Quotes from May 11th, 2006
May 11th, 2006+ Alice Maggio, on only buying books from independent booksellers: “Starting now, I am putting my money where my mouth is. If I say I care about local, independent businesses, then I should support them. Not just sometimes, but every time.”
+ Danah Boyd on a legislation proposal [PDF] which would ammend the Communications Act of 1934 to ‘require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.’: “Because it affects both libraries and schools, it will dramatically increase the digital divide. Poor youth only gain access to these sites through libraries and schools. With this ban, poor youth will have no access to the cultural artifacts of their day. Furthermore, because libraries won’t be able to maintain separate 18+ and minor computers, this legislation will affect everyone who uses libraries, including adults.”
+ Meredith Farkas on social software in libraries: “Whether we like it or not, our patrons between the ages of 16 and 25 overwhelmingly use MySpace and Facebook, and are not going to stop using them no matter what policies we put in place. As librarians who should know our users, we should at least be aware of what they’re doing online and see what roles the library can play in our patrons’ online social worlds.”
+ The folk at Hanging Together on search engines and librarians: “Do librarians and other information professionals “love” search engines? I’m not so sure. I do know that the expectations that search engines have installed in our communities are keeping us on our toes and providing reasons to improve services, be more aggressive in heightening awareness about our institutions and services, and honing our missions in order to remain relevant. These are all good things, albeit painful.”
+ Stephen Leary on “Google’s Library Strategy”: “Apparently Google wants to be the first Web 2.0 company to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”