Johnny Cash aint the only man in black

New report #5

2009-11-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

Another closing of libraries in a city in California is in the news. The city of Colton, California is losing both of their two public libraries to closings. The city counsil said the closing was due to lost of revenue for this past year. The library President Peter Carrasco called for the support from the community to prove to the board that the libraries are really needed. The call was heard and answered. Over 100 people were said to have come to the city counsil's meeting to show their support for their local libraries. The City Counsil members took this in to great consideration but, they still chose to close the libraries. Further anger was stated from the president because of the lack of communication that the counsil gave to the library about the closing. The library workers were giving no warning about the closing except that they would be out of a job with in a week. The 17 workers had no warning and therefore no time in which to find another job to try and make ends meet. Carrasco stated that the board was given no warning as to the closing and was not asked to help find solutions to the lost of money. He stated that a counsil member called him after the decision was already finalized to inform him of the closing.
This is the second article in a row that I have read that invovles local town libraries being closed. I'm starting to see a trend here. Why is it that the libraries are suddenly being blamed for the lose of revenue? The end of the article contained information on $43000 dollars that could go to the libraries if the board members would just give up there gas fund. I believe these guys are making enough money that if they really want to have these libraries stay open that they can. In each of the articles I have read it seems that the community is upset about the libraries closing but the City Counsils seems to not really take this into consideration like they should. I thought that they were elected to support the people not ignore them. Maybe its time they start sacrificing a little bit for the people that put them in to power in the first place, but maybe thats just my thinking.

News Report #4

2009-11-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

"It May Cost Too Much to Close Libraries in Reading, Pennsylvania"
11/11/09
www.ala.org/ala/alonoline/currentnews/newsarchive/2009/novemeber2009/readingfightsback110409.cfm

The citizens of the town of Reading, Pennsylvania have become very concerned with the current fate of the libraries in their town. The town has four libraries and due to budget cuts by the governement the town is being forced to close three out of the four libraries. The town will only be able to keep open the biggest and most used library in the town after the current year. This has caused many of the citizens of the town to try different things to keep the libraries open. Third graders from the town elementary school tried saving up their dollar bills and taking them to the mayor to show their concern for the closign libraries. Other people have suggested having volunteers help with the running of the library so that it will not cost as much to keep them open. At any rate the town is having to make cuts of up 2.7 million dollars to the budget that they originally thought for 2010. It is this major cut that is causing the lose of the three libraries in the town. The town will also be losing 9 out of the 20 workers that are employeed to keep the libraries running.
It always seems that the government is first to cut money to libraries or to education rather than to defense. We are in the middle of a recession and everyone knows this but its funny that I seem to still see brand new police cars in every town I come too. We have no money for libraries right now but some how the government finds money to get new cop cars. It seems to be this way with many things that the governemtn does. I'm not saying that it is wrong that we have new cop cars I'm just saying that maybe we should rethink our spending when we can't even afford to keep libraries open. I feel that the money sould atleast be handed out some what fairly. I don't see why we need new cop cars or other new things like that when that money could be used to help out our education department and libraries.

Reading Report #4

2009-11-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is another article about how my generation is not information literate. The article tells of how this generation is seen as better with technology except when it comes to doing scholarly research. College students tend to not use the resources that are given to them and use the more convient form of Google to do all their research. Colleges are making a push to get students more "Information Literate". They are hiring librarians for the sole purpose of being able to educate the students on their campus to use the research resources that are available to them. These resources primary involve databases that contain scholarly journals that have articles that students can use for their research. The article says that the more students learn of these sources the more "Information Literate" that they will become. This will help the current generation to educate future generations to actually know how to properly research a paper. The article goes on to tell of how this is not a new concept even though some librarians are acting like it is. The term of being information literate has been around since the 1980's for sure.
I guess since i have read like three articles about my generation not being about to do proper research then I should really start to believe it. I feel like many students would make more use of these databases if they had more education about them. If it wasn't for me taking this class then I would have never known of the datbases or how to use them. Maybe if part of freshmen seminar was used to educate about proper research and the use of these resources then more students would use them. If you get to a student early then that are alot more likely to make use of the information and the technology that they can use. If they get in to a pattern of using Google to research then their not going to be likely to change by the time their a junior or a senior. There is definately a problem with students not being able to do proper research but, it is partly the universities responsiblity to education the student so that they can use the resources that their money pays for.

Reading Report #4

2009-10-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google
10/22/09

This article tells more on the divide of research through good information and the use of easy information like that of google. The author uses the example of like everything in America being made in to the Supersize me lifestyle. College students want their research to be made easy and timeless. Google is the solution to this and has been for years. The problem that it creates is that college students are no longer using real research for their papers and instead using the easy information off of Google. Librarians say this is making young people lazier and that the eminence databases that they have are becoming useless. The author says that the solution to this problem is to make the databases more "Googlized". In other words, make the databases easier to use and not so complex just for an easy research paper. Databases like ProQuest have been making this drive in the right direction and are leading the way in making their information easier to access. The author finishes by saying that everyone is going to have to be involved in making the drive to continue to use research databases.
Most of the world is becoming more "Googlized". My generation has grown up with the easy of access to everything. We have been about to contact our friends instantly online or via text message so is it a wonder that we would want our information the same way. The world that we live in is a "Googlized" world. This doesn't make it right that we want everything to work like that but, at the same time it kind of is expected now. The more that these databases are made "Googlized" means the more that we will use them. I know that I hate to have to spend twenty minutes just trying to access the information so that I can read and evaluate it. The more information is easily accessed means the more that we will use it and make use of the money that the school is spending on these databases.

