reference IS cool

Posted on by jessamyn

Get your Reference is Cool button from Salem Press. If you’d like, send them some visual verification.

Salem Press is inviting you to submit evidence that reference books, the people who use them, reference librarians and teachers are “cool.” We are using the expression ‘cool’ to mean ‘excellent’ or ‘first-class’ not the sense of the word that implies merely ‘acceptable’ or ‘satisfactory.’ It is permissible, but not required, that the person, action, thing or event be relaxed – cool. But not chilly, please.

meanwhile Cronin attack bloggers “all anonymous”?

Posted on by jessamyn

More on the Blaise Cronin/blogger back and forth. Apparently the story of Cronin’s lambasting from the blogger community has taken on legs of its own and is quoted in this Christian Science Monitor article about anonymity.

when Blaise Cronin, dean of the School of Library and Information Science, posted an essay lamenting the lack of civility among writers of personal Web logs (blogs).

“He was viciously attacked by people [from] all over the world – all anonymous,” says Center director Alice Robbin. “These people would never have made these awful remarks if they had to show their faces or give their real names.”

She says being anonymous provides an emotional rush that shapes the content of what someone says, as evidenced in responses to Mr. Cronin.

“They were so thrilled, and it was associated with antiauthority,” she says. “They were taking it out on a dean.”

librivox serendipity

Posted on by jessamyn

A few people had sent me a link to LibriVox before I left on the trip and it was in the queue to look at when I got back. I ran into Hugh McGuire at the Open Content Alliance Open Library Launch (his blog notes) and was happy to be able to say “Hey your link is in my inbox” and then get to talk to the man himself about the work that he does with group of dedicated volunteers. With a tagline like “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain” you’ve got to believe they have big plans. The specific project involves volunteers recording chapters of books and making the audio files available. The broader vision is to have “all books in the public domain to be available, for free, in audio format, on the internet.” You can have a copy of Call of the Wild to use however you want and whenever you want, thanks to LibriVox and the four volunteers who read and recorded the chapters. What are you waiting for, go volunteer to read something! Hugh is also on the board of Canda’s oldest lending library in case you were skeptical about his librarian cred.