OWL: Librarian's Place

False apology syndrome. Like it. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"Science@cambridge aims to draw users into a virtual library space giving them immediate access to electronic information from their desktop, tools to help them navigate through the vast number of sources available, as well as on-line real-time help from library subject-experts. This development acknowledges that for many of those working in contemporary science the library is now largely a 'virtual resource'. Science@cambridge will increase access to and knowledge of scientific electronic resources. It will help users discover, search across and improve the use of science e-resources, generally and within discipline specific areas. Science@cambridge has been developed with the generous support of the Arcadia Trust." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Thanks for this link Maxine. It is a subject critical to the future of my profession. There is often a disconnect between how librarians think a reader should navigate and the way they want to navigate. - Mack Lundy

You're welcome, Mack, but I have to say that 99 per cent of the links in this "room" are from Dave Lull, not me - he always picks apposite and fascinating ones. I am a "mere poster" on his behalf. ;-) - Maxine

"Reliance on the Internet is so prevalent, said the report’s author, Susannah Fox, the associate director at Pew, that “Google is the de facto second opinion” for patients seeking further information after a diagnosis." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"Sometimes just adding a word makes all the difference. Searching for the name of a certain cancer will bring up the Wikipedia entry and several information sites from major hospitals, drug companies and other providers. Add the word “community” to that search, Ms. Fox said, and “it’s like falling into an alternate universe,” filled with sites that connect patients. As a result, said Dr. Ted Eytan, medical director for delivery systems operations improvement at the Permanente Federation, “patients aren’t learning from Web sites — they’re learning from each other.” The shift is nothing less than “the democratization of health care,” he went on, adding, “Now you can become a national expert in your bedroom.” " - Maxine

"In the past two years, the thirty-five ex-Googlers represented by the pods in Regroup, by R. Justin Stewart, have started or invested in new companies. The result is a growing class of brilliant, connected, and well-funded entrepreneurs seeking to do what they couldn't do at their former employer--own and profit from their ideas. In Stewart's installation, the strands between pods represent a current working relationship while the size of the pod indicates the relative employee size of the new venture." - Maxine

"The below guest post was written by Ellen Baker, author of the deliciously detailed novel Keeping the House. For more information about Ellen’s book or to request an author phone chat for your book club, stop by her website! Make sure to comment on this post for a chance to win a signed copy of Keeping the House." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

An essay which includes reviews of: The Private Patient P.D. James; Faber&Faber, 416 pp, £18.99 Doors Open Ian Rankin; Orion, 260 pp, £18.99 A Most Wanted Man John le Carré; Hodder&Stoughton, 352 pp, £18.99 - Maxine

"A common thread running through the many magazine and newspaper tributes, the online eulogies and recalled anecdotes, was shock. Wallace may have been a hugely influential and critically celebrated figure, the winner, in 1997, of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, but he was also a very quiet one. He had given few interviews in recent years, and he found much of the fame that came with literary success, the adoration and spotlight that countless other writers would have killed for a taste of, embarrassing and uncomfortable. He taught creative writing at Pomona, wrote short stories and essays and attended the occasional book reading and conference. When news of his suicide began to spread, fans were left wondering: Why? Why had this gifted, funny, often disarmingly humble writer -- a man with seemingly so much to live for -- taken his own life? Unbeknown to most, Wallace had suffered from clinical depression for the past two decades." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"The title of this memoir alludes to the tendency among the author’s family members to kill themselves, and in particular to the suicide of the memoirist’s brother, whose depression seems to have made him feel that a book he had written, which was about to come out, wasn’t good enough. The memoirist, for his part, informs us that “every morning, for many years, I have awakened, thinking: ‘I’m ready to kill myself.’ ” In an “Envoi” to the memoir, written as it was going to press, the memoirist informs us that Susan, his wife — whose “irrepressible joshing” lifted his spirits for 30-odd years — has suddenly died." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Susan Hill gets around to libraries (I wonder what took her so long)! She has already dismissed scientists. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

