Friday, October 7, 2005
On having enough books. I heard recently that our campus library was able to purchase about 2200 books last year, or about one new book for every three students enrolled here. That doesn't seem like enough books, but it's all we can afford. Taxpayers and legislators have placed their priorities elsewhere; the campus itself has made difficult decisions about budgets; all libraries have been forced to grapple with skyrocketing prices for electronic resources. In the end the book collection is slighted.
In the 10/7 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Johnson of Rhodes College argues that stripping libraries of books—something of a trend these days—encourages a superficial kind of literacy. It is tempting to agree that much of our society’s literacy is superficial. For example, most librarians have stories of patrons who haven’t grasped the substantial difference in value between searching the web and searching an academic database or book collection. Students and citizens need, it seems, not just a stronger collection of books but a set of skills and attitudes to wrap around them.
In a comment on Johnson’s essay posted at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired weblog, Malcolm Brown of Dartmouth College sees the future of academic libraries as a blend of tradition and innovation. “Learning is encouraged,” he says, “when it has social and collaborative aspects. To support that, we may need new kinds of facilities and the library is a logical place to house those facilities.”
Perhaps the best future of Schurz Library requires not just a stronger budget for books but also the creation of new collaborative tools and spaces. If we could glance ahead a few years, we might hardly recognize some parts of the library, for the rooms themselves may have changed in ways we can’t imagine just yet.
Would we also recognize the kinds of research being done there, too? Students could work with community members on oral history projects, for example, recording the stories of our elders, preserving them in digital collections, introducing them with well-researched contextual essays, linking them in bibliographies to the most relevant parts of the library’s collection? Students, faculty, and other citizens could collaborate on an urgent community problem by learning about its history, looking at ways other communities have solved similiar problems, sketching a range of choices, and publishing these on a web discussion forum.
Would we recognize the kinds of teaching necessary to support students in that collaborative, community-based, problem-solving and knowledge-making work? Can we find not just the budget but also an expansive enough vision of book and database and library and teaching and learning—a vision of the university itself—to help make that kind of future happen? When we make the library’s budget we tell ourselves what sort of university and community we hope to be. [0 & P]
In the 10/7 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Johnson of Rhodes College argues that stripping libraries of books—something of a trend these days—encourages a superficial kind of literacy. It is tempting to agree that much of our society’s literacy is superficial. For example, most librarians have stories of patrons who haven’t grasped the substantial difference in value between searching the web and searching an academic database or book collection. Students and citizens need, it seems, not just a stronger collection of books but a set of skills and attitudes to wrap around them.
In a comment on Johnson’s essay posted at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired weblog, Malcolm Brown of Dartmouth College sees the future of academic libraries as a blend of tradition and innovation. “Learning is encouraged,” he says, “when it has social and collaborative aspects. To support that, we may need new kinds of facilities and the library is a logical place to house those facilities.”
Perhaps the best future of Schurz Library requires not just a stronger budget for books but also the creation of new collaborative tools and spaces. If we could glance ahead a few years, we might hardly recognize some parts of the library, for the rooms themselves may have changed in ways we can’t imagine just yet.
Would we also recognize the kinds of research being done there, too? Students could work with community members on oral history projects, for example, recording the stories of our elders, preserving them in digital collections, introducing them with well-researched contextual essays, linking them in bibliographies to the most relevant parts of the library’s collection? Students, faculty, and other citizens could collaborate on an urgent community problem by learning about its history, looking at ways other communities have solved similiar problems, sketching a range of choices, and publishing these on a web discussion forum.
Would we recognize the kinds of teaching necessary to support students in that collaborative, community-based, problem-solving and knowledge-making work? Can we find not just the budget but also an expansive enough vision of book and database and library and teaching and learning—a vision of the university itself—to help make that kind of future happen? When we make the library’s budget we tell ourselves what sort of university and community we hope to be. [0 & P]
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Another round with Dean Cronin. Now that Blaise Cronin, Dean of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, has returned to the topic of blogging, I fear that we'll have another round of complaint and name-calling. If so, that's a waste of time. I thought that his previous column recognized the bad behavior that is common in the blogosphere without recognizing, for the most part, the good things that are accomplished and why they might be so promising, and I suggested then that ranting at him wouldn't be terribly useful. I also hinted at some of the ways Dean Cronin's own scholarship might be used to help explain what blogging aims at on its good days.
