Accept no substitutes

Category: Information Commons (Page 1 of 26)

Information Commons, Copyright, Censorship and/or withdrawal of public information, Libraries: Digital and other

2006 of ibiblio

As the New Year begins I’ve been writing an annual reportish thing on my wiki. I’ve done some brief, but I hope interesting, stuff so far.

I’ve invited ibiblio contributors and staff and now you to add, expand, correct the wiki and to email me or to leave a comment here if you like with changes. Things left out may be things just not gotten to yet.

Please go ahead and have at it. Our year is also your year.

My sentence on Marketplace

The Marketplace bit on On Demand Books ran this morning. Running time less that one minute. The show isn’t chopped so you need to listen (carefully) or advance the stream. The books on demand story starts at 3:33. My one sentence is said at about 3:55 in. And the whole books piece is ends at 4:25 (out of a show that runs 8:24).

UPDATE:
The show is chopped and online and has its own webpage. Very Nice! (and very brief ;->).

Here’s the text (also on the Marketplace site).

MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: A vending machine for books — Janet Babin reports from the Marketplace Innovations Desk at North Carolina Public Radio.

JANET BABIN: The machine looks like an elaborate printer. It can produce up to 20 fully-bound books an hour, in any language, all by itself.

On Demand Books is marketing the machine. You can see a demo of it on the company’s website:

[ Demo: “All fully-integrated, automated, and under the control of one computer.” ]

Professor Paul Jones at the University of North Carolina says this type of machine will make it easier for bookstores to compete with online retailers like Amazon:

PAUL JONES: One of the things we’re going to see more of is the ability to be able to walk in and have your reading and other interests satisfied right there.

The company says it will have access to more than two million book titles, most in the public domain. But Jones says it will need much more content to become successful.

I’m Janet Babin for Marketplace.

Edwards – Scoble connections

If you’ve been to any NC Blog events, you are aware of how aware of the web, social networks and blogs John Edwards is. He met with podcasters before Podcastercon, with some folks at ConvergeSouth, with others during danah boyd’s visit here this fall, etc. And those who he hasn’t met, Elizabeth Edwards has met. She is very very internet aware; her book will tell you how and why.

Now on the eve of Edwards’ probable announcement of his run for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Robert Scoble announces that he’s joining the Edwards campaign.

I’ve also heard that Matthew Gross is on the Edwards campaign.

All in all this will make for an interesting net.campaign for 2008. Who will be following Edwards onto the net?

Notes: Steve sends “John Edwards on youtube today announcing he will announce tomorrow [YouTube]” and the BBC and others have noticed that Edwards’ website accidentally had an announcement of his candidacy up already.

Jones in the Marketplace – On On Demand Books

Book ATM?
Just did a little bit on OnDemandBooks with Janet Babin for tomorrow’s Marketplace on NPR.

My 15 seconds may be about the first “on demand books” I saw in 2001 – 2002 when Brewster was getting the Internet Bookmobile going with what looks like an early version of the same technologies.

And a little about the costs to a library of keeping and loaning books.

Then some on non-market production and market opportunities

She’s building the story starting from this Fortune Small Business/CNN story.

Mourning the closing of the Daily Grind

Our favorite social space and coffee provider is being boarded up and moved out of their/its building for renovations. The Daily Grind was moving into a trailer yesterday. Not even an Airstream (to Don’s disappointment), but a rectangular FEMA trailer or one like you might see at the State Fair or at a, say, steeple chase event (to cover a couple of ends of the social spectrum).
Don and I are now in Carrboro working outdoors at the Weave.

Interestingly enough, we are running into many of the people here that we often see at the Grind — or make that saw at the Grind.

The Grind will reopen in the trailer then in the renovated space. But in the meantime, we’re in mourning.

You are the Person of the Year

And so am I. Time chooses YOU, meaning all of us participating in media and information construction and sharing on the Internet, as their Man (now Person) of the Year.

Time begins: “Person of the Year: You — Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.”

As long as we have Net Neutrality that will be true.

And JJB points us to a Chrysler advert which gets it right by getting it wrong.

Dan Gillmor points out that the correct pronoun would be US not YOU.

