Holden Caulfield returns in an unauthorised sequel by debut novelist.
by: Alison Flood
The last we saw of Holden Caulfield, he was in a mental hospital in California, reminiscing about the days he spent roaming New York City, watching his sister Phoebe ride a carousel. Now JD Salinger's much-loved teenage misanthrope is back, thanks to an unauthorised sequel to The Catcher in the Rye, which sees a 76-year-old "Mr C" flee a nursing home to journey again through the streets of New York.
"I open my eyes and, just like that, I'm awake," is the opening line of Swedish American writer John David California's 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, just out from tiny publisher Windupbird Publishing. "I suppose it's pretty damn early, but it must still be the middle of the night. It's so dark I can hardly see my goddamned hand in front of my face."
"Just like the first novel, he leaves, but this time he's not at a prep school, he's at a retirement home in upstate New York," said California. "It's pretty much like the first book in that he roams around the city, inside himself and his past. He's still Holden Caulfield, and has a particular view on things. He can be tired, and he's disappointed in the goddamn world. He's older and wiser in a sense, but in another sense he doesn't have all the answers."
JD Salinger himself, to whom the book is dedicated – "To ... the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life" – is also a character in the novel, battling with himself over what to do with the teenager who has gripped millions of readers from his very first words: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
The Salinger character in California's novel muses that Caulfield is "like a piece of paper upon which you have once started a story, and then locked in a box and buried deep in the ground. Now, 60 years later, you dig that same box up and continue the story from where the last sentence ended."
California said he was moved to write the book – his first - because he'd "always wondered what happened to [Caulfield] ... he deserves to have another life than just his 16 years". He'd tried, he added, to be "very respectful" to both Caulfield and Salinger's status as "American icons". "I thought about it and tried to handle it very delicately. I like the story and Holden and I wanted to keep it respectful."
The famously reclusive Salinger, who withdrew from public life in the 1950s, hasn't given permission for the sequel. "Maybe he will get upset, but I'm hoping he will be pleased," said California. "I'm not trying to lure him out of hiding – maybe he wants his privacy [but] it would be fun for me to hear what he thinks about this, and if he's pleased with the way I've portrayed Holden Caulfield and his future."
Salinger, however, has blocked all attempts to publish any of his writings not available before 1965, hindered would-be biographers, and kept his work out of Hollywood ever since the 1950 movie version of his short story Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, My Foolish Heart, was panned by the critics. Perhaps California shouldn't hold his breath for a fairytale ending.
From: The Guardian
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
A future librarian?
This question from Yahoo! Answers about the acceptability of running a library of banned books from a locker at his high school is making the rounds. If you haven't already done so, check out the original posting (and responses) here.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books
Print Books are Target of Pirates on the Web
by: Motoko Rich
Ursula K. Le Guin, the science fiction writer, was perusing the Web site Scribd last month when she came across digital copies of some books that seemed quite familiar to her. No wonder. She wrote them, including a free-for-the-taking copy of one of her most enduring novels, “The Left Hand of Darkness.”
Neither Ms. Le Guin nor her publisher had authorized the electronic editions. To Ms. Le Guin, it was a rude introduction to the quietly proliferating problem of digital piracy in the literary world. “I thought, who do these people think they are?” Ms. Le Guin said. “Why do they think they can violate my copyright and get away with it?”
This would all sound familiar to filmmakers and musicians who fought similar battles — with varying degrees of success — over the last decade. But to authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, it’s new and frightening territory.
For a while now, determined readers have been able to sniff out errant digital copies of titles as varied as the “Harry Potter” series and best sellers by Stephen King and John Grisham. But some publishers say the problem has ballooned in recent months as an expanding appetite for e-books has spawned a bumper crop of pirated editions on Web sites like Scribd and Wattpad, and on file-sharing services like RapidShare and MediaFire.
“It’s exponentially up,” said David Young, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, whose Little, Brown division publishes the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer, a favorite among digital pirates. “Our legal department is spending an ever-increasing time policing sites where copyrighted material is being presented.”
John Wiley & Sons, a textbook publisher that also issues the “Dummies” series, employs three full-time staff members to trawl for unauthorized copies. Gary M. Rinck, general counsel, said that in the last month, the company had sent notices on more than 5,000 titles — five times more than a year ago — asking various sites to take down digital versions of Wiley’s books.
“It’s a game of Whac-a-Mole,” said Russell Davis, an author and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a trade association that helps authors pursue digital pirates. “You knock one down and five more spring up.”
Sites like Scribd and Wattpad, which invite users to upload documents like college theses and self-published novels, have been the target of industry grumbling in recent weeks, as illegal reproductions of popular titles have turned up on them. Trip Adler, chief executive of Scribd, said it was his “gut feeling” that unauthorized editions represented only a small fraction of the site’s content.
Both sites say they immediately remove illegally posted books once notified of them. The companies have also installed filters to identify copyrighted work when it is uploaded. “We are working very hard to keep unauthorized content off the site,” Mr. Adler said.
Several publishers declined to comment on the issue, fearing the attention might inspire more theft. For now, electronic piracy of books does not seem as widespread as what hit the music world, when file-sharing services like Napster threatened to take down the whole industry.
Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online store.
“If iTunes started three years earlier, I’m not sure how big Napster and the subsequent piratical environments would have been, because people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious,” said Richard Sarnoff, a chairman of Bertelsmann, which owns Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer titles.
Until recently, publishers believed books were relatively safe from piracy because it was so labor-intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. What’s more, reading books on the computer was relatively unappealing compared with a printed version.
Now, with publishers producing more digital editions, it is potentially easier for hackers to copy files. And the growing popularity of electronic reading devices like the Kindle from Amazon or the Reader from Sony make it easier to read in digital form. Many of the unauthorized editions are uploaded as PDFs, which can be easily e-mailed to a Kindle or the Sony device.
An example of copyrighted material on Scribd recently included a digital version of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” a collection of fairy tales by J. K. Rowling. One commenter, posting as vicious-9690, wrote “thx for posting it up ur like the robinhood of ebooks.”
For some writers, tracking down illegal e-books is simply not worth it.
“The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys,” Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. “And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer.”
Book sales are down significantly, and publishers say it is difficult to determine whether electronic piracy is denting sales. Some of the most frequently uploaded books, like the “Twilight” series, are also huge best sellers.
Some authors say they just want to protect the principle of compensating writers. “I don’t ask to get rich off this stuff,” said Harlan Ellison, an author and screenwriter. “I just ask to be paid.”
Nine years ago, Mr. Ellison sued Internet service providers for failing to stop a user from posting four of his stories to an online newsgroup. Since settling that suit, he has pursued more than 240 people who have posted his work to the Internet without permission. “If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump,” he said.
Others view digital piracy as a way for new readers to discover writers. Cory Doctorow, a novelist whose young adult novel “Little Brother” spent seven weeks on the New York Times children’s chapter books best-seller list last year, offers free electronic versions of his books on the same day they are published in hardcover. He believes free versions, even unauthorized ones, entice new readers.
“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It’s obscurity.”
From: the NYTimes
by: Motoko Rich
Ursula K. Le Guin, the science fiction writer, was perusing the Web site Scribd last month when she came across digital copies of some books that seemed quite familiar to her. No wonder. She wrote them, including a free-for-the-taking copy of one of her most enduring novels, “The Left Hand of Darkness.”
