Dodie Gaudet posts over at the Our Future blog about the terrific-ness of school librarians and is filled with Respect and Admiration for them.
I totally agree! I teach reference to future school librarians (among others) and since I don't know much about the field, I am doing some reference observations of my own. I have already visited two school librarians and have at least one more visit lined up. They are awesome. So much energy in the schools, so many different kinds of questions, students, teachers, resources, etc. Incredible.
The librarian I visited on Friday let me see some of the assignments her students had to complete -- with her assistance. Here are some of the questions that I will work into future reference assignments:
1. A student from the local vocational technical high school comes to see you one afternoon at the public library. For a health class, she has to find information on a career she would like to investigate. She's thinking about being an EMT or an emergency room nurse. She doesn't have a computer at home, she says, and she doesn't use them much at school. How can you help her?
2. You are the high school librarian and a social studies teacher has asked her students write a 1-2 page paper on a country of their choice. The assignment handout says they have to cover the following areas: population, religions, weather, customs, currency, education, life expectancy, imports & exports, industries, brief history and a map. That's a lot! The students will be in the library for 3 days to study this; what resources would you make available?
3. You are helping student who has to complete four of 10 questions for a Bill of Rights project. He's working on this one and is sitting at the computer looking very perplexed. He needs to “Create a large timeline that illustrates at least 5 of the major Supreme Court cases and their relation to the 4th Amendment.” You can definitely help him - but how?
Phew -- there is a lot to learn. Go school librarians, go!
February 11, 2007
DRM & Music
Some great interviews about music, DRM (Digital Rights Management), and eMusic on FutureTense radio, from American Public Media.
eMusic CEO says music industry should begin killing off digital copy protection schemes, January 17, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "eMusic, the number two digital download service behind Apple's iTunes, recently sold its 100 millionth song.
"eMusic sells songs from smaller labels and independent artists, and unlike iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody, the songs are MP3 files with no copy restrictions. You can play them anywhere and make as many copies as you like.
"eMusic President and CEO David Pakman says the lack of "digital rights management" is a big reason for eMusic's success." (there's also a longer mp3 interview with Mr. Pakman at the web site, which is worth a listen if you like eMusic or iTunes, or care about DRM issues ...)
and
Is digital music copy protection on the way out?, January 19, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "Ever since major record labels started selling downloadable music, they've built restrictions into the songs. This is called, perhaps euphemistically, digital rights management, or DRM. These restrictions prevent customers from making backup copies or playing them on different devices. A song from Apple's iTunes, for example, won't play on any portable device but an Apple iPod.
"Digital music journalist and blogger Eliot Van Buskirk sees signs record labels are beginning to see the downside of customer-unfriendly DRM, and may soon begin selling more music in the unprotected MP3 format.
"Van Buskirk, who writes for Wired News, says Amazon.com's expected entry into MP3 music is one sign of the changes to come."
and
Neighborhood record store invades iTunes' turf, January 23, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "When a record store called Other Music hit the scene 11 years ago in New York's East Village, it chose as its location a little spot across the street from then-powerhouse Tower Records. The Tower chain of stores is gone, a victim of the downturn in the music industry. Now, Other Music plans to open a digital music store where it will sell songs in the MP3 format, without copy restrictions.
"Other Music co-owner Josh Madell says iTunes dominates the digital music space, but there's room for other players.
"Other Music's digital songs will sell for 10 to 15 percent more than iTunes, according to Madell." See the OtherMusic web site for info. about their digital download program...
eMusic CEO says music industry should begin killing off digital copy protection schemes, January 17, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "eMusic, the number two digital download service behind Apple's iTunes, recently sold its 100 millionth song.
"eMusic sells songs from smaller labels and independent artists, and unlike iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody, the songs are MP3 files with no copy restrictions. You can play them anywhere and make as many copies as you like.
"eMusic President and CEO David Pakman says the lack of "digital rights management" is a big reason for eMusic's success." (there's also a longer mp3 interview with Mr. Pakman at the web site, which is worth a listen if you like eMusic or iTunes, or care about DRM issues ...)
and
Is digital music copy protection on the way out?, January 19, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "Ever since major record labels started selling downloadable music, they've built restrictions into the songs. This is called, perhaps euphemistically, digital rights management, or DRM. These restrictions prevent customers from making backup copies or playing them on different devices. A song from Apple's iTunes, for example, won't play on any portable device but an Apple iPod.
"Digital music journalist and blogger Eliot Van Buskirk sees signs record labels are beginning to see the downside of customer-unfriendly DRM, and may soon begin selling more music in the unprotected MP3 format.
