After that last rant, and upon investigating some engines, I must say the grace of the net is in the spider. I have learned how it creeps, how it crawls, how it enthralls us all. I wake from sleep (yes, often, it's true) to find the nearest pc to search for some gooooooooo

"Hands-off" my partner will say "so I can have some time today" but my hands stay on, and on they will go, like the goooooogle search I do, Oh my and Oh no!

The joy here is great. To find anything you want is good. Sure (a nod to the current project) SOME extra tools, bells and whistles might be good, but like the good ol' card catalog, once you have found it, read it. Too much of this new stuff is just computer geeks taking over. They want to give you a new tool before the old is worn out. (much like we do with furniture here at
Becker)

I am in favor of the spider that crawls in my goooooooo


ANTI-THIS

O.K.-- Her' goes again. I'd really like to get on the bandwagon. I'd really like to 'drink the coolaid' and say that a completely protean library is the best thing for our (what, 'users' , or patrons, or 1980's 'customers' ) but I really don't think so. Does this blackball me? Am I alone? No. There are all of the others who would have come to the library who won't....just because of this (somewhat offputting to anyone born after 1975) technology. Where is the :book: in all of this?? Don't give me the 'we're saving trees' crud.....use of the library before computers compared to now has demonstrably increased the felling of trees. The coal industry alone should kiss all the libraries' asses for the WASTEFUL technology herein touted. End of rant.

I remain yours,

forever anti-this

Hello-

I am anti-this. This is my name. But it is also my creed. Why? A perfect example is this next asssignment; facebook. We are a library. I spent a while on this, and clicked all around. I HAD to sign up, and then looked around. There were lots of people. Lots of girls looking for guys, guys looking for girls, (guys looking for guys) but no libray stuff. I think we don't need this. I am anti-this (myspace) at least for us.

jdbiii

Hello-

Anti-this here again to post so that I can SAY THAT I have posted. Here is an image. http://www.flickr.com/photos/openair/1804743937/

I was talking to a person, here beside me, the way one is SUPPOSED TO communicate, and he was saying how this image is nice, C+, but he could do without the birds. I went to another image, of a beach, and it had birds, and he didn't like that either-- mainly 'cause of the birds!! I like the birds here in this image. I am a photographer myself, and fell that they give you a needed sense of space in this already dreamy image. I also really think most color photos you see are not art; just snapshots. If the image is important, for me, it is in B/W.

I found a 'mash-up' that I like....I found it by looking in FLICKR BITS, which sounds dirty to me. Anyway...http://www.searchcrystal.com/home.html
Here is a great thing. You can search far and wide and get images and more and you can see them in various arrangements. Similar to how Clusty does it's thing. You can just get news, or pics, or just the web. (Again..I don't think we need another gooogle....but ...) Well, this has the idea of HOW the info is presented. And it's new. To me, at least. (that'll wear-off)

http://www.letterjames.com/start.php?mod=image-personalization

This is kinda neat. You can put a message on an egg. A golden egg. This is good....

I am sorry. I can not seem to get the image of the states I have been to to copy here. (Of course I would consider this a fault of the program)

So, then, so you know where I'm comin' from... here's a photo of my main communication device.
http://www.vintagephone.com/HB/AE40.jpg

well, untill next time,

JDBIII

Hello-

I am still 'anti-this'.... come and read about my (mandatory) experiences in the blog-o-sphere this early spring. I have completed 'things' #7-9 and have a few comments.

First, isn't this a nice color? I was looking for blue-green. I like slanty type, as well. I think (along the lines of my creed, remember...) that the experience is JUST AS IMPORTANT as the knowledge gained. I mean to say that the green lettering, and 'slanty' font... this is, too, a reason to read. Not only the content, or the speed at which it can be delivered. So all this "ease" that these things we are doing here are created to give us; all this "ease" is really not an improvement over going to a BOOK and opening it, and (oh my) smelling it, and experiencing the thing as a thing, and also getting the info. You can enjoy your trip to the book, from the book, and sitting down and opening the book. Speed is over-rated. Anyway...moving-on.
Check-out my Library thing site. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jdbiii
I have added my best books, and, in line with my theme, some things which you might not have seen, here, at Becker, right under your nose. This site is cool. I can totally see why we should be knowing of its existence. But do we need it??? Should we incorporate it?? I think BACS is good. I even have been trying to put BACS records on the library thing....but can't figure out how. If we can't at least do that, then the world cat and pub-med are fine, and any more complication is not good. I must admit to not knowing all that this thing can do.....

