Group items tagged

A somewhat limited article about "ethnic cleansing" on the Internet. What I can agree with is the prospect of countries making their own versions of popular websites such as Youtube, the larger question that has been debated since the beginning of the Internet is who should decide about material outside the borders of a country that it may still try to control.

The Internet Archice is now offering over one million items as peer to peer BitTorrent downloads. While in one sense it is only a different download method for materials that are copyright and royalty free, it is Torrents have been controversial as they are often used to download pirated movies and software. However, the Internet Archive does have a point in that it improves access for users with limited bandwidth. Downloads include 1.2 million books and 9,000 videos and movies.

Interesting (but pretty depressing) article: "But the research is now making it clear that the Internet is not "just" another delivery system. It is creating a whole new mental environment, a digital state of nature where the human mind becomes a spinning instrument panel, and few people will survive unscathed."

Paul Otlet was a Belgian inventor who had several visionary ideas, such as a "World City" which would be a gathering of all the leading institutions of the world that would radiate knowledge and the Universal Decimal Classification scheme which is still used in some libraries. He also had a concept in 1934 for a radiated library that was in some ways a precursor to the Internet. It was limited by the technology he knew at the time, and consisted of a center where users would call in to ask for research and information to be displayed, which would then be displayed on a television screen. Aside from the need to call in some of his concepts are similar to early community access cable television.

This was another session which showed that with community spaces if you build it they will come. I interviewed at this library in 1996 right after graduate school and it was and still is a large warehouse type building in 70's style. One of the substantial changes to Chattanooga since then is it is known as the "Gig City" for large deployment of gigabit Internet which has brought may Internet developers to the area. The development of the attic into a community space stressed the importance of community outreach and feedback as a sort of ecosystem to keep a project viable.

Interesting essay about the Internet from 1993.

Both Google and a Web security company called Umbrella Security Labs are indicating that the entire country of Syria was severed from the Internet on May 7 at 2:45 p.m.

Not necessarily related to anything library-ish, but still pretty cool.  It's easy to forget that the amazing, "invisible" things we can do with technology actually do take up physical space.

This project is moving along...

A somewhat gloomy article tangentially mentioning libraries but focusing more on how the revolution of robots and automation in industry has carried over to software in today's information processing jobs, and that even in recent good economic times jobs continue to be lost.

Some relevant questions are asked about the recently unveiled PRISM Internet monitoring program of the NSA.

One of four articles from the New York Times about the debate if we still need libraries--focusing mostly on Internet access rather than other services.

A taped college lecture about how large scale social media has connected millions of people, but many of the promises of the early Internet have been lost, such as people owning their own identities and websites.

Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen recently returned from a trip to North Korea and discuss the role of the Internet in repressive countries.

An interesting article that mentions slightly over half of Americans 16 or over have visited a library in the past year, and that the proportions of patrons who felt collections should be moved to make way for tech centers and cultural events was less than those who wanted to keep books. Some interesting ideas libraries have started to use include Redbox style lending machines and Rokus with accounts for Internet streaming video services already on them.

A sort article about how some web users are going to anonymous web search engines after the revelations about the widespread snooping of the NSA.

This is a look at "the next big thing" in YA literature, but its worth reading just so you can go to this website : http://knowyourmeme.com/

"A new report from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project finds that 12% of readers of ebooks borrowed an ebook from their libraries in the past year, and a majority of respondents (62%) don't know if their local library provides ebooks. "

Time for everyone to feel really old.....

Beloit college releases an annual "mindset" list showing how incoming college freshmen see the world and the type of technology and cultural paradigms they consider normal. This year I found it interesting that almost a quarter have suffered some hearing loss, I presume from overuse of iPods and MP3 players. They also haven't seen a need for a bound set of encyclopedias, were born into the world of the Internet, and aren't familiar with camera film or video tape.

What? *she says both because she doesn't feel old and because she has lost hearing due to iPod over use*

This seems like a really cool concept (almost makes me want to go back to school . . .almost). The only problems I saw with this article was that the textbooks can be accessed through Blackboard, which is a great tool if professors know how to use it or it can be a nightmare for students if they have a professor who doesn't know how. Also I think its really funny that they stated "periodically" a revised edition of a textbooks come out, but I think most of my undergrad professors only assigned newest editions just so you couldn't buy used textbooks! But I digress. Anyways really neat concept and I'm anxious to see how it all works out.