The Libertarian Librarian

J.K.Rowling Official Site

2007-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

J.K.Rowling Official Site: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 21st July 2007 at 00:01 BST in the UK and at 00:01 in the USA. It will also be released at 00:01 BST on Saturday 21st July in other English speaking countries around the world."

Amazon.com adds high-quality HP presses for on-demand books

2006-12-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

How many years away are we from printing high-quality books at home?

Amazon.com adds high-quality HP presses for on-demand books: "SEATTLE -- Amazon.com has fired up a new line of digital printing presses at its distribution centers around the country, betting that bigger authors and publishers will feed growth in on-demand book publishing.

Amazon will use Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Indigo presses at its fulfillment centers and its BookSurge subsidiary, Amazon spokesman Sean Sundwall said. The new presses offer better quality and higher capacity than the company's previous on-demand printing setup, he said"

2006-12-08T10:28:00.000-08:00

Lengthening the Feedback Loop: A History of Feedback Within the Context of Systems Theory

Julia Evans

LIBR 243 Systems Analysis

San Jose State University

Introduction

Once you start looking for feedback loops, you see them everywhere. As I write this, my refrigerator clicks on, reminding me that negative feedback from its thermostat is responsible for keeping my food from spoiling. The feedback I received from my bathroom scale this morning will determine whether I have dessert after dinner (I won’t). From our everyday machines to our own behaviors, feedback appears in many aspects of our lives. The purpose of this paper is to show how feedback developed from an engineering principle to part of a unifying theory that helps to shape the way we look at the world. I will trace the concept of feedback through history within the broader framework of systems theory, and demonstrate how it is being applied to business, economics, and society at large.

History

Feedback, whether positive or negative, is essentially a means of feeding output back into a system in order to assert control over a process and achieve a desired result. Positive feedback results in continuation of the current process, while negative feedback results in modification (or correction) of behavior. Even before it was explicitly named, mechanics and engineers have used the principle of feedback to create a variety of machines. Ancient Greeks used the principle to control wine dispensers and water clocks; James Watt used a mechanism called a “governor” to control his steam engine during the industrial revolution. In 1927, an engineer at Bell Labs found that he could reduce the noise in an amplified signal by “feeding back” some of the signal into the circuit in the opposite direction. By the 1940’s, feedback was being routinely applied in commercial applications; but there was little theory behind it (Conway & Siegelman, 2005, 121). Despite the fact that this principle was finding its way into modern lives, no one had recognized its broader applications. This all changed when a man by the name of Norbert Wiener was working, along with Julian Bigelow, to develop an automated gun-control mechanism for American warplanes during World War II. Although the project was never put into production, their collaboration resulted in a shift towards a new way of thinking:

For Wiener, the discovery of feedback was tantamount to the discovery of fire…. Wiener drew the connections between feedback in the technical sense, in the physiological sense, and the innumerable feedback loops wired into the living electrical networks of the brain and nervous system. (Conway & Siegelman, 2005, 122)

Norbert wiener saw feedback as more than a technical idea. When he learned of the principle, he saw an underlying theory that united biology and technology. With the publication of Cybernetics in 1949, Wiener proved mathematically that the principle of feedback was equivalent to the physiological principle of homeostasis. This would have obvious implications for exploring the connection between man and machine; in fact, many books today with “Cybernetics” in the title have to do with artificial intelligence and robotics. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to think of cybernetics as relating solely to cyborg culture. Among those who saw the potential for a broader application was Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, the father of Systems Theory:

Modern technology and society have become so complex that the traditional branches of technology are no longer sufficient; approaches of a holistic or systems, and generalist and interdisciplinary, nature became necessary. This is true in many ways. Modern engineering includes fields such as circuit theory, cybernetics as the study of “communication and control,” and computer techniques for handling “systems” of a complexity unamenable to classical methods of mathematics. Systems of many levels ask for scientific control: ecosystems…formal organizations like bureaucracies, educational institutions, or armies; socioeconomic systems…. there can be no dispute that these are essentially “system” problems, that is, problems involving interrelations of a great number of “variables.” (Von Bertalanffy, 1972, 420-421)

Today, the application of control via feedback mechanisms to biology, sociology and technology has a new name coined by the Santa Fe Institute: complex adaptive systems.