Dean Cronin's new column mainly catalogs the name-calling and other bad behavior he attracted with his previous piece. Because he's not a blogger, he didn't provide links to the pieces he's quoting, so it is not easy to look into the context of the quoted remarks, but let's assume that they are all carefully quoted. If so, then people have been behaving in ways that they probably won't describe with pride in their next letter home to mother.
But beyond bad manners, let's look at three more reasons why name-calling is such a dead end. Dean Cronin provides one in his final quotation from Johnson -- once civility is broken, it may never be recovered. Another is that the stock phrases that come to mind when one is ranting are just not interesting -- what stock language is interesting, anyway? And stock phrases are not interesting because they aren't specific and aren't meant to be specific -- stock phrases abandon the real power of language to name the specificity of our experience. If we want to name the virtues of blogging and the weaknesses of its critics' ideas, we have to go beyond stock language. For all those reasons, there's no point at ranting at Dean Cronin.
I am still disappointed in his previous piece because in it he makes little effort to explore the possibilities of blogging. Instead, he seems to take great pleasure in his catalog of weaknesses, and these are real weaknesses, especially in certain kinds of blogs. As is often the case, one's opponent is right about some things. I am also disappointed in the new piece because it doesn't grapple with the responses he received that were not rants.
So, the Dean of Library and Information Science doesn't "get" blogging. Let's look at this a couple of different ways. For one thing, the weakness could be his own, for whatever reason, and maybe that is true. In my previous post I guess I pretty much located the problem in Dean Cronin, and I haven't quite talked myself out of what I said there. But maybe that was a self-serving judgment on my part. Maybe bloggers have not made a clear case for blogging yet, especially if enough of us have clouded the issue quite thoroughly with bad behavior.
One more problem lurks here though, for many of us. Our blogs are usually not official sites belonging to our employers, but our names are associated with our blogs and our reputations are of some real concern to our employers. The way we speak to each other and to those we disagree with is of legitimate concern to our employers.
A rigorous ethic has to apply among professional bloggers. I wonder if we have spelled out the details of this ethic among ourselves yet? Perhaps not?
Dean Cronin understands the weaknesses of some blogs very well. I hope we can make a stronger, clearer case for the qualities of the best blogs and the working communities they have strengthened and even created. [0 & P]
Dean Cronin's new column mainly catalogs the name-calling and other bad behavior he attracted with his previous piece. Because he's not a blogger, he didn't provide links to the pieces he's quoting, so it is not easy to look into the context of the quoted remarks, but let's assume that they are all carefully quoted. If so, then people have been behaving in ways that they probably won't describe with pride in their next letter home to mother.
But beyond bad manners, let's look at three more reasons why name-calling is such a dead end. Dean Cronin provides one in his final quotation from Johnson -- once civility is broken, it may never be recovered. Another is that the stock phrases that come to mind when one is ranting are just not interesting -- what stock language is interesting, anyway? And stock phrases are not interesting because they aren't specific and aren't meant to be specific -- stock phrases abandon the real power of language to name the specificity of our experience. If we want to name the virtues of blogging and the weaknesses of its critics' ideas, we have to go beyond stock language. For all those reasons, there's no point at ranting at Dean Cronin.
I am still disappointed in his previous piece because in it he makes little effort to explore the possibilities of blogging. Instead, he seems to take great pleasure in his catalog of weaknesses, and these are real weaknesses, especially in certain kinds of blogs. As is often the case, one's opponent is right about some things. I am also disappointed in the new piece because it doesn't grapple with the responses he received that were not rants.
So, the Dean of Library and Information Science doesn't "get" blogging. Let's look at this a couple of different ways. For one thing, the weakness could be his own, for whatever reason, and maybe that is true. In my previous post I guess I pretty much located the problem in Dean Cronin, and I haven't quite talked myself out of what I said there. But maybe that was a self-serving judgment on my part. Maybe bloggers have not made a clear case for blogging yet, especially if enough of us have clouded the issue quite thoroughly with bad behavior.
One more problem lurks here though, for many of us. Our blogs are usually not official sites belonging to our employers, but our names are associated with our blogs and our reputations are of some real concern to our employers. The way we speak to each other and to those we disagree with is of legitimate concern to our employers.
