos that you like and it will find new stuff for you that match your taste – every day.

An interesting idea, which could certainly be extended to books (though everyday might be difficult to do). It would certainly help with serendipitous searching.

The books I have read......

Well, of late I have heavily reading the web 2.0 stuff. I have read Gene Smith's Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web. If your interested in folksonomies and librarything, its well worth a read. Code is also included as well. Tim Spalding had discussed the book previously.

Nesta, Andrew Keen and Charles Leadbetter

Its been a few weeks since I wrote, so I thought I would briefly talk about the conference I was going to. This was held at the very nice Nesta building in London. Andrew Keen and Charles Leadbetter discussed there very different approaches to the web 2.0 world. Having been to a few of these before I thought Keen may face a rather pro web 2.0 audience. Wow, was I surprised. Leadbetter's view of we think (almost reminiscent of Star Trek's Borg 'we will be assimilated'). Most people felt his idea's were to vague, served little political purpose and was just not a well though out argument. Keen, on the otherhand seemed to have an easier ride (and argue his point better). Keen has the idea we need a hierarchy and used Steve Jobs as a place in point, of an individual and not the group. Well, I like Keen's argument and book, but Jobs created LISA, the impact of Steve Wozniak. I think Keen has been caught in the reality distortion field
.
It was a good conference and Keen offered me the opportunity to interview him for my blog which was nice of him.
BTW, I unfortunately missed Clay Shirky's talk at the RSA called Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, which is the name of his new book. Anyhow, couldn't go I had work.

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture and assualting our economy response

Having written previously about acquiring a copy of Andrew Keen's new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture and assualting our economy, it seems he's not really enamoured himself to many people. First up, Michael Sauers of travellin librarian fame (and the writer of the wonderful Blogging and RSS: A Librarian's Guide informed me that he had read it. He also gave me a link to his review of it, which was an interesting read. I'm still looking forward to getting it though, as it'll assist with the dissertation.