Free Range Librarian

K.G. Schneider’s blog on librarianship, writing, and everything else, since 2003.

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Entries from December 2004

Blogging and Ethics, Part 3: The Anti-Guidelines

December 13th, 2004 · 2 Comments

1. First, do your best to puncture our stuffy “scholarly” image and show show everyone that librarians are as groovy as everyone else. Dumb down your spelling, grammar, and punctuation, haul out as many formulaic expressions as you know of, and use lots of exclamation points and question marks in a sentence. Y Nott???? Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!!! [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics · Hot Tech · Librarianship

Still Life with Gingerbread

December 13th, 2004 · 1 Comment

Bookmark to:

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Tags: This and That

Nobody Has To Be Nice

December 13th, 2004 · 3 Comments

Note my follow-up comment
…Not even Matthew Arnold. Jessamyn, returning from Australia, demurs from participating in the PLA blog event, arguing that “Stephen [sic] has the project well-covered and there was talk of a ‘be nice’ agreement that wasn’t my style.” That misrepresents the discussion. We–actually, I–have been encouraging the PLA Midwinter bloggers to discuss blogging [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics

Blogging and Ethics, Part 3: Matthew Arnold in a Polka-Dot Dress

December 13th, 2004 · 2 Comments

There are two groups that predictably object to guidelines in any given context: those who need them the most, and those who need them the least. Liz Lawley responded very quickly to my earlier posts about guidelines, and no surprise to me, because she falls very squarely in the latter category.
Mamamusings is a model [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics

Blogging and Ethics, 2: “It’s Only a Blog!”: The Cloak of Commentary

December 11th, 2004 · 6 Comments

“It’s only a blog.” “I’m not a reporter!” “This is just commentary.” “Everyone knows it’s just my opinion.” Sound familiar? To quote one of my favorite cartoons, “I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it.” Once you put words into print for all to read, and particularly once you implicate other people’s [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics · Hot Tech · Librarianship

Bloglines on your PDA

December 10th, 2004 · No Comments

Ethics, yes–I’ll post, maybe tonight. But meanwhile, as I get ready to rush to the salon to get my hair cut and highlighted (we must suffer for our beauty, mustn’t we!), I keep meaning to tell you that the free Bloglines mobile service is the best way I have found to read my feeds on [...]

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Tags: Hot Tech

Ethics, At Last

December 9th, 2004 · 6 Comments

See: http://blogethics2004.blogspot.com
Which links to these two great resources:
Rebecca Blood’s Weblog Ethics: http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html
Cyberjournalist.net, A Blogger’s Code of Ethics: http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php
For some time I’ve grumbled and groused about the practices of librarian bloggers. Too many of us want to be considered serious citizen-journalists, when it suits us, but fall back on “hey, it’s only a blog” when [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics · Hot Tech · Librarianship

A Clueful Article about Libraries Reaching Out

December 9th, 2004 · No Comments

Full text at http://tinyurl.com/5ambu (registration required)
Gnatek, Tim. Libraries Reach Out, Online. New York Times, December 9, 2004: “E-books are only one way that libraries are laying claim to a massive online public as their newest service audience. The institutions are breaking free from the limitations of physical location by making many kinds of materials and [...]

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Tags: Librarianship

We Are Worth It, Too!

December 8th, 2004 · No Comments

You must share this delightful article far and wide: “A Billion-Dollar IPO for Johns Hopkins,” by William R. Brody, President of Johns Hopkins Univ. It’s tongue in cheek, but very, very flattering to us. Not bad for a week in which we also starred on TV.
http://www.jhu.edu/gazette/2004/06dec04/06brody.html
“Our library has the most effective search [...]

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Tags: Librarianship

TNT’s The Librarian: Two Views

December 6th, 2004 · 2 Comments

I taped, but did not watch “The Librarian” on TNT last night because I had so much homework (o.k., maybe I took a teensy peek at Geoffrey Rush playing Peter Sellers on HBO). Two blogs have already posted reviews. My own point of view tends to be “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but [...]

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Tags: Librarianship