News Report #5

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7014801995

History Book 145 Years Overdue Back in Virginia Library

By: Windsor Genova - AHN News Writer

This news article gives a very interesting story that is an extremely unheard of occurrence in public libraries today. A history book was taken by a Union soldier from a college library in Lexington, Virginia and was returned 145 years later in February of this year. The book was returned to the Leyburn Library, which is the library for Washington and Lee University. Laura Turner, the technical services director of Leyburn Library reported that C.S. Gates acquired the book on June 11, 1864 with the misconception that it belonged to the Virginia Military Institute, when in fact it belonged to Washington college, which was located very close to the Virginia Military Institute. Gates’s family inherited the book and kept it for some time. A man by the name of Mike Dau eventually inherited the book and with his wife decided that they should return the book to it’s rightful owner. Dau was not charged with the late fee of $52,858 for the 52,858 days the book had been overdue.

This story is an extremely fascinating library tale that is almost unheard of. What is simply incredible was the decision by the Dau family to eventually return the book to the Leyburn library in Lexington. Personally I don’t I would return the book due to the potential amount of fines incurred through late fees. This story is a simple incredible occurrence in an American library. Most importantly however this event serves to be a celebration of the rich civil war history of Lexington.

Reading Report #5

In the article provided, the topic of information literacy is discussed quite heavily. The article basically covers the actions that libraries and universities together are taking in order to help students move forward from junk information from websites such as Google and Wikipedia to more scholarly based information that yields more credibility. The article begins by indentifying the current issue of students being drowned in online information that is readily available to them. The article then describes the stark comparison between how information was retrieved in recent history to how it is obtained by students today. The article gives staggering statistics to support the growing number of online sources of information. Many universities such as the California State University system have begun to institutionalize the process of information literacy by offering classes to students who may not know any way of retrieving useful information other than through poor mediums such as Google and Wikipedia.
I feel personally that this is a very positive movement towards helping students be more knowledgeable towards acquiring and using scholarly information. If nothing is done about this growing problem now then the problem will continue to spread false and untested information throughout the world. Without anybody to help these students fish through all of the information that is readily available online, it will eventually be impossible to decipher accurate from blatantly false information.

Reading Report #4

In the article provided, the author strives to address a common probably that affects libraries all over the world. Google is taking over the research and data provided to students and often provides false and low quality information. Libraries all over the world are suffering because of librarians’ lack of effort to create easy to use search engines. Because of the fact that Google is an extremely easy to use search engine, students often times turn towards this search engines and other like it because it is comparable to hot, quick, and greasy fast food. This article encourages libraries to adapt their search engines to make them easier to use and more like Google. The author says that the library research databases are like salads and that “The trick is making the salad smell and taste like fast food, so they'll eat it.” One project that is starting up if the RedLightGreen Project , which is a nonprofit group with over 160 universities, national libraries, archives, historical societies, and other institutions. This project is designed to use a system similar to Google’s and to incorporate multiple scholarly works and journals.

 

            I completely agree with the author. Librarians and Libraries need to reform their system of searching for and acquiring credible data. Why would any common student want to search through confusing databases when Google and can access all the information you would need quicker and faster? Libraries are shooting themselves in the foot by being so arrogant and not reforming their search systems. In order for students to be able to access credible and reliable information libraries need to take a serious look into abandoning old and confusing databases.

