"Everything is miscellaneous" - review of an interesting new book

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
David Weinberger
May 2007
Henry Holt & Company
978-0-8050-8043-8

Library Journal (February 15, 2007)

Weinberger (fellow, Berkman Ctr. for the Internet & Society, Harvard Law Sch.; Small Pieces Loosely Joined) analyzes the Internet's impact on the way we look at the organization of information. As he sees it, the order of things, with the shift from the physical to the digital, is changing: in the physical world, everything had its own place; in the digital world, everything is miscellaneous, fitting into multiple categories. Weinberger describes and assesses the traditional ways of organizing information, including the examples of Dewey, Linnaeus, and Ranganathan, and then moves on to the new order including online digital arrangements of archival photographs from the Bettman Archive to the lists and categories of books and other products on Amazon.com. This thought-provoking book allows readers to step back and take a look at how the digital world impacts how they are and will be looking at arrangements of objects and information. Highly recommended to students and researchers of business, social sciences, education, and library science. It adds another dimension to the latter field and should be recommended reading for its students and faculty.-Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Wrapping up

Renfrew Christie's presentation was very timeous. I enjoyed his paper (apart from the sexist remarks) which summarised the challenges academic librarians face. His main points were:

• If we are to develop sufficient research in South Africa of high enough quality, we must double the number of good researchers in very quickly.
• There needs to be substantially more investment in academics, university buildings, research equipment, information systems and libraries.
  
• "PhD friendly" specialist librarians can make a difference to the quality of research produced in SA.
  

(Christie, Renfrew. 2007. University research development in South Africa: speech to the Research Libraries Consortium of the Universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu Natal andthe Witwatersrand. Cape Town: University of the Western Cape, Department of Research Development.)

Professor Christie also referred us to a paper from the University of Texas - Looking forward: research libraries in the 21st century.

Whales and Vale

From today's perspective, some AHA moments that stand out for me are:

• Peter Vale's presentation and his insights on "deep transformative theory" (Robert Cox) and "picture/ language holds us captive" (Ludwig Wittgenstein).
  
• Whale watching in Hermanus on Sunday.

Coffee and computers

The learnings from the past week have percolated now - must be all the coffee we have been drinking! Here are two significant ones:

From Tony Carr: "adult learning" now applies to younger and younger people.

We need to treat all students as adult learners which means using the methods of adult education in the provision of library education/information literacy. I wonder whether the methodology that we use with undergraduates should be different to the one which we use with postgraduates and researchers. Is the stereotype of "underprepared" undergraduate student determining our response to the extent that we set low expectations of their ability?

From Karin de Jager, courtesy of IFLA: subject librarians need to take their "desks" to wherever the students and researchers are.

If we are to take our skills and resources to the researchers in their departments and offices, then libraries need to provide computer laptops for librarians to enable us to be mobile.

Trenchant

I used the word trenchant in a previous post but had to look it up to afterwards to check what it means! According to the Oxford English Dictionary online, http://dictionary.oed.com/, one of its uses is "fig. esp. of language: incisive; vigorous and clear; effective, energetic".

Blog off!

This morning I wish that I had called my blog something rather more trenchant than Anita's library! I might get around to changing it later. At the moment I am feeling very inspired and affirmed by Peter Vale's presentation. It puts much of what we have already heard into perspective. Although I am impressed by science and scientific research, I feel that critical theory and diversity studies speak to my condition, and to my understanding of my place in the world.

Hallelujah

I'm in! I'm official! I'm registered! I'm recognized! I'm going to have a nap now.
Anita