Category: Technology

I should be spending my morning by wrapping up the grading for English 328 Online, but instead, I’m doing a little web surfing. I’ve come across some interesting links, too:

• Duke University’s Ad*Access Archive, which is a huge archive of old ads for all kinds of stuff. Very fun and interesting cultural icons– these might be interesting for a fy comp assignment where you ask students to compare ads from the past with the present.
• Something called Kip, which might make for an interesting software experiment to organize things both in my office/home and on my computers.
• Reflections (perhaps seasonal?) on the job market here, here, and, on a slightly more cheery note, here (good luck with the new gig, Mike).
• Yet another reason to buy a Mac

Alright, enough of that stuff. On to wrapping up grades and then on to cooking, including making some ice cream.

Given my previous mention of Ted Stevens’ description of the Internet as a series of tubes, this seems like a very useful and necessary link here:

Via boing-boing, I came across “DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix: ‘A Series of Tubes'” just now. Senator Ted Stevens said in committee that was debating a law (which, as boing-boing put it, would allow the phone company to charge you for a Google search) that the Internet was a series of tubes. Among other less than tech-savvy things.

Anyway, I thought I’d post these things here because it might make for some good info in an English 516 class. And in a way, it points again to the discussion going on at places like the WPA-L mailing list, where I think the general sentiment there is that yeah, the Internet is kind of a series of tubes….

NCTE’s Inbox lead me to a Des Moines Register article on public libraries in Iowa which lead me to a report by the Americans for Libraries Council called “Long Overdue” (ha-ha; library report humor; get it? get it?). In the nutshell, both the article and the report say that Americans still very much like libraries. This is the sort of piece that would probably fit into my 516 class, where we usually talk about the implications of “internet technologies” and the library for one class period.

Two other things seem kind of interesting to me about this stuff. First, it seems kind of at odds with the glut of articles about how stupid Americans are– especially the kids– and how all they do is watch TV and play video games and heat the house by burning books.

Second and more important perhaps, it seems from my skimming of the article and the 2 page summary of the report suggests that people very much value the “community” aspect of libraries and they value the computer and other network tools available there. For example, consider this passage from The Des Monies Register article:

“Libraries are not that quiet place anymore, they’re where it’s happening,” said [Iowa first lady Christie] Vilsack, one of 34 civic leaders interviewed for the report, which was sponsored by the Americans for Libraries Council and paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Vilsack, who has toured nearly 500 of Iowa’s 543 libraries, said Iowa libraries have added coffee shops, increased the number of computer workstations, and opened themselves for gatherings and other activities.

State librarian Mary Wegner said the report affirmed what experts already knew: Libraries are still necessary.

“What the study found is both encouraging and enlightening,” she said. “Most Americans believe that libraries are not only relevant to our time, but essential to their communities.”

Now, I guess what’s missing from my brief reading here is that people value libraries because it’s where they keep the books. But like I said, perhaps libraries are still important though in different ways.

Via Kairosnews and a mailing list I haven’t been paying much attention to lately comes this, Alan Liu’s suggested guidelines for Wikipedia research in student writing. And probably in other kinds of writing too, like the scholarly kind. Something to think about more later, but on my first and quick read, what Liu is saying here seems pretty reasonable.

This one in Inside Higher Ed, titled “The Many Faces of Facebook.” I just skimmed it, but it looks like it’s talking about the different ways that different institutions deal with Facebook, it has a bunch of links to various “Facebook event stories” (e.g., how the Secret Service investigated some kid because of GW Bush assissination attempt references made in Facebook), and it might make for good reading in a class next year. Other than that, same old, same old. And it reminds me to check in on my Facebook stuff….