Reading report #3

2009-10-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

The library has been a place of preserving history. It has saved the written history of people in books and their stories. It has also kept alive great works of famous people such as Da Vinci. The library has had many uses over the years and its uses continue to change. This article describes the direction that the library is heading and the history of how it got to be where it is today. The written word has been around for centuries but, the printed word was not mass produced until the 1500's. It was during this time that Johann Gutenburg invented the printing press and the amount of books during produces exploded. Great men like Andrew Carnegie also helped by donating money to help new libraries being built. Libraries are changing though and heading in new directions. The same as technology. The technology that we have now will not be current in ten years. There will be faster and more effect ways to access the web and to store information. It is thought that the library will soon become a place of housing culture more than housing information. It is also thought that search technology will continue to get more effecient and faster.
This article brings alot of interesting ideas to light. The fact that technology is forever changign is easy to see. Living in the information age I have been able to bare witness to most of this. It is during my lifetime that I have growen up with the internet. As I have gotten older and more advanced, so has it. Although I do not really agree that the library will ever be done with housing books. I feel that the written word is something that people long. I do not feel that people will ever be completely done with it or not have a longing for the written word. Therefore I feel that the library will never be a thing of the past and that it will always be a place for people to come and check out books. Technology is always changing though and I do agree that one day we will reach a point where smaller storage is not possible. It will be other advances for computers that will become the new thing then.

New Report #2

2009-09-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

"Senate Bill Defends Reader Privacy by Regulating Survaliance"
9-22-2009
Jenni Terry
American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2009/september2009/justiceactintro091809.cfm?persistent=&expy_dt

There was a bill that was introduced before the senate on the 17th of this month to review and revise three parts of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was introduced after the terrorists attacks on The World Trade Center buildings in 2001. The act gives the government power to access different information and surveillance on people if they are believed to be invovled in acts of terrorism. One of the parts that is being reformed is Section 215 also known as the "library provision". This gives the government access to certain information that people may have been viewing in the a library. The revision of Section 215 would allow the government to access this information on a suspect but, they would have to get permission to get this information without just seizing it. It would also allow the suspect to counter the information saying that it is not useful in their investigation. The revision would also increase judical review surrounding Section 215. The bill is being supported by the Obama Campaign along with the revision to much of the Patriot Act. This bill came from a push that was made by a group of librarians in 2004 from Connecticut.
This revision is a great idea. It would make it much harder for the government to be able to just access private information on people. The government have the ability to gain information to peoples personal life way to easy right now. I feel like this bill would help limit that ability while at the same time still making it possible for the government to gain that information when necessary. The government still needs to be able to gain this information in some cases but this would make it much more difficult and they would not be able to get the information with out proof that they need it. The Patriot Act makes it possible for the government to know so much about us. Even to the point of knowing what we look at in a library. This review process that is occuring is just one step in the right direction for our government. If these steps continue to happen I feel that America will grow happy with the government again and will coroperate better with them. The less easy it is for the government to gain access to our personal lifes the better. They are here to control the country and not our lives.

Web Article #1 post

2009-09-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

This article gives lots of information in to the world of fake websites. It gives a description of the various types of websites ranging from malious to hacks. These web sites can be anything from just presenting false information to sites that try to persuade you to their bias views. These websites have included sites that attack the validity of Martin Luther King Jr. and that try and convince people that Europeans were the orginal settlers of North America and not Indians. These sites can be harmless but can also convince people in to beliefs that could be essentially very harmful. It can be very difficult sometimes to check the validity of these websites. Some of the easiest ways to tell if the site is legitament or not is by checking who registered the site. This can be a good indicaption as to who is operating the site and if they are representing true information or their own biased views.
This article helped me to learn ways to spot how a website might be false. It helped me to learn that many sites present false and bias information. It kind of makes me upset that so many sites are able to present this kind of information. The internet has given people to basically say and do anything on it that they want. So if someone wants to make a website about how great white power is or about how our government is responsible for the events of 9/11 they can. This of course is part of freedom of speech but it can be very dangerous. These webpages should have some kind of censor for validity. They should be allowed to share their option but they should not be allowed to present false informantion as fact. This direct deception should not be allowed on the World Wide Web. The government should try and censor it the same way that they try and censor dangerous websites that allow people to view how to make pipe bombs and items of that nature.

News Report #1

2009-08-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

"MIT Engineers Create New School of Robotic Fish"
08/31/2009
Shelby Lin Erdman
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/31/robotic.fish.mit/index.html?eref=rss_tech

Some engineers at MIT have been working to create a new generation of robot fish. The creators of this new generation of robot fish is Pablo Valdiva Alvarado and Kamel Youcef-Toumi. The fish is modeled after bass and is between 5 to 18 inches in length. The first robot fish was called Robotuna and was first show cased in 1994. Now 15 years after the first robot fish a new version is being released that is a lot cheaper and more efficient. The new fish cost just a few hundred dollars and the designers are hoping to release man of them to explore the ocean bottom. These robot fish can go to the depths of the ocean bottom where submarines can not. The designer of the new robot fish hopes that sometime in the future that he will be able to design a robot salamander too. Many companies are showing interest in the new robot fish and offering money to help fund it. The US Navy is now showing interest and will probably offer funding too.

This could be a very useful tool in the future. This robot fish could help us to understand how some animals survive in those deep depths of the ocean. It could help us to map the ocean floor and find species that we never knew existed. The fish could help to further the understanding of the sea and how life is sustained in it. The fish could also help us to find some underwater volcanoes that we may not have known existed. The robot fish could be used for many things and I believe is going to be be put to good use in the near future. It use fullness is yet to been seen but I'm sure once it is put to the test that is will be a great success and provide us with an amazing amount of new information.

new

2009-08-25T11:54:00.001-07:00

just getting it started