Neither Ms. Le Guin nor her publisher had authorized the electronic editions. To Ms. Le Guin, it was a rude introduction to the quietly proliferating problem of digital piracy in the literary world. “I thought, who do these people think they are?” Ms. Le Guin said. “Why do they think they can violate my copyright and get away with it?”
This would all sound familiar to filmmakers and musicians who fought similar battles — with varying degrees of success — over the last decade. But to authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, it’s new and frightening territory.
For a while now, determined readers have been able to sniff out errant digital copies of titles as varied as the “Harry Potter” series and best sellers by Stephen King and John Grisham. But some publishers say the problem has ballooned in recent months as an expanding appetite for e-books has spawned a bumper crop of pirated editions on Web sites like Scribd and Wattpad, and on file-sharing services like RapidShare and MediaFire.
“It’s exponentially up,” said David Young, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, whose Little, Brown division publishes the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer, a favorite among digital pirates. “Our legal department is spending an ever-increasing time policing sites where copyrighted material is being presented.”
John Wiley & Sons, a textbook publisher that also issues the “Dummies” series, employs three full-time staff members to trawl for unauthorized copies. Gary M. Rinck, general counsel, said that in the last month, the company had sent notices on more than 5,000 titles — five times more than a year ago — asking various sites to take down digital versions of Wiley’s books.
“It’s a game of Whac-a-Mole,” said Russell Davis, an author and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a trade association that helps authors pursue digital pirates. “You knock one down and five more spring up.”
Sites like Scribd and Wattpad, which invite users to upload documents like college theses and self-published novels, have been the target of industry grumbling in recent weeks, as illegal reproductions of popular titles have turned up on them. Trip Adler, chief executive of Scribd, said it was his “gut feeling” that unauthorized editions represented only a small fraction of the site’s content.
Both sites say they immediately remove illegally posted books once notified of them. The companies have also installed filters to identify copyrighted work when it is uploaded. “We are working very hard to keep unauthorized content off the site,” Mr. Adler said.
Several publishers declined to comment on the issue, fearing the attention might inspire more theft. For now, electronic piracy of books does not seem as widespread as what hit the music world, when file-sharing services like Napster threatened to take down the whole industry.
Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online store.
“If iTunes started three years earlier, I’m not sure how big Napster and the subsequent piratical environments would have been, because people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious,” said Richard Sarnoff, a chairman of Bertelsmann, which owns Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer titles.
Until recently, publishers believed books were relatively safe from piracy because it was so labor-intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. What’s more, reading books on the computer was relatively unappealing compared with a printed version.
Now, with publishers producing more digital editions, it is potentially easier for hackers to copy files. And the growing popularity of electronic reading devices like the Kindle from Amazon or the Reader from Sony make it easier to read in digital form. Many of the unauthorized editions are uploaded as PDFs, which can be easily e-mailed to a Kindle or the Sony device.
An example of copyrighted material on Scribd recently included a digital version of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” a collection of fairy tales by J. K. Rowling. One commenter, posting as vicious-9690, wrote “thx for posting it up ur like the robinhood of ebooks.”
For some writers, tracking down illegal e-books is simply not worth it.
“The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys,” Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. “And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer.”
Book sales are down significantly, and publishers say it is difficult to determine whether electronic piracy is denting sales. Some of the most frequently uploaded books, like the “Twilight” series, are also huge best sellers.
Some authors say they just want to protect the principle of compensating writers. “I don’t ask to get rich off this stuff,” said Harlan Ellison, an author and screenwriter. “I just ask to be paid.”
Nine years ago, Mr. Ellison sued Internet service providers for failing to stop a user from posting four of his stories to an online newsgroup. Since settling that suit, he has pursued more than 240 people who have posted his work to the Internet without permission. “If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump,” he said.
Others view digital piracy as a way for new readers to discover writers. Cory Doctorow, a novelist whose young adult novel “Little Brother” spent seven weeks on the New York Times children’s chapter books best-seller list last year, offers free electronic versions of his books on the same day they are published in hardcover. He believes free versions, even unauthorized ones, entice new readers.
“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It’s obscurity.”
From: the NYTimes
Saturday, May 16, 2009
National Library says security concerns behind dust-up
National Library says security concerns behind dust-up
by: Robert Everett-Green
Canada's national library says that escalating security concerns prompted the expulsion from its Ottawa offices of researchers and editors working for the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (EMC).
In a written statement, a spokesman for Library and Archives Canada (LAC) said that EMC personnel had their access revoked this week due to the library's need to “assure an ever-increasing level of security” for collections and paid staff. EMC, which receives no financial support from LAC, has had an office in the library's Ottawa headquarters since the encyclopedia project began 30 years ago.
It means that EMC personnel, who have been updating the encyclopedia's online version since 2003, will no longer have direct, unencumbered access to LAC collections. As of Monday, they will have to make a written application to see materials in a public room, like anyone coming off the street.
EMC editor-in-chief James Marsh scoffed at the suggestion that his staff members are a security risk.
“I told [LAC]: If you need a deeper level of security, I'll gladly submit my people to the RCMP,” he said. “I don't think it speaks well of what a national library should be, that they can't support a national reference work like this.”
Marsh, whose Historica Foundation maintains the EMC, said that the encyclopedia was initially “created in the offices of the national library, in co-operation with them.” He said the “handshake agreement” EMC enjoyed with former LAC head, historian Ian Wilson, seemed to expire once Wilson was replaced three weeks ago by Daniel Caron, a career civil servant.
Caron, whose office said he was travelling this week, could not be reached for an interview.
Betty Nygaard King, an editor with EMC, said she expects that the encyclopedia's expulsion will slow its online revision work by 90 per cent. She also said that LAC stands to lose by the new arrangement, since all research materials gathered independently by EMC editors have customarily been deposited with LAC.
The EMC was published in two paper editions in both official languages before becoming an online publication. Marsh, whose foundation receives about half of its budget from the Department of Canadian Heritage, said that the EMC draws about 20 per cent of the 700,000 unique visitors to the Canadian Encyclopedia, into which it has been integrated.
From: The Globe and Mail
by: Robert Everett-Green
Canada's national library says that escalating security concerns prompted the expulsion from its Ottawa offices of researchers and editors working for the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (EMC).
In a written statement, a spokesman for Library and Archives Canada (LAC) said that EMC personnel had their access revoked this week due to the library's need to “assure an ever-increasing level of security” for collections and paid staff. EMC, which receives no financial support from LAC, has had an office in the library's Ottawa headquarters since the encyclopedia project began 30 years ago.
It means that EMC personnel, who have been updating the encyclopedia's online version since 2003, will no longer have direct, unencumbered access to LAC collections. As of Monday, they will have to make a written application to see materials in a public room, like anyone coming off the street.
EMC editor-in-chief James Marsh scoffed at the suggestion that his staff members are a security risk.
“I told [LAC]: If you need a deeper level of security, I'll gladly submit my people to the RCMP,” he said. “I don't think it speaks well of what a national library should be, that they can't support a national reference work like this.”
