Library Babel Fish

Libraries pay a lot of attention to designing spaces for student learning. What do we do to support faculty learning?

The Pew Internet and American Life project has just published a report on “Civic Engagement in the Digital Age" that made me think about how students approach research.

I wasn’t entirely sure what the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) would look like when the long-awaited launch date of April 18 approached. The suspense is finally over: it looks great.

The Ithaka faculty survey for 2012 is out. Just like in 2009, the faculty don’t think much of the library - except for the news that humanities faculty are a little more inclined than in the previous faculty survey to start their research using a library catalog. As in 2009, the library’s most valued function is to pay the bills for content, and even that function is less important than it was when the survey was last conducted. I can't help wondering - could it be because libraries have less money and the bills are higher?

My current fascination is the nature of online reading communities, which I hope will be the subject of my next sabbatical, assuming my proposal is accepted. So the sale of Goodreads to Amazon is naturally fascinating to me.

I am puzzled and dismayed by all the hostility toward being generally educated these days. Apart from high-profile slams on entire fields of study by a governor who was disappointed by his daughter’s choice of major, so declared it universally useless,there is the fact that in the budget just signed this week, the National Science Foundation has been instructed by Congress to only fund political science research if it benefits national security and the national economic interest. The implication is that advancing knowledge does not make our country more secure or better off.

The news business, the fight against CIPSA, and an important Supreme Court decision - all on my mind this week.

Remember how the long tail was going to be the greatest thing ever? How technical innovation would let a thousand flowers bloom? How Silicon Valley’s great visionaries would lead us away from a world of few options and give us a world full of endless choices? That was then. Now it's all about me.