jessamyn

hi – 06sep

Hi. I just got back from my trip and boy did I see some lovely libraries. The ones I went into included the Haskell Free Library in Derby Line [free WiFi, even when the library is closed] which had a wonderful librarian with one of those ALA buttons who gave us a free tour of the opera house as she went through to turn off the lights. Also saw the Alice Ward Library in Canaan which has unusual architecture and historical society exhibits upstairs. I have some pictures, they’ll be online sometime soon. In the meantime, check out this little birthday web page that my Mom made me about the Monhegan Library on Monhegan Library in Maine.

why you can’t be unbiased AND comprehensive in your taxonomies

Posted on 06Sep04 by jessamyn

JOHO, the Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization, begins to look at the biases implicit and explicit in the Dewey Decimal System. Incidentally David Weinberger was one of the DNC bloggers as well as the writer of this article. We kept saying we’d get together to talk taxonomy and haven’t yet.

Why is the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system so embarrassingly behind the times? After all, its owners are fully modern, reasonable people, many with advanced library degrees, who report to work in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. How can they let their classification scheme get it so wrong? After all, if the US Census can finally, in 2000, acknowledge that many people don’t fit into a single racial bucket, surely the academics and intellectuals managing the nation’s standard library classification system can end its 130 years of religious bias. [stuff]

starting from the school level to make web sites accessible

Posted on 06Sep04 by jessamyn

IMLS gives grant to UB to create accessible web sites for libraries. The program will also try to recruit library students with disabilities to participate in this program, helping answer the question often asked “what about the librarians with disabilities?” [libwebchic]