Comments for Christine Madsen

Comment on 10 principles for good technology by Monica Bulger

Monica Bulger — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:28:43 +0000

I agree that #10 is my favorite, though #8 (good technology is thorough, down to the last detail) is very important and often overlooked. I guess since technologies can be quickly implemented, they are. That said, when good technology follows good design and is carefully and thoughtfully constructed and implemented, it usually stands out. (I’m immediately thinking of contradictions such as Craigslist, but I never use it because it’s so aesthetically uncomfortable…) Adobe’s new platform for Wired on the iPad is a very strong example of fulfilling this list’s tenets.

Comment on Librarians of the Future? by Lydia Troyer

Lydia Troyer — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:18:07 +0000

There was a post-Apocolypse film a few years ago which posited the postman as the one enduring link to civilisation (The Mailman?). Good as far as it went but my experience after 3 months of life in the 1870s was that the libraries were the second municipal functions to return, the first being the police/Territorials. Firemen weren’t necessary until the houses were habitable.

People camping in their cars still used the library wireless and eventually DSL connections to stay in touch with the world and file gvmnt paperworks. Old PCs were dragged in and set-up and the library ladies were like school teacher/referees.

The locus of order and help were the libraries, all other gvmnt offices being abandoned and without power. The libraries were swiftly equipped with generators and a soldier each. Books on higher shelves survived but the mulch was removed, windows covered and library personnel were the civil face of government for months after. Libraries aren’t going anywhere.

Comment on Books are going, but are libraries still places to read? by Lydia Troyer

Lydia Troyer — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:05:00 +0000

Having lived through a period where my city regressed to the 1870′s in one morning and didn’t return to the 21stC for about 3 months and phone service wasn’t returned for much later, it is clear to me that impressed books, not the photocopied kind, will remain the most durable repository of human thoughts for a few more centuries. It is far more likely to me that books will soon contain electronic paper in addition to “dry” paper, for drill-downs, links and adverts. My cellphones, walkman players, stereo, modems, tv etc were just plastic junk until the power grid came back. Cooking in BarBQ pits with cast iron pots and washing up with a bit of bath water got old real fast. We have to plan for a time of less profligate use of electricity.
Thanks

Comment on Librarians of the Future? by The Future of Libraries and the new role of the librarian « Allisonjohnson2's Blog

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:41:55 +0000

[...] Seth Godin says — (Speaking about librarians) “What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.” [...]

Comment on Paradox of the Week? Planning for Informal Learning by Monica Bulger

Monica Bulger — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:18:18 +0000

I agree with Ian that we can design to encourage informal learning processes. But I also think that the formal/informal dichotomy oversimplifies what is occurring in these spaces. What constitutes as learning? While planning matters, perhaps we should consider the experiences in terms of what is learned, how this learning occurs, and where this learning occurs…in doing so, I think we’ll find that formal and informal learning often blend together.

Comment on Paradox of the Week? Planning for Informal Learning by Ian Brown

Ian Brown — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:55:43 +0000

I think as the water-cooler cliche goes, you can design to encourage informal processes. So there might be specific features of museum and library layout and architecture that could create the right conditions for informal learning to spark into life :)

Comment on Paradox of the Week? Planning for Informal Learning by Yorick Wilks

Yorick Wilks — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:44:25 +0000

Sounds like the whole modern educational collapse restated in a slightly new set of terms–in the UK at least there has been a strong reaction against “formal”/”rote” learning for more than 40 years–it grew up teacher-driven from primary schools all the way up to universities. It was also known as ‘child-centred” –the result of course is that kids now dont know much at all–or mine dont anyway–its unbelievable the simple things they just dont know at all!!!
Ditto university students increasingly–all education is drifting towards the remedial–its easier not to notice this at Oxford/Cambridge. I guess “planning etc….” is just one of the periodic reactions against this by people who see what they have wrought……..

Comment on Can ‘accessibility’ go too far? by Tim Watt

Tim Watt — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:22:11 +0000

Yes, I think you are….

The new NYPL lion does look a bit Lion Kingish but the old one looked like a Chihuahua on screen.

The Congress library logo is quite clever, if maybe the wrong colour (color…). The capitalisation of of is disturbing however, as if ‘of’ has the emphasis over library and, as should be, Congress.

Also, your point on a move away from a geographically-based icon to an object-oriented one seems muddled to me. Isn’t that what they want? How is it dangerous to clarify exactly what they are about? Or do you prefer the building to what they are for?

Tim

Comment on $675,000 fine for downloading 30 songs by David Berry

David Berry — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:25:51 +0000

That is an interesting point but bound up in the meaning of the word free, of course. Especially as public libraries are ‘free’ as in freedom and ‘free’ as in gratis to use. Clearly they are not ‘free’ as in peer2peer pirate networks, but some pirate networks do nontheless perform library-like services (as Vaidhyanathan points out in The Anarchist in the Library) also as Bodo Balacz points out in relation to pirate networks.

I actually think, though, that particularly in the UK libraries fall too far on the other side whereby they attempt to appease the copyright industries before thinking about the consequences for the citizen that they are there to serve. I am thinking here about the British Library’s recent tie-up with Microsoft on an essentially proprietary platform to hold some of the Nation’s treasured archives. Here, if anywhere, was a place where the questions raised by free culture should have been more carefully thought through in terms of open access, lock-in and what the library of the 21st century could and should be.

Here I am thinking of your convincing argument that libraries have to move from a 20th Century idea of being mere book ‘managers’, to being proactive partners in utilising information archives. Giving Microsoft the contract in a sense positions the British Library as mere ‘content manager’ between the library visitor and data stored in Microsoft software. I suppose when a library starts talking about ‘content’ its not a great sign…

David

Comment on $675,000 fine for downloading 30 songs by christine.madsen

christine.madsen — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:21:30 +0000

I think my arguments are not as well nuanced as yours, Dave, which probably masks the fact that I agree with you. I agree that the free culture debate should be about using media in new ways. What frustrates me about so much of the current discourse, though, is that three years after you pointed it out in your article, most arguments still take place within a moral register. You said:

Claims to authority are made by reference to a priori human rights divorced from the political realm. Decisions are made between “right” and “wrong” (note the quite deliberate scare quotes) on the basis of a supposedly shared morality. There is then no ground for further discussion, as the terms of the decision have already been set a priori. This has dangerous consequences.

And I think this is still the primary problem with 95% of the free/libre culture debate. The references to public libraries then seem to try and tap into this moral register by arguing that if you don’t think all downloading and filesharing is ok, you must also think that public libraries are bad. I think this does a disservice to libraries and to the whole free/libre movement.