Good old days

Some day, public libraries will be regarded with that far greater reverence we reserve for things we once had.  Alan Bennett gets us off to a wonderful start , and has a nice parting shot:

It’s hard not to think that like other Tory policies privatising the libraries has been lying dormant for 15 years, just waiting for a convenient crisis to smuggle it through. Libraries are, after all, as another think tank clown opined a few weeks ago, ‘a valuable retail outlet’.

Books as fetish objects

Sad times for bibliophiles; the book, writes James Gleick, "is like the coffin at a funeral. It deserves to be honored, but the soul has moved on."

Death of the expert, or birth of the expert?

Sven Birkerts has a bone to pick with Maria Bustillos' article Wikipedia and the Death of the Expert. Sven has been windmill-tilting indefatigably ever since the Gutenberg Elegies (1994!), and you can't help admire the poor sod - not only for his pluck, but also for his beautiful and perceptive writing. And for providing such inspiring examples of what both he and I cherish; non-instrumental thinking and writing. Bustillos responds here, but methinks "Wikipedia and the birth of the expert" would have been a better title for her article....

Useless stereotypes (aren't they all?)

Introducing the Mechanic Muse

(excerpt) In this week’s issue, the Book Review inaugurates a new column, The Mechanic Muse, that will examine different aspects of this techno-­literary complex. This week, Kathryn Schulz takes a virtual trip to the Stanford Literary Lab, where literary scholars are mutating into computer scientists, and vice versa. Can a computer recognize a literary genre or help us see the plot of “Hamlet” anew? Should it? Read the column to decide for yourself.

I say Hardwick, this sure is an impressive library

Thanks Pat!

 

Swede dreams.... (Daily Show)

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Andrew Motion on plans to staff libraries with volunteers

Former UK poet laureate on importance of libraries (The Guardian)

Another gem from DVDP

The Guardian's list of 100 greatest non-fiction books

60 seconds of internet

20 facts about US inequality

20 Facts About US Inequality That Everyone Should Know (With An Update On The Uber-Wealthy And Global Wealth Inequality)
From zerohedge.com, infographics from many different sources about many different kinds of inequality in the US - for example,

Poet Charles Simic's tribute to libraries

The Stockholm Syndrome Theory of Long Novels

A long but captivating article by Mark OConnnell about the "no pain no gain" reading experience.

Buzz Aldrin, Poynter Sisters, Little Richard, and Tip O'Neill visit Stevie

Narrowing your horizons

The internet's potential for personalizing your information and network of contacts, or, to put it another way, narrowing your horizons, is vast. Surfers will do this well enough on their own by simply following their preferences, but when technology aids and abets by filtering information on the basis of your browsing history...that way lies trouble, according to Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble

CIA's "Facebook" program dramatically cuts agency costs

Libraries have nothing at all to do with silence

Nice piece by Bella Bathurst in the Guaradian on the "Secret life of libraries"

excerpts:
"In London during the Second World War, some authorities established small collections of books in air-raid shelters. The unused Tube station at Bethnal Green had a library of 4,000 volumes and a nightly clientele of 6,000 people."

"The libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence."

This is fun

For all who find that coming up with new passwords brings mental functions to an immediate halt and is uncannily, perversely difficult (kind of like remembering jokes), this article about multi-word passwords is a relief.

Quaint libraries

CNET editor Brian Cooley has rattled librarians' cages with some ill considered words about the "quaintness" of libraries, aired during a segment about Kindle's new library services on the April 20, 2011 "Buzz Out Loud" podcast.  He clarifies his position here.  But is quaintness such a bad thing?

Nice poem by a Fulbrighter

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Mark Strand, "Keeping Things Whole" from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand. 

Get real!

So I'm an old fogey, but to me the old 1960s exhortation, "Get real!" sounds so much better than the 2011 one, "Cartoonify yourself!"

Fast food

A very useful service from Google labs for identifying and addressing page speed issues.....fortunately, never much of a line in front of Knowbodies.

 

The Noun Project

The noun project has symbols for everything, including tango

"The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world's visual language, so we may share them in a fun and meaningful way. "

Google forges ahead....

Google has been working with experts in semiotics and kinesiology to develop Gmail Motion.  Pretty amazing!

Photographer Christer Strømholm

Consensus cloud of the books everyone should read

Another depressing example of libraries failing to change with the times

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Arab spring: interactive timeline of Middle East protests

Very cool interactive graphic from the Guardian. It doesn't show where the "path of protest" is leading, but perhaps time will tell.