@Wood is Gary Atwood - Reference Librarian, tech enthusiast, and relatively nice guy.
I try not to be the center of attention at public events for a whole bunch of different reasons, but I was humbled to hear all of the kind words that people said at my going away party. My friend, Thomas Sweeney, shot this video, which gives a little sense of how it went.
I was sad to read this. Jay Lucker came to the first library I worked in to do a space analysis and I had the chance to have dinner with him. He was an amazing man who really knew his stuff.
Quick interview with Roger K. Summit. I loved DIALOG even though I wasn’t an expert searching at it. I never could understand why all those library students I helped at Simmons moaned and groaned when I helped them with their assignments. DIALOG is awesome!
I just read this quote in a column written by Mary Ellen Bates. As she points out, most people only hear the first bit about information wanting to be free. The second part usually gets cut off. This has been something that’s irked me for a long time because we all know how valuable high quality information is. It’s nice to now know that Stewart Brand understood that as well. I guess I should have read it for myself a long time ago instead of relying on Mary Ellen to point it out for me!
Bates, Mary Ellen. 2012. “Does Information (Still) Want to Be Free?.” Online 36, no. 4: 64. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed August 29, 2012).
It’s interesting to think about what people might say about Steve Jobs in 50 years. Will people still be debating his legacy? I’m sure they will even if the specifics might change.
Excellent talk from Gar Reynolds about learning environments.
This caught my eye, because we’re getting ready to send several groups of students armed with cameras into the library to tell us what they like/don’t like/would like to see. It will be interested to see if any of them identify quiet as a major concern.
This is an excellent overview of the dynamic that takes places between a lot of presenters and their audience. It’s a little over the top, but all the elements have happened at some point or another.
Like a lot of people, I first heard of the “flipped classroom” model in a story about Khan Academy and was immediately intrigued. Since then, however, I’ve read enough to understand that there is more to the concept than just making videos of the content that one would have lectured on and uploading them to the Internet. I’ve always found it hard to be critical of Sal Khan and Khan Academy, though. Somehow, I just felt like I was being disloyal.
This essay, though, does an excellent job of outlining the strengths AND the weaknesses of Khan Academy in, what I feel, is a balanced way. As the author admits, there are a lot of people who don’t agree with his opinion, though, so the debate will go on. I would urge you to read it, however, and then make up your own mind.
