Daily Thoughts 3/10/2011 (The Accidental Taxonomist, The Information)

De zachte uren, Richard Roland Holst, Oil on Eternit, 1911-1912

Daily Thoughts 3/11/2011

I read a little bit of The Information by James Gleick on the way to work.  I also read a bit more of The Accidental Taxonomist.  I am thinking about the idea of ontology which is not something which I have thought about much before.

I updated the Twitter account this morning, did a bit more weeding, picked up a few surveys, and checked the displays.

On the way home, I read some more of The Accidental Taxonomist.  The author was talking about who became a taxonomist.  Almost half of taxonomists come from a library science background.  Others seem to come from programming, publishing, or database backgrounds.  The story seems very similar to the story of content strategy or information architecture where there is a close link to library science.  The list of titles which would include taxonomy includes words like information, information architecture, content, analyst, taxonomist, content strategist, and similar words.

Web Bits

Filter or Be Flooded: Publisher As Curator

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/46359-filter-or-be-flooded-publisher-as-curator.html

Is It Time to Rebuild & Retool Public Libraries and Make “TechShops”?


http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/03/is-it-time-to-rebuild-retool-public-libraries-and-make-techshops.html#

I think it would be very interesting for a library to have ties to a coworking space, tech shop, or fab lab.

Daily Thoughts 3/9/2011 (The Information, The Accidental Taxonomist)

Portrait of Prime Minister Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin. Oil on canvas. 116 × 76 cm. The State Radischev Art Museum, Saratov., 1910

Daily Thoughts 3/9/2011

I read some more of The Information by James Gleick this morning.  I am enjoying reading about the birth of computing and the creation of the electric telegraph.  This book is very much a book about the history of technology.  There are a lot of entertaining anecdotes which make the writing very readable.

The book, The Accidental Taxonomist by Heather Hedden came in for me to read.  Hopefully, I will learn something new from reading this.

Today, I checked the displays and did some weeding in the storage area.  I also took some time to look over the surveys.  There are more print surveys coming in than online surveys.  I also checked on the twitter account.  Things have slowed down a little bit.  Our budget is very tight so that there is not much money for ordering.  It would be nice if people brought in more donations.

I am also hoping that people join our friends group http://www.mountvernonpubliclibrary.org/friends  or donate to the foundation  http://www.mvplfoundation.org/  .  I know times are financially difficult all over for libraries.  This is true not just in the United States but also in the United Kingdom. 

We also opened the computer lab for an hour so people could search for jobs.

On the way home, I read some more of The Information.  I also started reading The Accidental Taxonomist by Heather Hedding.  She has a website tied in with the book: http://www.hedden-information.com/Accidental-Taxonomist-Websites.htm

Web Bits

ROI: The $200 Tablet Computer
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703662804576188901890884360.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Daily Thoughts 3/8/2011 (The Information)

Robert Wilhelm Ekman, Reading woman. 1838

Daily Thoughts 3/8/2011

This morning, I read some more of James Gleick, The Information.  The author is writing about Charles Babbage who designed a mechanical computer that was never produced.  It was a design before its time.

Today has been a quiet day.  I did some weeding in the storage area, checked the displays, updated the Twitter account, and collected some more surveys.  I also checked on the inventorying for items that needed to be discarded.  Things went very smoothly today.  I also did a little preparation for opening the computer lab to help people search for jobs on the internet for an hour.

I read some more of The Information on the way home, James Gleick is writing about Ada Lovelace who is considered the first programmer.  She created programs based on a machine that was not yet even created.  It adds a layer of abstraction to the history of computing.

Daily Thoughts 3/7/2011 (The Information)

Frontispiece of a book by the Austrian mathematician Anton Felkel showing the author reading a book by the mathematician Lambert. Leaning to the table is a set of calculating rulers (used in the "stencil method"). The books in the shelf to the left are general literature, shown disordered; to the rigth are books on mathematics, orderly arranged.

Daily Thoughts 3/7/2011

On the way to work, I read some more of Information.  It is quite entertaining.  The author describes how it is possible to have memorized literature without writing.  The Odyssey by Homer is an example of this.  I also like James Gleick's descriptions of Babylonian mathematics.

This morning, I did some weeding, checked the displays, checked on the status of an art book donation from Distribution to Underserved Communities Libraries Program http://www.ducprogram.org/  We should be getting some books in a short while from them.

I also am working on a flyer for networking organizations and career fairs in Westchester.

On the train home, I read some more of The Information.  James Gleick is wriitng about the first attempts at alphabetization and the first dictionaries.  I am especially fond of the Oxford English Dictionary even though we don't use it that much.

Web Bits

A conversation between Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler on the BBC.  http://www.ducprogram.org/

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

This novel is about artificial intelligence.  The author likes the idea of the Turing test and is describing the process of raising artificial intelligences in this novel.  The story touches on many different issues in artificial intelligence; raising artificial beings, designing different thinking patterns than our own, the rights of intelligent beings, artificial worlds, and the emotional life of machines are some of the topics. 

Some of the content is mature in nature. The author writes about sex with machines and intentional harm to robotic entities.  It is done in a non-sensationalistic way.

The story is very humanistic. The robots are not super intelligent.  They start as humanities pets, toys, and hobbies.  Later as the story develops some take on the role of customer service and simple assembly.

The setting is the homes and labs of the researchers as well as artificial online worlds. The people in the story are working in startups and research institutions.

The novel is illustrated by Christian Pearce and Jacob MacMurray.  These are a few images from Christian Pearce's website:  http://christianpearce.blogspot.com/2010/08/art-for-ted-chiangs-lifecycle-of_05.html

The story is very character driven.  It is a thoughtful novel, not an action novel.  I like that the main human character, Ana joins a startup after her job as an animal raiser at a zoo.  This makes the story intriguing.

If you want a character driven story about artificial intelligence this novel is worth reading.  The feeling of the settings seems very real to me, more so than most science fiction novels I have read. The world is well built.  This is near future science fiction done right.