The New York Times — and my favorite library professor Joe Janes — tries valliantly to convince people that librarians still serve a purpose. This article interests me for a few reasons. Librarians still beat out Google in terms of being able to provide definitive, properly sourced, information. I also like Janes’s description of librarians as being people who have a “plan B” when Google fails them. However I wonder if most of our patrons value this level of detail? If you need the name of the party Perot started do you really need to look through more than one page of Google results, as the Times somewhat snobbily implies most people don’t? How many times do our patrons really just want to know what most people think the answer is, which is Google’s strength, and not the One True Answer, which is ours. [thanks all]
Author: jessamyn
seattle’s BBL and the week off for all librarians
Seattle’s Big Beautiful Library is almost ready to open. Staff are getting a one week unpaid “week off” in march to avoid layoffs. Incidentally, SPL also has an amazing new [to me] website that’s accessible too. [thanks bill]
something you don’t see every day in the world of library weblogs
SHUSH: a website for the conservative librarian.
Current stands that S* has taken include Pro-Patriot Act, Pro-CIPA, Anti-MLS/Pro-BS, and anti-privacy-of-minors.
hi – 03feb
Hi. Let me know if the category links to the left are giving erratic results. On to the inbox….
holy freaking CRAP! good news about public domain futures
This is great news, says Ryan [and me]. Though come on, how secret is it if it’s in the Times?
Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions.