I finally got around to reading the report from the American Council of Learned Societies on cyberinfrastructure for the humanities and social sciences released late last summer. (Actually, it fell off my radar until it was mentioned recently at if:book.) Rather than focus on what digital scholarship could look like, it asks a more fundamental [...]

I came across some quotes recently, via articles and blog posts, that I thought were worth sharing here. They should, I think, resonate with academic librarians:
“Simplicity is an important trend we are focused on. Technology has this way of becoming overly complex, but simplicity was one of the reasons that people gravitated to Google initially. [...]

Newspapers make an interesting case study for academic librarians. Newspapers, like libraries, are coping with new forms of Internet competition. Newspapers, like libraries, are primarily information mediators in an age when access to information has been disintermediated. I occasionally share news about the challenges newspapers face in the 21st century as it might enable library [...]

Finals have ended. Faculty have posted their grades. The circulation desks are swamped with book returns. (Yes, a good reminder of how many books are still checked out – when they come back en masse at the end of the semester!) The library is very quiet. It seems so odd. Sure, it is nice to [...]

I’ve never been a fan of automated approaches to plagiarism, but the idea seems to be taking off for the corporations who are upset with people who clip and remix – because, well, that’s ours and besides, surely there’s some way we can make money off it?
The Wall Street Journal reports a new venture will [...]