A rigorous ethic has to apply among professional bloggers. I wonder if we have spelled out the details of this ethic among ourselves yet? Perhaps not?
Dean Cronin understands the weaknesses of some blogs very well. I hope we can make a stronger, clearer case for the qualities of the best blogs and the working communities they have strengthened and even created. [0 & P]
Wednesday, June 9, 2004
Alexandrian Public Library. One of the dozen blogging librarians at Saint Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, Indiana, told me today of good weblog from a smallish library, Alexandrian Public Library, in Mount Vernon, Indiana. Dig the cool background, but most of all dig the way the writers are trying out ways to serve their community. Complete with an Atom feed!
[0 & P]
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Library blog X 4. Jenny Levine points to the Moraine Valley Community College Library, where they've set up not one, not two, not three, but four library weblogs, along with a page that aggregates the lot of them. Two are probably temporary -- one covers the progress of remodeling there, and another addresses a visiting exhibit -- but they've got the blogging spirit and don't look like they'll be harmed by a rising or falling tide of blogging. And maybe the real point here is that it is possible to support such a thing as a special event blog. Maybe we could try it for an upcoming IUSB event, such as the fall one-day campus festival.
The aggregator page would only be a dream on our campus today, whether we're talking about a library blog or not, since there are no blogs to aggregate. Not for long, I hope. The folks who run these blogs are in Palos Hills, Illinois. [0 & P]
The aggregator page would only be a dream on our campus today, whether we're talking about a library blog or not, since there are no blogs to aggregate. Not for long, I hope. The folks who run these blogs are in Palos Hills, Illinois. [0 & P]
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
Minimalist blogging. When I was talking to our librarians last week, I found myself saying some fields might be able to approach weblogs as a way of capturing, in a short period of time, work that people were already doing anyway. Now that vision doesn't get us the full dynamic of weblogs, where building a community and exchanging ideas are central, but it could provide some very powerful content, and it might very well adapt to a wider group of writers than full-blown blogging is likely to do -- who knows? For the time being, I'd like to have faith in the uses writers create for weblog software, rather than try to impose a particular vision on them.
But if librarians are creating collections and helping people find things in the collections every day, they are surely doing a lot of work that would be good to write down for others.
The newly redesigned New York Public Library website, for example, shows that the staff knows how interesting and valuable the collections are. Almost any part of the site shows this, such as the NYPL for Readers and Writers page, which is designed much like a blog and has more than a dozen posts or summaries or links that a librarian blogger might very well have composed if NYPL was a blog.
Each of those posts or summaries is rich and promising. You could imagine many of them being written quickly by experienced librarians, and you can see them serving the public and enticing patrons to make new uses of the collections. All to the good.
So maybe there is something we might call minimalist blogging, which uses the software for its speed and ease, and which aims to produce something of value, but which does not try for the full blogging experience. Yesterday I talked about Paul Lomio and his email newsletter at Stanford Law School, a product that almost begs for a blog, and which might be another example of a highly focused writing project that exploits some of the patterns of the blogosphere very nicely. So shall we have two cheers for well-aimed minimalist blogging? [0 & P]
But if librarians are creating collections and helping people find things in the collections every day, they are surely doing a lot of work that would be good to write down for others.
The newly redesigned New York Public Library website, for example, shows that the staff knows how interesting and valuable the collections are. Almost any part of the site shows this, such as the NYPL for Readers and Writers page, which is designed much like a blog and has more than a dozen posts or summaries or links that a librarian blogger might very well have composed if NYPL was a blog.Each of those posts or summaries is rich and promising. You could imagine many of them being written quickly by experienced librarians, and you can see them serving the public and enticing patrons to make new uses of the collections. All to the good.
So maybe there is something we might call minimalist blogging, which uses the software for its speed and ease, and which aims to produce something of value, but which does not try for the full blogging experience. Yesterday I talked about Paul Lomio and his email newsletter at Stanford Law School, a product that almost begs for a blog, and which might be another example of a highly focused writing project that exploits some of the patterns of the blogosphere very nicely. So shall we have two cheers for well-aimed minimalist blogging? [0 & P]
Thursday, April 29, 2004
After the sessions. I've spent about three hours talking to our librarians about blogs and RSS in the last two days, and I walk away from the enjoyable sessions with these thoughts:
1. Even when things are going well, blogging remains a somewhat thinned-out form of human communication. People interested in blogging should talk in person occasionally, to restore the sense of human contact to the process.
