There are lots of great job opportunities open at the Stanford Libraries right now. For a complete list of openings, go to the Stanford Jobs site and select job category “Library”.
Some highlights:
Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development (Humanities and Social Sciences): The AUL/CD reports to the University Librarian and coordinates with SULAIR’s Assistant and Associate University Librarians, the Director of Academic Computing Services, and other senior staff officers. This is a senior leadership position with general responsibility for the overall success and efficacy of all of SULAIR’s programs over and above the specific administrative and programmatic responsibilities generally defined in this document.
Stanford University Archivist: Reporting to the University Librarian through the Department of Special Collections, and under a mandate of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, the University Archivist is responsible for the formulation, development, and administration of the Stanford University Archives and its program for the collection, preservation, and use of historical archival and manuscript materials, publications, and other documents pertaining to the heritage of the Stanford University community or retained in the University’s interest.
Social Sciences Librarian: Serve as subject specialist for economics and political science, with possible future responsibility for an additional social science, depending on Library needs. Responsibilities include assessment, development, selection and management of research collections and information resources in all formats in support of the research and teaching needs of the relevant academic departments and programs. Serve as primary liaison between SULAIR and the relevant academic departments.
Stanford University has signed an expanded agreement with Google, affirming Stanford’s support for the amended Google Books Search proposed settlement and establishing Stanford as a Fully Participating Library under the terms of the amended settlement agreement.
As noted on the Google Public Policy Blog,
Stanford joins the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Texas, who also expanded their original partnerships with Google.
Some key quotes from the Stanford Report:
“Stanford is on the cutting edge of technology development and is using technology to improve access to information not just for their faculty and students, but for the world,” said Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director.
“Stanford is on the cutting edge of technology development and is using technology to improve access to information not just for their faculty and students, but for the world,” said Dan Clancy, Google Books engineering director.
Provost John Etchemendy signed the agreement for Stanford University. “This agreement is consistent with Stanford’s mission of sharing and disseminating knowledge, and allows us to expand our participation by sharing more works from our library,” Etchemendy said. “We support the efforts to make books more broadly available to the American public and to all of higher education.”
Clearly, a key motivation behind Stanford’s involvement in and support of Google Books is a desire to increase access to our collection beyond the Stanford community.
Nicholas Carr is wrong again (see Google is not making us stupid). In Information wants to be free my ass, Carr argues that all the money we fork out for information services is based on the high value we place on content. No argument from me on that, but Carr seems to be ignoring all kinds of relevant trends towards free services and content: Skype, free WiFi, Open Access movements, etc. Yes, there are counter-trends, as content providers and others are trying to figure out how to cash in on the demand for information. But that doesn’t mean that the basic ideas behind the information wants to be free meme are wrong. It just means that lots of folks want to make money off of information, and that hardly seems like a big revelation. In fact, that is what Stewart Brand said when he first noted that information wants to be free:
On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other. (May 1985, Whole Earth Review, p. 49
But that kind of nuance is not really Carr’s thing.
The first topic of discussion at the ALA Heads of Public Services Discussion Group at the Midwinter conference was: “how many of you have eliminated librarians . . . at the reference desk?” While no one admitted to completely eliminating librarians at the reference desk, there is a definite trend towards using paraprofessionals and/or students to handle front-line reference. Lots of folks talked about this as a resource decision, in the sense that with tighter budgets and leaner staffs, we need to free up librarians (and their salaries) for “higher level” work. No one actually said that we shouldn’t be wasting librarians’ time sitting behind a desk and telling kids where the bathroom is; but that felt like the unspoken sentiment of many in the room.
Later, at dinner with Frye friends, we talked about our experiences with subject librarians who are intimidated at the thought of doing general reference. We all had examples of librarians who are uncomfortable on the reference desk because they think they are not qualified to answer questions outside their areas of expertise.
So which is it? Is reference so easy that we shouldn’t be wasting librarian time on it; or is it so hard that we even our subject librarians don’t feel qualified?
Of course, if our own subject specialists lack confidence in helping students with unfamiliar areas, that may say more about our own organizations than about reference. It seems to me that a subject librarian ought to be able to navigate a decently organized library website well enough to help most patrons find the resources they need in any subject area. If our own librarians are too intimidated to venture outside their area of expertise, imagine how daunting the task must feel for our patrons.
The story of how I ended up downloading and happily reading Lacuna on my iPhone got me thinking anew about the relationship between content and format. When we wonder if print is better than digital, or if a podcast is better than a lecture, we are asking the wrong question. It is more complicated than which is better, and it is more complicated than personal preference. We need to understand how the combination of format and content effect outcomes. Under what conditions is digital delivery of content going to produce better learning outcomes than print? Under what conditions is it more pleasurable to read a book in print than on a Kindle or an iPhone?
I began “reading” Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver as an audiobook. It was perfect for my wife and I to listen to on the way to our honeymoon in Mariposa, and on the daily drives into Yosemite that week. But we got through only a quarter of it, and when we tried listening at home I would get too distracted.
My wife plunged ahead without me, listening to it on her daily commute. I very much wanted to continue reading Lacuna as well, but I bike to work and don’t think I could listen fully and bike safely at the same time (feel free to insert walking and chewing gum joke here).
