Free Range Librarian

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

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Entries from February 2005

Button of the Year Idea

February 28th, 2005 · 17 Comments

O.k., an irresistable coda to Gormangate, worth sharing on my elevenses tea break. Michael “Tame the Web” Stephens just suggested to me via IM that we all need a button that says:
Blog People
(Although “I See Blog People” occurs to me as a strong second contender…)
Whether you are grievously annoyed by Gorman, a little peeved or [...]

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Tags: This and That

Gorman, On Reflection

February 28th, 2005 · 7 Comments

This is post-game analysis of what I now call (albeit very tongue in cheek) Gormangate. I expect I won’t have anything else to write on this issue for a while, if again, unless we hear a retraction or explanation from Gorman.
First, ALA’s own governing body has largely ignored this issue. This is not [...]

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Tags: American Liberry Ass'n · Best of FRL · Gormangate

Google and ALA: One Pair of Matching Bookends?

February 25th, 2005 · No Comments

At today’s board meeting for My Place of Work, we made reference to Google so often as we discussed planned upgrades to our system it might as well have been an article of speech, as in “May I Google you another cup of coffee?” or “I need to Google the projector closer to the screen.” [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Two Blogs I Can’t Resist

February 25th, 2005 · 1 Comment

This week’s two blogs of note are Anna Creech’s Eclectic Librarian and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Some of us hold back and then fill the air with long, perhaps windy posts (yes, that comment is a bit of a roman a clef). But Eclectic Librarian is a tasty-tidbit biblioblog, easy to sip from, filled [...]

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Tags: Blogs Worth Reading

Gorman on Bloggers

February 24th, 2005 · 14 Comments

Do read this essay by ALA President Michael Gorman, in which we learn that the library blogging community is uneducated, fanatical, and obtuse. “[The] Blog People (or their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information) have a fanatical belief in the transforming power of digitization and a consequent horror of, and [...]

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Tags: Get Real!

iPods are imPure, Too

February 24th, 2005 · 4 Comments

Just a brief ten minute mid-morning break to note that though I respect my colleague Michael Stephens, I disagree with his comments and conclusions in his post about iPods in libraries.
I am working on a longer post about audiobooks and DRM, inspired by my jaw-dropping Moment of Zen last Friday when I downloaded audiobooks [...]

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Tags: Hot Tech

Salinas Librarian Comes Out Swinging

February 23rd, 2005 · No Comments

“We can live with the potholes. We can’t live with ignorance and we can’t live with gangs.”
That’s librarian Marlys Maher in the Salinas Californian, in a feisty and pointed interview about the Salinas library situation, on the eve of a visit from national library leaders. She does a great job of not falling into the [...]

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Tags: Kudos and Woo-Hoos

CLA’s Blog: Being There

February 23rd, 2005 · No Comments

As Sarah “Librarian in Black” Houghton has noted, there’s a kerfuffle over on CALIX, the list of the California Library Association, about the new CLA blog. When the blog debuted, some of us noted the links to the RSS feeds were missing. (The feeds work fine, as you’ll see if you drop http://www.cla-net.org/weblog into your [...]

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Tags: CLA Shenanigans

New York Times Buys a Fishing Rod

February 22nd, 2005 · No Comments

I’m bone-weary from three days of work on a major workshop piece due tomorrow–make that today–but here’s some fun reading while I let a post about the California Library Association’s new blog steep in its pot for a day so I can be sure I say what I mean to say, not more or less. [...]

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Tags: Hot Tech

Sideways: Sloshing Towards Bethlehem

February 21st, 2005 · 4 Comments

Two weeks ago I had to write a short review of the movie Sideways for class. I wrote it neat, with a water back, about what I saw as a central problem with the story. I was a wee too shy to post it on FRL, for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint–perhaps my concern that [...]

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Tags: FRL Spotlight Reviews