Marsh, whose Historica Foundation maintains the EMC, said that the encyclopedia was initially “created in the offices of the national library, in co-operation with them.” He said the “handshake agreement” EMC enjoyed with former LAC head, historian Ian Wilson, seemed to expire once Wilson was replaced three weeks ago by Daniel Caron, a career civil servant.
Caron, whose office said he was travelling this week, could not be reached for an interview.
Betty Nygaard King, an editor with EMC, said she expects that the encyclopedia's expulsion will slow its online revision work by 90 per cent. She also said that LAC stands to lose by the new arrangement, since all research materials gathered independently by EMC editors have customarily been deposited with LAC.
The EMC was published in two paper editions in both official languages before becoming an online publication. Marsh, whose foundation receives about half of its budget from the Department of Canadian Heritage, said that the EMC draws about 20 per cent of the 700,000 unique visitors to the Canadian Encyclopedia, into which it has been integrated.
From: The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
After 400 Years, Health and Safety Bans Stepladders from Historic Oxford Library...But Nobody Can Reach the Books
After 400 years, health and safety bans stepladders from historic Oxford library... but nobody can reach the booksby: Lizzie Smith
Stepladders have been banned from part of Oxford University's historic Bodleian library - because of health and safety fears.
The ruling by officials means that students cannot use items on the higher shelves of the Duke Humfrey reading room.
However, the university is standing its ground and refusing to move the books from their 'original historic location' on the room's balcony.
As a result of the stalemate, students have to travel to libraries as far away as London to view other copies.
Art History student Kelsey Williams, 21, had to travel 80 miles to London to view a copy of Arthur Johnston's 1637 work Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum after librarians refused
to get it down for her. She said: 'Access to these books is necessary for my research and I wasted a day travelling to London and looking at the one in the British Library.
to get it down for her. She said: 'Access to these books is necessary for my research and I wasted a day travelling to London and looking at the one in the British Library.
'It's madness because I can practically see the Bodleian's copy every time I walk into Duke Humfrey's.'
Stepladders have been used by scholars to reach books since the library was built more than 400 years ago.
But the University's Health and Safety officer put his foot down last year and they were removed two weeks ago.
A notice given to students requesting the books reads: 'Unable to fetch, book kept on top shelf in gallery. Due to new health and safety measures, stepladders can no longer be used.'
Laurence Benson, the library's director of administration and finance, said: 'The balcony has a low rail and we have been instructed by the health and safety office that this increases the risk.
'As part of the process the restriction on the use of ladders on the balcony have been introduced.
'The library would prefer to keep the books in their original historic location - where they have been safely consulted for 400 years prior to the instructions from the Health and Safety office.'
From: The Daily Mail
Wikipedia Hoax Points to Limits of Journalists' Research
A sociology student placed a fake quote on Wikipedia, only to see it show up in prominent newspapers, revealing that a lot of the press doesn't go much further than most 'Net users when it comes to researching a story.
by: John Timmer
Wikipedia may be a fantastic resource, but any savvy Internet user is aware of its limits. Edit wars, entries made and modified for PR purposes, hoaxes, and basic inaccuracies all creep into (and back out of) the system, meaning that any use of the information there for purposes that might be considered significant should require some serious fact-checking. And, accordingly, many academics don't accept references to Wikipedia, and its entries have been rejected as evidence by US courts. So, it's a bit of a surprise to find out that one Wikipedia hoax, perpetrated by a sociology student, managed to appear in a variety of news reports, and has stayed there even after the hoax was revealed.
According to the AFP, the hoax traces back to Shane Fitzgerald, a student at Ireland's University College Dublin. Upon learning of the death of the Oscar-winning composer Maurice Jarre, the student modified his Wikipedia entry, adding a completely fictitious post that was nicely designed to fit perfectly into any obituary. "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear," the added material read in part.
Fitzgerald was apparently curious how far his hoax would spread, and expected it to appear on a variety of blogs and similar sites. Instead, to his surprise, a search picked it up in articles that appeared at a variety of newspapers. Fitzgerald eventually removed his own fabricated quote and notified a variety of news outlets that they had been tricked, but not all of them have apparently seen fit to publish corrections or to ensure that their original stories were accurate, even though fixing a webpage shouldn't be a challenging thing.
Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise that journalists use Wikipedia as part of their research—especially in this case, as Jarre's entry comes out on top of the heap in a Google search for his name. However, the discovery that so many of the writers apparently failed to find an additional source on that quote comes at a rather awkward time for journalists in traditional media, who are facing a struggle to stay above water as the newspaper industry is sinking and the line between traditional journalism and casual reporting gets ever blurrier.
A key part of the argument for maintaining traditional journalism is that its trained reporters can perform research and investigations that the untrained masses can't, and the content they produce is run by editors and fact-checkers. The revelation that their research is often no more sophisticated than an average Web surfer's, and that the fact checking can be nonexistent, really doesn't help that argument much.
Of course, it could easily be argued that this was a one-off instance, and the particular circumstances—an obituary—lessens the importance of the gaffe. No harm, no foul. If only that were the case. In what's an excellent piece of journalism, The Wall Street Journal's health blog has tracked the findings of a group of researchers that are exploring how press releases and journalism describe medical research to the public.
We've covered this issue via a couple of anecdotes in the past, but several studies have explored things in a systematic manner, and the results are pretty discouraging. Press releases, the raw material of a lot of journalism, don't always acknowledge the limitations of studies and, at least partially as a result, relevant information is missing from many press reports. "News stories about scientific meeting research presentations often omit basic study facts and cautions," the authors of one of these studies conclude. "Consequently, the public may be misled about the validity and relevance of the science presented."
And that's medicine.
If there are going to be arguments made for the persistence of journalism as a vital force in modern society, they will undoubtedly need to be based on the role of the press in conveying accurate information. Incidents like these, along with the hard numbers provided by more rigorous studies, will make it much harder to make those arguments.
From: ars technica
by: John Timmer
Wikipedia may be a fantastic resource, but any savvy Internet user is aware of its limits. Edit wars, entries made and modified for PR purposes, hoaxes, and basic inaccuracies all creep into (and back out of) the system, meaning that any use of the information there for purposes that might be considered significant should require some serious fact-checking. And, accordingly, many academics don't accept references to Wikipedia, and its entries have been rejected as evidence by US courts. So, it's a bit of a surprise to find out that one Wikipedia hoax, perpetrated by a sociology student, managed to appear in a variety of news reports, and has stayed there even after the hoax was revealed.
According to the AFP, the hoax traces back to Shane Fitzgerald, a student at Ireland's University College Dublin. Upon learning of the death of the Oscar-winning composer Maurice Jarre, the student modified his Wikipedia entry, adding a completely fictitious post that was nicely designed to fit perfectly into any obituary. "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear," the added material read in part.
Fitzgerald was apparently curious how far his hoax would spread, and expected it to appear on a variety of blogs and similar sites. Instead, to his surprise, a search picked it up in articles that appeared at a variety of newspapers. Fitzgerald eventually removed his own fabricated quote and notified a variety of news outlets that they had been tricked, but not all of them have apparently seen fit to publish corrections or to ensure that their original stories were accurate, even though fixing a webpage shouldn't be a challenging thing.
Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise that journalists use Wikipedia as part of their research—especially in this case, as Jarre's entry comes out on top of the heap in a Google search for his name. However, the discovery that so many of the writers apparently failed to find an additional source on that quote comes at a rather awkward time for journalists in traditional media, who are facing a struggle to stay above water as the newspaper industry is sinking and the line between traditional journalism and casual reporting gets ever blurrier.
A key part of the argument for maintaining traditional journalism is that its trained reporters can perform research and investigations that the untrained masses can't, and the content they produce is run by editors and fact-checkers. The revelation that their research is often no more sophisticated than an average Web surfer's, and that the fact checking can be nonexistent, really doesn't help that argument much.
Of course, it could easily be argued that this was a one-off instance, and the particular circumstances—an obituary—lessens the importance of the gaffe. No harm, no foul. If only that were the case. In what's an excellent piece of journalism, The Wall Street Journal's health blog has tracked the findings of a group of researchers that are exploring how press releases and journalism describe medical research to the public.
We've covered this issue via a couple of anecdotes in the past, but several studies have explored things in a systematic manner, and the results are pretty discouraging. Press releases, the raw material of a lot of journalism, don't always acknowledge the limitations of studies and, at least partially as a result, relevant information is missing from many press reports. "News stories about scientific meeting research presentations often omit basic study facts and cautions," the authors of one of these studies conclude. "Consequently, the public may be misled about the validity and relevance of the science presented."
And that's medicine.
If there are going to be arguments made for the persistence of journalism as a vital force in modern society, they will undoubtedly need to be based on the role of the press in conveying accurate information. Incidents like these, along with the hard numbers provided by more rigorous studies, will make it much harder to make those arguments.
From: ars technica
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Can the Internet Change Your Brain?
Can the Internet Change Your Brain?
by Nick Heath
The relentless bombardment of video, music and information online could permanently alter our brains and trigger neurological disorders, according to an eminent neurologist.
With Western children spending more than six hours per day sat in front of a screen, Baroness Susan Greenfield told the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit it's no coincidence an increasing number of children are today being treated for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The brain is susceptible to being reshaped by our experiences, she said, citing a recent study where London cabbies who memorized the streets of the capital displayed significant growth in the hippocampus - an area of the brain connected with memory.
Describing the online world, Greenfield added: "You are living in a child-like world of actions and sensations that do not mean anything other than what you see is what you get.
"Screen thinking is strongly sensational, short in span, has no conceptual framework, no metaphors and favors process over concept."
Greenfield said that relationships forged in the "computer world", through social networks and multiplayer environments such as Second Life, are "intruding on the full spectrum of human relationships".
"Autistic people are very comfortable in the computer world because relationships do not depend on the tone of the voice, body language, or pheromones.
"It is literally what you see is what you get.
"I wonder that given the malleability of the brain, whether this is responsible for the rise in autism."
Unless action is taken our sense of personal identity will be replaced by the false identities of social networks or the collective identities on Wikipedia, or be destroyed altogether by a fixation on the quick rewards of the internet, Greenfield said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
originally posted on http://www.silicon.com/
by Nick Heath
The relentless bombardment of video, music and information online could permanently alter our brains and trigger neurological disorders, according to an eminent neurologist.
With Western children spending more than six hours per day sat in front of a screen, Baroness Susan Greenfield told the Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit it's no coincidence an increasing number of children are today being treated for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The brain is susceptible to being reshaped by our experiences, she said, citing a recent study where London cabbies who memorized the streets of the capital displayed significant growth in the hippocampus - an area of the brain connected with memory.
Describing the online world, Greenfield added: "You are living in a child-like world of actions and sensations that do not mean anything other than what you see is what you get.
"Screen thinking is strongly sensational, short in span, has no conceptual framework, no metaphors and favors process over concept."
Greenfield said that relationships forged in the "computer world", through social networks and multiplayer environments such as Second Life, are "intruding on the full spectrum of human relationships".
"Autistic people are very comfortable in the computer world because relationships do not depend on the tone of the voice, body language, or pheromones.
"It is literally what you see is what you get.
"I wonder that given the malleability of the brain, whether this is responsible for the rise in autism."
Unless action is taken our sense of personal identity will be replaced by the false identities of social networks or the collective identities on Wikipedia, or be destroyed altogether by a fixation on the quick rewards of the internet, Greenfield said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
originally posted on http://www.silicon.com/
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
How Technology Is Changing What We Read
How Technology Is Changing What We Read
by: Mary K. Pratt, Computerworld
May 5, 2009 11:30 am
Aya Karpinska had a story to tell. She could hear the words and envision how the tale would unfold. All she needed, she says, was the right iPhone app.
So Karpinska hired a programmer, paying him $500 to deliver in five days an application that would disseminate her piece, called " Shadows Never Sleep," through an iPhone application.
The application allows Karpinska to tell a visual story, with white text on a black background that makes the actual appearance of the words -- whether blurred, twisted, or different sizes and fonts -- integral to the plot itself, as you zoom in on it to follow the story through. The author calls it a "zoom narrative."
Karpinska is not alone in her endeavor to adapt literature to today's technology. Writers and publishers of all kinds are turning to technology to bring literature to the masses.
Much of the work to date has focused on transferring existing print books to an online format. Project Gutenberg is one of the most prominent examples of that. Founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, it has turned tens of thousands of print volumes into e-books, making it the first and largest single collection of free electronic books. Similarly, e-book readers such as Amazon.com Inc.'s highly publicized Kindle are designed to replicate the traditional experience of reading a book, using technology to bring convenience to the endeavor.
But the work on this front involves more than just converting traditional printed texts into electronic versions. Writers and publishers are also using technology to deliver literature in new and innovative ways using, for example, RSS feeds and text messaging. And they're employing programming and mobile devices to develop new literary art forms, too, forcing us to reconsider how we collectively define the term "literature."
Is tech redefining literature?
"I think we're going to have to change our definition of what writing is, because [electronic] media is expanding the definition of what reading and writing can be," Karpinska says. "It opened the door for different kinds of writing."
The variety of work available through cyberspace ranges from visual works such as Karpinska's "Shadows Never Sleep" to "twiction," ultrashort pieces written specifically for Twitter. You can even find classics delivered in digestible doses via e-mail or RSS feeds.
Susan Danziger is founder and CEO of DailyLit LLC, whose site delivers serialized stories via e-mail and RSS feeds. She and her husband, Albert Wenger, thought up the business a few years ago after seeing that The New York Times had serialized Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Danziger remembers thinking, as she carried her paper daily onto the train for her commute into New York, that the only item she carries around more often than the newspaper was her smartphone. So she and Wenger decided to build an application that would deliver classic novels electronically.
"We really started it for ourselves," Danziger says, noting that she had always wanted to read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and her husband wanted to read War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Danziger, who was working as a literary agent, and Wenger, who has a Ph.D. in information technology, mocked up an application to serialize stories. They tried different lengths before finding that a 1,000-word installment was just about right. And then -- like all good techies -- they showed their program to friends, who asked to use it for themselves.
In May 2007, a year after they had the original idea, the couple formally launched DailyLit.com, which is designed to allow readers to set their own schedules for installment delivery and to speed up delivery of the segments if they're fast readers or can't wait for the next section.
