If you could get one author, dead or alive, to write one more book, who would it be?

How about Jules Verne in the 21st century?

Some of my favorite writers are still cranking out books; Richard Russo, John Irving.

Many authors are so tied to their time period that it's hard to imagine them writing in today's world yet it makes one consider just what makes those classics, well, classic. Is it the time period or is the universal message that permeates through barriers of time?

The work of Charles Dickens is so steeped in the drudge and grim of the Industrial Age it's hard to imagine his work set in any other period and yet these works must speak to the universal human condition of other periods for them to still touch readers.

Mark Twain is another author that seems to reflect a certain time period but doesn't his biting humor and easy memory of childhood stay with current readers? He'd have a lot to say about today's society and politics.

I'd love to hear what authors come to mind for others answering this question.

It's close, but it's the bus stop, not the library. I know, GIS is not perfect but now Google is working on taking the pedestrian photo view of major college campuses so that potential students can take virtual tours before coming for a campus visit. Now instead of the Google street view car, taking street view pictures they will be using a panoramic camera mounted on a bike to take pictures of college campuses, according to HigherEdMorning .

Beware of what you're doing, out there on the diag! It might be caught by the Google bike!

Thanks to Dan Colman, of Open Culture for pointing out the beautiful pictures of bookstores at Mirage Bookmark. Some of these places should be put on your list of 100 places to see before you die. My favorite? El Ateneo, in Buenos Aires. Another great one is the Lello bookstore in Portugal.

All the pictures from the Mirage site were taken from Flickr. It might be worth your while to just do a search on these names within Flickr. I found some amazing images tagged as "El Ateneo."

This same Mirage site also has some images of libraries around the world. Take a look. Somehow I wasn't as impressed.

Steven Johnson, author of the article describes his vision of potential changes to reading and information as a result of e-books and Google. He suggests e-books will bring about a new surge of innovation. People will be carrying their libraries with them wherever they go and will be able to access every word, sentence and paragraph with a search. Citation analysis will be easier, leading researchers to sources previously unknown. The main changes according to this author will be:

* Books will become more ubiquitous
* There will be changes in how we talk about books
* Books will be written differently to take advantage of this new technology
* The economics of books will change

The Ubiquitous Book
By carrying around a Kindle, books will constantly be at our fingertips. Sitting in a doctor's waiting room with nothing to do? Order up a book on your Kindle and start reading. Here an interview of an author promoting what sounds like an interesting book? Order it up on your Kindle and start reading.

The down side to this is that people will be much more impetuous about what they read. They may start reading one book which cites another books so they'll jump to that one. Reading won't be the sequential exercise it has traditionally been.

How We Will Talk About Books
Because people will be able to comment about the texts they read, whole new conversations about books will develop in the future. People will annotate texts on e-readers and talk to other readers from around the globe.

This leads me to wonder about the future of research as it relates to e-books. Even now we can see how blogs have made everyone an "expert." Information is becoming less and less static and harder to cite, since it can be updated and changed without warning. Kindle books don't have page numbers, since pagination can vary, depending on the size of the font you are reading so research citations will have to change. This leads to the third change that Johnson mentioned in his article.

Books Will Be Written Differently
Book content will be written with e-books in mind in the future. It will be shorter and more modular so it can be broken up in chunks and sold like individual songs are currently sold on iTunes.

Changes to the Economics of Books

Perhaps book introductions and first chapters will be offered for free so authors and publishers will make sure these first chapters do a good job of inciting people into wanting to buy the rest of the book. Publishers may become aware of the most popular search terms used to find specific content and liberally sprinkle these terms judiciously into books so they are easier to find.

None of these ideas are particularly new to use involved in the distribution and dissemination of information through libraries but it brings a number of ideas together succinctly. It made me wonder more about the future of research and how much more difficult it may be to follow the trail of thought and knowledge. How will students be able to recognize, let alone stop and think about what is truth? Even now librarians complain about how students use Google and Wikipedia for their research and are clueless about vetted sources. If e-books become sources for conversations about research will students be able to glean a finite message from a source that has no end? Like today's blogosphere, will there be no experts when everyone has the ability to comment on e-research? Will the squeakiest wheel or the person with the most time on their hands become the most prolific e-book commenter and by default also become the "expert?"