On to the blogs. I can see the use for news feeds...I have no use for the blogs. If I wanted to search blogs (WEB LOGS!!!!!! why this penchant for shortening everything??? why must we speed to our death??? can't we smell the books along the way???) If I wanted to search 'web logs" I could use google...right? I mean, I have not tried to see if there was a better way, google ofr 'technorati,' but...well...let me explain....if you are still with me at this depth in the above, please continue... let me explain where I'm coming from-- http://www.vintagephone.com/HB/AE40.jpg
Here is my telephone at home. (hope photo shows...) It is an AE 40 vintage rotary...and it is heavy and I don't talk to persons on it for more than a few minutes, if I can help it. So, I am not going to chat on-line if I'm not chatting on the phone. I see no real need for cell-phones, and besides, they cause cancer. (multiple sources in OUR library can be culled to support this) Not chatting on-line is the same as not blogging---- in fact, if I can't see you, we are not meeting at all. We have auras, yes, AURAS around us and they evelope the other people when we meet. BUT NOT ON THE PHONE, CERTAINLY NOT ON-LINE.
That said, I must now admit to using the newsfeed. The RSS idea for this end-point is actually a good idea--IF THE TITLE CAPTIONS ARE WRITTEN WELL.... the news stories sometimes need to be seen in the context of the website they come from, if we are to make an educated decision as to whether we read that story. Speed, again, is not the best friend of the one searching for truth..........

anti-this (jdbiii)

THIS WEEK'S POST

HELLO, ANTI-THIS HERE, TO POST AGAIN (AS INSTRUCTED...) ABOUT THINGS #5 & #6. I KNEW BILLY K., HERE AT BECKER, AND HE WAS THE FIRST TO 'ENLIGHTEN' ME TO THE DEL.ICIO.US WORLD. I ONLY USE IT AS A BOOKMARK BECAUSE WE SOMETIMES HAVE OUR COMPUTERS REMOVED WITHOUT WARNING, FOR 'PROGRESS' AND THIS IS NOT COOL...SO HE TOLD ME OF THIS OPTION. THANKS BILLY. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH DEL.ICIO.US, BECAUSE OF THIS USE. IF I WERE TO NEED TAGS, I WOULD HAVE TO LEARN THAT. SEARCHING OTHERS' LISTS COULD BE COOL...BUT THE SEARCH METHOD...THAT IS THE THING...IF IT IS MORE COMFORTABLE THAN BROWSING I WILL USE IT, IF NOT I WILL JUST BROWSE. SOMETIMES I TAKE A BOOK (REMEMBER THOSE?) AND JUST FLIP THROUGH IT. THIS METHOD IS MAGICAL, AND OFTEN YIELDS EXCELLENT RESULTS.

NOW ON TO THIS TECHNO TAG CREATOR....IF I HAD TO USE THIS I WOULD BE UPSET...AS IT IS I AM CONFUSED...THERE SEEMS TO BE A WHOLE VOCABULARY (POSSIBLY OF WORDS WE DON'T NEED BECAUSE OF WORDS WE ALREADY HAVE, BUT) A NEW VOCAB TO PICK-UP. IT MAKES ME FEEL THE WAY I DO WHEN PEOPLE USE EMOTICONS...WHICH IS RATHER TACKY ANYWAY. ANY GROUP WHO HAS TO HAZE NEW MEMBERS AT THE OUTSET IS NOT ONE I WANT TO BELONG TO. THE SEARCHING TAGS THING IS THE ONLY GOLD HERE....AS WITH THE WEB IN GENERAL, IT'S VIRTUE IS IT'S POWER...IT'S POWER TO LOOK THROUGH SO MUCH. I LOVE GOOOOOGLE. IF YOU GET A CHANCE

TRY CLUSTY AS WELL. A GATHERED SEARCH. THIS IS WHAT I HAD HOPED TAGS WOULD BE. I BROWSE. I JUST NEED A CLEAR FIELD TO BROWSE OVER. IF THERE ARE TOO MANY BELLS AND SECRET TOOLS I HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT, I DON'T CARE, I'LL GO READ AN INDEX TO SOMETHING ON THE SUBJECT. STREAMLINING MEANS SIMPLIFICATION. I HOPE THE 'LIBRARY TAGGER' THING IS STREAMLINED AND USEFUL, OHERWISE WHAT'S THE POINT?