NOTE to pathetic PR employees working for the anti-Net Neutrality duopoly: I won’t allow your obvious spammish links and misleading comments on this blog. In fact I’m more likely to do even more pro-Net Neutrality articles in response to your postings.

CEO of Reuter’s on Citizen Journalism

Tom Glocer is CEO of Reuters and he is also a blogger. Where better for him to publish an article called “Trust in the Age of Citizen Journalism” than on his blog?

The article is the text of a speech Glocer gave at “Globes Media Conference in Tel Aviv on Monday 11 December 2006.” About the talk he says: “It’s about trust in media today, taking into account the growing
popularity of blogging and all other types of citizen journalism.”

Reminds me that when I met Lobsang Wangyal, the Reuters reporter amongst exiled Tibetans, he was most interesting in talking about his newly formed Association of Tibetan Journalists. The Association’s biggest task, he told me, is preparing citizens to be journalists by educating them about strong and respected news practices — values, ethics and skills.

Glocer’s talk via Dan Gillmor and the Center for Citizen Media. Dan has his reservations about parts of the talk.

new ibiblio record over 24 million files in one day

Munch - Ashes
Thanks to Google’s Edvard Munch celebration yesterday and to the historic WebMuseum hosted on ibiblio, we handled over 24 million requests yesterday — about 10 million of those for images of Munch’s paintings.

Our Cogent link to Atlanta managed the extra requests easily without going over our limit (in the 500 mbs range). And thanks to Squid caching, our servers easily handled the load.

Overall, a great test of our new datacenter and networking arrangement with NCREN and a big success there for all of us.

Thanks to Nicholas Pioch of Netscape-AOL France for maintaining the Web Museum for almost 15 years and to Mark Harden for his contributions to the Munch area.

60s Student Protests in Chapel Hill

ae alerts us to an exhibit and a series of events called “I Raised my Hand to Volunteer: Students Protest in 1960s Chapel Hill” beginning on January 23 with all but the ultimate event in Wilson Library — that last event will be at the Sonja Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, Seminar Room.

Scheduled events include:

  • Jan. 23, 2007– Prof. Peter Filene, Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor in the History Department at UNC-Chapel Hill, will give a talk entitled “Personally Authentic: Carolina Student Protestors in the Sixties.” Filene, who began teaching at UNC in 1967 and has won six teaching awards in his career, will draw on his own experiences, as well as his research and teaching about the political movements of the era and student activism in general. Wilson Library, reception and exhibit viewing at 5:15 p.m., program at 6 p.m.
  • Jan. 30, 2007 – “Pressing the Hold-outs: The Desegregation Sit-ins of 1963-1964,” moderated by Sally Greene, Chapel Hill Town Councilwoman and adjunct professor of law at UNC. Wilson Library, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
  • Feb. 6, 2007 – “Speaking Out-of-Bounds: Communism, Race, Intellectual Freedom, and the Speaker Ban Controversy of the Mid-Sixties,” moderated by Ferrel Guillory, Director, Program on Public Life. The panel will include William Friday, who was president of the UNC system at the time of the controversy, and Lewis Lipsitz, an outspoken opponent of the ban. Wilson Library, 5:30 – 7 p.m.
  • Feb. 13, 2007 – “Stomping Down: The Foodworkers Strike of 1969 and the Black Student Movement,” moderated by Dr. Archie Ervin, Associate Provost for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at UNC. Sonja Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, Seminar Room, 5:30 – 7 p.m.

Monkeysphere surpassable?

Monkeysphere
Robin Dunbar proposed and some say proved that there is a physical limit to the number of individuals with whom any single person can have a stable relationship.

That number is 150 (actually 147.8). But wait there’s more.

Looking at behavior of chimps, Dumbar noticed that the “chimps belong to social groups comprising about 50 individuals, but they have only two or three grooming partners.”

Then using the same neocortex measurements and ratios on humans, Dunbar calculated the magic numbers for humans.

“The results were… ~150 for social group size, and ~12 for the more intimate clique size” [or grooming size].

So much for Top 8.

Can online social networks extend the monkeysphere in the same way writing as expanded memory?

That is, do online networks allow an individual to manage and groom relationships of a greater order?

How is this accomplished?

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