"We're all about integrating reading into the normal day," Danziger says. "It's not meant to replace regular book reading. It's meant to be able to read literature and books that you wouldn't have had a chance to read otherwise."
The site now offers more than 650 public-domain books for free, as well as a number of contemporary titles offered for varying fees. In addition, Danziger worked with Poets & Writers Inc. to deliver "Masters of Verse," a daily dose of poems for National Poetry Month. She launched an integration tool so readers can link their DailyLit profiles to Twitter and developed Wikipedia Tours to deliver bits of knowledge right to readers' in-boxes.
Technology is really the only way to make this work, Danziger says. Printing and distributing hardcopies of this material would simply be cost-prohibitive.
Flash fiction
Jake Freivald, publisher and editor of Flash Fiction Online, had a similar rationale for his venture. Freivald says he has a particular interest in so-called flash fiction, which is storytelling in 1,000 words or less.
Although flash fiction dates back at least 20 years, Freivald says he saw no market outlet for professional works in this genre. Instead, he saw an opportunity to create one.
Freivald launched his first issue in December 2007, and he now delivers a new one with several stories and a nonfiction article every month. He uses RSS feeds and e-mail to keep in touch with subscribers (who receive the fiction free of charge) and to alert them to special editions. And he's starting podcasts to deliver audio versions of the work. Flash Fiction Online has about 900 subscribers, gets about 30,000 page views a month and has 6,000 unique readers monthly.
"The Web makes this viable," he says, adding that he could not afford to do this in print form. Freivald pays $110 a year out of pocket for Web hosting and spends about $200 monthly paying authors for their submissions. Plus, he adds, the brief nature of flash fiction makes it "Web-ready." It's long enough to tell the story, he says, but not so long that people get tired of looking at the computer screen.
The low cost of Internet publishing isn't the only enticement for Freivald and others. Going hand and hand with that is the relative ease with which people are starting their own "presses."
Freivald built Flash Fiction Online himself; he considers it core to the business and as such keeps the work in-house, so to speak. He uses off-the-shelf products for other functions, such as JS-Kit, to give readers the ability to add comments on the site.
Freivald acknowledges that he may be more technically adept than other online publishers, but he says there are many applications available today that are low-cost and simple enough for less technically adept literati. He points out that a flash fiction story can fit on a blog post, so writers or other publishers could easily use blogging programs to put their materials out there for public consumption. They also could use content management software to manage their material.
Reaching your niche
Technology also makes it quicker, easier and cheaper to reach your audience, particularly when talking about niche genres.
Publishing online "allows me to broadcast to a niche market, which is harder to do if you're trying to distribute through book stores," says Nathan E. Lilly, who publishes three online specialty magazines: " Everyday Weirdness," " Thaumatrope" and " SpaceWesterns.com."
Lilly, who works out of Parker Ford, Pa., built a career in Web development but says he also has an interest in science fiction. So Lilly combined his professional skills with his interests, launching SpaceWesterns.com in April 2007, which publishes short fiction (works of 7,500 words or less). Everyday Weirdness, which launched Jan. 1, is a flash fiction site, while Thaumatrope, which launched last December, is what Lilly says is the first professionally paying Twitter magazine.
These stories -- Lilly calls the pieces "nanofiction" or "twiction" -- go out multiple times a day. Like Freivald, Lilly doesn't charge for his publications, he but does ask his readers for donations.
Twitter isn't the only form of short fiction now on the market. In Japan, novels written on and for cell phones have become incredibly popular. After reading about this literary phenomenon, Mary Robinette Kowal, a professional puppeteer and writer, decided to try that in the U.S.
Kowal wrote several installments of a science fiction piece she called "The Case of the White Phoenix Feather" on her cell phone. She wrote her initial installments using the 1,000-character limit of her cell phone, but there was a problem: The phone broke it into random 180-character chunks and didn't send them in order. After the first installment, she manually broke them into 140-character chunks and sent them out to approximately 120 people via either their cell phones or Twitter feeds. Each day's installment was made up of three or so text messages.
She abandoned the project before the story was completed. "I felt like it wasn't entirely successful," Kowal says. She realized that while 140 characters translates into 140 words in the Japanese language -- making it easier for Japanese authors to send fuller "chapters" -- in English, that limit translates to only about 25 words, making it much more difficult to tell the story in such short segments.
These novel types of writing are a far cry from the classic works of literature that remain staples in high school and college courses. They're certainly different from the contemporary novels that still dominate best-seller lists around the country.
And their appearance on the literary landscape certainly invites questions about the future of literature in a wired world.
"You're asking the $50,000 question at that point, and no one has come up with the answer. But the idea of what's literature is changing," says Mark Marino, director of communications at the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization
Marino, who in 2006 earned a Ph.D. in electronic literature from the University of California, Riverside, says electronic pieces generally "started out as text, and text has always been the center of the experiment." But these literary works are expanding to including more visual and sometimes even interactive components.
That is giving rise to new forms of art, as writers experiment with delivering serialized stories through cell phones or writing pieces in atypical applications, such as Microsoft Excel or Diigo, a Web-based annotation tool. Marino has tried both.
And while Marino and other writers and publishers acknowledge that the ease with which one can publish online means there's a proliferation of low-quality work, they insist that interesting, well-done pieces will be the ones that are widely circulated, receive the praise and ultimately earn a place in literary history.
Can it make money?
As writers and publishers use Internet and mobile technology to deliver more and more pieces of literature, they grapple with the same dilemma that other online entrepreneurs face: How can this make money?
Some online literary talents say they're beginning to develop a business model that could allow their sites to generate revenue, although most have yet to make money off their endeavors.
As publisher and editor of Flash Fiction Online, Freivald has a number of ways to make the site pay. He says he makes a little money by selling ads on his site, and he hopes to make more in the future. He has a "donate now" button on the site, which brings in an occasional $5 or $10. He also has negotiated with his writers for one-time rights to publish their stories in a paper anthology, which he hopes will bring in some cash someday.
But his aspirations are modest. "As a business, I want to make money off of this, but I won't be able to make a living," he says.
Some, though, are already seeing their online work pay dividends. Back in 1997, California-based writer John Scalzi had written articles for newspapers and several nonfiction books, but he wanted to write fiction. He wrote Agent to the Stars as a practice novel in 1997, putting it online with a note to readers asking them to send him $1 if they liked it. He earned about $4,000.
Scalzi, who is well known in the online community as an advocate for online publishing and copyright reform, followed that up with Old Man's War, a Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel he intended to sell to traditional publishers to put in paper form. But he remembered how daunting the process was, he says, and in December 2002 decided to just put it online instead, serializing the 18 chapters over 18 days.
Then Patrick Nielsen Hayden, a senior editor at Tor Books, saw it and offered to publish it. The print version has sold more than 100,000 copies, and since then, Scalzi has sold four other books for print, including Agent to the Stars.
What does this mean for literature?
Meanwhile, Karpinska continues to expand what society considers literature. "The text is an essential component, but I focus on what you can do on a computer that you can't do with paper," she says, "so what we think about reading and writing is not the same today as what we thought it was five years ago."