LIBRARY TIP: DON'T DRINK THE WATER FROM OUR PIPES....USE THE FOUNTAIN IN THE HALL, BY THAT COOL 1950'S LIGHT SCULPTURE. I'LL BET FEW HAVE NOTICED IT, MUCH LESS THE FOUL WATER IN OUR BUILDING.


I REMAIN JDBIII

Hello, this is my "web-log." I am doing this mainly because I have to, for work. Hereafter, therefore, I will remain 'anti-this', the web-logger from beyond. Here are some interesting ideas along these lines. First is a book from an author who appeared on the Daily Show- Lee Siegel

http://www.amazon.com/Against-Machine-Being-Human-Electronic/dp/0385522657/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204076332&sr=1-1

In it he speaks of the separation this medium brings-- not the connectivity. Now, I don't want to bring the ire of anyone reading this, for fear of being labelled negative, or something. However, as I say, I am 'anti-this', my clarion call, my mantra. Here is a quote from Siegel:
As with the car, criticism of the Internet’s shortcomings, risks, and perils has been silenced, or ignored, or stigmatized as an expression of those two great American taboos, negativity and fear of change. As with the car, a rhetoric of freedom, democracy, choice, and access has covered up the greed and blind self-interest that lie behind what much of the Internet has developed into today. (end of quote) So, I am sure there are those who would label me as 'negative' and 'afraid of change' because of this slant I am taking.

another quote-- the “surreal world of Web 2.0, where the rhetoric of democracy, freedom and access is often a fig leaf for antidemocratic and coercive rhetoric; where commercial ambitions dress up in the sheep’s clothing of humanistic values; and where, ironically, technology has turned back the clock from disinterested enjoyment of high and popular art to a primitive culture of crude, grasping self-interest.”

Along these lines, another neo-luddite, whom I read about, Sven Birkerts:From the threshold, I think, we need to distinguish between kinds of knowledge and kinds of study. Pertinent here is German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey's distinction between the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften), which seek to explain physical events by subsuming them under causal laws, and the so-called sciences of culture (Geisteswissenschaften), which can only understand events in terms of the intentions and meanings that individuals attach to them.
To the former, it would seem, belong the areas of study more hospitable to the new video and computer procedures. Expanded databases and interactive programs can be viewed as tools, pure and simple. They give access to more information, foster cross-referentiality, and by reducing time and labor allow for greater focus on the essentials of a problem. Indeed, any discipline where knowledge is sought for its application rather than for itself could only profit from the implementation of these technologies. To the natural sciences one might add the fields of language study and law.
But there is a danger with these sexy new options–and the rapture with which believers speak warrants the adjective–that we will simply assume that their uses and potentials extend across the educational spectrum into realms where different kinds of knowledge, and hence learning, are at issue. The realms, that is, of Geisteswissenschaften, which have at their center the humanities.
In the humanities, knowledge is a means, yes, but it is a means less to instrumental application than to something more nebulous: understanding. We study history or literature or classics in order to compose and refine a narrative, or a set of narratives about what the human world used to be like, about how the world came to be as it is, and about what we have been–and are–like as psychological or spiritual creatures. The data–the facts, connections, the texts themselves–matter insofar as they help us to deepen and extend that narrative. In these disciplines the process of study may be as vital to the understanding as are the materials studied.
Given the great excitement generated by Perseus, it is easy to imagine that in the near future a whole range of innovative electronic-based learning packages will be available and, in many places, in use. These will surely include the manifold variations on the electronic book. Special new software texts are already being developed to bring us into the world of, say, Shakespeare, not only glossing the literature, but bathing the user in multimedia supplements. The would-be historian will step into an environment rich in choices, be they visual detailing, explanatory graphs, or suggested connections and sideroads. And so on. Moreover, once the price is right, who will be the curmudgeons who would deny their students access to the state-of-the-art?
Being a curmudgeon is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Someone has to hoist the warning flags and raise some issues that the fast-track proselytizers might overlook. (end quote)

Note in that the point that this is a good medium for the sciences, not the humanities. On that note, I announce the purpose of this 'web-log.' I will uncover and point out 'neat' little things some may have not noted about this work-place-- from old cool books to small neat things. No more of the above, BUT REMEMBER WHERE i'M COMIN'FROM...

ANTI-THIS