Each new technology has had it's own detractors and it's own promoters and yet looking back on the history of other innovations related to information the sky has never fallen and things have worked out. I'm sure e-books and Google will be the same.

(As an aside to the changes in reading, I found this article in the print version of the WSJ and was annoyed that they mentioned the author but did not give his background. Since Steven Johnson is a common name it made it difficult to figure out who this was for sure. All I really had to do was go to the online version of the article which gave some brief background on the author. The print copy neglected to supply this information. So-long newspapers as we used to know them!)

1. Digital Collaborators
2. Ambivalent Networkers
3. Media Movers
4. Roving Nodes
5. Mobile Newbies
6. Desktop Veterans
7. Drifting Surfers
8. Information Encumbered
9. Tech Indifferent
10. Off the Net

Read the full report here or take a quiz and see how you fit in this continuum.

Didn't make the cut as one of this year's Library Movers and Shakers? No problem. Make yourself a Library Shover and Maker winner.

Just go to Steve Lawson's blog and follow the directions he gives and you can post your own Shove and Maker profile and why you're a winner. Check out some of the winners already posted.

We're all winners!

What was the last dinosaur on earth?

How far away is Alpha Centuri?

KGB Knows All

Find out at KGB (Knowledge Generation Bureau) a new texting answer service. You text them a question - their "special agents" give you an answer. Maybe libraries need to spice up our services like this.

1. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
2. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1991)
3. Listening to Prozac, Peter D. Kramer (1993)
4. Thinking in Pictures, Temple Grandin (1995)
5. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
6. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
7. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie (1988)
8. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
9. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (1988)
10. The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, Allen Carr (1985) - Not available from U-M Library
11. A Perfect Spy, John le Carre (1986)
12. What is the What, Dave Eggers (2006) - Not available from U-M Library
13. On Writing, Stephen King (2000) - Not available from U-M Library
14. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1994)
15. The Known World, Edward P. Jones (2003)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling (1998)
17. How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain De Botton (1997)
18. The Bonfire of the Vanitites, Tom Wolfe (1987)
19. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace (1996)
20. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (1984)
21. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
22. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1985)
23. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2005)
24. Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, Lynne Truss (2003)
25. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

Roach, M. (2008). Bonk : the curious coupling of science and sex. New York: W.W. Norton.

Hilarious yet very interesting book about the study of human sex. Makes me want to go back and read her other books: Spook: science tackles the afterlife and Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers. You wouldn't think this topics were entertaining, would you?

Seventy-five short exercises to get you thinking outside the box.

Another book on creative thinking. I thought the ideas in here might be useful for coming up with some active learning library instruction sessions as ways for students to think outside the box.

I'm always interested in the idea of interdisciplinary research and how libraries can develop models for helping with that.

This one's more the opposite of the previous book. It talks about research within specific disciplines.

Books are not necessarily the best place for learning about cutting edge ideas for librarians now that we have the blogosphere but I thought I would see what was being published. This one seems pretty dated already...

I'm updating the ACRL Women's Studies Section for a core list of books on Women and the Middle East. Want to see what's been published in the subject area recently.

Who could resist the title of this book staring at you from the bookshelf? I was looking for another book on decision making but this one called to me.

Just read an interesting article on journalism and information overload (see previous post) and this was one of the books mentioned by the author.

Hmmm, maybe it's time to return this book. I doubt I'll finish it.

Getting back into genealogy and family history so there are a few books I've checked out related to that.

Interdisciplinarity goes along with the idea that everything is miscellaneous. I want to work on figuring out how to destroy the information silos libraries have created.

Here's another book that was mentioned in the article I previously blogged about. Can't you relate to this title?

Another one of those books on "emerging technology" in libraries. I want to experiement with podcasting and Camtasia tutorials so I was looking for some assistance from those that have done it. Again, blogs would probably be the better source here.

A classic on information literacy. Maybe I should buy this instead of checking it out.

Here's another book I'm considering for the core book list.

Another for the genealogy hobby. Probably should get this one back as it's pretty basic.

Yes, there is some reading for pleasure involved in this list.

Looks like an interesting take on the future. I especially like the guides he has on the book's website. I'm a little startled that he has libraries on his list of things that are going to be extinct. He estimates that will happen around 2018, right in there with free parking and size 0. Take heart, he also suggests that Google will become extinct by 2048.