"Van Buskirk, who writes for Wired News, says Amazon.com's expected entry into MP3 music is one sign of the changes to come."
and
Neighborhood record store invades iTunes' turf, January 23, 2007
Description from the Future Tense web site: "When a record store called Other Music hit the scene 11 years ago in New York's East Village, it chose as its location a little spot across the street from then-powerhouse Tower Records. The Tower chain of stores is gone, a victim of the downturn in the music industry. Now, Other Music plans to open a digital music store where it will sell songs in the MP3 format, without copy restrictions.
"Other Music co-owner Josh Madell says iTunes dominates the digital music space, but there's room for other players.
"Other Music's digital songs will sell for 10 to 15 percent more than iTunes, according to Madell." See the OtherMusic web site for info. about their digital download program...
February 10, 2007
More from Daniel Levitin
Daniel Levitin, neuroscientist at McGill University and professional musician, has been in the (science) news a lot lately. He just published This is your brain on music : the science of a human obsession, the New York Times wrote about him a few weeks ago (cogsci blogged; abridged article at the Toronto Star), a colleague just commented about his book on this blog ...
... and I've just heard him on two different podcasts.
WNYC's Soundcheck interviewed him on Dec. 27, 2006 in a show called Music on the Brain, and the News Hour reported on him on Feb. 5, 2007 in Music Illuminates Brain Function. Since we're talking about musical cognition, it's nice to hear these shows, as you can better understand what Levitin is talking about.
Both podcasts and the New York Times article talk about Levitin's ongoing research into our emotional responses to music. Quoting from the Times: "In April (2006) he took participants in a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert -- the conductor Keith Lockhart, five of the musicians and 15 audience members -- and wired them with sensors to measure their state of arousal, including heart rate, body movements and muscle tension." Levitin argues that we have a "music instinct", that "... music is an evolutionary adaptation: something that men developed as a way to demonstrate reproductive fitness. ... 'Music has got to be useful for survival, or we would have gotten rid of it years ago,' he said" (in the Times). Steven Pinker disagrees.
Either way, this is interesting research. Hear about it or read about it, but if you like music and / or the brain, pay attention.
Toyota on Emotional Design
(sort of)
Interesting read from the TED Blog about a Toyota Camry that's going to be racing in NASCAR: TED Blog: And in walked emotion. They're surprised, as am I, to be writing about NASCAR, but it's an interesting marketing strategy on Toyota's part.
From TED:
"Of course, the Camry racing in NASCAR isn't the Toyota you and I can buy -- it's a pure race car with a motor that you can't get feeding power to the rear wheels. So it's more of a Toyota "Camry", but it looks the part, and it gives current and soon-to-be Toyota fans something to hoot and holler about in an irrational kind of way. ...
"Racing in NASCAR is part of of a larger trend of emotional design sweeping the entire Toyota-Lexus-Scion range."
The blog entry also points to some exciting new Toyota products -- especially surprising when the words "Toyota" + "exciting" weren't used in the same sentence before. My former Camry was called the "mom car" (and I'm not a mom!); the newer Honda Accord is, frankly, a little more exciting. Maybe my next car will be an exciting Camry!
February 04, 2007
Hindering Tech-savvy Users
Guy Kawasaki’s blog, How to Change the World: A practical blog for impractical people, lists The Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption.
His comments are aimed at commercial web sites, but many are valid for libraries and our vendors as well. They’re mostly things that would annoy tech-savvy users / customers, but we in libraries don’t want to alienate our tech-savvy patrons, do we?
These include:
Also check out the lengthy comments from other readers of Guy’s post; there are even more good pet peeves!)
His comments are aimed at commercial web sites, but many are valid for libraries and our vendors as well. They’re mostly things that would annoy tech-savvy users / customers, but we in libraries don’t want to alienate our tech-savvy patrons, do we?
These include:
- Long URLs (LexisNexis? Hello?)
- Windows that don’t generate URLs (I’m looking at you, SFX)
- Lack of feeds and email lists (RSS feeds for new books & other new library resources?)
- User names cannot contain the @ character (or, in the case of Scopus / Elsevier, THEY generate the user names – who can remember stephaniebrown18? Who wants to?)
- Supporting only Windows Internet Explorer (‘nuff said)
Also check out the lengthy comments from other readers of Guy’s post; there are even more good pet peeves!)
Science (Fact) Writing
John the Science Librarian just blogged Cognitive Daily: How to report scientific research to a general audience in his entry called Writing about science.
Since I have some time on my hands (not teaching this semester, gasp!), I've been reading a lot of popular science, so this topic is especially relevant. I've been thinking about what makes a science article (either spoken or written) that I like to read. I am rather fussy. You can tell some of my favorite sources for science writing:
- The New Yorker.