Complex Adaptive Systems

The study of complex adaptive systems is a collection of theories incorporating several disciplines. The Santa Fe Institute describes their research:

Complex systems research attempts to uncover and understand the deep commonalities that link artificial, human, and natural systems. By their very nature, these problems transcend any particular field; for example, if we understand the fundamental principles of organization, we will gain insight into the functioning of cells in biology, firms in economics, and magnets in physics. (Santa Fe Institute, 2006)

The key to understanding how feedback relates to complex adaptive systems is the word adaptive. Adaptation is a way of moving forward towards a goal; and since “all goal-directed organization demands closed circuits” (Guilbaud, 1959, 21), feedback is an important element in studying complex adaptive systems. As we will see, the notion of feedback has become useful in describing and analyzing business, societal, and economic systems.

Business

Not all complex adaptive systems need a goal. Evolution by natural selection is often described as a complex adaptive system, and yet evolutionary biologists maintain that there is no goal involved, at least not organized by an outside “intelligence.” (This sets aside the theory of Intelligent Design, as evolutionary biologists generally consider it the realm of theology rather than science) (Dennett, 1995). This would lead some to conclude that all complex systems are goal-less; perhaps natural systems are. It doesn’t mean, however, that a pattern found in the natural world cannot be applied to the man-made world. Human beings are goal-making machines; and today, feedback is a large part of the systems approach to business management. In Agile Management, David J. Anderson emphasizes the importance of goal seeking in running a business:

Among those interested in running a business for profit, the notion that planning and control are impossible is a little daunting. The thesis of this book is that software is not divergent and can be planned and controlled. The proper jobs of executives are to set the goal for the adaptive behavior of the system and to select the method with which the goal is measured and the system feedback delivered. (Anderson, 2004, 12)

The goal of software development, as Anderson sees it, is to produce working code that is valued by the customer. To ensure this happens, he advocates a series of feedback loops in the form of periodic tests to maintain working code throughout the design process. Multiple feedback loops allow developers and managers to periodically compare their output to the desired goal, and make frequent adjustments. This results in adaptive behavior, or as Anderson terms it in the title of his book, “agile” behavior (Anderson, 2004). It is easy to see why this style of systems thinking is becoming more commonplace in today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment.

Culture

Feedback loops can be broader than projects within a single company. In Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software, Steven Johnson explains how feedback has influenced the news media. Until the late eighties, local news stations depended on national networks to feed them a reel of national news footage, pre-edited by the top executives in New York. When CNN appeared on the scene, they offered a new strategy that changed the way the system was “wired”: to attract local stations, Ted Turner provided them with full access to the CNN news feed, allowing local news stations for the first time to pick and choose what they considered newsworthy. On January 23, 1992, when then-candidate Bill Clinton denied allegations about a relationship with Gennifer Flowers on-camera, all the top executives at the major networks decided not to run the story. According to the old “wiring,” the story would have been dead. Many local news affiliates, however, having access to the same story, decided to air it. The major networks had no choice the next day but to follow along: positive feedback. The decision process had shifted; instead of a “top-down” system, it was now “bottom-up” (Johnson, 2001). This was the first example of a new media structure which still reigns today: positive feedback loops which result in feeding frenzies on sensationalistic stories and entire shows dedicated to the media critiquing itself.

Not all media is subject to positive feedback loops, according to Johnson. Slashdot, the online community for ubergeeks, has created a homeostatic process via negative feedback in the form of ratings and filters. Comments on Slashdot used to have a tendency to be overrun by cranks and spammers, providing an unmanageable volume of endless and useless commentary. Slashdot, however, developed a rating system that provided unworthy comments with negative feedback. Today, users are able to filter comments based on user rating, tuning out spammers and cranks, essentially creating a “clearer signal” amidst a background of noise. Although rating systems have their disadvantages (such as marginalizing minority viewpoints), Johnson believes that a healthy balance of positive and negative feedback can be achieved by tweaking the algorithms that provide user ratings:

As Wiener recognized half a century ago, feedback systems come in all shapes and sizes. When we come across a system that doesn’t work well, there’s no point in denouncing the feedback itself. Better to figure out the specific rules of the system at hand and start thinking of ways to wire it so that the feedback routines promote the values we want promoted. It’s the old sixties slogan transposed into the digital age: if you don’t like the way things work today, change the system. (Johnson, 2001, 162)

