Archive Fever: Writing and thinking with oceans, memory, and attention.

This week is ALA's Banned Books Week and it's pretty exciting on a lot of fronts. Hopefully everyone can locate and attend an event in your area . Maybe because I'm around a lot of young people and academics, and I take such open mindedness and progressivism for granted, but at first thought I was rather blase about this year's celebration of Banned Books. What I mean here is that I was looking forward to it but thought that "Hey, we've all moved past this crazy McCarthy-esque fear of change and critique and difference". I thought that maybe these books could be celebrated on a literary level and, while they're always already political, I could let political and cultural critique reside in the background. But, alas and alack, the blogosphere delivers. One of my favorite bloggers, Jessamyn West, posted an expositio n that touches on Sarah Palin's purported inclination to stricture thought via banning books at her local library. Of course, the...

The following may be of interest to many of you out there. The Fourth Annual iConference 2009 February 8-11, 2009 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill iSociety: Research, Education, Engagement CALL FOR PARTICIPATION The Fourth Annual iSchools Conference brings together scholars and professionals who come from diverse backgrounds and share interests in working at the nexus of people, information, and technology. With invited speakers, paper sessions, a poster session, roundtables, "wildcard" sessions and ample opportunities for conversations and connections, the conference celebrates and engages our multidisciplinary efforts to understand the scholarly, educational and engagement dimensions of the iSchool movement. This Call for Participation solicits contributions that reflect on the core activities of the iSchools community as we move more fully into the iSociety. These would include reflections on: research topics, practices, methods and epistemologies appropriat...

I recently embarked upon the characteristically academic task of doing a citation analysis on a few articles I’m using for a research project. Google Scholar and ISI’s Web of Science were the two search engines/databases that I used. Of course, I’ve got some thoughts here…especially as libraries are concerned. I was particularly struck by the stark differences in results that Google Scholar yielded and the results found when using ISI’s Web of Science. At first glance this may seem like stating the obvious, however this experience with citation analysis crystallized a point that I have been ruminating upon for awhile. Libraries are not disappearing, nor are librarians. They still matter, though they matter differently, and the key features of libraries exist as facilitation to access information and the expertise to curate and consult. Without the radical juxtaposition of this citation analysis it would be easy to believe that Google results are significant enough and that using a libr...

Jim Goldman, of CNBC , has a recent post where he takes former Fake Steve Jobs blogger, Dan Lyons , to task. The piece is here . In short, Lyons claims that Apple has become increasingly hegemonic in its own right, no longer the upstart ( jeesh , I guess I can't use "maverick" now). Lyons even makes the stale way-past played out comparison of Apple as Microsoft. On a side note, such rhetorical maneuvers are so tired and preposterous. It's kind of like when someone is "describing" a band and they say: "Oh, they're alternative/folk-punk/ emo /whatever and they sound like REM/The Deadly Syndrome/Bright Eyes/blah". Or, do you ever get tired of the claims when basketball season rolls around and there's that guy who always says that so-and-so is the next Jordan. Even if band, ballers , companies are similar or analogous to other earlier instances and contexts, is this really the best and most incisive way to describe commonalities? Maybe, ...

Last week my vintage 20GB iPod bricked...died, dead, for good. As much of a techno-enthusiast as I am, lusting after the newest in small tech, I continued to use this older version of the iPod even though I have a newer model. Maybe it was because it was the first iPod I owned, or that it worked fine for what I needed, or maybe I was just proving that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". Regardless, my 20 GB is done. Maybe fortuitously Apple announced that it will be unveiling upgraded iPods next week (9/9/08 to be exact). I have been seriously considering becoming current, or au courant , even. But I digress, since my iPod bricked I have been riding around listening to CDs (instead of uploading my library to the newer iPod). This experience has proven to be a really weird meditation of sorts. I have become accustomed to certain characteristics of portability and management when it comes to music. This is stating the obvious to most (and prior to a...

ok, jeesh...how do i do this. i've got divergent interests. the first is props for the society of american archivists' annual meeting. it's going on now... link here . as derrida says (and this is HUGE): ...the concept of the archive must inevitably carry in itself, as does every concept, an unknowable weight. The presupposition of this weight also takes on the figures of "repression" and "suppression," even if it cannot necessarily be reduced to these. This double presupposition leaves an imprint. It inscribes an impression in language and in discourse. The unknowable weight that imprints itself thus does not weigh only as a negative charge. It involves the history of the concept, it inflects archive desire or fever, their opening on the future, their dependency with respect to what will come, in short, all that ties knowledge and memory to the promise. always already politics in naming and organizing. here's where it gets weird, different, ...

