I guess what I’m trying to say is that we really can’t look at things as being so black and white. We can’t say open source=good, proprietary=bad. It’s not that simple. Stephen Abram is not a bad person because he wrote a crappy “position paper. OCLC isn’t necessarily evil. Open source vendors aren’t necessarily good. We shouldn’t assume that a vendor is out to take us to the cleaners and steal all our data, but neither should we assume that a vendor has our best interests at heart (no matter how cool they or their representatives are). Things are really, really gray, and require a much more critical eye than we sometimes have by default.
Shades of gray | Information Wants To Be Free
Posted in librarianship, open source, software, technology.
– 2009/11/04
The goal of innovation
Libraries are a bit top heavy with somewhat aimless experimentation. Learning/experimenting/playing is great. And necessary. Etc. Speaking broadly we’ve done a good job developing those skills. However, learning/experimenting/playing shouldn’t be the end goal. Meeting the needs of our users is the end goal. Collectively we now have nice tools at our disposal. A missing piece though is how we figure out how and when to apply the tools.
Posted in library management, technology.
– 2009/11/01
Question Box Answers Calls in Africa Where Web Can’t Reach – NYTimes.com
The premise behind Question Box is that many barriers keep most of the developing world from taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge available through Web search engines, said Rose Shuman, the service’s creator. That could be a drag on economic development.
“So I was thinking, why not bring the information to them in a way that’s most convenient and useful to them?”
via Question Box Answers Calls in Africa Where Web Can’t Reach – NYTimes.com.
Posted in reference.
– 2009/11/01
Technophilia
Technology does not determine practice. How people embrace technology has less to do with the technology itself than with the social setting in which they are embedded. Those who are immersed in a techno-savvy, technophilic community are far more likely to embrace technology than those whose social world is shaped by other patterns of consumption and communication. People’s practices are also shaped by those around them. There are cluster effects to socio-technical engagement. In other words, people do what their friends do.
Posted in community, technology.
– 2009/11/01
The “Psychic Benefits” of Nonprofit Work Are Overrated
Definitely parallels library experience:
Don’t fall for this Puritan self-sacrificial psychobabble. It’s not the poor who are asking you to work for less. It’s the donating public, including many a wealthy donor. They’re asking you to end poverty and every other great social problem and to do it for them at a discount. And they’re exploiting the images of the poor to get you to agree. The fact that someone makes a one-time sacrificial gift doesn’t mean you’re obligated to make a lifetime sacrificial career choice. If you do the math and the psychic benefit comes up lacking for you, then ask the people who want you to make the world a better place for another kind of benefit that begins with a “p.” Pay.
via The “Psychic Benefits” of Nonprofit Work Are Overrated – Dan Pallotta – HarvardBusiness.org.
Posted in library employees.
– 2009/11/01
Ten Questions to Ask Every New Employee
…every time I ever started a new job, I was hyper-aware of all the wacky things about my new organization; the signs that had been taped to the door since 1973: the restrictive (or just plain arbitrary and weird) policies that seemed to have no rhyme nor reason; the lack of basic equipment available for staff (no sliderules or abaci, but close.)
via Ten Questions to Ask Every New Employee « Library Garden.
Posted in library management.
– 2009/10/31
Designing for social traction
There are definitely some ideas here that would be useful in promoting libraries.
Designing For Social Traction
View more documents from Joshua Porter.
Posted in community, social capital.
– 2009/10/31
