education · MaisonBisson

CIO’s Message To Faculty: The Internet Is Here

As part of a larger message to faculty returning from winter break, our CIO offered this summary of how he sees advancing internet use affecting higher education: Are you familiar with blogs and podcasts? Google them, or look them up in Wikipedia. Some of you may already be using these new tools. Others may think […] » about 400 words

Is Search Rank Group-think?

Way back in April 1997, Jakob Nielsen tried to educate us on Zipf Distributions and the power law, and their relationship to the web. This is where discussions of the Chris Anderson’s Long Tail start, but the emphasis is on the whole picture, not just the many economic opportunities at the end of the tail. […] » about 400 words

Teachers Get Paid Crap

From AlterNet: Teaching In America: The Impossible Dream. Tagline:

Many public school teachers today must work two jobs to survive, and can’t afford to buy homes or raise families. Why do we treat our teachers so poorly?

The Mystifying Aroma Of Rot

I love libraries, and I love books, but there the needs of our students and limitations of our budgets have no room for misplaced romantic attachments. That’s why I’ve found myself paraphrasing something from Ibiblio’s Paul Jones (via Teleread):

That smell of an old book, that smell of old libraries? That’s the smell of the books rotting.

We must remember that libraries catalog and share information and knowledge, not books. Our students and faculty have already voted with their feet and demonstrated that our paper (and microform) collections of periodicals are useless compared to the online, fully searchable versions. How long before the same happens for books as well?

Connections: some people don’t get this, but there are a number who do (too many to list, actually). This issue is bigger than ebooks alone, but OpenReader deserves a plug here too.

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