Jeff Scott > Recent Status Updates

What you need to realize is that right now librarians exist in a nightmare middle ground between owned and leased collections. It is a nightmare because it is expensive and puts the fate of many library functions at the mercy of external forces such as publishers, vendors, and a fickle public.

#fridayreads

In too many cases, we create policy to preempt decision making. If we have a policy, then we don't have to make personal decisions, we just implement the policy.

The lads who went to train were like blank slates. But when you have control over such people 24 hours a day, when you feed them and give them things to read, within a month or two they become like robots you can use to to do whatever you wany.

Stop thinking in terms of resources. Stop thinking in terms of recorded knowledge. Stop thinking in terms of collections or artifacts, or traditions,or circulation! Think only of knowledge in the community. That is your collection!

She knew what she would say now to him because it made sense to her suddenly, Made and Voss and the violence they let loose on her. It was not her weakness, it was theirs. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't Nardo's fault, it was the fear men had in their hearts, fear of themselves, of other men, of women who could see their fear if they did not stop them seeing with their fists.

#fridayreads The angels apologized to him that they had to take him back again, but explained they had been allowed to show him this, to bring him out, as a promise, assurance that after a time he would again be free, that these things of beauty still existed, that he would again experience them, that he must remember this, to keep his strength."

My point is that having a mission is important, but if it is not supported by the larger community served, it is useless. There must be a social compact between the community and the librarians. This is ultimately the most important conversation that librarians can have with the community and not just when budgets are on the line.

#fridayreads It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves. Perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship. It is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests they become more and more part of us.

Humankind is a mystery; even if a man spends his entire life trying to solve that mystery and fails, he will not have wasted his time.

#fridayreads

In most organizations, low cost--and especially in times of profound technological change-- is usually a strong enough reason to try something, even if it makes little strategic sense at the time.

Of 19,235 twitter accounts registered in Iran...only sixty active accounts were in Tehran, a number that fell to six once the Iranian authorities cracked down...

#fridayreads rec by @glecharles

...a vision of a world without caffeine, the world as a long and boring blank space...

#fridayreads

Even as Californians have been sorting themselves ideologically into Democratic and Republican camps, they have also been gathering geographically into communities of the like-minded.

Beneath Jackson’s warmth and passionate attachments lay a coldheartedness essential to any great leader. “The President parts from (Eaton) with great reluctance, for he maintains the greatest affection towards him,” Blair said, “but he told me that he could always sacrifice every private feeling to what he considered a public duty.”

We colluded in this way: as long as I didn't announce that I was a kid, he wouldn't rise up as a parent, and for an hour; we could both have a little respite from our roles.

My mother's able hands had made the cake, and her mind had known how to balance the ingredients, but she was not there, in it.