Well, classes have started and young scholars are scurrying about. Part of their scurrying involves trips to the bookstore to drop cash (or plastic) on textbooks. Like everyone else, I've heard students complaining about the cost and weight of many of their texts; fortunately, they haven't complained outright with regard to my singular required text (all other readings are available free-o-charge digitally). These laments are part of the reason that I think it's pretty cool that Amazon intends to market a version of its Kindle to colleges and universities. I read about this on TechCrunch...the link is here . I am sure that opposition to this will take many forms ranging from fear of Amazon's hegemony (because traditional purveyors of textbooks aren't hegemomic in their own right) to "oh my gosh Student Stores has gone/will go out of business!" to complaints that nothing beats the feel and experience of a "real" book. To all of these detractors, I...

I get the Seattle Times news feed in my reader...it's a good "paper" and it makes me feel connected to the Emerald City. Several days ago Brier Dudley crafted a piece entitled "Newspapers as Social Networks" where his central thesis seemed to revolve around an adamant claim that newspapers (and "traditional" news sources like NPR) still matter and that they can be construed as social networks. This seems right-headed and I buy in, but I can see how folks might now assume the term social network to mean what used to be referred to as online social network ( OSN ). This is, of course, fair play since language leaks, changes, and morphs in response to shifting contexts and paradigms. Web 2.0 has certainly fostered many shifting contexts and practices...realities do look differently these days. In reading Dudley's piece, namely where to responds to Mark Anderson 's tacit claim that newspapers are dead, I could not help but think of the vide...

It seems like a month of Sundays since I've blogged... syllabi , research, and baby created the perfect storm that pulled me away. But, alas and alack. So, to that end...those last two sentences are what I love about blogs...the context and constructedness of the reading and writing that happens there. The discourse can be hokey (see above), high brow, insightful, or inane. The geographical texture is just amazing and, being a Compositionist , I'm grateful for it because I'm allowed a ton of latitude and unfettered reflexivity that other spaces don't provide. All of this sentimentality plays in to the debate that happened recently when Clay Shirkey "dissed Tolstoy". My pal Mike Brown turned me on to this melee. Check it out at: http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge251.html#rc The story is about halfway down the page and includes many responses worth a skim through. What I like about the debate is that it's an old one and I'm hoping that Shirkey...

It's the day after BotCamp and I am slowly unpacking the experience. The impressions that seem to last at the fore revolve around the importance of what I'm terming as "the experiential". Basically this is a reference to kinesthetic learning, or learning by doing and interacting with actual objects and artifacts. Please (re)read my previous post and linkage to BotCamp if you need to...it's a quick skim through. What's huge for me as I comb through my ethnographic notes is the impact that BotCamp participants felt from walking through the woods and handling plants, leaves, and trees. All of the technology enhanced curriculum we designed really facilitated access to vast amounts of information (which was the point), but the exhilaration and learning seemed to stem (no pun intended) from actual material relations. Too much of our curriculum seems to fetishize technology, simulation, and "the virtual". Not that technology, simulation, new media, et...

Fall is just around the corner and I'm starting to think about all the great things my favorite season brings. One event that I've followed for the past few years has been The September Project . I've lifted the description from the website ...it's below...get involved if you can. Welcome to the 5 th annual September Project! The September Project is a grassroots effort to encourage events about freedom and democracy in all libraries in all countries during the month of September. September Project events are free and organized locally. In 2004, we began the September Project to break the silence following September 11, and to invite all people into libraries to consider topics of patriotism, democracy, and citizenship. Initially, events focused on September 11 and largely took place on September 11. As the project evolved, events spread throughout the month of September and focused on issues of freedom and democracy. To date, public, academic, school, government, ...

A recent Fast Company feed by Robert Scoble that offers some incisive nuggets on Twitter, RSS , MSFT , and several other user/tech trends has me thinking about the ever-changing public sphere. I am particularly curious about the claim that Twitter will continue to emerge as the update/news/marketing vehicle of preference. I can certainly see how this would work, and Scoble's habits of information foraging and consumption are in line with my own as well as so many others. Print media plays less and less of a role in my life and, like Scoble, RSS feeds seem less attractive to me these days. Scoble argues in this piece, which is actually highlights from a week's worth of tweetstream (ah, postmodern narrative once again), that Twitter is the public conversation with diverse interests. I read his piece to fuse Twitter with blogs' messages in a way that complements both...ultimately creating a dialogue and remediation of events of interest. His specific claim is, "Twitt...

About a week from now BotCamp starts. One might ask, "What the heck is BotCamp?" Well, first one (that would be you) might peruse the description for the NSF-funded project entitled Bot 2.0: Botany through Web 2.0, the Memex and Social Learning . It's cool and it's at UNC. The official blurb, as lifted from the MRC web site and our NSF grant, is: Bot 2.0 project is an innovative technological approach to retaining student interest in the biological and botanical sciences and addresses the lack of diversity in the student population pursing the botanical sciences. The project involves introducing students from area universities and community colleges to a three-phase curriculum involving reading and field exercises that incorporate inquiry-based learning, communal learning, and reflection. For my part in this project I am talking with Bot participants about their experiences and expectations with regard to botany, science curriculum writ large, issues of "literac...

