David Weinberger points to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution and the idea of “advice as process.” I’m going to keep this idea close to me as I move through another year of moderating Ask MetaFilter: “giving advice is a social activity, not merely a transfer of purported knowledge.” How much of what we do as librarians is reference and how much is advice?
I learned what I know about greasemonkey and an awful lot about accessibility by reading Mark Pilgrim’s Dive Into Accessibility and Dive Into Greasemonkey. He has a blog at DiveIntoMark, of course, which I sometimes read. Today I was directed there by David Weinberger to the post called The Future of Reading. As David points out Mark’s post is not just a cheeky then and now juxtaposition of some of the things Jeff Bezos has said, it’s also “the story of the coming change in norms. And a change in norms rewrites all the stories leading up to it.” How are you feeling about your digital rights, and the content in your libraries?
David Weinberger blogs about Aaron Swartz talking at the Berkman Center about the Open Library project. Pay close attention to the Q and A and think about this in terms of the Google Books post/article from yesterday. Who is really in faveor of openness? Who talks the most about openness? Want to help? They still need programmers. And book lovers.
Q: Why won’t OCLC give you the data?
A: We’d take it in any form. We’d be willing to pay. Getting through the library bureaucracy is difficult…
A: (terry) You need to find the right person at OCLC
A: We’ve talked with them at a high level and they won’t give us any information. Too bad since they’re a non-profit. Library records are not copyrightable. OCLC contractually binds libraries.
Hi. My name is Jessamyn West and I'll be your librarian today. I work in rural Vermont as a library technologist and am a community manager at MetaFilter.com. My personal blog is at jessamyn.com. This blog's twitter feed @librarian.net. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments.