In fact it looks as if she might have taken her whole blog down - has not worked for some time. I have the most recent posts cached in Google Reader and they do make an odd collection of ill-informed rants against different groups of people, so maybe she's decided to think again about the whole thing? There is no interest in just being gratuitiously rude in an opinionated way which just shows ignorance. Eg her 5 Sept post about Sarah Palin's wonderfulness looks silly with the perspective of a couple of weeks. - Maxine

How strange! I hope she's OK.... - Clare Dudman

"In their recent book “The Loss of Sadness” (Oxford, 2007), Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield assert that for thousands of years, symptoms of sadness that were “with cause” were separated from those that were “without cause.” Only the latter were viewed as mental disorders." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Nice entry by Martin Edwards on a favourite topic of this "room". - Maxine

Very true. Already in wide use among staff where I work. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"Web 2.0, the believers say, gives a voice to everyone and their brother. But that's only part of the story. Truth be told, the net's second coming gives a voice to everyone and their brother and all their alter egos." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"We have a vast palette of words that attempt to express our downcast moods -- "a funk," "the blues," "the doldrums." All of them abstractions, euphemisms we employ in an effort to pinpoint something elusive -- a sensation that might be a shade less than depression but still has weight, the power to hem us in, to alter our picture of the world." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Norris sees a distinct path to contemporary culture, one that is oversaturated with data but little real information. "In this hyped-up world, broadcast and Internet news media have emerged as acedia's perfect vehicles, demanding that we care, all at once, about a suicide bombing, a celebrity divorce and the latest advance in nanotechnology," she writes. But the ceaseless bombardment, she suggests, "makes us impervious to caring." - Maxine

"Marilynne Robinson is the world’s best writer of prose, but do a mere three novels in nearly 30 years mean she’s happy to be a homebody?" Article by (and quotes from ) Bryan Appleyard in today's Sunday Times. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

"One of the fascinating things about the hard-boiled tradition is its geographic flexibility. Writers all over the world have taken the form, altered it to suit their times and temperaments and made it at home almost everywhere." - Maxine via Bookmarklet

I'm with Kate Muir, naturally. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Article in NYT about how there are too many of these and too many early adopters, but is positive about FriendFeed as an aggregator. - Maxine

Bryan Appleyard's take on Sarah Palin's placeism - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Bill Kauffman's "The Candidates from Nowhere: Politicians Without Roots" is about placeism and politicians, and is a take different from Bryan's: http://librariansplace.wordpre... - Dave Lull

Yes, Bryan is not exactly "in accord" with many of the placeism discussions we've had and read, Dave! But always readable. - Maxine

Via Dave, a lovely map of the meaning of physics - Maxine via Bookmarklet

I had a quick look at Chrome today, and watched some of the videos. It looks very impressive. I can't download it at work because of our IT department rules, but am quite tempted to do so for home. I wonder if it will support banking and other commercial sites, though? I could not do without my weekly online supermarket shop. (This has been a problem for me with FireFox which the UK banks and credit cards I use do not work at all with.) - Maxine

Thanks, Dave, this is very funny. - Maxine

Great post from Frank on Jeff Sypeck's Becoming Charlemagne. - Maxine

Google has immediately responded to concern about T&C and amended the part that annoyed people. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

A more balanced account of the library initiative dissed by Susan Hill in my previous shared link. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Slightly different view of Chrome to Ed Rants's (via David Bradley reshare) - Maxine

There is also a good (generally positive) article in today's Times (3 Sept), among other things making the point that Chrome/Google is the first browser to realise people want to integrate applications, not just browse. - Maxine

As some of the commenters to this post say, Google Chrome terms and conditions are no different from standard terms of use on other Google and other free software - and of course on lots of proprietary software eg MS. - Maxine via Bookmarklet

Michael Walters on P D James and Stanley Middleton - Maxine via Bookmarklet