Category: Library Services

  • Preserving knowledge in the face of extinction

    I try not to be too catastrophic about the impending climate collapse, but it’s hard. Ecosystems are degrading, large parts of the planet are becoming uninhabitable, and societies are fraying. Yet here I am trying to preserve research, data, and information for posterity like somebody is going to find a report about automated vehicles from…

  • The Future of Handbooks: More about electronic and print resources

      This post started off where I get most of my inspiration: Twitter. After helping a grad student find resources about trip generation in urban areas which included referencing ITE’s Trip Generation Manual, I tweeted: You know what would be awesome? If the @ITEhq Trip Generation Manual was available electronically. Traffic engineers would rejoice! —…

  • Playing tourist – A visit to my local public library.

      Yesterday was the first time I’d step foot in a public library as a patron (not for a meeting or class) in over a decade. I went to check out the newly renovated branch near my house and to get a library card. Yeah, it had been so long I either lost my library…

  • Realism, cutting back, and letting go.

    Library Closed, originally uploaded by bigoteetoe. Have I told you about the hard times at MPOW? It’s bad… really bad… The institute we’re a part of has lost a huge portion of its funding, which means the library is facing massive budget cuts. How massive? Well, 35% is the optimistic cut, though we’re still waiting…

  • Fetishizing the container obscures the content, obviously.

    vinyl library, originally uploaded by Luke Pineda. Last night on LibPunk Radio we were talking about that #hcod drama. You know, the Harper Collins-Over Drive debacle. Lots of stuff has been written and said about the whole affair and I’m not really going there. The thing I’m focused on is the “content vs. container” issue…