- The New York Times Science News (especially their weekly Science Times podcast!)
- Wired -- their in-depth articles rival anything in the New Yorker.
- Australia's radio program All In The Mind
- Harvard Medical School's fall lecture series Science in the News (a wee bit uneven, but the writing is properly geared to a mass audience -- science + clear).
- and a new old favorite - MIT's Technology Review
Strangely, I never warmed to Scientific American or their Sci Am Mind spin-off. I like my science more techie and/or more cognitive. I sometimes enjoy New Scientist, but I don't read it regularly.
Read the Cognitive Daily article's detailed suggestions for good science writing, or check out the Confessions of a Science Librarian blog for the summary.
(thanks, Emily!)
Since I have some time on my hands (not teaching this semester, gasp!), I've been reading a lot of popular science, so this topic is especially relevant. I've been thinking about what makes a science article (either spoken or written) that I like to read. I am rather fussy. You can tell some of my favorite sources for science writing:
- The New Yorker.
- The New York Times Science News (especially their weekly Science Times podcast!)
- Wired -- their in-depth articles rival anything in the New Yorker.
- Australia's radio program All In The Mind
- Harvard Medical School's fall lecture series Science in the News (a wee bit uneven, but the writing is properly geared to a mass audience -- science + clear).
- and a new old favorite - MIT's Technology Review
Strangely, I never warmed to Scientific American or their Sci Am Mind spin-off. I like my science more techie and/or more cognitive. I sometimes enjoy New Scientist, but I don't read it regularly.
Read the Cognitive Daily article's detailed suggestions for good science writing, or check out the Confessions of a Science Librarian blog for the summary.
(thanks, Emily!)
Baby Cognition
I'm finally getting around to reading a New Yorker article I'd clipped back in September:
THE BABY LAB. By: Talbot, Margaret. New Yorker, 9/4/2006, Vol. 82 Issue 27, p90-101. Online at the New America Foundation.
It's an investigation into Elizabeth Spelke's work at Harvard's Laboratory for Developmental Studies. The New Yorker does a good job summarizing the article:
"Margaret Talbot reports on the influential research of Elizabeth Spelke, a fifty-seven-year old cognitive psychologist who, over the past three decades, “has created a series of ingenious studies that have given us a picture of the baby mind which is far different from the long-standing view of it” (“The Baby Lab,” p. 90). Talbot writes that Spelke’s “signature idea,” which overturned many standard psychological precepts, is that “babies come into the world mentally equipped with certain basic systems for ordering it.” Karen Wynn, an infant-cognition researcher at Yale, says, “Spelke has done more to shape our understanding of how the human mind initially grasps the world than anyone else.” Talbot writes, “Spelke’s findings about how babies perceive objects—as solid and continuous, and perduring even when you don’t see them—have been widely replicated and are now firmly established in the infant-studies curricula. But her more ambitious theories of ‘core knowledge’ have their critics.” One of her most contentious ideas is her conviction that boys and girls are born with essentially the same cognitive tools. “We have a tendency, when we think intuitively about ourselves and other people, to greatly overemphasize differences,” Spelke says. “We think that differences we can see on the surface signal some deeper, underlying difference, and I think this is almost always an illusion.” "
If you're interested in infant cognition, or how scientists create experiments to test things -- especially in infants & toddlers -- this is a great read.
THE BABY LAB. By: Talbot, Margaret. New Yorker, 9/4/2006, Vol. 82 Issue 27, p90-101. Online at the New America Foundation.
It's an investigation into Elizabeth Spelke's work at Harvard's Laboratory for Developmental Studies. The New Yorker does a good job summarizing the article:
"Margaret Talbot reports on the influential research of Elizabeth Spelke, a fifty-seven-year old cognitive psychologist who, over the past three decades, “has created a series of ingenious studies that have given us a picture of the baby mind which is far different from the long-standing view of it” (“The Baby Lab,” p. 90). Talbot writes that Spelke’s “signature idea,” which overturned many standard psychological precepts, is that “babies come into the world mentally equipped with certain basic systems for ordering it.” Karen Wynn, an infant-cognition researcher at Yale, says, “Spelke has done more to shape our understanding of how the human mind initially grasps the world than anyone else.” Talbot writes, “Spelke’s findings about how babies perceive objects—as solid and continuous, and perduring even when you don’t see them—have been widely replicated and are now firmly established in the infant-studies curricula. But her more ambitious theories of ‘core knowledge’ have their critics.” One of her most contentious ideas is her conviction that boys and girls are born with essentially the same cognitive tools. “We have a tendency, when we think intuitively about ourselves and other people, to greatly overemphasize differences,” Spelke says. “We think that differences we can see on the surface signal some deeper, underlying difference, and I think this is almost always an illusion.” "
If you're interested in infant cognition, or how scientists create experiments to test things -- especially in infants & toddlers -- this is a great read.
