Comments on: tech.

By: Michael Dunne » Blog Archive » Am I a Techie?

Michael Dunne » Blog Archive » Am I a Techie? — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:59:25 +0000

[...] Following a pointer over at Librarian.net I read an interesting post by Rory Litwin called Questioning the Techie Mission. It’s quite a long, thoughtful, post about the role played by library bloggers (who are by definition ‘techie librarians’) in forwarding a technical agenda in libraries, and he says: Most library bloggers, it seems to me, are advocates of technology in libraries, and often practically missionaries. [...]

By: VALIS » Blog Archive » Search and more: MSN customised search, Ask.com, Rollyo etc

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 03:04:58 +0000

[...] There’s also been talk about the relaunched Ask.com, with some commentators (e.g. the Wall Street Journal) praising the new interface and claiming it has better results than Ask Jeeves did. The Slashdot crowd aren’t so impressed. I thought even the old Ask Jeeves performed better than people gave it credit for – back at school I compared it with Yahoo and Google in a small trial, and found it roughly tied Google for quality of results. I’d expected it to be a distant third. Meredith Farkas writes about times when searching the free web can be better than searching academic reference sources. [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:32:25 +0000

Thanks Jessamyn! Nice post and you did a wonderful job of pointing out that it didn’t seem as if Rory was really trying to start a dialogue. I could have addressed that better, but I think that was what I was trying to do by asking him to “sit at the table and join the discussion.”

The reason I respect Rory has nothing to do his with politics, but with his more philosophical-historial-sociological writings on technology and other related library topics. I was probably a bit over the top using “fanboy,” and honestly I have absolutely no pop culture cred to use it. But I was trying to encourage him to join “us” and not sit in the corner shooting spitballs.

Whether or not I always agree with him, and I don’t, I have sincerely missed his voice while Library Juice was “off the air.” I don’t want to see him disappear again.

And I’d like to second Michael Golrick’s comments! And in case you missed it in my 1st post that you linked to, or if I haven’t said it before, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” Yours is the 1st blog I ever started reading, and discovering your voice is truly one of the reasons I finally made it into library school. I was seriously on the verge on giving it all up; now I graduate on Mother’s Day this year! Incredible when I think about it.

So, thank you Jessamyn, for all that you do in the world, but especiallly for (re)convincing me that there is a way to be a librarian and a decent, engaged human being, all at the same time.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:22:16 +0000

Well said! Rick Anderson is forward-thinking, but cautionary, so I’m not surprised that you like his writings.

+15 oogyboogy

By: Michael Golrick

Michael Golrick — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:10:35 +0000

Jessamyn, one of the things that I love about you is that you understand that technology is only a tool, but that you really do know the technology. I love that you see part of your role as de-mystifying it, and helping real people to include it in their lives.

Now, you must realize that I am writing this under techno-stress. At work, I am in the process of changing laptops. So, my old and new laptops are “at the shop” getting data moved from one to another (I guess it takes time to move 35 gig of data), and I am on a borrowed machine.

Thanks for your wonderful common sense!

By: mo

mo — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:31:12 +0000

i love tech too, but occasionally need to remind myself…just because we can automate something does not mean we should

By: ivan

ivan — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:02:23 +0000

i’m completing my first year in library school. “to me computers are like video games, big fun problems to solve”, this resonates with me. i’m a techie. i’m interested in converting local catalogs into knowledge bases. nice tip on the Anderson essay.