Dorothea Salo [spelling corrected...thanks, Eric] regularly writes about institutional data repositories. The ALA Washington Office reports on a meeting where libraries were viewed as having a key role in data curation.
Eric Hellman asks if public libraries are in a death spiral. He reflects on his experience in industry when a major contraction took place. He suggests that cutting hours is counter-productive, and advocates more fund raising like NPR. I respect Eric and his writing, but it is clear to me that he has not had to manage in the public sector. Much of the public does not believe the bad news of budgets until it hits them. Been there, done that. He includes a list of links to articles about public libraries being in trouble. I have talked about some of my experiences in July 2008, (twice), August 2008, and even earlier embedded in a post on customer service.
I am no longer sure where I picked up this citation, but it has good advice for bloggers, Bloggers: 7 questions to ask before hitting "Publish".
There was also a thoughtful post about copyright by Laura Crossett with both some good information, and interesting insights and reflections.
One of my electronic friends posted a link to this article which simply demonstrates the wrongness of the Arizona bill and other efforts to target immigrants legal (like this kid) and others. After all, there is only a very, very small number of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances whose ancestors (or they) are not immigrants. Certainly somewhere back there (in the 1800s) all my ancestors came from another country! This attitude scares the crap out of me!
Facebook privacy settings take another beating in this blog post from John Henry Clippinger. (Is that a pseudonym?) David Lee King also posted about the settings, with a screen shot and some cogent observations.
There is a great post for anyone thinking about freelancing. (It is a thought I entertain from time to time...) It is a good mix of philosophical and practical. [Note to self: see if there is a part two and/or three!]
And finally, I noted the issue with the California Digital Library and Nature Publishing Group. Steve Lawson was first on my radar with "UC to Nature Publishing Group: DROP DEAD." I then picked up on the story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. There are three which summarized the issue well for me, starting with Dorothea Salvo, and including both Eric Hellman and Steve Lawson. Eric's post includes links to actual documents. And here is the Library Journal summary of the dust-up.
It's very true that I've never managed in the public sector, and public library managers certainly don't need me to tell them their jobs are near impossible. But I have to observe that the cuts in 2010, coming as the nation begins to climb out of recession, are more severe and of a different character than the cuts of 2008, which took place while everyone feared the economy might be crashing off a cliff.
ReplyDelete(Also, it's Salo, not Salvo.)