Markets

Johnson isn’t the only one to use systems thinking as a model for understanding complex societal behavior. Robert Hagstrom uses this paradigm for understanding stock market investment. According to Hagstrom, investors form models that they believe will be successful strategies in the market, such as the discount-to-hard-book-value strategy, the dividend model, or the cash return on invested capital. Based on market performance (feedback), investors will change their strategy if and when they discover it is no longer successful. Investors’ models compete in the market place and are routinely replaced by new strategies. It’s clear that Hagstrom’s view is analogous not only to mechanic systems, but evolutionary biology as well. His comments about the necessity of systems thinking harkens back to Von Bertalanffy:

The new science is connected and entangled. In the new science, the systems are non-linear and unpredictable, with sudden abrupt changes. Small changes have large effects while large events may result in small changes. In nonlinear systems, the individual parts interact and exhibit feedback effects that may alter behavior. Complex systems must be studied as a whole, not in individual parts, because the behavior of the system is greater than the sum of its parts. (Hagstrom, 2000)

Lengthening the Feedback Loop

We have seen how feedback can be modeled from different temporal perspectives: a refrigerator adjusts within minutes; the media can adjust daily; markets adjust year by year. How far can feedback loops extend? Norbert Wiener addressed this very question in Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas, a book published posthumously from one of his manuscripts. If feedback is directed toward an ultimate goal, what do we do when the goal extends beyond our lifetime? What feedback mechanisms does a society require to preserve the environment, for example, for future generations? We need a means of passing knowledge down from generation to generation that will not disappear with the business cycle:

As we have seen over and over again, the conservation of the fertility of human thought is as primary an obligation as the conservation of the fertility of the land. Both of these redound to the generations to come, and can only be carried out by one who feels a responsibility, if not to the eternal, at least to the very distant future…. Unless society has in it some institution or at least some traditionally accepted mode of behavior pertaining to the very distant future, the long-time care of the future needs of the human race is something which falls equally on everyone, and hence falls on no one. (Wiener, 1993)

Conclusion

As I said, once you start looking for feedback loops, you start seeing them everywhere. They are not limited to our household appliances, however. Feedback is more than an engineering technique; it’s a way of looking at the world. Once we start looking at the world through systems-colored lenses, we see the application to biology, technology, business, economics, and even ethics. Norbert Wiener was one of the first to see the implications. In the last six decades, his influence has grown—or should I say descended—from the ivory tower to popular culture. If wisdom consists of taking a long-term view of the world, then perhaps lengthening the feedback loop will expand our understanding of the world, and our place within it.

References

Anderson, David J. (2004). Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Conway, Flo, & Siegelman, Jim. (2005). Dark Hero of the Information Age: in Search of Norbert Wiener the Father of Cybernetics. New York: Basic Books.

Dennett, Daniel C. (1995). Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Guilbaud, G. T. (1959). What is Cybernetics? (Valerie. MacKay, Trans.) New York: Criterion Books.

Hagstrom, Robert G. (2000). Investing: The Last Liberal Art. New York: Texere.

Johnson, Steven. (2001). Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. New York: Scribner.

Santa Fe Institute FAQ. (2006). Retrieved November 14, 2006, from http:/ / www.santafe.edu/ aboutsfi/ faq.php

Von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. (1972). The History and Status of General Systems Theory. The Academy of Management Journal, 15(4), 420-421.

Wiener, Norbert. (1993). Invention: The Care and Feeding of Ideas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

LISNews.org | Librarians & Booksellers Reject New Novel For Political Correctness

2006-11-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

LISNews.org | Librarians & Booksellers Reject New Novel For Political Correctness

Librarians as censors? Who would have thought!

No hablamos Español

2006-10-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

NewsChannel 5.com – Nashville, Tennessee - Residents object to library books in Spanish: "NASHVILLE, Tenn. Some people who live in Lewisburg are upset that the local library has bought some children's books which tell stories in Spanish.
At a meeting of the Marshall County Memorial Library board, an eighth grade social studies teacher said if one penny has been spent on Spanish language books, it's too much."

If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for everyone.

¡Que loco!

Evans' Gate: Sex on the brain - The Boston Globe

2006-09-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

Do women talk more than men?Apparently not. It pays to check original research.

Jackson Sun - www.jacksonsun.com - Jackson, TN

2006-09-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Jackson Sun - www.jacksonsun.com - Jackson, TN

A nice catalog interface

2006-07-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

I was looking at catalog interfaces for my current class, and I came across the web site of the public library in my home town: Escondido, California. They have a great looking and highly functional catalog available online complete with links to reviews from Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly, and the ability to search by just about any criteria you can imagine.