It is thanks to today's -- and tomorrow's -- technology that writing as an art form is evolving. While words (the content, in today's tech-speak) are still the basis for literature, the the innovative ways in which they've been assembled to fit today's digital formats may have wide repercussions for tomorrow's literary scene. Whether any of these new forms will last is anyone's guess -- but their existence proves that an art form as old as writing can still morph into new structures.
Mary K. Prattis a Computerworld contributing writer. You can contact her at marykpratt@verizon.net/.
From: PC World
by: Mary K. Pratt, Computerworld
May 5, 2009 11:30 am
Aya Karpinska had a story to tell. She could hear the words and envision how the tale would unfold. All she needed, she says, was the right iPhone app.
So Karpinska hired a programmer, paying him $500 to deliver in five days an application that would disseminate her piece, called " Shadows Never Sleep," through an iPhone application.
The application allows Karpinska to tell a visual story, with white text on a black background that makes the actual appearance of the words -- whether blurred, twisted, or different sizes and fonts -- integral to the plot itself, as you zoom in on it to follow the story through. The author calls it a "zoom narrative."
Karpinska is not alone in her endeavor to adapt literature to today's technology. Writers and publishers of all kinds are turning to technology to bring literature to the masses.
Much of the work to date has focused on transferring existing print books to an online format. Project Gutenberg is one of the most prominent examples of that. Founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, it has turned tens of thousands of print volumes into e-books, making it the first and largest single collection of free electronic books. Similarly, e-book readers such as Amazon.com Inc.'s highly publicized Kindle are designed to replicate the traditional experience of reading a book, using technology to bring convenience to the endeavor.
But the work on this front involves more than just converting traditional printed texts into electronic versions. Writers and publishers are also using technology to deliver literature in new and innovative ways using, for example, RSS feeds and text messaging. And they're employing programming and mobile devices to develop new literary art forms, too, forcing us to reconsider how we collectively define the term "literature."
Is tech redefining literature?
"I think we're going to have to change our definition of what writing is, because [electronic] media is expanding the definition of what reading and writing can be," Karpinska says. "It opened the door for different kinds of writing."
The variety of work available through cyberspace ranges from visual works such as Karpinska's "Shadows Never Sleep" to "twiction," ultrashort pieces written specifically for Twitter. You can even find classics delivered in digestible doses via e-mail or RSS feeds.
Susan Danziger is founder and CEO of DailyLit LLC, whose site delivers serialized stories via e-mail and RSS feeds. She and her husband, Albert Wenger, thought up the business a few years ago after seeing that The New York Times had serialized Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Danziger remembers thinking, as she carried her paper daily onto the train for her commute into New York, that the only item she carries around more often than the newspaper was her smartphone. So she and Wenger decided to build an application that would deliver classic novels electronically.
"We really started it for ourselves," Danziger says, noting that she had always wanted to read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and her husband wanted to read War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Danziger, who was working as a literary agent, and Wenger, who has a Ph.D. in information technology, mocked up an application to serialize stories. They tried different lengths before finding that a 1,000-word installment was just about right. And then -- like all good techies -- they showed their program to friends, who asked to use it for themselves.
In May 2007, a year after they had the original idea, the couple formally launched DailyLit.com, which is designed to allow readers to set their own schedules for installment delivery and to speed up delivery of the segments if they're fast readers or can't wait for the next section.
"We're all about integrating reading into the normal day," Danziger says. "It's not meant to replace regular book reading. It's meant to be able to read literature and books that you wouldn't have had a chance to read otherwise."
The site now offers more than 650 public-domain books for free, as well as a number of contemporary titles offered for varying fees. In addition, Danziger worked with Poets & Writers Inc. to deliver "Masters of Verse," a daily dose of poems for National Poetry Month. She launched an integration tool so readers can link their DailyLit profiles to Twitter and developed Wikipedia Tours to deliver bits of knowledge right to readers' in-boxes.
Technology is really the only way to make this work, Danziger says. Printing and distributing hardcopies of this material would simply be cost-prohibitive.
Flash fiction
Jake Freivald, publisher and editor of Flash Fiction Online, had a similar rationale for his venture. Freivald says he has a particular interest in so-called flash fiction, which is storytelling in 1,000 words or less.
Although flash fiction dates back at least 20 years, Freivald says he saw no market outlet for professional works in this genre. Instead, he saw an opportunity to create one.
Freivald launched his first issue in December 2007, and he now delivers a new one with several stories and a nonfiction article every month. He uses RSS feeds and e-mail to keep in touch with subscribers (who receive the fiction free of charge) and to alert them to special editions. And he's starting podcasts to deliver audio versions of the work. Flash Fiction Online has about 900 subscribers, gets about 30,000 page views a month and has 6,000 unique readers monthly.
"The Web makes this viable," he says, adding that he could not afford to do this in print form. Freivald pays $110 a year out of pocket for Web hosting and spends about $200 monthly paying authors for their submissions. Plus, he adds, the brief nature of flash fiction makes it "Web-ready." It's long enough to tell the story, he says, but not so long that people get tired of looking at the computer screen.
The low cost of Internet publishing isn't the only enticement for Freivald and others. Going hand and hand with that is the relative ease with which people are starting their own "presses."
Freivald built Flash Fiction Online himself; he considers it core to the business and as such keeps the work in-house, so to speak. He uses off-the-shelf products for other functions, such as JS-Kit, to give readers the ability to add comments on the site.
Freivald acknowledges that he may be more technically adept than other online publishers, but he says there are many applications available today that are low-cost and simple enough for less technically adept literati. He points out that a flash fiction story can fit on a blog post, so writers or other publishers could easily use blogging programs to put their materials out there for public consumption. They also could use content management software to manage their material.
Reaching your niche
Technology also makes it quicker, easier and cheaper to reach your audience, particularly when talking about niche genres.
Publishing online "allows me to broadcast to a niche market, which is harder to do if you're trying to distribute through book stores," says Nathan E. Lilly, who publishes three online specialty magazines: " Everyday Weirdness," " Thaumatrope" and " SpaceWesterns.com."
Lilly, who works out of Parker Ford, Pa., built a career in Web development but says he also has an interest in science fiction. So Lilly combined his professional skills with his interests, launching SpaceWesterns.com in April 2007, which publishes short fiction (works of 7,500 words or less). Everyday Weirdness, which launched Jan. 1, is a flash fiction site, while Thaumatrope, which launched last December, is what Lilly says is the first professionally paying Twitter magazine.
These stories -- Lilly calls the pieces "nanofiction" or "twiction" -- go out multiple times a day. Like Freivald, Lilly doesn't charge for his publications, he but does ask his readers for donations.
Twitter isn't the only form of short fiction now on the market. In Japan, novels written on and for cell phones have become incredibly popular. After reading about this literary phenomenon, Mary Robinette Kowal, a professional puppeteer and writer, decided to try that in the U.S.
Kowal wrote several installments of a science fiction piece she called "The Case of the White Phoenix Feather" on her cell phone. She wrote her initial installments using the 1,000-character limit of her cell phone, but there was a problem: The phone broke it into random 180-character chunks and didn't send them in order. After the first installment, she manually broke them into 140-character chunks and sent them out to approximately 120 people via either their cell phones or Twitter feeds. Each day's installment was made up of three or so text messages.