Yesterday I had 4 unplanned hours to kill in the Dallas airport so I naturally went to the bookstore. I almost bought a print copy, but Lacuna is not out in paperback yet. The hardcover was just too pricey and too unwieldy for travel reading. I’ve also found hardcovers unwieldy for my other usual pleasure reading locations–the bathtub and the bed. So, I resigned myself to waiting for the paperback.
Later, while playing with Duke’s Library app for iPhone, I searched for “Lacuna” and discovered there was a Kindle edition available (loaded on a Kindle available for check out at Duke). I quickly downloaded the Kindle for iPhone app, bought a copy of Lacuna for $9.99, and happily read a few chapters on the plane.
I was surprised at how easy it is to read a novel on the iPhone. I generally hate reading anything more than 2 pages on my laptop, so I didn’t expect to like reading on the iPhone. But size matters — the iPhone is light enough and small enough that it is like a very small paperback. You get about a paragraph per screen, and you turn the page with a flick of the finger.
Now, anytime I have some spare time, I can get back to reading my book, without having to carry a heavy book around. I can read it in bed, and am going to get a waterproof cover so I can read in the bathtub as well. In this case, my goal was portable pleasure reading, and the iPhone works great. I suppose an actual Kindle (or other e-book reader) would work too, but I don’t have one, and don’t really want to have to carry another device around with me. For my purposes, reading Lacuna on the iPhone is a perfect fit.
(Oh, and for those interested, I wrote about 3/4 of this post on my iPhone. I finished it up, edited, and added links on my laptop.)
I’m very excited to be starting the new year in a new job. I accepted a promotion to Assistant University Librarian for Public Services for the Stanford University Libraries. In the words of my boss, University Librarian, Michael Keller, “This is a new position that reflects changes in the practices of libraries in the digital age that are associated with growing emphasis on the services that students and researchers need to negotiate the hybrid library environment.”
Personally, I am anxious to confront the challenges and opportunities of the new position. I’m also particularly pleased that the creation of this position, and the elevation of public services to an AUL-level position at a major research library, signals a renewed emphasis on services. I’ve said before that services are a key element of the future of libraries. Time to make that real.
I did a bit of end of the year cleaning up of the blog today, and updated my blogroll. I deleted some excellent, but rarely updated, blogs (e.g. Au Courant, Hectic Pace), and added blogs that I actually read and share frequently. New blogroll (my reading list) is listed to the right, and below:
* Academic Librarian
* Everybody’s Libraries
* Free Government Information
* Go to Hellman
* hanging together
* Information Center
* Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog
* Scholarly Communications @ Duke
* Seeing the Picture
* Tennant: Digital Libraries
And, of course, I read Boing Boing constantly … but doesn’t everyone?
The Public-Interest Book Search Initiative of the New York Law School has published Objections to the Google Books Settlement and Responses in the Amended Settlement: A Report (PDF):
This report collects information about the objections raised to the original proposed settlement in the Authors Guild v. Google litigation. We identified 76 distinct issues, which we grouped into 11 categories. This report briefly summarizes each issue, provides an illustrative quotation from a filing with the court, and indicates any related changes in the amended settlement.
Issues are categorized into these categories:
- Definitions
- Fairness to Rightsholders
- Fairness to International Rightsholders
- Unclaimed Funds
- Antitrust
- Jurisdiction
- Class Action Procedure
- Institutional Subscription
- Privacy
- Copyright Policy
- Information Policy
The report is a great summary of the variety of objections to the Google Books settlement that have been raised, and how the amended settlement addresses (or doesn’t) each issue. For each issue, the report includes a representative quote from a filing with the court.
My favorite part was learning that Arlo Guthrie has filed an objection.
Facebook launched new Privacy tools and default settings recently, summarized by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman here, and in two posts on the Facebook blog (here and here). There is also an official video tutorial.
One of the new features I like is the ability to customize who sees individual status updates, either by networks, friends lists, or by individual names. For those of us who sometimes want a bit more separation between work and personal, this could come in handy from time to time (e.g. Chris is “working from home this afternoon so she can watch an east coast basketball game with a 4pm (PST) start time”.)
There are some concerns with the new default/recommended privacy settings, which make your updates visible to Everyone, including search engines. Lots of folks have detailed their concerns with the new settings, along with recommendations for maintaining your privacy:
- EFF: Facebook’s New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
- Demand your Dotrights: What Does Facebook’s Privacy Transition Mean for You?
- ACLU of Northern CA: Facebook Privacy in Transition – But Where Is It Heading?
- IT News Today: Facebook Privacy Changes Go Live, Beware Of “Everyone”
The Chronicle Review has another article about how Facebook destroys real friendship. William Deresiewicz argues that Facebook encourages people to broadcast narcissistic minutia to their networks of over 500 faux friends. He provides an interesting treatise on the history of the concept of friendship and intimacy, but precious little data to support his central argument that “If we have 768 “friends,” in what sense do we have any?”
The truth is that most Facebook users have something close to 120 friends (not 500, and not 768). In other words, people’s Facebook networks fall well within Dunbar’s number — which is “a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”
Research also shows that people are real on Facebook.
Finally, the Pew Research Center’s report on Social Isolation and New Technology also contradicts the “faux friends” myth:
This Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey finds that Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported. People’s use of the mobile phone and the internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. And, when we examine people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.
Can we please finally kill this myth?
If you don’t like Facebook (or MySpace, or Twitter, or FriendFeed or whatever), then don’t join. But please stop accusing those of us who do use them of being isolated, narcissistic, and having “faux friends”, because the data show otherwise.