The engine is run by epitex, inc. It looks like they modeled themselves after online retailers like Amazon, yet kept the functionality of a library. Well done.

Escondido Public Library Home

Boing Boing: Report: Indian gov blocks Blogspot, Typepad, Geocities blogs (UPDATED)

2006-07-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

Oh, India. Why would you do such a thing? It augurs poorly for Indian democracy.

Boing Boing: Report: Indian gov blocks Blogspot, Typepad, Geocities blogs (UPDATED): "Yes folks, the Indian government has decided to censor blogs and refused to explain why. "

Boing Boing: US copyright law in verse

2006-07-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing: US copyright law in verse: "Yehuda has rewritten 17USC -- the American Copyright Act -- as a long poem:

101
We start off defining
People and media
Terms you can also find
On Wikipedia

102
Copyright is for writings,
Music, dance, drama,
Movies, buildings everywhere
Even Alabama"

findability.org: Society Mapping

2006-06-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

findability.org: Society Mapping

LISNews.org | Gwinnett County (GA) Library head canned in public

2006-06-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

This head librarian was fired because the taxpayers thought the philosophy of the library was not in line with their expectations. If the library is public, it is owned by everyone. How do you please both conservative homeschoolers and progressives?

LISNews.org | Gwinnett County (GA) Library head canned in public

The "Trickle Down" Left: Preserving a Vision by Thomas Sowell -- Capitalism Magazine

2006-06-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

The "Trickle Down" Left: Preserving a Vision by Thomas Sowell -- Capitalism Magazine

How to Find Lost Objects

2006-05-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

How to Find Lost Objects: "Have you lost something? Have you misplaced your keys, wallet, or other vital possession? Is it hiding from you, somewhere in your home or office? Well, I can help you find it.

How? By running you through my method. Interested? Okay, let’s go—let’s find your lost object!"

Platial.com

2006-05-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Platial.com: "Platial enables anyone to find, create and use meaningful maps of Places that matter to them. We hope it can connect people, neighborhoods, cities and countries through a citizen-driven common context that goes beyond geopolitical boundaries. We are building it, because we adore Places."

Boing Boing: Library design from salvaged passenger jets

2006-04-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing: Library design from salvaged passenger jets

Wha?

Stigmer-gee-whiz!

2006-04-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

Steve Burbeck on multicellular computing:

Jon Udell: A conversation with Steve Burbeck: "Steve identifies four themes from biology that he thinks might usefully translate to information technology: specialization, polymorphic messaging, stigmergy, and apoptosis. At least two of these terms may be unfamiliar to you, as they were to me. Stigmergy, Wikipedia currently says, is 'a method of communication in emergent systems in which the individual parts of the system communicate with one another by modifying their local environment.' Apoptosis is cell suicide."

Technorati Tags:
stigmergy
multicellular computing

Seek and Ye Shall Find: Desktop search showdown - Lifehacker

2006-04-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

Wendy Boswell reviews desktop search applications on Lifehacker.

Seek and Ye Shall Find: Desktop search showdown - Lifehacker: "The popularity of desktop search applications - installable software that indexes your computer files instead of Web pages - is growing by leaps and bounds. A simple search in Google for the phrase desktop search returns over 700 million results!

But which offering is best? Today I’ve lined up the top five most downloaded desktop search services - Google, Yahoo, Copernic, Ask, and MSN - with a simple list of their pros and cons."

The Shifted Librarian: A Liminal Follow-up

2006-04-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

The shifted librarian posts a comment to her blog about libraries losing good people. In today's information age, I'm afraid the public sector is going to have a difficult time recruiting and retaining people. The public sector will never be a well-paid sector.

The Shifted Librarian: A Liminal Follow-up: "'I've built big things for libraries, stuff you may have used, but I found that the only way to get the sort of respect, pay, and freedom my experience deserved was to leave the library world and work with it only as a consultant. It is time the field took a good hard look at itself since those people the library world desperately needs, those who maybe aren't traditional librarians, are suddenly very valuable commodities to companies like Google and Yahoo. In this information economy they now have a very attractive alternative to working in a library. I'm not saying that libraries can compete directly with the salaries and freebies the Google campus offers, but many of these people just want a modicum of respect and an income that isn't embarrassing given their training and expertise.... I do know that nothing is more important in any organization than its employees and right now most libraries are letting some truly invaluable people slip right through the cracks.'"