She abandoned the project before the story was completed. "I felt like it wasn't entirely successful," Kowal says. She realized that while 140 characters translates into 140 words in the Japanese language -- making it easier for Japanese authors to send fuller "chapters" -- in English, that limit translates to only about 25 words, making it much more difficult to tell the story in such short segments.
These novel types of writing are a far cry from the classic works of literature that remain staples in high school and college courses. They're certainly different from the contemporary novels that still dominate best-seller lists around the country.
And their appearance on the literary landscape certainly invites questions about the future of literature in a wired world.
"You're asking the $50,000 question at that point, and no one has come up with the answer. But the idea of what's literature is changing," says Mark Marino, director of communications at the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization
Marino, who in 2006 earned a Ph.D. in electronic literature from the University of California, Riverside, says electronic pieces generally "started out as text, and text has always been the center of the experiment." But these literary works are expanding to including more visual and sometimes even interactive components.
That is giving rise to new forms of art, as writers experiment with delivering serialized stories through cell phones or writing pieces in atypical applications, such as Microsoft Excel or Diigo, a Web-based annotation tool. Marino has tried both.
And while Marino and other writers and publishers acknowledge that the ease with which one can publish online means there's a proliferation of low-quality work, they insist that interesting, well-done pieces will be the ones that are widely circulated, receive the praise and ultimately earn a place in literary history.
Can it make money?
As writers and publishers use Internet and mobile technology to deliver more and more pieces of literature, they grapple with the same dilemma that other online entrepreneurs face: How can this make money?
Some online literary talents say they're beginning to develop a business model that could allow their sites to generate revenue, although most have yet to make money off their endeavors.
As publisher and editor of Flash Fiction Online, Freivald has a number of ways to make the site pay. He says he makes a little money by selling ads on his site, and he hopes to make more in the future. He has a "donate now" button on the site, which brings in an occasional $5 or $10. He also has negotiated with his writers for one-time rights to publish their stories in a paper anthology, which he hopes will bring in some cash someday.
But his aspirations are modest. "As a business, I want to make money off of this, but I won't be able to make a living," he says.
Some, though, are already seeing their online work pay dividends. Back in 1997, California-based writer John Scalzi had written articles for newspapers and several nonfiction books, but he wanted to write fiction. He wrote Agent to the Stars as a practice novel in 1997, putting it online with a note to readers asking them to send him $1 if they liked it. He earned about $4,000.
Scalzi, who is well known in the online community as an advocate for online publishing and copyright reform, followed that up with Old Man's War, a Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel he intended to sell to traditional publishers to put in paper form. But he remembered how daunting the process was, he says, and in December 2002 decided to just put it online instead, serializing the 18 chapters over 18 days.
Then Patrick Nielsen Hayden, a senior editor at Tor Books, saw it and offered to publish it. The print version has sold more than 100,000 copies, and since then, Scalzi has sold four other books for print, including Agent to the Stars.
What does this mean for literature?
Meanwhile, Karpinska continues to expand what society considers literature. "The text is an essential component, but I focus on what you can do on a computer that you can't do with paper," she says, "so what we think about reading and writing is not the same today as what we thought it was five years ago."
It is thanks to today's -- and tomorrow's -- technology that writing as an art form is evolving. While words (the content, in today's tech-speak) are still the basis for literature, the the innovative ways in which they've been assembled to fit today's digital formats may have wide repercussions for tomorrow's literary scene. Whether any of these new forms will last is anyone's guess -- but their existence proves that an art form as old as writing can still morph into new structures.
Mary K. Prattis a Computerworld contributing writer. You can contact her at marykpratt@verizon.net/.
From: PC World
We Read Everything
For over 100 years, Booklist magazine has been reading everything--so you don't have to. But how do we read that many books? For the first time ever, the intrepid editors at Booklist provide a glimpse into the their top-secret methods. Prepare to be shocked and amazed.
Check out the video here.
Check out the video here.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
You Can't Afford Not to do These Things
You Can't Afford Not to do These Things
by Michael Casey & Michael Stephens
We’ve written about ideas for improving customer service, boosting staff morale, fostering change, and building a management and communication style that is win-win for both staff and administration. Almost everything we’ve discussed has, as its only cost, time–necessary to plan, implement, and review.
There are no expensive technologies to purchase, no cutting-edge software to struggle with, and no $500-an-hour consultants. Our suggestions involve listening, dialog, and transparent actions. Trust is the underlying concept. Communication is its foundation.
Economics hit morale
On April 1, 2007, when we began writing The Transparent Library column, the nation's economy was reasonably strong, and library budgets were relatively sufficient and stable. But things have changed. Federal, state, and local budgets have begun to suffer seriously, and many libraries now face hiring freezes and, in some instances, layoffs and closings.
The economic downturn also hurts morale. If your library is experiencing layoffs and closings, this is unfortunate yet understandable. But we hear from some librarians that managers are using the economic crisis to close their doors and ears to new ideas and initiatives.
That is the worst thing they can do. In fact, now is the best time to implement many of the ideas we’ve advocated for the past two years, to listen to your staff and your users, seeking new and more efficient ideas to boost service delivery and morale. It is not the time to hunker down stubbornly.
Directors shouldn’t hide
First, managers and administrators should take some time to visit your locations. Listen to your constituents. While costly new initiatives are unlikely, ideas that make use of existing tools should be encouraged and studied. Honest dialog goes a long way toward addressing staff worries and concerns.
If you can’t get to all of your locations, go to some, then record a video for the staff as a whole. For a look at transparency at its best, check out the video of Allen County Public Library, IN, director Jeff Krull addressing his staff and user base about the current property tax reform issue in Indiana.
Building teamwork
Many libraries are responding productively to improve or augment internal interaction and the management of day-to-day tasks. Teams and committees can alternate between actual physical meetings and virtual meetings, reducing the fuel and downtime costs associated with travel. Free online tools can open up dialogs among physically and hierarchically separated groups within your organization.
Take a look at what the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga library is doing with a MediaWiki install to plan for its new building and highlight the workings of various departments.
Never stop learning
Unfortunately, many libraries are cracking down on just the things their staffers need. Recently, we heard from a librarian who found her "Learning 2.0" initiative on hold as her library system grapples with budget cuts and a hiring freeze. “I was told we don’t have time to take on new things,” she reported via email.
While we’ve previously promoted inclusive learning and open management, how do these ideas hold up in troubled economic times?
Budget woes, hiring freezes, and cutbacks are not reasons to suspend innovation, creativity, and learning. The mechanisms and priorities may change, but the culture should not.
Actually, tight budgets should foster creativity and the exploration of free online tools for outreach and low cost programming that taps into user needs. A program called “Super Couponing”—available throughout the Chicagoland area at public libraries—recently attracted almost 200 people to the Schaumburg Township District Library, IL.
Making use of time
While staff time isn’t free, it also isn’t permanently affixed to specific tasks and services, especially those that return little on investment. Sandra Nelson, author of Managing for Results, points out that a few hours here and there devoted to something as simple as a bulletin board can add up to misallocated time.
If you can find such black holes of time—whether it be hours spent on displays or hours spent on programs that few attend—you might reallocate some staff to more productive and lucrative projects that boost both morale and door-count.
