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
Cost of collaborative development?
Today in our faculty reading group we read the Report of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. In that report there are many comments along the lines that we need more data on the costs of various library functions, and there’s a whole section on the Web as Infrastructure. And that made me think: how much does it cost to develop resources collaboratively? If.. Read More
What motivates Wikipedians?
So this is what I think about when I’m being insomniac during the holidays… As my dear readers are aware, I’m obsessed with the set of problems and/or questions (probably depending on how you look at it) surrounding the motivation for participating in and contributing to open projects such as Wikipedia, and the free rider problem and how to avoid it. There are a few articles that I’m aware of.. Read More
Communities on Delicious?
I recently ran into Aggie Donkar, a former student of mine, now graduated. We got to talking about her Masters paper, which sounded interesting and which I subsequently read. As an aside, I’d just like to say that a very large percentage of our Masters papers sound incredibly interesting, and I only wish I had the time to read them all! Anyway, Aggie’s Masters paper was indeed very interesting, though.. Read More
Thoughts on LibraryThing
I recently found myself in the rather odd position of trying to explain LibraryThing to several of my colleagues. Without getting too much into that conversation, let me just relate what for me was the best moment: Evelyn‘s question, “Why do people feel the compulsion to catalog their own books?” And this is why I love Evelyn: she has the rare ability to be snarky and simultaneously make it clear.. Read More