Whitepaper on Improving the discoverability of scholarly content in the twenty-first century
Related to the paper above: Rediscovering Discovery — How We Find Things, and Its Implications
Unrelated to the previous two papers! Book Burning, 213 BC–2011 AD – from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Richard Stallman Was Right All Along - Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia – but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality.
Rethinking the Open Access Agenda – “Why I have come to think that we need to revisit the Budapest Open Access Initiative’s obsession with information technology.” From RepositoryMan, the Blog of repository administrator and web scientist, Leslie Carr, a researcher and lecturer who runs a research repository for the School of Electronics and Computer Science in the University of Southampton in the UK.
A Top 10 List In Favor Of Censoring The Internet – The MPAA has been sending around a sort of “top 10 list” to folks in Congress about why they should vote to censor the internet via PROTECT IP (PIPA). Of course, the ten reasons don’t make much sense, and we figured that it might be helpful to shine a little of that reality light on the claims. (From TechDirt)
Art exhibit of the day – In an effort to illustrate just how many photos are posted to the web each and every day, Erik Kessels put together an exhibition that consists of every single photo posted on Flickr within a 24-hour period. The result? A ceiling-high stack of over 1 million photos that required multiple rooms to hold. By comparison, Facebook users post 25 times as many photos, every day.
OccuPrint – Posters from the #Occupy movement
20 iPad apps librarians should download – Just getting started with your new iPad and wondering what to download? Here are 20 popular apps to get you going in the areas of News, Reference & Education, e-Book Readers, Productivity Tools, and Social Tools.
Solid 3D Projection That You Can Touch - Are we getting closer to really effective volumetric 3D display technology? A new display technology uses cold fog and a laser projector to create a volumetric 3D image. See it in action in these videos.
Awful Library Books – Adventures in weeding collections. They also accept submissions.
Great idea until Microsoft acquires it – TEDx Brussels – John Bohannon & Black Label Movement – Dance Your PhD
E-book lending in public libraries – story in USA Today
“Ban” physical books on college campuses? “… But I suggest that it’s time to go much further: to actually ban nonelectronic books on campus. … It could involve a pledge similar to the one that language students and instructors at Middlebury Language Schools take to speak only the foreign languages in which they are immersed during the study program. …”
Some error messages to amuse you, such as “Error: Report failed. Can not obtain error message” or ” An Un-named File Contains an Invalid Path.”
Unfrozen Caveman CIO at Google Atmosphere: “So ‘Cloud’ is Gmail, Right?”
“What’s not often recognized is that Microsoft Office is also a communications network that runs on top of the Internet at the app layer, and specifically it runs on top of the email layer.”
The internet can be touched – the internet IS physical. Also, note a link below the video points out that “the weight of a full Kindle exceeds that of an empty Kindle.”
CMU Researchers Create a Multitouch Surface Everywhere – In a joint effort between Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute the creation of a new interface has been born. The new interface is usable on any surface, including notebooks, tables, walls and body parts. The UI is completely multitouch and worn on the shoulder, which will turn any surface you are pointing at into a usable workspace by the combination of a projector and a 3D modeling device similar to the Kinect.
Are We In The DIY Era? Helping patrons help themselves - There is a movement under way to give patrons more control of their library experiences. Here are some examples of libraries providing unmediated self-services. (From The Ubiquituous Librarian, via Wired Campus)
The USA PATRIOT Act is ten years old, with no signs of retirement. (From Wired magazine).
“The BBC reports that the Royal Society is putting all of its old papers online and has a fascinating sample of articles from the first several years. You can reach all the old journal articles from this page at the Royal Society by selecting a journal and going to past issues.” (From SlashDot)
A National Digital Public Library Begins To Take Shape- The Digital Public Library of America doesn’t exist yet, but it’s closer to becoming a reality. At a meeting held at the National Archives, representatives from top cultural institutions and public and research libraries expressed support for the proposed library, which would create a portal to allow the public to get easy online access to collections held at many different institutions. Organizers and observers made it clear that there’s still a long way to go before the digital public library goes online, and that its final shape—and just how public it will really be—remains up in the air. (from The Chronicle of Higher Education)
RIAA et al are biggest threat to innovation – Attempts by the content industry to pass legislation like the Protect IP Act are the greatest threat to technology innovation, a senior US Senator has told delegates at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.
For iPads in the enterprise, hassles aplenty – In various talks yesterday, Gartner analysts highlighted a series of gotchas that need to be considered before jumping on the enterprise tablet bandwagon.
The Educause Center for Applied Research has just released The National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011. The report sheds light on how information technology affects the college experience. Because of the widespread interest in and importance of this topic, ECAR has made this report publicly accessible upon release.
In Praise of Librarians – So I come to today’s digitally confused world of information from what is now a reasonably obsolete perspective. When I agreed to show up at a library meeting, I expected to be unhappy with the new digital universe and dismayed by the changes in my beloved library world. Fortunately for my psychic tranquility, the librarians are ahead of me, they are on the case, they are transforming our world of information with creativity and imagination.
Steve Jobs’ 100-year legacy: Humanizing technology: What will the legacy of Steve Jobs be a century from now? It won’t have much to do with business or marketing. Learn what it will be and why.
From the Harvard Business Review Blog: A Kodak Moment to Reconsider the Value of IT.
From TechRepublic: The Cloud isn’t a strategy.
LIS Staff Middlebury Community MiddPoints