Category: hi

how is wifi like the railroads?

Posted on by jessamyn

Ubiquitous wifi is only a social good for those with laptops. The coming of the railroads was the make or break point for small towns across America. If the train came through, you were home free. If it didn’t, well…. I drive all over the little towns of Vermont. I see cemetaries on the sides of mountains where, at one point, there were clearly enough people living there to sustain a community and probably a church. When we were all walking, we all had equal access to roads. Then some towns got the railroads, and with it the services, tourists, trade and attention that came with it. They thrived. Some towns faded away to a small cemetary at the end of a dirt road. Municipal wireless can help this problem, but only if we pay attention to who it’s serving, and who it isn’t.

As was the case with ownership of and access to railroads in the industrial era, control over and access to broadband connectivity is defining global, regional and individual success. In turn, it is shaping whether African Americans, Latinos and the poor will continue to live in economically strip-mined neighborhoods like Philadelphia’s Kensington.

[laz]

two good links from resource shelf: IFLA & LOC

Posted on by jessamyn

Two things stuck out from the most recent Resource Shelf posting by Gary Price today

“The Library of Congress has launched a new public Web site to cover the groundbreaking work of a special independent committee. By 2006, this committee will recommend changes to copyright law that recognize the need for exceptions to the law for libraries and archives in the digital age.”

Highlights released IFLA/FAIFE World Report 2005 on Intellectual Freedom and Libraries: Libraries, National Security, Freedom of Information Laws and Social Responsibilities. Of note: filtering use on the rise, digital divide still a problem, consequences of war on terror affecting libraries, intelelctual freedom issues still a problem worldwide, including this quote In Turkmenistan it was reported that libraries have been closed under presidential order, on the grounds that ‘no one reads’. Damn. Read more IFLA blogging from the Rambling Librarian

eulogy for the “university of the ghetto”

Posted on by jessamyn

A poignant tale of a library becoming an Idea Store.

On the record the staff talk brightly of the new Idea Store which will replace both the Whitechapel and Stepney libraries from mid-September – the glossy leaflet boasts not only “more books, CDs and DVDs” and seven-day-a-week opening, but also that it “is located right in front of Sainsbury’s”.

Off the record they feel bereaved, despite struggling once its fate was sealed and maintenance virtually stopped: in a recent flood the usual buckets were clearly failing to cope.

[thanks ej]

hi – 28jul

Posted on by jessamyn

Hi. I haven’t written one of these chatty updates in a while. There’s nothing like a sunny 80 degree day and a beckoning pool to keep you away from the keyboard. I’ve gotten three library cards in the last three months. That’s three in addition to the two I already have at local libraries and the two that I have at the LoC and the NLM. In any case, here’s a short blurb about them:

  • the most recent card I got from the Vermont Technical College which is part of Vermont’s Community College system and in fact maintains the central library for all of them. Any Vermonter can get a card there. They have free wifi in and outside the library and a good collection of books, magazines, journals, videos and even software.
  • I got a card at the Chelsea Public Library. Actually you don’t so much as get a card as register with the library. They write your name down and hand you a little slip with the hours of the library on it. Then you come in and say your number when you check out books. I am number 861. They have a great collection of history books, two computers with Internet access and a pretty good new book selection. I am hoping to teach comptuer classes there in the Fall.
  • I got a card at the Kimball Library in Randolph whose web site I have been working on this week. Usually a card there costs around $20 for non-residents but I got one because I’ve been working there as an AmeriCorps volunteer. They have four internet computers, two catalog-only computers and one of the loveliest libraries that I’ve seen in this state. I have a key to the front door and they let me use the comptuers to teach classes before the library opens. My students are in their 70’s and 80’s and are using mice for the first time ever.

There’s definitely a schism in the state between libraries that don’t charge at all and libraries that try to get out-of-town users to pitch in what the taxpayers pitch in at town meeting time. Rutland, where I used to work, charges $28/year for theirs. They let me keep my card there after I stopped working there until it expires in September. The good news is that the Department of Libraries has done some bulk purchasing of databases subscriptions so even the smallest libraries can have access to online information. They even have some pretty hot cross-searchable database interfaces if you know where to look for them. At my job I’m mainly teaching people the difference between right and left clicking, and trying to explain why buying something online requires clicking through 5-6 pages of data entry, but it’s good to know that as people learn more about this crazy online world that many people inhabit, there are tools waiting for them that, if we’re doing our jobs right, will only get easier to use.

former Health and Human Services Secretary chips himself

Posted on by jessamyn

I don’t care if Tommy Thompson is going to chip himself, I’m still not sold on RFID technology for libraries as it’s being marketed and implemented currently. Let’s get real here. There’s a difference between voluntarily tagging yourself and having tagging being a prerequisite for your school or library. Would TT’s tag have his social security number on it? What about his library reading record? This article looks to be nothing more than a cheap stunt hyping VeriChip’s system of linking information on your chip to a database that could contain your health information. Like many nifty technology tools, this one only becomes useful when it becomes ubiquitous which seems to me to be a long ways off. Getting this sort of coverage would [or should] mean open standards to lower prices, encourage innovation, reduce vendor lock-in and encourage growth generally.

And, speaking of RFID, Laura Smart’s URL to her excellent Library RFID site has changed. You can find all her content here: http://libraryrfid.net/wordpress