DAN HICKEY
Hi! I'm Dan, a Penn State librarian. I have avid interests in libraries, museums, small businesses, art, music, bicycle activism, environmentalism, and social justice.
About Dan
Research & Publications
Contact & Office Hours
Archive
RSS feed
Theme by Stijn
June 1st
10:14 AM
13 notes

Every once in a while I’ll end up in a conversation where - Eureka! - I know that a digital library has an illustrative photo of what we’re talking about. Last Tuesday it was a conceptual drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright of a mega-structure (never built) for downtown Pittsburgh: the Point Park Civic Center. Here’s a rundown from the University of Pittsburgh’s digital library metadata:

Frank Lloyd Wright Concept for Point State Park

Pictured is a concept drawing of the Point in downtown Pittsburgh by Frank Lloyd Wright. Commissioned by department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Wright designed a circular structure thirteen levels high and one-fifth of a mile in diameter, with a spiral auto ramp four and a half miles long. This plan was never approved, however Wright’s idea for a fountain at the Point and for twin bridges crossing the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers were adopted.

One of my big issues with digital libraries (and libraries more generally) is that content is often locked within our resources. Repositories and websites haven’t been designed with search engine optimization in mind, so you’ll never find this image (for example), unless a librarian (me) shows you the exact portal in which to search.

Encouraging access to digital collections is a no-brainer, and for my part I think internet discovery should be a primary focus of library efforts.

Image details via Pitt’s Digital Library and copyright Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania.

#Allegheny      #FLW      #Frank Lloyd Wright      #Kaufmann      #Monongahela      #Point State Park      #golden triangle      #pittsburgh      #access      #search engine optimization      #pitt      #university of pittsburgh      #library      #digital library      #Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania      #Point Park Civic Center     
May 29th
7:16 AM
1 note
"There is something vaguely dystopian about oppressed peoples in Syria or Iran seeking dignity and liberation inside a corporate sovereign [Facebook] that is, for its part, creating great wealth for its founders and asserting control over its users."
—  Steve Coll, “Why I’m Leaving Facebook” at The New Yorker
#Facebook      #control      #corportations      #democracy      #freedom      #iran      #liberty      #new yorker      #steve coll      #syria      #the new yorker      #why i'm leaving facebook      #dystopia     
May 26th
9:42 AM
0 notes
Did you hear that the University of Missouri’s University Press will be phased out this July? The Chronicle of Higher Education says that “Such announcements about other university presses have often spurred protests and attempts to save them, but so far at least, the news about the Missouri press has been greeted quietly.” I know that this is a strategic move by the University, but I can’t help but feel that it’s a misstep. In the current publishing environment, retaining and growing university presses is more important than ever for scholarly communication. How long can universities afford to generate research, give it away to academic publishers for free, and then buy it back via library subscriptions? University presses must take an active role in capturing and disseminating the “high stakes” scholarly output that gets faculty members tenure. Possible alternatives to shuttering a university press: Collapse it into the library, effectively changing the leadership of the press and sparking engagement/change. Liaison librarians can serve as vital conduits, funneling book and journal publishing opportunities from the faculty they serve to the press. (Penn State’s University Press reports to the Dean of the Libraries, for example.) Create a publishing collective within the primary consortium to which a university press belongs, salvaging the best parts of the failing press and letting old inefficiencies fall away. Although this is the harder of the two options, I think this kind of centralization would pay off in spades. Think if we had a CIC press, an Ivy press, &tc. They could rival Elsevier! Quote via The Chronicle, screenshot of Mizzou Press website.

Did you hear that the University of Missouri’s University Press will be phased out this July? The Chronicle of Higher Education says that “Such announcements about other university presses have often spurred protests and attempts to save them, but so far at least, the news about the Missouri press has been greeted quietly.”

I know that this is a strategic move by the University, but I can’t help but feel that it’s a misstep. In the current publishing environment, retaining and growing university presses is more important than ever for scholarly communication. How long can universities afford to generate research, give it away to academic publishers for free, and then buy it back via library subscriptions? University presses must take an active role in capturing and disseminating the “high stakes” scholarly output that gets faculty members tenure.

Possible alternatives to shuttering a university press:

  • Collapse it into the library, effectively changing the leadership of the press and sparking engagement/change. Liaison librarians can serve as vital conduits, funneling book and journal publishing opportunities from the faculty they serve to the press. (Penn State’s University Press reports to the Dean of the Libraries, for example.)
  • Create a publishing collective within the primary consortium to which a university press belongs, salvaging the best parts of the failing press and letting old inefficiencies fall away. Although this is the harder of the two options, I think this kind of centralization would pay off in spades. Think if we had a CIC press, an Ivy press, &tc. They could rival Elsevier!

Quote via The Chronicle, screenshot of Mizzou Press website.

#university of missouri      #missouri      #university press      #publishing      #academe      #publisher      #the chronicle of higher education      #chronicle of higher education      #library      #libraries      #scholarly communication      #scholarly publishing      #faculty      #tenure      #promotion and tenure      #librarian      #librarians      #elsevier     
May 8th
11:17 PM
18 notes

Have you seen Tiny Furniture? I’m an avid follower of the Criterion Collection, and was surprised when this contemporary (2010) film by Lena Dunham was selected for the Criterion treatment. I was particularly pleased with the cinematography, framing, and lighting. (Look at that depth of field!) It was funny, too.

I always have an eye peeled for libraries in movies, and Tiny Furniture has some stacks glamor shots that also help inform the secondary character of Frankie: bookish, working towards cool, very Midwest. The last two screenshots relate a common joke about libraries, but I think it also represents the role of a public library in the mind of the community: “library as place”.

An aside: Criterion releases are a great resource for people researching films, as they usually provide an accessible overview of the critical interpretations of landmark films.

Images via the Criterion Collection release of Tiny Furniture.

#Lena Dunham      #Tiny Furniture      #criterion      #criterion collection      #depth of field      #film studies      #libraries      #library      #stacks      #library as place      #library as a place     
May 6th
12:44 PM
2 notes
Source
Via
"We’re flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We’ve tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question."
—  Grace Hopper (From The OCLC Newsletter, March/April, 1987, No. 167 via condensate)
#grace hopper      #information      #intelligence      #knowledge      #computer      #computers