Another spring cleaning post… I came across a small group of students talking in the hallway a couple of days ago, working on developing a Prisoner’s Dilemma-style matrix for reference work: the patron has the choice to fully divulge their information need or not, the reference librarian has the choice to fully answer the question or not. What are the costs and benefits? This is an interesting exercise in and.. Read More
Virtual Reference = Necessary Evil?
This one is from October 2005. Someone please explain to me why I’ve been sitting on these posts for this long? I was looking recently at the slides from the presentation Realities of Virtual Reference, by Kathy Dabbour, Doris Helfer, & Lynn Lampert, from the 2004 Internet Librarian conference. Before I start this little rant, let me just say that this is a good presentation. Nothing earth-shatteringly novel perhaps, but.. Read More
Neutrality
Here’s my first Spring Cleaning post. The last time I edited this one was 29 November 2006, if you can believe it. I’ve decided to just post these more or less as is, with my only edits being spell checking, link checking, completing incomplete sentences, stuff like that. So I feel compelled to say: these reflect my thinking at the time they were written, not necessarily my thinking now. Thanks.. Read More
Distributed Science
After all that foofarah about purging my backlog of posts, here’s an actual new one. Ever since living in Syracuse, Yvonne and I have participated in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Great Backyard Bird Count, which took place the weekend before last. I was thinking about the GBBC the other day, and realized that it, and Project FeederWatch, are examples of distributed data collection. Now all of you regular PomeRantz.. Read More
Bursty
You may have noticed that I’ve been posting like mad here lately, at least compared with the past two months of near radio silence. I genuinely don’t know what makes me lose or gain interest in my blog over time, but I’ve suddenly entered the latter phase. I think part of my recent blog-aversion may be that I have a backlog of posts that I’ve started and never finished, over.. Read More
Intellectual debates in public forums
In the latest issue of JASIST is an article by Marcia Bates, which is a response to an article by Birger Hjørland, which is a response to an article by Marcia Bates. Bates’ first article was published in 2006; Hjørland’s article was published in 2007; Bates’ second article was published in 2008. First of all, let me say that I love these sorts of exchanges. First, in a schadenfreude kind.. Read More
Iron what?
Iron and Wine, apparently. I walk past Memorial Hall twice a day, every day when I come to campus: from the bus to Manning Hall, and from Manning to the bus. And today I saw the longest line for the box office I’ve ever seen. It went from almost the box office window (not yet open, apparently), down Cameron, to about 20 feet from the intersection of Cameron and Columbia… Read More
Have you seen this car?
I’m fascinated by Google Street View. Like so many Google toys, it’s both exceptionally addictive as a time-sink and slightly creepy. Because what one does with Google and all Google toys is ego surf, I of course drove virtually down my street. I was gratified to discover that (a) neither I nor any of my neighbors was captured on camera, and (b) that you can’t see my house or car.. Read More
Predictable
I recently discovered Pandora (thanks, David Weinberger). And can I just say that the Music Genome Project is about the coolest name for a project I’ve ever heard? But in a way it’s bumming me out. It’s a bit depressing to discover how predictable my musical taste is. One channel I’ve created, for example, that I consider my easy listening channel (though I suspect it would not be so for.. Read More
Windows Me
I had a brief conversation earlier this evening with Stephanie, prompted by the fact that my office was freezing. Which it was because I had cranked the heat down when I got in, on account of the fact that it was 70 degrees outside when I walked across campus today and I was roasting. (What month is it again? February?) Stephanie, of course, could tell that my office was freezing.. Read More