This was the book I was trying to find when I also saw Why choose this book?: how we make decisions. It was also mentioned in the article in Columbia journalism review from the previous post. This would make an interesting subject related to libraries. Why do researchers choose one database over another? Google over ProQuest?

Last one and most recent pick. I thought I needed some light, mindless reading after looking at the rest of the things I have checked out! A comedy/mystery.

Twenty-one books, eh? Guess I'd better get reading!

It’s not just librarians who are dealing with helping people maneuver through Information overload. Librarians, however will be some of the first people to recognize the dilemmas Bree Nordenson talks about in her recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review, Overload! Journalism’s Battle for relevance in an age of too much information.

Nordenson reviews a study released last summer by The Associated Press, A new model for news: studying the deep structure of young-adult news consumption and much, if not all of what she says applies to academic libraries and information literacy. Librarians are very familiar with information overload and how it affects young people in the 18-24 age bracket, which is the subject of this AP report. You may even be finding yourself in the grip of information overload. Did you really think you could check your e-mail, facebook, twitter, and catch up with your RSS feeds, while watching something from Hulu? Don’t think you’re developing Alzheimer’s. Your brain is overflowing. According to Torkel Klinberg, author of The overflowing brain: information overload and the limits of working memory we have reached the stage where, “The stone age brain meets the information flood,” and our brains are short-circuiting.

This same thing happens to young people when they are trying to find news. They have too many choices and experience “news fatigue.” The AP study also found that being able to deliver news faster does not always equate to better serving those interested in the news. News that is delivered quickly does not allow for any in-depth analysis, background or context. Fast news ends up being a series of headlines which are repeated throughout the day or held until the end of a TV news broadcast as a teaser to gain audience share. Young people from this study were frustrated by not being able to gain substantive news.

Students also experience library fatigue and I can see it coming on with questions like these.
• There are so many databases in Search Tools to consider. Which one is the best one?
• I’m exhausted. This database is good enough. Do I really need to choose between 15 databases for this 15 page paper?
• Why do I have to look for books in Mirlyn but look for articles someplace else? Google lets me find both books and articles together.
• Search Tools Quick Search? Hello! It is so user unfriendly!
• I keep clicking and clicking and end up with very little. Can’t it be easier?

VuFind will help consolidate research but more and more seems to be showing up on Google or Google Scholar and what's showing up is easier to find and can be linked back to library resources. If libraries don’t solve these frustration factors quickly we will lose our users.

Time + Information = Knowledge

Based on this equation, as information becomes more pervasive time can’t keep up so knowledge suffers. In order for library services to survive we must consider the findings from the AP report and realize that more information does not necessarily mean research will be better. Students are fickle. If VuFind doesn’t offer them the research options they are currently getting from Google there will be no need for them to replace it with library databases.

It's like the term girl power, coined by The Spice Girls. By saying it you admit you're powerless. Girl power is sexual power. Check out Power Girl on Flickr. Maybe she's powerful in the bedroom! I am saddened when I see little girls, running around with pink "Girl Power" tee shirts. I never see little boys with "Boy Power" shirts. What does this say to these little girls? Does it inadvertently reinforce their sense of powerlessness?

There's a site that collects information on how librarians are perceived. Is there a site for engineers on being perceived as geeks? No! By constantly fretting over our image we become this stereotype or at the very least we remind the public about this stereotype so that they are forced to consider if we represent this image or not.

Here are just a few of the blogs on librarians' image problems:

http://stereotype-librarian.blogspot.com/
http://www.librarianstereotypes.blogspot.com/
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~hblack/sexylibrarians.htm
http://inthedeargreenplace.blogspot.com/2007/07/librarians-stereotype-20.html
http://community.livejournal.com/libraries/903969.html

In this post Alissa Williams talks about reversing the image of the librarian but also talks about hiring non-librarians to spice up the library, bring a fresh perspective. Is this stereotype a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do people see librarians in a certain way and as a consequence of seeing themselves this same way get into this field? I hope not!

Librarians are so worried about what people think of them, their visual image as well as their professional image and this shows their powerlessness. Make some assumptions, people.

