Delhi's Not So Public Libraries

Cordelia Jenkins relates her difficulties borrowing a book from public libraries in Delhi.

It’s lucky the sign was there because, if it hadn’t been, I would never have guessed this was the place I was looking for. The library in Andrews Ganj is described as a sub-branch, and visitors should take that description literally. It’s a grey concrete block set back from the road in a dusty yard. An abandoned playground, with a broken roundabout and a swing set without any swings, peeled its paint onto scrubby grass. A couple of teenage boys lolled against their bikes by the gates. Inside three middle-aged men sat at the central table reading newspapers under the draught of a listless fan. No one had a book out. I headed for the English language shelves and perused the collection of Penguin classics and the complete works of William Dalrymple.

Libraries and Communication, Communication, Communication

A short article from AndyW at LISNews on the importance of communication in libraries.

If the three L’s of buying a house are “location, location, location”, then the three C’s of librarianship should be “communication, communication, communication”. I don’t think what I’m going to list is anything revolutionary; I do think it might be a novel way to remember the basic interactions that keep the library moving forward.

Stop Thinking of Internet Privacy in Human Terms

David Hurley from Intellectual Freedom Roundtable (IFRT) writes about how liking Star Trek could hinder your chances at a job in childcare. Sort of. Hypothetically!

Rather than a person knowing discrete facts, the database allows your data to be carefully analyzed as part of the aggregate. And when you analyze such a huge pot of data, you start finding odd correlations.

'Help Me Help My Friend in DC'

Through the efforts of various posters on MetaFilter, two Russian women were possibly saved from human trafficking.

Newsweek reported on their blog and a site called Mother Jones ran an interview with the original MF poster.

This is an example of the good power of social sites.

Internet Archive Has One Million Books for the Visually Impaired

Internet Archive launched a new service today that will provide more than a million books in a specially designed format that can be read by visually impaired readers. The new service is part of the the non-profit’s Open Library project, which has been scanning and digitizing hundreds of thousands of books for the past several years and now has more than a million in its index. Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, who funds some of the Archive’s costs through his charitable foundation, said the new service more than doubles the number of books previously available to visually impaired readers.

(They didn't do it today. This is a news story from May 6th, 2010. I've just been very lax.)

Silentale

So Silentale (and there's an ominous name) is a web service that backs up and archives all your electronic communications. All of them - Twitter, Facebook, GMail.

Well, that's just creepy. Consider the privacy issues with Twitter, Facebook, and GMail separately: there are many. Facebook is now notorious for farming personal information, slowly revealing more and more of its users over the years and never, ever deleting it even if the user deletes their account. As for GMail, people don't realize that everything they send around via Google documents becomes property of Google. It is not secure at all.

Here is a database that clumps everything together, all in one spot. At least make identity thieves and corporations work a little to get information.

'Why I Steal Movies, Even Ones I'm In'

Peter Serafinowicz - an actor, write and director - writes about why he steals movies via torrents.

Like a billion other people, I download things illegally. I'm also an actor, writer and director whose income depends on revenue from DVDs, movies and books. This leads to many conflicts in my head, in my heart, and in bars.