hive mind, in Slate
I was interviewed for Slate about Ask MetaFilter. I like the way the article came out. When the hive mind works, it’s a beautiful thing.
Cool job: answer questions for The Explainer on Slate
Slate is looking for someone to work two days a week writing the Explainer column, answering questions about issues in the news. The application seems simple enough. You have to send your sample answers to a yahoo.com address which seems a little weird. All you people looking at how to become a freelance librarian, start here.
two links from the internet and one from my life
- BOFH stands for Bastard Operator From Hell. This entry is about vampire librarians, or something.
- Can architects save librarians from the Internet? Slashdot talking about Slate.
- ListenUpVermont, a project to get participating Vermont libraries together to be able to lend digital audiobooks to their patrons is going live this week. I’d love to say this was my doing but mostly I’ve just consulted with a local non-automated library about how they can make this work for them. This is the result of an informal (possibly formalized now) consortium of Vermont libraries from all over the state lending titles via Overdrive. In just browsing the collection I’m sort of surprised at how many titles can be burned to CD (and transferred to ipods) I was expecting less. Big congrats to Stephanie Chase from the Stowe Free Library for getting this project going.
a librarian’s worst nightmare?
I don’t know about you, but my worst nightmare is more along the lines of someone vomiting (or worse!) in the overnight book drop, but Slate has an article about Yahoo Answers and how librarians hate it. Of course the writer doesn’t seem to have talked to any librarians, he just likes to rail against the wisdom of crowds — with some valid points, certainly — and make fun of stupid answers on YA which is of coruse the opposite of what any decent librarian would do. There is a lively back and forth in the disucssion section which is hard to follow and hard to find but if the topic is as near and dear to your heart as it is to mine, I suggest you dig it out. I commented. [thanks alexandra]