1. You are a professional so act like one
2. You a a faculty member, whether you're in a tenured position or not. (see #1)
3. No, you don't wear your hair in a bun and run around saying shush. Stop explaining that to people.
4. Yes, you should market yourself but not in a "see how I've changed" manner. Market yourself by showing your usefulness. Prove to faculty and students how you can help them.
5. Come up with a better model than sitting at a desk waiting for someone to come up and ask you the directions to the nearest bathroom. (Remember #1? You're a professional!)

Entitled "The Triumph of the Readers: The Markets May be Down, but Fiction is on the Rise," Ms. Patchett uses the NEA report as an excuse to give testimony to her love of reading and the joys of the library. There are many wonderful parts of this article to quote but probably my favorite is when Patchett compares herself to rifle-toting Charlton Heston (see this video), saying, "I'm more of the Charlton Heston school: you'll get my paperback of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" away from me when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands." You go, girl!

Patchett also tries to stress that it doesn't matter "what you read. It's that you read." She claims bad books are a "gateway drug." At least they get you reading so that eventually you may try higher quality books and become hooked by their powerful ability to quickly take you into new worlds and new experiences.

Richard Katzev, in his blog Marks in the Margin is skeptical about the NEA reports definition of a literate reader. To qualify as having read literature during 2008 all one had to do was answer yes to the following question:

During the past 12 months, did you read any a) novels or short stores; b) poetry; or c) plays?

Katzev writes, "Does it make any sense to group together a reader of a single poem with a reader of Anna Karenina or Moby Dick or both of them and then some?" Sounds like he's trying to play culture police with this comment and I think he's totally missing the point of the survey. This same question has been asked on all four reports; 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2008. It is a statistic. It isn't a judgment call. You have to start somewhere. Perhaps he has been in the Ivory Tower of academia too long to understand that not all Americans are literature majors or even public policy researchers or psychology professors. Go easy on the little guys!

The main point the NEA report tries to make is that the reading of literature (based on the, albeit narrow definition defined by the question stated above) is up, especially among those between the ages of 18 and 24. Data has been compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau every few years since 1982 and there has been a steady decline in the number of literature reading Americans ever since, that is until this latest 2008 data, which has shown some encouraging rises in most age categories, among both men and women and among all racial categories polled. Any downward trends that occurred are so small as to be statistically insignificant. It's too early to guess if this increase in readers will continue into future surveys conducted. Statistics still have a way to go before they equal the percentage of Americans reading literature at the same rate as in when this study was started in 1982. With the rise of the Internet, types of reading have changed. We're not just reading books anymore. Public domain fiction is widespread over the Internet. Perhaps it will be harder and harder to compare reading statistics from 1982 to reading statistics of the future. Still this is a hopeful report and and makes me want to sit down by the fireplace and pick up one of the many novels around my house, waiting to be read. Read anything good lately?

I have always thought it was too easy and in fact quite pompous of instruction librarians to bring out the old fake web site examples, like Dihydrogen Monoxide (a.k.a. water)to fake students out and make them think they must be pretty gullible. That may have worked in the early days of the Internet but browsers and searching have been around long enough for us to realize there is not only a bunch of bad stuff out there. There is most likely an even greater amount of good stuff available over the Internet, where research is concerned.

Academic librarians, always concerned about being taken seriously and having credibility with their students and professors jeopardize that credibility, according to Collier by, "Condemning the Internet as a wasteland or a dangerous minefield when this is not the students’ personal experience".

The ALA/ACRL listserv had a brief discussion about this very topic this last week. One member recommended encouraging faculty to take off points when grading student projects if they use Internet resources. I suggested instead that faculty require students to justify why they chose a particular Internet resource and why it was important to the topic they covered in their paper. We all know students use Wikipedia and Google for finding information. Shoot, I use them! Let's make them savvy consumers of Internet information and help them to make sure they're getting the best information possible.

You can find pictures of John F. Kennedy with daughter Caroline, J.S. Bach or a group of images labeled Victorian Culture. Want to see what life was like for a "typical little girl" in 1946? Search the Google image interface at http://images.google.com with the search phrase " Suzy Creech source:life" and see a set of images from a Life story on this little girl's life back then.

Right now only about twenty percent of the entire Life archive of photos is available online but more will be loaded until the entire collection of 10 million images is scanned and uploaded. Note: Updated this by removing a random line I forgot to delete before posting this. 11/25/08