Edge: THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY By George Dyson

2006-04-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

Edge: THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY By George Dyson: "[GEORGE DYSON:] Books are strings of code. But they have mysterious properties — like strings of DNA. Somehow, the author captures a fragment of the universe, unravels it into a one-dimensional sequence, squeezes it through a keyhole, and hopes that a three-dimensional vision emerges in the reader's mind. The translation is never exact."

Searching for Dummies - New York Times

2006-04-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

It looks like access to all informtion available at our fingertips isn't enough: we also have to know how to find what we need, and how to interpret it:

Searching for Dummies - New York Times: "In December, the National Center for Education Statistics published a report on adult literacy revealing that the number of college graduates able to interpret complex texts proficiently had dropped since 1992 from 40 percent to 31 percent. As Mark S. Schneider, the center's commissioner of education statistics, put it, 'What's disturbing is that the assessment is not designed to test your understanding of Proust, but to test your ability to read labels.'"

Libertarian Librarian Satationery!

2006-04-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

Being Good Without God

2006-04-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

Since atheists are the U.S.'s least trusted minority, maybe people should check out Daniel Dennett's take on morality.

LISNews.org | Brazil-A Nation of Non-Readers

2006-04-01T05:46:00.000-08:00

LISNews.org | Brazil-A Nation of Non-Readers: "C. Miller writes ' MANY Brazilians cannot read. In 2000, a quarter of those aged 15 and older were functionally illiterate. Many simply do not want to. Only one literate adult in three reads books. The average Brazilian reads 1.8 non-academic books a year;less than half the figure in Europe and the United States. In a recent survey of reading habits, Brazilians came 27th out of 30 countries, spending 5.2 hours a week with a book. Argentines, their neighbours, ranked 18th. More here: More at economist.com'"

Wired 14.04: Geekonomics

2006-03-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

From Wired Magazine:

Wired 14.04: Geekonomics: "Why abundance sucks, and other unexpected lessons of the game economy."

Inequality

2006-03-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting conversation on inequality at Cato Unbound. Here is a quote from Tom G. Palmer:

Cato Unbound: "Of greatest importance, the best way to reduce poverty is to increase wealth. As the late Peter Bauer, a pioneer of development economics, used to put it, poverty doesn’t really have causes; it’s the natural state of humanity. Wealth is what is caused. And it’s wealth that needs an explanation. We now have a rather good understanding of what causes wealth: good institutions. The most important institutions for producing more wealth are those associated with security of property and the freedom to exchange."

The Myth of the Wage Gap

2006-03-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

The Myth of the Wage Gap

This is a short piece marketplace did on the gender "wage gap." The whole piece revolved around the opinion that while employers aren't consciously paying women less, there exists what Heidi Hartman calls "institutionalized societal differentiation" that burdens women with an unfair share of the childrearing burden and holds them back economically.

Hello..... anyone heard of the word CHOICE? Women don't have to have children. It's a choice that they make that affects their earning potential. That is why women earn $0.76 for every dollar a man makes- because they are CHOOSING to become teachers rather than engineers, and nurses rather than lawyers. If having children is of high enough value to you, you will sacrifice higher wages for the joy of having a family.

Society does not owe workers more money based on their family status. This would be paying people based on "need" instead of merit. Last time I checked the philosophy "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" doesn't work very well.

Official Google Blog: Defending the future of books

2006-02-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Official Google Blog: Defending the future of books: "On Monday, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman gave a moving speech to the AAP (American Association of Publishers) about the reasons why the university is participating in the Google Book Search Library Project. She explained how copyright law supports fair use, and eloquently observed that the loss of books, whether due to natural disasters or inevitable physical decay, is a significant cultural loss. "

Cash-Strapped States Eye Tollway Leases - Yahoo! News

2006-02-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

Cash-Strapped States Eye Tollway Leases - Yahoo! News: "Privately operated toll roads are slowly catching on in the United States after decades of popularity in Europe and, more recently, South America, Australia and other nations. The roads are attractive to investors because they offer long-term, stable revenue from tolls."

Could we be moving towards more private roads?

