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Lawry et al,
have you tried Mozilla? http://www.mozilla.org/ It has
tabs that allow you to open multiple screens simultaneously without multiple tiny
menu bar boxes. My normal routine for scrolling in cyberspace now includes 2 internet
“stations”, each with 5 tabs open (5 fits comfortably on my monitor screen);
one for MSM/resources and the other for alternative/indie news sites. On a particularly busy day I can open a 3rd
– or more - internet “station” but most of the time by midday I’ve shuttered my
tabs down to a few, all easily refreshed w/ one click. My menu bar stays less
crowded (except when I start adding folders of things saved/reopened). Bottom
line is I have more room and preserve my eyesight/sanity a little longer. Google is great, but let me also suggest Dogpile, now
including Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves. http://www.dogpile.com/ Happy Webbing! Karen Hi, Arthur, Well said. Hmmmm…. As I sit here doing some research and
writing, I realize another advantage of books – one can have many open and
spread out at the same time. A laptop screen is still too small for this kind
of action. I do love Google! Lawry Agree with you Lawry. There is a great danger in dumbing down
and, going further, creating material that is false but believed because it
hasn't been peer reviewed and a great many people access that material.
It becomes a self-fulfilling sort of thing. I find that the better has been the
education of the individual, especially the ability to do research the old way,
the better able to sift through and make sense of online material. I
worry that kids that have not developed research skills will take too many
things online as fact. Chatting about something on a blog does not make it
factual or true. But we have to admit that the Net and
search engines such as Google change everything. Arthur Greetings to all. Travels over for a while,
I hope. There are several
significant differences between books and on-line sources that worry me when it
comes to actions like UT’s. 1. The process of
publishing a book takes its content through several steps – agents, reviewers,
corrections, editing – that tend to provide the book with some vetting. On-line
sources can be posted on sites that look solid but aren’t. We have in several
of our discussions here run into a significant amount of false or unvetted
material. Yes, we can rely on the reader to do some of the vetting
himself/herself, but how much? Even on our own list, we have had materials
attached that are shaky at best. 2. Once published, it
is quite hard to alter a book; one can be reasonably certain that what one is
reading is what the author wrote. With digital sources, forgery, improper
deletion, etc. are frighteningly easy. 3. Plagiarism loves
digital sourcing. 4. Books are portable:
laptops and internet access less so. Might tethering ourselves (even with
wireless) to ‘reading’ centers inhibit reading? 5. I am still waiting
for a truly reader-friendly screen…. 6. And a laptop that
doesn’t need recharging every few hours. The idea that on-line
sources can replace books may make a librarian’s job easier and library
operations cheaper, but glossing the loss of books over with a more
seductive student ‘chat’ center may be a significant mistake, and part of the
continuing dumbing down of education. I’ll stick with a books –on-line
source mix, remembering the strengths and weaknesses of both. Cheers, Lawry As everyone knows,
like work, the internet is changing learning centers, including academic
research and libraries. Some of it is harder to get used to than others…but
like FW, modern technology is restoring a sense of gathering places/community
to share ideas and conversation. kwc Academic libraries
empty stacks for online centers
By Kris Axtman, Staff
writer of The Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 2005 AUSTIN, TEXAS - When students wander into the former University of Texas
undergraduate library this fall, gone will be the "Quiet Please"
signs, the ban on cheeseburgers or sodas, the sight of solemn librarians
restocking books. The fact is, there will be no more books to restock.
The UT library is undergoing a radical change, becoming more of a social gathering
place more akin to a coffeehouse than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records.
And to make that happen, the undergraduate collection of books had to go. This summer, 90,000
volumes were transferred to other collections in the campus's massive library
system - leaving some to wonder how a library can really be a library if it has
no tomes. But a growing number of colleges and universities are
rethinking and retooling their libraries to better serve students reared in a
digital age. "While libraries
are still focused on their physical collections, they aren't the sole purpose
anymore," says John Shank, director of the Center for Learning
Technologies at Penn State Berks College in Reading. The advent of the Internet
and the digitization of information has transformed the way students learn,
experts concur, and libraries are scrambling to keep up. "For most children
coming of age today, information and information technology are really merging
so that they don't see any disconnect between the two," says Frances
Jacobson Harris, author of "I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age
Online." To underscore that
point, last week a new public high school in Vail, Ariz., become one of the
first to opt out of supplying textbooks altogether in the hopes that students
will be more engaged in learning. Especially
designed as a textbook-free environment, all students were assigned laptops
instead and will read and turn in most homework online. At UT, the biggest
challenge has been changing antiquated notions of a library's role in learning.
"While most people have been hugely supportive of this idea, some have
been sort of grieving over this iconic loss of the undergraduate library. I
think what they are really grieving is the passing
of the book as the means of scholarly communication," says Fred Heath, vice provost for the general libraries, adding
that UT is the nation's fifth-largest academic library with more than 8 million
volumes. So to ease some of the
apprehension, administrators took the
word "library" out of their vocabulary when referring to the Flawn Academic Center. When classes start
Aug. 31, it will be filled with colorful overstuffed chairs for lounging,
barstools for people watching, and booths for group work. In addition to almost
250 desktop computers, there will be 75 laptops available for checkout,
wireless Internet access, computer labs, software suites, a multimedia studio,
a computer help desk and repair shop, and a cafe. While students are still
required to read books at the undergraduate level, they are increasingly being
asked to use a variety of different online sources. "Libraries are
about information, and books were simply a way that information was packaged,"
says Judy Ashcroft, director of the Instructional Innovation and Assessment
division at UT. "But more information is being packaged online, and we
have a duty to provide access to [it]." Some see the shift as
par for the course. Indeed, when the concept of an undergraduate library was
first introduced, it was considered "revolutionary."
Originally, undergrads weren't allowed to peruse the stacks. They had to leaf
through the card catalogue, fill out a form, and a librarian would retrieve the
book they were looking for. All that changed when Harvard University created
the first undergraduate library in the 1950s. The concept was to gather a
collection geared toward the kinds of things undergrads were studying and make
it easily accessible to students. Librarians say the way
people use libraries varies dramatically. Faculty see them as warehouses for
their materials; graduate students use them as second offices. But for today's
undergrads, libraries have simply become "places to be," says Damon
Jaggers, associate director of Student and Branch Services at UT. As a result, a growing
number of colleges - from Stanford to the University of Arizona to Georgia Tech
- are making significant changes to their libraries. Already, these revamped
learning centers are being met with huge success. Penn State, for instance,
found that the number of students coming into the library went up by 300
percent when it opened its new information commons in 2001. But what of the
serendipity that comes from browsing the stacks? Librarians say that can now be
done online as well with bibliographical weblinks, but this new age won't
preclude books completely. "There are millions of students reading Harry
Potter [books]," says Ms. Harris. "The difference is they might ... share
their tidbits in a blog. The online library world has room for all of
that." http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0823/p01s05-legn.html |
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