libraries

Digital Public Library of America – dream big

One of the sad side effects of the interesting evolution of the Google Books/Google Editions product is how many people have been saying “Libraries should have done this. This should be our territory.” While there are some great library-like digital content sites such as Open Library they’re often more concerned with curation than content creation. And we have a lot of content that needs to go digital. But who has time and who has resources?

This week the Berkman Center announced a Digital Public Library Planning Initiative, bringing together a diverse group of librarians and free culture advocates to make a plan for a Digital Public Library of America. Exciting ideas brought to the table by people I trust, about things I care about. It’s a grat time to be a librarian.

a few notes from Boston

Posted on 04Dec10 by jessamyn

I participate in a holiday card exchange every year. I don’t celebrate Christmas but most people I know do so I like to have something holiday appropriate and possibly library interesting at the same time. Thanks to Boston Public Library’s Flickr stream, I think I’ve found the perfect image, available for me to use within the terms of their license. Thanks BPL! The Boston Globe is also a great source of library information, I swear they have someone working there who is on the library beat. This semi-recent article on Information Overload and what that looked like five centuries ago when the newest boogeyman was the printing press is an enjoyable read.

Astute readers may notice that this blog now has a twitter. If you want to subscribe to this blog’s posts via Twitter, you can follow the @librariandotnet account which is auto-posted to from this blog. All the rest of my updates will be at @jessamyn. I set it up without too much trouble using the Twitter Tools plug-in and the bit.ly APi to shortne the URLs.

Being a librarian in the human library

Posted on 16Jun10 by jessamyn

A long while back there was a human interest story with an eye catching title “Check out a lesbian!” or som such. The idea was to explore the idea of predjudices by having a conversation with someone in a group you maybe didn’t know anyone in. The object, at some level, to be realizing we’re all people, expanding your horizons, etc. I had forgotten about it until recently until Ben Ropp sent me an email asking about it. Looks like the program, HUMAN Library, now has a nice website with a lot of extra “how to” information and some example libraries (and a longer list) worldwide that have tried it. I’m happy to see this project still going strong.

update on four year old post

Posted on 12Jun10 by jessamyn

I mentioned, back in 2006, the case of Scott Savage vs Ohio State University. Inside Higher Ed has a post about the results of Savage’s lawsuit against the university. Upshot, “a federal judge rejected a former librarian’s lawsuit against the university.” [pdf of decision]. Depending on how you lean in this case, this is either terrific or troubling news (or possibly both) but it’s been interesting to read various reporting about it to see how it’s represented. I think my favorite analysis occurs in a comment on the site.

The headline seems to be “conservative academic forced out for Christian views” ( the headline on Horowitz’s FrontPage, for example, is “Savage Injustice” ) but the story is nothing of the sort. As much as the right wants to depict our colleges and universities as dominated by leftists and radicals the truth is that complaints against Savage were dismissed, he was backed by his supervisors and his position was secure. The headline should have been “University protects conservative academic’s right to express Christian views” because those are the facts of the case, which have been known from the beginning and which have now been established by a court of law.

L!brary design book

Posted on 19May10 by jessamyn

“The L!brary Book takes readers behind the scenes of fifty groundbreaking library projects to show how widely varied fields and communities – corporate underwriters, children’s book publishers, architects, graphic designers, product manufacturers, library associations, teachers, and students – can join forces to make a difference in the lives of children.” [thanks matt!]