Waking Up Devon~

In “Infotopia” Cass Sunstein explores how human beings collect and produce knowledge. One intriguing point of his book is the chapter on deliberation. At first Sunstein explains that when answering a question, there will be a greater average of accuracy the bigger the number of people guessing. He then goes on to tell us that when a large number of people deliberate, their answer is usually wrong. His reasons for this give a lot of insight into the psyche of human beings, and how real the “mob mentality” can be.
I think this is a great read following last week’s book by Umberto Eco. Last week we questioned what it is that makes us individuals, and to what extent society effects who we are. “Infotopia” extends that thought. Not only can popular culture shape our memories, but also the pressure of our peers to believe in certain ideas can be powerful. Together they ask us to question our past memories and beliefs as well as the ideas being introduced to us every day.
Sunstein also discusses blogs and how people can fall into “information cocooning” by surrounding themselves with information that they already agree with. He explains the importance of being exposed to contradicting views, which give people a better understanding of their world. Overall, Sunstein is hopeful as to the possibilities things like weblogs and open source software may bring.

Posted by Devon at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the “mysterious flame”? While Umberto Eco’s book is about a man who has lost all personal memories, it is also a book questioning what a memory truly is. Throughout the story Yambo searches through memorabilia of his past hoping to remember some of his own. It is ironic that any and all of his personal memories could be attached to these artifacts of popular culture, and thinking about this makes us question if we have any memories that are not somehow attached to items our society has created.
The term “product of our society” is brought to mind. If all we are is merely a collection of artifacts, photos and headline stories, (combined with emotional responses handed down from our parents) how can we ever truly claim individuality? I believe Eco hints at something more. While we are indeed shaped by the influences of pop culture, perhaps more today than ever, Eco suggests that this “mysterious flame” tugging at our heart at any given moment is our subconscious self, telling us what we have decided to be important sometimes without realizing. Even though the majority of traits that we consider our “identity” have been spoon-fed to us since birth, there is something more. There are the choices that we make, the moments that we file away, sometimes without any logical reason that shape who we think we are.

Continue reading "Mysterious Flame" »

Posted by Devon at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had no idea non-fiction could be so interesting. True there are some parts I find myself nodding off at, certain blips about shakespeare not having a handy dictionary...but hey, what is more entertaining than crazy people.

I myself have often questioned my own sanity, especially when hearing about seemingly normal, educated people just going off the deep end...but i'm not paranoid...

I'm not quite done with the book, but I look forward to finishing!

Posted by Devon at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Straight from the stacks comes a bunch of librarian recruiters. Though I suppose one reading “Straight from the Stacks” would already be considering a career as a librarian.
While this book did do a really good job at giving you inside information about what goes on in certain library jobs, and the specifics on what you need to do to get these jobs, I was not to impressed with the number of job types listed. Most of the book focused on public and school/academic libraries, which don’t get me wrong, are a huge sector of the library world, it didn’t give much information on the nontraditional and the medical/law libraries. It would also be nice to know about jobs within libraries that do not require an MLIS; there are a lot of people employed in all these libraries that are not actual librarians. Many of the librarians giving descriptions of their jobs are just a little too happy-cheery about their fabulous jobs, helping the world be a better place, instilling life long lessons to their patrons and all that jazz.
This book felt very dry, and many of the described jobs seemed great to the point of being ordinary. I did like John F. Dean, the Director of the Department of Preservation and Collection Maintenance at Cornell University. He seemed like a very driven person, and I have always been fascinated with bookbinding, as well as preservation and conservation, they are art forms. So perhaps there is hope for me yet in this field.

Posted by Devon at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Revolting Librarians Redux” was definitely an interesting read for someone considering this field as a possible career choice. There is a certain ambivalent attitude that seems to surround this profession. Each of these radical librarians considers their job a calling, proud guardians of the freedom of knowledge. Yet the book is filled with petty complaints about the details the job often encompasses. However, despite some of these annoyances there are some genuine concerns about how libraries are being run, and what it means to be a radical librarian.
The chapter “Libraries to the People, Redux” by Chris Dodge was excellent in questioning the materials most libraries carry and why. Dodge writes about the importance of independent publications, which should be important to any librarian truly concerned with the freedom of knowledge. Many of the authors including Dodge did a great job at listing publications, and where to find them. I also really enjoyed his toast to “…contrarian librarians” a sort of all encompassing description of what makes a radical, revolting librarian.
Though some of the complaints were discouraging to someone new to the field, the notion of librarians as free thinking, always questioning, idealistic hopefuls was very inspiring. Not a bad job.

Posted by Devon at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yay! I cant believe it took me this long but I finally had the idea to open up the chicano site with dreamweaver...sometimes the most simple approach is the last one tried! So now I can work on the website, make changes, add content and just save it all on my handy little thumbdrive. If i ever get the actual password for the site I can just put it all up! Of course I've never done this before so this is all my assumption...

I know most of you could care less, but I have been trying to make some sort of progress and now I can at least do some work and save it for proof! When I first opened up the site I immediately felt the urge to cry(lots of unfamiliar tags comments and what the hell is php??) and tell jules I couldn't do it. But my pride would not allow such a failure!! I started tinkering, went to the w3 schools site for that php problem and now I'm getting it! Oh well, there is my update my project, now all I need is time to work.

Posted by Devon at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first quote to really stand out for me in “Essential Mcluhan” was at the very beginning, “To contemplate the products of our own appetites rather than to anathematize the people who are keen enough to exploit them…” was what really started my interest in this book. Generally we point the finger at corporations who invest an incredible amount of time and money figuring out how to get into our heads, how to sell us something. Mcluhan however urges us to take a look at our own “appetites”, to basically do the same thing that the advertising and marketing people have been doing all along.
He questions why it is that something so impacting of our lives is not investigated further. Despite the fact that we all know what the billboards and commercials are expecting us to do we simply go along with it. When surveys come out telling of the negative impacts a certain add has on a certain demographic group, society as a whole points our fingers and demands something be done (to that company of course). Mcluhan suggests that maybe we should be looking a little deeper into how we as a society think, and so desperately consume. As a responsible society we should at very least attempt to educate ourselves on why it is that so many of these adds and slogans work, even when we do not realize it. Then it might be possible for us to break away from this mindless intake of material and start living the way we want to rather than the way we are told we want to, if that is even possible.
This is just one of the things I got out of this reading, “Essential Mcluhan” will require much more than one week of reading and a one page paper even to summarize.

Posted by Devon at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)