2. One of the real pleasures of talking about blogging is seeing what people start to invent for themselves with the tools, rather than assuming that the tools are good for some handful of particular things.
So, community and creativity... [0 & P]
1. Even when things are going well, blogging remains a somewhat thinned-out form of human communication. People interested in blogging should talk in person occasionally, to restore the sense of human contact to the process.
2. One of the real pleasures of talking about blogging is seeing what people start to invent for themselves with the tools, rather than assuming that the tools are good for some handful of particular things.
So, community and creativity... [0 & P]
We're back in the library. Once again I'm enjoying talking to Schurz Library librarians about weblogs and RSS and so forth.
[0 & P]
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Librarians are great. I had a very enjoyable hour and a quarter with a group of librarians today, talking about weblogs and RSS. I tried to explain what the software can do and speculate a bit about ways it might be of interest for our campus. I noticed more clearly than ever how well our librarians tend to think about information access, searching tools, and the practicalities of the day by day services they provide. I could see the pleasure they take in good information tools and I enjoyed hearing them speculate about things they might be able to do with the software. Along with working on our goals for the session, I ended up liking and respecting these colleagues more than ever -- not bad for a 75 minute meeting.
We talked about workload issues, too. If weblogs are going to serve units on our campus, such as the library, we need to emphasize the efficiency of the software. If a reference librarian helped a student locate information about the election, she could in a minute or two post a link to the information on a library weblog, capturing the fruits of her labor and making it available for other patrons. It's the minute or two part that seems crucial, since few people can create an hour or two of writing time in a day at the reference desk. But if we can capture the best discoveries quickly for web publication, a group might be able to build a very substantial site over time and create a rich new relationship with some users of the library. Versions of that idea apply to other university units, depending on their nature, I think. [0 & P]
We talked about workload issues, too. If weblogs are going to serve units on our campus, such as the library, we need to emphasize the efficiency of the software. If a reference librarian helped a student locate information about the election, she could in a minute or two post a link to the information on a library weblog, capturing the fruits of her labor and making it available for other patrons. It's the minute or two part that seems crucial, since few people can create an hour or two of writing time in a day at the reference desk. But if we can capture the best discoveries quickly for web publication, a group might be able to build a very substantial site over time and create a rich new relationship with some users of the library. Versions of that idea apply to other university units, depending on their nature, I think. [0 & P]
With the librarians now. I'm enjoying talking with librarians at Schurz Library right now. We're in the computer lab in the basement of the library, looking at weblogs and weblog software.
[0 & P]
Schurz Library weblog session. These are notes for today's session with some of the librarians at IUSB's Schurz Library. We'll be talking about weblogs and RSS feeds and ways librarians might get involved with this exciting new realm. I'll offer these questions, below, but we'll also see if there are other questions people would like to add to the list.
What is a weblog?
Frequently-updated website with new content on top, with links, and the possibility of creating a community of readers and writers.
What is special about weblog software?
Data base and page templates make instant publication possible.
How can I create a weblog?
http://www.blogger.com/blogspot-admin/ or http://www.danchan.com/weblog/home/create.htm
http://www.pmachine.com
http://www.movabletype.org/
http://www.pmachine.com/expressionengine/
How can I create a weblog entry?
We'll try it.
What are the common parts of a weblog?
Let's look at http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ or http://www.tametheweb.com/ttwblog/
How can I create a weblog entry on fancier software?
We'll create an entry on Ken's blog, using pMachine.
Why are professionals and educators interested in weblogs?
Classes / research / professional exchange / fast-moving fields / public relations / alternate models of professional publication / etc.
What are some library weblogs?
Let's check Ken's public Bloglines account: http://www.bloglines.com/public/ksmith
What is RSS?
A really simple way to syndicate content -- to send or receive content on the web.
What is an aggregator?
We'll look at some Bloglines features: http://www.bloglines.com/
How can I use an aggregator to read new library weblogs?
Let's add this one to Ken's account: http://www.technobiblio.com/
How can I use RSS to contribute content to other sites?
IU's One Start portal, for example, offers an IUSB unit the opportunity to create content for all faculty, students, and staff of the university.
