Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Occupy Wall Street, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Perhaps someone can help me with this. Since the discovery of a library at the “Occupy Wall Street” site in New York, the library press has been nothing short of gaga. Like Neanderthals discovering fire, the library press has been all atwitter about the library, books, donations to same, and, of course, the destruction — OMG, no, please say it isn’t so! — of said library when the police moved in.

Designer Codes, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

If you’ve made it this far—and I’m sure many of you have—then you know what this article is about: QR codes, or Quick Response codes (also referred to, though less frequently, as mobile codes 2d barcodes, or 2d codes). QRs are not new by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they’ve been around for about a decade and a half.

“The True University Of These Days Is A Collection Of …” Ebooks?!, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

We do live in interesting times, don’t we? This is especially true of those of us who spend most of our working lives in libraries. The last ten years have been so filled with change that it’s almost become a byword: if you don’t like something, just wait a few hours and it will change. This isn’t a complaint, just an observation.

Here's Looking At You, Selfie, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

By the time you read this column this story may have lost all it relevance but it has made a bit of a dust up lately and so I think it deserves some further treatment. About two weeks ago, the cyberverse was all a twitter about naked selfies, mainly of celebrities, that had been hacked right out of the cloud. Imagine that. What goes online isn’t exactly private. Doh!

Is The Google Book Decision An Unqualified Good?, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Unless you’ve been living on a deserted island or stranded (or not?) like the pelagic castaway Jose Ivan (http://bit.ly/1fq6JsJ) for over a year, you could not possibly have missed the news thatGoogle’s mass digitization project, Google Books, won its case.

Hacked Off In The Web, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

According to a new report (http://tinyurl.com/2g6ghps), if you are on the Web at all you’re not safe from hackers, phishers, and spammers (oh my!). The Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact (http://cybercrime.newslinevine.com/) of 7,000 Web users tells us that 65% of all users globally, and 73% of U. S. users, have been hacked in some sort of cybercrime. Globally, the U. S. ranks very high but in this case we’re not first in line. China wins Number One with 83% of its users web-abused in some manner. These are figures to give one pause.

Not With A Bang, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Will libraries survive the Google Book Search deal?

Kicking A Gift Horse In The Mouth, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Yes, of course I know the expression is “Don’t look,” not kicking, but our collective professional behavior makes “kicking” the more operative and appropriate verbal. More about this in due course. As an expression, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” comes to us from the Lain, Noli equi dentes inspicere donate. Some argue Jerome said it first in 400 A.D., in which his words, very nearly our Latin literally translated, ran, “Never inspect the teeth of a gift horse.”

Stop The Presses!, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Last month a new study commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) issued one of those “Duh!” reports. The new study (available here http://www. bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf) found that the “Google Generation,” or those brought up by computer wolves, is not very Web-literate.

Reading Is, Like, You Know, Sooooo Gross!, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

“Huge Decline in Book Reading” ran one headline. “Cultural Atrophy!” read another. “Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline Spent in Reading” ran one for the “Duh!” award. “Americans are Closing the Book on Reading” said one, vying for the pun-acious trophy.

E-E-E-E-Asy Does It, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Is it just my e-magination, or are we in an e-lust for e-books? E-verywhere I look, now, I seem to e-ncounter something about eBooks. I have been ebombarded recently with a glut of eBook offers.

A Hard Rain's Agonna Fall, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

The June issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education showcased as its cover story the blaring headlines, “Should the Internet Be Scrapped?” Did this surprise anyone? If it did, you must not have been paying attention. Over the last decade, the Internet, the Web—yes, yes, I know the terms are technically not synonymous but have become so in usage—has become increasingly useless as a scholarly tool. The CHE story discussed the obvious problems: spam, viruses, unreliable connections, not to mention unreliable information, disinformation and even misinformation.

Youidiot.Com, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

While researching something else, I ran across an item in a business journal my eye ran across another item. In research this is called serendipity, something we do not hear so much about any more these days.

Vertigo, And A Void, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Why the Internet is no substitute for a library.

Ah, Libraries: How I Love The Smell Of... Electronic Access?!, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

In the olden days, we Baby-Boomers would walk into our university or college libraries and pause just long enough to take in that wonderful smells of high grade cowhide leather and aging papyrus before rushing off to study. There was something about opening any leather bound edition of anything and being transported by the smell to some distant land, not unlike Charles Swann in Marcel Proust’s famous French novel, A La Recherché du Temps Perdu, Remembrance of Things Past.

Libraries-As-Sex: The New Paradigm?, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

“Libraries are a lot like sex.”

There just had to be a way, I kept telling myself as I watched somnambulant freshperson after somnambulant freshperson (is that what we’re calling them now?) drag his or her soporific self into our library research classes.

Free Speech And Filtering Myths, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Filter-Tipped Libraries, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Is it possible to say something positive about Internet filtering in libraries and not have everyone, including your mother, call you a wild-eyed, hidebound, neo-Nazi bashi-bazouk? No, of course not, but I'm going to try to anyway.

Libraries In The Cyberage, Part Iv, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Is the book dead? Are libraries obsolete? Did the Internet murder both?

Libraries In The Cyberage, Part Iii, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

The roots of librarianship have been sorely shaken by the Internet, but to what extent and how much remains to be seen.

The Future Of The Book: Does It Have One?, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

While the book has been with us for two millennia, digital artifact threaten its permanence. Now we being to wonder if it has a future at all.

Here Lies The Book, R.I.P.: The Report Of Its Death Has Been Greatly Exaggerated, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

The declaration that print books are dead may have been premature.

Libraries In The Cyberage, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

Carol Clancy, Senior Council for the National Center for Children and Families, makes a scholarly plea for libraries to filter pornography.

Libraries In The Cyberage--Part I, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

First Amendment issues heat up with the advent of the digital age and its ability to bring pornography to every library, free of charge.

10 Reasons Why The Internet Is No Substitute For A Library, Mark Y. Herring

Dacus Library Faculty Publications

In an effort to save our culture, strike a blow for reading, and, above all, correct the well-intentioned but horribly misguided notions about what is fast becoming Intertopia among many nonlibrarian bean counters, here are 10 reasons why the Internet is no substitute for a library.