Librarians: still useful

3 comments on “Librarians: still useful”

1. Ja says:
   January 31st, 2007 at 3:09 pm

   I’d be so lost without librarians. But then again, I still go to libraries.

   These “Librarian Trading Cards” on Flickr.com are cool:
   http://www.flickr.com/groups/librariancards/

2. August says:
   February 1st, 2007 at 5:25 am

   That’s a pretty decent article, and I agree with most of its points (although the whole Tipping Point thing is still pop sociology/psychology, and is very much disputed).

   I wish people would stop citing Google Book Search, though. It’s a questionable program at best, and outright illegal at worst. I work for the Internet Archive doing much the same thing with public domain works, and we’re partnered with a number of major libraries, and are backed my Microsoft, but of course you pretty much never hear of our work. Google and their friend Larry Lessig make a case for tracking down copyright information as being “too hard” or impractical, but of course we do it for hundreds of books every day; it’s not really difficult, it’s just time consuming and expensive–but we do it because it’s the right thing to do; as Ze Frank has pointed out, Google’s “don’t be evil” mission statement is the same as “don’t do evil”, and we’d be better off if we remembered that.

3. August says:
   February 1st, 2007 at 5:27 am

   is the same as “don’t do evil” should of course read isn’t the same as “don’t do evil”

Discuss