February 02, 2007
Consciousness hits the big Time
A former Hampshire colleague points me to the Jan. 19, 2007 of Time magazine, whose big story is The Mystery of Consciousness. It includes the cover article by Steven Pinker, in which he defines (in layman's terms) the Easy Problem & the Hard Problem:
"The Easy Problem ... is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain and explain why it evolved." (which can likely be done with existing technology)
"The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head--why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things and inspire us to say, "That's green" (the Easy Problem), but it also actually looks green: it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. ...
"To appreciate the hardness of the hard problem, consider how you could ever know whether you see colors the same way that I do. Sure, you and I both call grass green, but perhaps you see grass as having the color that I would describe, if I were in your shoes, as purple. Or ponder whether there could be a true zombie--a being who acts just like you or me but in whom there is no self actually feeling anything."
- A Clever Robot, Dan Dennett's response to Pinker -- they disagree on whether the Hard Problem exists.
- How The Brain Rewires Itself, in which Sharon Begley explains neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone's experiments with real and imaginary piano players. Turns out that the brains of those subjects who actually practiced the piano for 2 hours at a time and those who simply thought about practicing were expanded in similar ways.
- a short history of Understanding The Brain via various aspects of brain science, including ancient beliefs, psychology, anatomy, and neuroscience.
Plus a short definition of various aspects of consciousness by scientists such as Michael Gazzaniga, Antonio Damasio, and Bernard Baars, as well as some additional graphics and videos. It's a good introduction to consciousness and some other aspects of cognitive science.
"The Easy Problem ... is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain and explain why it evolved." (which can likely be done with existing technology)
"The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head--why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things and inspire us to say, "That's green" (the Easy Problem), but it also actually looks green: it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. ...
"To appreciate the hardness of the hard problem, consider how you could ever know whether you see colors the same way that I do. Sure, you and I both call grass green, but perhaps you see grass as having the color that I would describe, if I were in your shoes, as purple. Or ponder whether there could be a true zombie--a being who acts just like you or me but in whom there is no self actually feeling anything."
- A Clever Robot, Dan Dennett's response to Pinker -- they disagree on whether the Hard Problem exists.
- How The Brain Rewires Itself, in which Sharon Begley explains neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone's experiments with real and imaginary piano players. Turns out that the brains of those subjects who actually practiced the piano for 2 hours at a time and those who simply thought about practicing were expanded in similar ways.
- a short history of Understanding The Brain via various aspects of brain science, including ancient beliefs, psychology, anatomy, and neuroscience.
Plus a short definition of various aspects of consciousness by scientists such as Michael Gazzaniga, Antonio Damasio, and Bernard Baars, as well as some additional graphics and videos. It's a good introduction to consciousness and some other aspects of cognitive science.
More Football
Dark Days Follow Hard-Hitting Career in N.F.L.
By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: February 2, 2007
Former New England Patriot Ted Johnson has symptoms comparable to early Alzheimer's -- as did Andre Waters, whom I blogged about earlier.
This article has a nifty graphic on concussions. Apparently Johnson had several "dings" or mini-concussions shortly after a major one, which he & some doctors feel are leading to his depression and other cognitive problems.
Food for thought this Superbowl weekend.
By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: February 2, 2007
Former New England Patriot Ted Johnson has symptoms comparable to early Alzheimer's -- as did Andre Waters, whom I blogged about earlier.
This article has a nifty graphic on concussions. Apparently Johnson had several "dings" or mini-concussions shortly after a major one, which he & some doctors feel are leading to his depression and other cognitive problems.
Food for thought this Superbowl weekend.
New on Libraries 4 Friends
More Reading Ideas in which I tell Friend about Literature Resource Center and Books in Print's *awesome* Fiction Connection readers advisory tool. Friend is a big library user -- for taking out books 'n stuff.
He asked me if there was a web resource like allmusic does for music?
"Of course there is!" I replied.
After I emailed him my thoughts on finding authors to read in a certain genre, he wrote back and said that he'd seen that page but never imagined the riches that lay beneath.
Come on library people, what are we going to do about that?!
He asked me if there was a web resource like allmusic does for music?
"Of course there is!" I replied.
After I emailed him my thoughts on finding authors to read in a certain genre, he wrote back and said that he'd seen that page but never imagined the riches that lay beneath.
Come on library people, what are we going to do about that?!
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