CAPTCHAs

you're working even when you don't realize it.
apparently, every second counts.

you know those strange melting letters and numbers you have to interpret and type in when you're registering for something or other online? researchers at CMU have found a way to have those CAPTCHA moments contribute to digitizing books. unrecognized sections of scanned text are used instead, and when people interpret the jumble, it gets sent to a database. don't worry--it compares multiple people's intrepretations before making any final "decisions."


Powered by ScribeFire.

who gets to be called a "critic?"

"Sure, anyone with a blog can express an opinion about a book, but true criticism is more than just an opinion." says Richard Schickel of the LA Times.

He goes on to say, "Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise..."


He forgets, as so many people do, that many people exercise their critical thinking muscles when reading blogs, criticism in print, or any other source for that matter. Our current situation only emphasizes the role librarians and teachers can play in promoting critical evaluation of sources. "Information needs" come in many forms, and have many subtle dimensions, and require diverse resources to satisfy them.

Powered by ScribeFire.

blogging safely...

"How to blog safely"
I found this helpful...might be of interest

Free access?

"Free access blocked by unawareness and librarians" Were the librarians really "blocking" access? Could there be other issues, like being understaffed, lacking training, limited resources, etc?

half their time online? who?

"Americans spend half their time online" (from the Center for Media Research)
Although its interesting to discover that broadband users spend half of their spare time online, the title of this article is misleading. "Broadband users" does not equal "Americans".

Although I appreciate the article going into detail on computer usage of middle and upper class Americans, its important to remember that only about half of Americans have internet use.

Check out the U.S. Census statistics on computer usage and ownership in the united states:
61.8% of Americans have a computer in their home.
54.7% of Americans have internet access at home.

Library Thing

It'd be great to implement this for my own book collection. Library Thing could also be a nice companion to BookMooch. Library Thing is able to search not only amazon, but also the library of congress and other library catalogs. I wonder what these two would be like together?

BookMooch

I love BookMooch. Its a site that allows you to give away books, earn points by doing so, then use your points to get free books from other users around the world. Its a great way to get rid of books you are done reading, and to keep them moving. Its always a little depressing when I drop off a huge mound of my books at a bookk seller, and wait for that anticlimatic moment when I find out the extremely low $$ amount they are offering me. At BookMooch, there's a 1-to-1 relationship. give away a book, get a book. To make "cataloging" easier, they've hooked up with amazon.

first post!

In thinking about technology and libraries...IM reference is one of my recent, and now daily experiences with new(ish) technology and libraries. There's a great best practices site:
http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Online_Reference