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

2006-01-29T11:06:00.000-08:00

It’s too bad we lost Aristotle’s work on comedy, because it may have helped Al Brooks find what makes Muslim people laugh.

Two elements are often present in good comedy: the unexpected or out of place, and the kernel of tragedy amidst the humor. Brooks succeeds with the unexpected, but the only tragic element in this movie is that he fails to answer (or even explore fully) the issue presented in the film’s title.

Al Brooks’ premise—that the United States government has sent him on a mission to India and Pakistan to find out what makes the Muslims laugh—is funny. It’s funny because it is unexpected, novel, and sets up the potential for a lot of chuckles.

Halfway through the movie, however, the plot takes a turn away from the film’s premise down a road well-traveled (hence, not funny): his exploits are misinterpreted by the Indian and Pakistani governments, thereby causing the two countries to blunder their way to a military build-up at the border. (Wasn’t this in a John Candy movie about Canada?)

Instead, Brooks should have explored a topic he merely touched on, which could have answered the whole question of the film. When Aljazeera invites him to an interview, Brooks is disappointed to find out they aren’t interested in his project, but wanted to offer him a role on a sitcom (for Aljazeera’s new entertainment network). The premise of the sitcom would be a Jew living in an apartment house full of Muslims. Title: “That Darn Jew.” Funny. It’s funny in its ridiculousness.

When All in the Family aired on American television in the 1970’s, it was the first time America openly laughed at racism (therefore laughing at ourselves). We laughed at it because Archie Bunker was preposterously out of touch with the changing moral tide. We also pitied him at times, because we saw the kernel of tragedy beneath the jokes.

Shakespeare’s Fallstaff is a similar character: when he pretends to be dead on the field of battle so he doesn’t have to fight, we laugh at his preposterousness. We laugh, but we also pity him because we see that his lack of values will cause Harry to abandon his friendship in order to become king.

Brooks missed an opportunity to highlight the absurdity of anti-Semitism. Despite some early chuckles, he fails to answer the question he puts forth in the beginning of the film: what makes Muslims laugh? He fails to really explore the differences in senses of humor between the western and Muslim worlds. Perhaps he didn’t see the potential; perhaps he was afraid to offend anyone. Although Americans may be ready to laugh at anti-Semitism (think of dancing Nazis singing “Springtime for Hitler” in the Producers), is the Muslim world ready to laugh at itself? The differences in our senses of humor stem from differences in our fundamental values. It would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic.

A Library Funded by Donations

2006-01-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

This is a good example of a community service funded directly by the community it serves:

PlaneTree Health Library - Our Partners: "PlaneTree San Jos�receives support from individuals, organizations, and businesses through direct tax-deductible contributions, grants, and contracts. Our core funding comes from Good Samaritan Hospital. PlaneTree operates under the 501(c)3 umbrella of the Auxiliary of Good Samaritan Hospital, a not-for-profit organization created in 1963."

This library specializes in making information available to people who want (or need) to research their own helath. Often these are people suffering a health crisis.

Sharing Screen Space with Thomas Sowell!

2006-01-20T17:17:00.000-08:00

How cool is this! I had an article published in The Atlasphere today, with my pic right above Thomas Sowell's!

Are Orange Aprons Next?

2006-01-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

Public service employees are finally taking customer service seriously. Next they will be taking my advice and donning orange aprons.

HeraldNet: Librarians on the move: "A private-sector sales concept is improving service at public libraries in Lynnwood and Mukilteo.

On busy afternoons, a librarian walks around and is available to anyone who needs help, as opposed to having staff stationed at reference desks."

Public Libraries and the Homeless

2006-01-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Local News: "A revised code of conduct being adopted at the Dallas Public Library and the city's recreation centers prohibits visitors from 'emitting odors (including bodily odors or perfumes), which interfere with use of services by other users or the work staff.'

The code also prohibits sleeping, bathing, eating and drinking at the facilities."

Of course, this policy is controversial for homeless advocates: "Who is to decide what odor is wrong or inappropriate?" Dallas homeless advocate James Waghorne asked.

The Santa Cruz Public Library doesn't address these issues in their online version of their policies. Surprising, considering the number of homeless in downtown.

The underlying problem here is precisely the "publicness" of the library itself. When something is owned by everyone, these disputes are unavoidable.

Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey: Enough? My utility curve is flattening out

2006-01-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey: Enough? My utility curve is flattening out

This set me to thinking: where am I on my utility curve? I am definitely lower than Jacqueline, but much higher than I used to be. Working for someone wealthy makes me compare my standard of living to theirs, so perhaps I can imagine more improvements than she can.

It also helps explain why those on the top of the utility curve often say "money isn't important." It's very important when you don't have any.

Slashdot | Ambient Findability

2006-01-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

Slashdot | Ambient Findability

Slashdot has a review of Moreville's book.

Cesar Chavez: SJSU Hero

2005-12-31T09:11:00.000-08:00

On March 31, 2006, San Jose State University will be closed for Cesar Chavez Day, in order to pay homage to the legacy of this "civil rights leader." In fact, SJSU has a campaign to raise funds for a Cesar Chavez memorial to be erected on campus. Here is what the website for the campaign says about Chavez:

Chavez was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Chavez emulated Gandhi in that he demonstrated the complete sacrifice of oneself for others, self-discipline and self-abnegation in order to achieve a higher good.

By comparing Chavez to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., SJSU is making a serious error. Gandhi and King were civil rights leaders. Chavez was a union leader. By proclaiming him a civil rights leader, San Jose State is equating anti-market politics with human achievement, which most economists will tell you is a false comparison. I wonder what the SJSU economics department thinks about this?

I won't comment on the altruistic mumbo-jumbo. Suffice it to say I don't agree with "complete sacrifice of oneself for others."

Of course, SJSU does not observe Columbus Day.

Librarianship and Legitimacy

2005-12-30T21:18:00.000-08:00

Librarianship and Legitimacy: The Ideology of the Public Library Inquiry is a book I found on amazon that might prove interesting reading. I'll post if I read it. If anyone else has read it, please let me know what you think.

From the Booklist review: The Public Library Inquiry, conducted for ALA during 1947^-50 by the Social Science Research Council, reported that its two main duties were to appraise public libraries in terms of their own stated objectives and to appraise the appropriateness of those objectives to the background of American social and cultural institutions and values.

Milton Friedman on Charlie Rose

2005-12-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

Just saw the December 26 episode of Charlie Rose, featuring none other than Milton Friedman. It's available on Audible for $4.95. Mr. Friedman is ninety-three now, and as sharp as ever. Some of the issues addressed:

Legalization of drugs
School vouchers
The trade deficit. Cafe Hayek has a portion of the transcript regarding this.
Anti-trust legislation

It's well-worth listening to.

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2005-12-30T20:05:00.000-08:00

This is the first post on the Libertarian Librarian.

The Libertarian Librarian

J.K.Rowling Official Site

Amazon.com adds high-quality HP presses for on-demand books

Introduction

History

Complex Adaptive Systems

Business

Culture

Markets

Lengthening the Feedback Loop

Conclusion

LISNews.org | Librarians & Booksellers Reject New Novel For Political Correctness

No hablamos Español

Evans' Gate: Sex on the brain - The Boston Globe

Jackson Sun - www.jacksonsun.com - Jackson, TN

A nice catalog interface

Boing Boing: Report: Indian gov blocks Blogspot, Typepad, Geocities blogs (UPDATED)

Boing Boing: US copyright law in verse

findability.org: Society Mapping

LISNews.org | Gwinnett County (GA) Library head canned in public

The "Trickle Down" Left: Preserving a Vision by Thomas Sowell -- Capitalism Magazine

How to Find Lost Objects

Platial.com

Boing Boing: Library design from salvaged passenger jets

Stigmer-gee-whiz!

Seek and Ye Shall Find: Desktop search showdown - Lifehacker

The Shifted Librarian: A Liminal Follow-up

Edge: THE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY By George Dyson

Searching for Dummies - New York Times

Libertarian Librarian Satationery!

Being Good Without God

LISNews.org | Brazil-A Nation of Non-Readers

Wired 14.04: Geekonomics

Inequality

The Myth of the Wage Gap

Official Google Blog: Defending the future of books

Cash-Strapped States Eye Tollway Leases - Yahoo! News

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

A Library Funded by Donations

Sharing Screen Space with Thomas Sowell!

Are Orange Aprons Next?

More Problems with the "Public" Side of Libraries

Public Libraries and the Homeless

Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey: Enough? My utility curve is flattening out

Slashdot | Ambient Findability

Cesar Chavez: SJSU Hero

Librarianship and Legitimacy

Milton Friedman on Charlie Rose

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