Today's New York Times featured an excellent article that illuminates some points made in my previous post last Friday. The piece, entitled " Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto " details tactics for technology development and maximization at work in Kenya and other low-tech areas of Africa. The second portion of the article focuses on the influence of Google in Kenya, Google's increasing physical presence there, and the citizens' hopes for what Google can enable them to achieve. The article is linked above and pasted below. Hopefully, it adds to my supposition that perceived lackluster earnings reports from Google matter little when it comes to the company's influence on identity, ethos, and aspirations of global individuals and groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/worldbusiness/20ping.html?_r=1&ref=africa&oref=slogin

Google reported 2nd quarter earnings yesterday afternoon , meeting analyst estimates, however warnings from company execs prompted a pretty significant drop in GOOG stock. Shares of GOOG fell over 10 percent in after hours trading Thursday and continued to hold the decline today. Google chairman Eric Schmidt's description of the economy as "challenging", coupled with admissions of slower hiring at Google and decreased consumer click-throughs of ads, are being cited as common analyst concerns. In a financial respect, some of the analyst concerns are warranted in the short term, but longer term they are not. It's also important to note that Google continues to lead our ever-emerging online experience even if they're not growing as rapidly as they were 6 months ago and if revenue looks different this quarter than it did last (when analysts were surprised at earnings and GOOG skyrocketed as a result). Importantly, there is no competition for Google in many of their c...

Library Journal featured an article recently that profiles findings on how libraries might endeavor to generate and sustain new support. The piece, entitled OCLC Report Suggests Ways To Generate New Library Support , synthesizes important findings from a recent study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For those of you who attended ALA in Anaheim last month this may be familiar ground. Read the article, of course, but note that among the key findings are the following points: *The most committed funding supporters are not the heaviest users *Many people are unaware of library services *“Passionate librarians” help generate library funding *Voters who see the library as 'transformational' as opposed to 'informational' are more likely to favor it *Increasing support for libraries may not necessarily mean a trade-off with financing other public services What I find to be a really inspiring and important is the underlying theme that the library space is a dyna...

Recently, the Third International Plagiarism Conference was held at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK. The conference theme was "Transforming Practice for an Authentic Future". To get a flavor for the conference and its proceedings check out the link above as well as Gerry McKiernan's blog for a sampling of his presentation. The blog Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 also works for a cursory glance at topical considerations. The point of my post is to remark on this notion of authenticity. Haven' we already had this conversation? At least philosophically, have we had it? Not to get all Baudrillard and what not, but I can't see such a conference happening in France for example, or in the French intellectual tradition rather. The French love their language, but also celebrate its fluidity and its versatility. English, on the other hand, has always suffered from policing and surveillance in efforts to control it and to make it rational in its ...

I've been reading a lot of feeds of late that speculate on ways to teach, work with, "reach", etc. digital natives . This of course begs conjecture on what a digital native is and who might qualify for such status. Such deliberations seem fair enough, though they are familiar protocol for those aiming to educate in "new times" (see the cult stud work of Stuart Hall as well as the ed work of Robert Helfenbein ). Anyway, my first reaction is to suggest that any attempt is always already reactionary. Digital natives, like most who drive new paradigms, author their own space and regardless of how curriculum designers feel about the merits of such "new" practices and their attendant spaces such authoring is hegemonic in its own right. Once the digital natives are inserted upon the load road to hegemony they are (at least in the near term) positioned against those who aspire to "educate", "observe", or "characterize" who and wha...

Following up on the previous post and on recent posts from Jacob and Paul where they're contemplating notions of the social versus the collaborative, I've gotta revisit some important conceptual touchstones. In my last post I valorized Seattle and its " Libraries For All " initiative, labeling such thrusts emblematic of a healthy community...possibly even one that's invested in pursuit of utopias. I'm still excited about "Libraries For All". I have also read Paul Jones' post and Jacob Kramer- Duffield's meditation on Paul's post. Good stuff. I've linked them here (and below in my blogroll )...read at your leisure. One of the points that they're considering is how to operationalize terms like "social" and "collaborative" with regard to software, the virtual, and the hyperreal . When I think about this I find myself returning to my cultural studies roots and the early work of media and social theorists, na...

This upcoming Saturday in Seattle the last of the building /refurbishing projects that have comprised the "Libraries For All" initiative will officially be complete. This is really great to see such an initiative coalesce and be completed over the course of the last ten years. Seattle is a special place for a lot of reasons but the inclination of community members to actually value (and fund) projects like this one differentiate it from other locales that either don't, can't, or (worse-yet) delay such support. Materiality matters and its easy to get so disembodied via our networked world that what is actually happening in our community goes un -scrutinized. Place still matters. Development, non-development, investment (or lack of) are amplified in accelerated globalized spaces. In an era of spatial theory we tend to think that place doesn't matter as much, but it does. Place matters differently and probably matters more than it used to. Seeing communities take a...