How can I use weblogs and RSS to create a publication?
Here are several publications using this kind of software:
In These Times -- http://www.inthesetimes.com/
The Campaign Desk -- http://www.cjr.org/blog/
On the Trail (New York Times) -- http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/trail/
The Revealer -- http://therevealer.org/index.php
Hotelmarketing Newsweekly -- http://wwww.hotelmarketing.com/
Good News India -- http://www.goodnewsindia.com/
Butterflies and Wheels -- http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/
Web Tools Newsletter -- http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/newslett/webfolios.htm
Progress Report -- http://www.americanprogress.org/
National Geographic News -- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
openDemocracy -- http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp
Washington Monthly -- http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
The Gadflyer -- http://gadflyer.com/
Information Commons -- http://www.info-commons.org/
AlterNet -- http://www.alternet.org/
CounterPunch -- http://www.counterpunch.org/
Lumina Foundation -- http://www.luminafoundation.org/issues/index.html
Digital Banff -- http://www.digitalbanff.com/
Seattle P-I -- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/columnists/
IT Enquirer -- http://www.it-enquirer.com/index.php
Why might librarians want to try weblogs?
Internal weblog for sharing skills and knowledge about working with the resources of Schurz Library
External weblog for publicizing resources and events as well as teaching library skills to patrons
Profession-oriented weblog for sharing skills and knowledge with the wider community of librarians
Participating in IUSB’s American Democracy Project publication [0 & P]
What is a weblog?
Frequently-updated website with new content on top, with links, and the possibility of creating a community of readers and writers.
What is special about weblog software?
Data base and page templates make instant publication possible.
How can I create a weblog?
http://www.blogger.com/blogspot-admin/ or http://www.danchan.com/weblog/home/create.htm
http://www.pmachine.com
http://www.movabletype.org/
http://www.pmachine.com/expressionengine/
How can I create a weblog entry?
We'll try it.
What are the common parts of a weblog?
Let's look at http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ or http://www.tametheweb.com/ttwblog/
How can I create a weblog entry on fancier software?
We'll create an entry on Ken's blog, using pMachine.
Why are professionals and educators interested in weblogs?
Classes / research / professional exchange / fast-moving fields / public relations / alternate models of professional publication / etc.
What are some library weblogs?
Let's check Ken's public Bloglines account: http://www.bloglines.com/public/ksmith
What is RSS?
A really simple way to syndicate content -- to send or receive content on the web.
What is an aggregator?
We'll look at some Bloglines features: http://www.bloglines.com/
How can I use an aggregator to read new library weblogs?
Let's add this one to Ken's account: http://www.technobiblio.com/
How can I use RSS to contribute content to other sites?
IU's One Start portal, for example, offers an IUSB unit the opportunity to create content for all faculty, students, and staff of the university.
How can I use weblogs and RSS to create a publication?
Here are several publications using this kind of software:
In These Times -- http://www.inthesetimes.com/
The Campaign Desk -- http://www.cjr.org/blog/
On the Trail (New York Times) -- http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/trail/
The Revealer -- http://therevealer.org/index.php
Hotelmarketing Newsweekly -- http://wwww.hotelmarketing.com/
Good News India -- http://www.goodnewsindia.com/
Butterflies and Wheels -- http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/
Web Tools Newsletter -- http://webtools.cityu.edu.hk/news/newslett/webfolios.htm
Progress Report -- http://www.americanprogress.org/
National Geographic News -- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
openDemocracy -- http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp
Washington Monthly -- http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
The Gadflyer -- http://gadflyer.com/
Information Commons -- http://www.info-commons.org/
AlterNet -- http://www.alternet.org/
CounterPunch -- http://www.counterpunch.org/
Lumina Foundation -- http://www.luminafoundation.org/issues/index.html
Digital Banff -- http://www.digitalbanff.com/
Seattle P-I -- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/columnists/
IT Enquirer -- http://www.it-enquirer.com/index.php
Why might librarians want to try weblogs?
Internal weblog for sharing skills and knowledge about working with the resources of Schurz Library
External weblog for publicizing resources and events as well as teaching library skills to patrons
Profession-oriented weblog for sharing skills and knowledge with the wider community of librarians
Participating in IUSB’s American Democracy Project publication [0 & P]