The Library 2.0 Noise Machine

From Karen Schneider's 'Manifesto' to John Blyberg's rants, there's a lot of rage against the naysayers (or even questioners) of the inevitable slow-force march of L2.0. I wonder just how confident the proponents are when half their essays are denunciations of how the other guy got it wrong

One thing I've not seen addressed is the very real possibility that patrons come to our bricks-n-mortar space because it is real and not virtual. There is much talk about the Library 'going to where the people are,' but I wonder if they like coming to this public space because of its intimacy and sense of community. Besides Starbucks, it may be America's last Plaza Mayor.

Technorati's...

...but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Queer as Folksonomy

The problems inherent in a 'folk-sonomy' (redundancies, inaccuracies, mispellings) are legion, but lacking a controlled vocabulary results in a balkanization of terms and a limited social (and intellectual) conversation. As we engage in narrower and narrower (virtual) social spaces, our vocabulary, necessarily, will be more precise. But also proprietary--we'll use language in a way that will be familiar and comprehensible to those around us, but not to an outsider. A discourse mafia emerges. Even David Sifry of Technorati refers to certain blogs (the "Magic Middle") as 'authoratative.' So much for the power of the people. Wiki's, folk-tags and other social networks may be more democratic, but in the end they may be as exclusionary as L'Académie.

Books? I Already Have a Book

The 'thing' about the 'book thing' I'm not fond of is the adoration of books as cult object. That there is a commeraderie or an assumed shared veneration of 'the book' is sophistic. I dig books, sure, but their hanging around my personal space--unread, un-looked at, unloved--is more decoration than intrinsic value.

There was this tv show in the 1970's where the host would make 'objet d'art' out of household objects. For one project, he had a 'false front' bookshelf (like a secret compartment) where he took a bunch of old books (probably Reader's Digest Condensed) and sawed them off at the spines, glued them together and, voilà!--a place to store your jiggers, high-ball glasses, and swizzle sticks. As a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up so I could take a band-saw to my mother's book-of-the-month selections and create my own mini-bar.

Reading books is something entirely different, of course. There is just about no greater joy than what happens between that printed page and my brain's cognitition. Bliss.

Library Thing