the shrinking librarian

Feb 19

“Imagine an Internet where unseen hands curate your entire experience. Where third parties predetermine the news, products and prices you see—even the people you meet. A world where you think you are making choices, but in reality, your options are narrowed and refined until you are left with merely the illusion of control. This is not far from what is happening today. Thanks to technology that enables Google, Facebook and others to gather information about us and use it to tailor the user experience to our own personal tastes, habits and income, the Internet has become a different place for the rich and for the poor. Most of us have become unwitting actors in an unfolding drama about the tale of two Internets. There is yours and mine, theirs and ours.” The Rich See a Different Internet Than the Poor: Scientific American (via ehbeesea3)

(via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Dec 20

“[Google’s] search engine accounts for nearly 80 percent of all Web searches in the United States — and a remarkable 98 percent of searches from mobile devices. In that role, Google is not just an eponymous verb but perhaps the most central conduit of information in the nation — and, indeed, on the planet. No other search engine comes close.”

Pamela Jones Harbour, “The Emperor of All Identities”

Google has all of my info. But, damn, in return I get information back from Google every day—sometimes dozens of times a day. Perhaps I should be more sensitive, or fearful. But I’m not. Is that simply because I’m fat and happy on Google? A satisfied (and dependent) customer?

(via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Mar 15

“The Internet has been amazing for book talk. There is more of it, and at a higher quality, than perhaps at any other moment, certainly in my lifetime. Dinosaurs love to lament the lost space in newspaper book reviews; a few years ago, the National Book Critics Circle fought, what seemed to me, a self-serving campaign to save the book review, by which a handful of people really wanted to save their right to sell the same lame 450-word book report to a handful of regional dailies. You didn’t have to bother reading the book to write many of those reviews, and as a one-time daily books editor myself, who once assigned reviews to some of those active in this debate, it was clear that many critics did not. Now we have the Rumpus and the Awl and The Millions and the Morning News and Maud Newton and Bookslut and the Nervous Breakdown and Full-Stop and the Los Angeles Review of Books and HTMLgiant and you get the idea. Professional freelancers didn’t save the book review – the battle was won by the Internet and people who love reading. The culture is richer for it.”

Dave Daley

Thanks for the shout!

(via millionsmillions)

(via libraryjournal)

Jan 17

12 Ways to Be More Search Savvy | MindShift

CONTROL F.
KEEP IT SIMPLE.
“DEFINE” OPERATOR.
ONE MORE SEARCH.
FIND THE SOURCE.
CONFIRM CONTENT.
“LINK” OPERATOR.
DON’T USE THE + SIGN.
PAY ATTENTION TO “GOOGLE INSTANT.”
SWITCH ON SAFETY MODE.
FUNCTIONS GALORE.
LEFT-HAND SIDE TOOLS.

(via Stephen’s Lighthouse)

Jan 7

Internet Access Is Not a Human Right - NYTimes.com

“Technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things. For example, at one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living. But the important right in that case was the right to make a living, not the right to a horse. Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it.”

(via Gizmodo)

Dec 20

Author Command No Longer Available On Google News

“Google has dropped a feature on Google News to help you locate articles by authors. The feature was the author command and worked where you typed in the Google News search box, [author:firstname lastname]. Now when you search using that command, nothing is returned.”

(via Stephen’s Lighthouse)

Dec 14

Megaupload Sues Record Label for Censorship (Updated)

“What’s this all about? In short, Universal stops believing in an artist’s right to free speech if that speech might hurt the label’s bottom line. The RIAA, which represents the major record labels, is predictably worried about Megaupload because, you know, the service is used to illegally share copyrighted material. On the other hand, Megaupload says it blocks users who illegally share copyrighted material and that offending material is promptly taken down.”

Dec 13

New How To Debunk a Myth (Misinformation) – Stephen's Lighthouse

Stephen links to a couple different resources!

Dec 3

Our Siri, Ourselves

noonday:

“[T]he alarming notices turned a lot of Siri owners into a massive public beta-testing team—which is fantastic—and a lot of good data has emerged. It challenges the idea that Siri or Apple itself alone is “sexist,” but reveals a lot about how these things are embedded in both computers and culture. Or more accurately, in computers by culture.”

Exactly the response I was hoping for. I found Siri’s difficulties with abortion important and fascinating, but not because it revealed some secret anti-reproductive health agenda on the part of Apple. No, it’s important because it says a lot about accessibility of information, and how technology is changing that in some big ways.

Check out the link, there’s some great stuff there.

(via sharkyteeth)

Dec 2

Fan Fiction and Proponents of Internet Creative Writing

“The following links and sites are a glimpse at some of the resources providing outlets and cultivating new writers in the world of Internet creative writing.”

A shy violet keeps a library & information science scrapbook.