Professional Reading Shelf
Public Libraries
Source: National Public Radio (Talk of the Nation)
If a Library Is Bookless, What’s In It?
“What helps make the evolution of libraries so complicated are two related questions: What is the library’s role — and who should pay for it? The squeeze on county and municipal budgets prompts many to wonder if they will continue to pay for these institutions. Others insist that the public library plays a vital role as a community center and as an intellectual oasis, a place to reflect as well as a place to learn. But if it’s to survive, it has to adapt. A range of approaches are meant to help design a library for the 21st century.” Guests for this program:
+ Tom Frey, executive director, The DaVinci Institute
+ Jo Haight-Sarling, director, access and technology services at the Denver Public Library System
+ Charles Brown, director, Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, N.C.
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Keyword Searching
Source: Journal of Electronic Publishing.
KWIC and Dirty? Human Cognition and the Claims of Full-Text Searching
“Over the last several years, full-text searching of large text corpora has placed an extraordinarily powerful tool in the hands of humanities students and scholars. Use of these corpora is now entering mainstream research and, not surprisingly, is affecting research methods and the nature and quality of research outcomes. To what extent does the availability of new and copious sources of full text–along with the tools to mine them–relieve mental economy, freeing individuals from committing to memory not only names and facts but complex thoughts? Are we finally proceeding from a traditional (and obsolete?) “just in case” paradigm to a long-overdue “just in time” model for learning and scholarship? Using evidence from the literary record and from current research in human cognition, the author points to certain disjunctions between the machine processes that enable full-text searching and the subtle cognitive processes that underlie human learning and reasoning. Like all powerful tools, full-text searching requires circumspect use–and in no way relieves humanists and other researchers of the need to read extensively and think deeply.”
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Research Libraries
Source: ARL, SPARC, CNI
The February Issue of the ARL Bi-Monthly Newsletter is Now Online
Articles include:
+ Managing Digital Assets in Higher Education: An Overview of Strategic Issues
+ Online Music Services and Academic Libraries
+ The Grokster Decision: The Basics & Key Talking Points
+ The Role of Fair Use in Libraries and Education
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Government Secrecy–United States
Source: Federal Computer Week
Decrying secrecy, citizen groups fight back
“Public interest groups and federal officials agree on one thing: Because of homeland security concerns, information that was once readily available on public Web sites has steadily disappeared in recent years. But the agreement ends there. The points of contention are numerous: Is government secrecy online a concerted policy with political overtones or the result of decisions made on a case-by-case basis? Is the missing information a legitimate part of the public record or sensitive data best protected from prying eyes?”

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