Web Works

November 21, 2006 at 7:02 pm | In commonplace book, open access | Leave a Comment

Two quotes from the same article:

“Academic institutions must now become the quality controllers of the information superhighway.  They can do this by publishing the work of scholars they respect on their servers and encouraging independent mines of information to seek their accredited approval.  This will never be a guarantee of absolute quality, nor is it to suggest that the only good work would be on university sites, but it would at least give surfers some guide to veracity and suitability, not unlike relying on your doctor to recommend drugs.”

“I am far too sentimental and old-fashioned to welcome the abolition of the book, but like many students I am also thrifty; if you offer me the best material for free, I’m unlikely to buy a hardback copy for sixty quid.  As most academics are foolish enough rarely to write for money, they would do well to start publishing their work for free on university maintained websites rather than in expensive editions limited to miniscule print runs.”

– Alex Burghart, “Web works,” Times Literary Supplement, (October 13, 2006): 17.  This was one of the articles in the “New Ways in History: 40 Years On” group.

Fragments of Heidegger

October 13, 2006 at 5:14 pm | In commonplace book | Leave a Comment

This is likely only funny to me, but …:

Third, and most importantly, I have been sick to death of Heidegger for a long time. I read a lot of him at one point, but now I don’t really see the use. This is especially the case given that most of the other philosophers I am interested in deal with Heidegger ad nauseam. (I have little doubt that if all extant copies of Being and Time were lost, the entire text could be recovered by collecting quotations from French philosophers — probably the whole text in German, even.)  — Adam Kotsko, “Philosophy of the 21st Century,” The Weblog

National Librarians Association

June 15, 2006 at 5:16 pm | In APAL, NLA, commonplace book | Leave a Comment

I wasn't aware that there had once been a National Librarians Association, but thanks to Walt for mentioning it in the comments of a previous post. I've been doing a little bit of research on it, may even try to develop it into an article or a series of blog posts. Anyway, for those of you who, like me, had never heard of NLA, here's an excerpt from the opening two paragraphs from an article written by Peter Dollard (at that time, Executive Director of NLA):

[...] In brief, NLA was founded in 1975 to meet a need long felt by many librarians for a national professional association that would concern itself exclusively with librarian issues rather than with the entire gamut of issues related to libraries in society. It is not that those other issues are not important; to the contrary, members of NLA share a conviction that excellence in general library service can be developed only after the highest standards of performance for librarian practitioners have been identified, articulated, and put into practice. The established library associations, however, having opened their membership to all interested persons, have traditionally attempted to deal in a disinterested manner with the entire range of library-related issues, often giving short shrift to issues of concern primarily to librarians. [...]

Here's the citation: Peter Dollard, "The National Librarians Association and Association Credibility," Colorado Libraries 7:4 (December 1981): 27-32. NLA lasted, as far as I can tell, into the early 1990s.

The Teleology of Information

June 6, 2006 at 5:38 pm | In commonplace book, libraries | Leave a Comment

"The ends of information, after all, are human ends.  The logic of information must ultimately be the logic of humanity.  For all information's independence and extent, it is people, in their communities, organizations, and institutions, who ultimately decide what it all means and why it matters." — from John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information, p. 18.

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