You may also find that some teams or projects should be delayed or canceled in light of the budget. Staff time devoted to these initiatives could be redirected toward projects with more immediate returns. If you have a monthly team meeting to discuss a new ILS but, owing to budget cutbacks, that system is on hold, then you could retask that team or staff to look at other customer service initiatives.
Some new ideas
With the above in mind, try out some of these ideas to create buzz and interest with staff and your user base:
Mine the biblioblogosphere for innovative yet cost-effective ideas for programs. Rick Roche’s “How To Manage Your iPod” class at Thomas Ford Memorial Library, Western Springs, IL, is a recent example of programming success.
Community conversation
If your community is being hit by the economic downturn, take every chance to talk with your user base and reach out to other organizations. San Diego County Library is offering “hands-on support” for citizens in foreclosure via programs and partnering.
Other ideas you can explore:
Host “Town Hall” meetings to discuss openly how the library is handling budget shortfalls. Encourage participation with users.
Consider creating a video for extending the town hall online—involving administrators or staff. Call for video responses.
Ask your user base to help you promote the library with their own video or graphic creations, as the New Jersey State Library did. Have a contest. Give the winner a “no cost” prize, such as freedom from fines, free video, or 50 free printouts.
Don’t make sweeping changes without checking in with your users and mining the appropriate data. For example: cut hours with low use not busy times.
Consider taking the conversation online via a site like “14 Days To Have Your Say” from Western Libraries, Western Washington University, which gathers and tallies user-generated ideas and the responses to them.
Keep your eyes on the ballAnd, please, librarians, don’t take the easy way out. “Our budget cuts mean we have no time for staff development” could become “Let’s offer a free Learning 2.0 program for all staff and our users.”
The above is within reach at little or no cost and an outlay of staff time. The tools are free or low cost. All it takes is ingenuity and the proper mindset.
Author Information
Michael Casey is Technology Services Division Director, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA, and coauthor of Library 2.0. Michael Stephens is an Assistant Professor, GSLIS, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, and author of Web 2.0 & Libraries
From: Library Journal
by Michael Casey & Michael Stephens
We’ve written about ideas for improving customer service, boosting staff morale, fostering change, and building a management and communication style that is win-win for both staff and administration. Almost everything we’ve discussed has, as its only cost, time–necessary to plan, implement, and review.
There are no expensive technologies to purchase, no cutting-edge software to struggle with, and no $500-an-hour consultants. Our suggestions involve listening, dialog, and transparent actions. Trust is the underlying concept. Communication is its foundation.
Economics hit morale
On April 1, 2007, when we began writing The Transparent Library column, the nation's economy was reasonably strong, and library budgets were relatively sufficient and stable. But things have changed. Federal, state, and local budgets have begun to suffer seriously, and many libraries now face hiring freezes and, in some instances, layoffs and closings.
The economic downturn also hurts morale. If your library is experiencing layoffs and closings, this is unfortunate yet understandable. But we hear from some librarians that managers are using the economic crisis to close their doors and ears to new ideas and initiatives.
That is the worst thing they can do. In fact, now is the best time to implement many of the ideas we’ve advocated for the past two years, to listen to your staff and your users, seeking new and more efficient ideas to boost service delivery and morale. It is not the time to hunker down stubbornly.
Directors shouldn’t hide
First, managers and administrators should take some time to visit your locations. Listen to your constituents. While costly new initiatives are unlikely, ideas that make use of existing tools should be encouraged and studied. Honest dialog goes a long way toward addressing staff worries and concerns.
If you can’t get to all of your locations, go to some, then record a video for the staff as a whole. For a look at transparency at its best, check out the video of Allen County Public Library, IN, director Jeff Krull addressing his staff and user base about the current property tax reform issue in Indiana.
Building teamwork
Many libraries are responding productively to improve or augment internal interaction and the management of day-to-day tasks. Teams and committees can alternate between actual physical meetings and virtual meetings, reducing the fuel and downtime costs associated with travel. Free online tools can open up dialogs among physically and hierarchically separated groups within your organization.
Take a look at what the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga library is doing with a MediaWiki install to plan for its new building and highlight the workings of various departments.
Never stop learning
Unfortunately, many libraries are cracking down on just the things their staffers need. Recently, we heard from a librarian who found her "Learning 2.0" initiative on hold as her library system grapples with budget cuts and a hiring freeze. “I was told we don’t have time to take on new things,” she reported via email.
While we’ve previously promoted inclusive learning and open management, how do these ideas hold up in troubled economic times?
Budget woes, hiring freezes, and cutbacks are not reasons to suspend innovation, creativity, and learning. The mechanisms and priorities may change, but the culture should not.
Actually, tight budgets should foster creativity and the exploration of free online tools for outreach and low cost programming that taps into user needs. A program called “Super Couponing”—available throughout the Chicagoland area at public libraries—recently attracted almost 200 people to the Schaumburg Township District Library, IL.
Making use of time
While staff time isn’t free, it also isn’t permanently affixed to specific tasks and services, especially those that return little on investment. Sandra Nelson, author of Managing for Results, points out that a few hours here and there devoted to something as simple as a bulletin board can add up to misallocated time.
If you can find such black holes of time—whether it be hours spent on displays or hours spent on programs that few attend—you might reallocate some staff to more productive and lucrative projects that boost both morale and door-count.
You may also find that some teams or projects should be delayed or canceled in light of the budget. Staff time devoted to these initiatives could be redirected toward projects with more immediate returns. If you have a monthly team meeting to discuss a new ILS but, owing to budget cutbacks, that system is on hold, then you could retask that team or staff to look at other customer service initiatives.
Some new ideas
With the above in mind, try out some of these ideas to create buzz and interest with staff and your user base:
Mine the biblioblogosphere for innovative yet cost-effective ideas for programs. Rick Roche’s “How To Manage Your iPod” class at Thomas Ford Memorial Library, Western Springs, IL, is a recent example of programming success.
Community conversation
If your community is being hit by the economic downturn, take every chance to talk with your user base and reach out to other organizations. San Diego County Library is offering “hands-on support” for citizens in foreclosure via programs and partnering.
Other ideas you can explore:
Host “Town Hall” meetings to discuss openly how the library is handling budget shortfalls. Encourage participation with users.
Consider creating a video for extending the town hall online—involving administrators or staff. Call for video responses.
Ask your user base to help you promote the library with their own video or graphic creations, as the New Jersey State Library did. Have a contest. Give the winner a “no cost” prize, such as freedom from fines, free video, or 50 free printouts.
Don’t make sweeping changes without checking in with your users and mining the appropriate data. For example: cut hours with low use not busy times.
Consider taking the conversation online via a site like “14 Days To Have Your Say” from Western Libraries, Western Washington University, which gathers and tallies user-generated ideas and the responses to them.
Keep your eyes on the ballAnd, please, librarians, don’t take the easy way out. “Our budget cuts mean we have no time for staff development” could become “Let’s offer a free Learning 2.0 program for all staff and our users.”
The above is within reach at little or no cost and an outlay of staff time. The tools are free or low cost. All it takes is ingenuity and the proper mindset.
Author Information
Michael Casey is Technology Services Division Director, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA, and coauthor of Library 2.0. Michael Stephens is an Assistant Professor, GSLIS, Dominican University, River Forest, IL, and author of Web 2.0 & Libraries
From: Library Journal
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