Reading Report #3

The Future of Libraries

Beginning the Great Transformation

By: Thomas Frey

www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120

Libraries have played a very important role in the preservation of numerous historical figures and scholars from all over the world. Leonardo Da Vinci’s works were a collection of over 5,000 works including drawings, sketchings, and paintings. Da Vinci’s works were preserved by being held and transferred between multiple libraries around the world. Libraries ultimately allowed Da Vinci’s manuscripts to be available to the world.  The role of the library was meant to be a collection of lecterns with books chained to them. This was mostly because of the high costs of books at the time. This ultimately changed with the help of Johann Gutenberg and his invention of the printing press. Another major figure in the evolution if libraries was Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie gave the funding for 2,509 libraries around the world. Libraries are about to undergo another stage in their evolution. This is mainly caused by ten major trends.  The first one is the evolving forms of communication and the fact that we have not yet found the ultimate form of communication. The second trend is the constant replacement of older technology with newer technology. The third trend is the fact that our society has not yet achieved the smallest form of particle storage. The fourth trend is that search technology while become increasingly more confusing with the advancement in the amount of information that we can access on the Internet. The fifth trend is that we have over time began to compress our time, which ultimately affects what time frame that we choose to access the media sources provided to us by the library. The sixth trend is that we are slowly moving towards a more verbal society in which we will begin to see technology with more of a human feel to them. The seventh and eighth trends both deal with the demand for global information as well as the advancement in global systems. The ninth trend involves the fact that we will transition into an experience-based economy because of our current economic situation.  The final trend involves the transition for libraries to become a center of culture rather than a center of information.

 

            I think that this is truly incredible because I think that libraries will eventually become a place that people will look forward to going to instead of dreading being there. I also believe that people will begin to spend time more frequently there because of their want to be there, not the necessity of them being there. I hope that his influx of newer technologies will change the current form of libraries into something truly spectacular. I also believe that this change needs to happen soon and that the government needs to create and incredible library that is almost futuristic in its design in order to start the trend towards newer and hopefully better libraries.

News Report #3

Library raises effort to collect overdue fines

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29226714

WTHR-TV by Mary Milz

            In Indianapolis, Indiana, the Marion County Library System has been estimated to being owed 5 million dollars in the past fifteen years. This is mostly because people have not returned any of the items they had chosen to rent and borrow from the library.  People who have rented from this library system owe from $40 to $8,000. These incredible amounts of overdue fines that are owed to the library have prompted them to take another look into library policy. In 2004 the Marion county library system hired a debt collections agency to help them go after the people who owed them money.  The library paid the debt collections agency $162,000 last year and have earned back their money they paid the collections agency by a margin of three to one. The Marion County library system if looking to reform many of its current policies. Its current limit on the amount of items that can be rented from the library is 125. The cause of people having such high bills owed to the library is because of people coming in and renting 125 items and not returning them. In this case, the person who came in and rented 125 items from the library was untraceable and never came back. The library is now looking to change this 125-item limit and is also working closely with a lawyer to take the next correct step of legal action.

            I think that this is a real eye opener to something that happens everywhere around the country.  This article really shows people how if a libraries rental return rates are not monitored then something similar to the case in Marion County could happen anywhere. 

Reading Report #1

Reading Report #1

 

            This article covered a recurring issue today that can be found in examples of itself all over the Internet. This issue is the credibility of information posted on the Internet. More often than not many people look to the Internet as a beacon of credible information. This article’s purpose is to point out the fact that this is not so. Many people have used such information in reports, papers, and essays. They all have unknowingly put their trust into a source where everyone in the world has access to it and it is virtually impossible to monitor or regulate the information that is posted on the Internet. This article points out ways and techniques to avoid being scammed over the Internet and to weed out credible information from information that is good and useful.

 

            I think that we could all take a very important message from this article because there are so many instances in today’s world where if we don’t know the answer to a question we lay our full reliance upon websites such as Wikipedia and Google. We must all realize that there is so much information that is exchanged between internet mediums such as Google and Wikipedia that we can never have any idea where this information originated from or its credibility.

The 2009 Presidential Inauguration

This morning I viewed the 2009 Presidential Inauguration on the CBS News Channel. The inauguration began with speeches from various political figures and then eventually moved into the main event where Barack Obama was sworn into office from President Elect to President of the United States of America. Afterwards newly inaugurated president Barack Obama gave a long speech to address his new instatement into office. He was followed by the reciting of a poem and a speech by a highly regarded reverend that had been a leader in the civil rights movement.

            I felt that the inauguration went fairly well as a whole. The only mistake came when the chief justice decided to mess up the oath. President Obama’s speech I felt was very eloquent and powerful at the same time. I honestly think he is just one of those people who even if you don’t agree with him, you will listen. His charisma and expert oratory technique helped to make a speech which many people will remember for the rest of their lives. The poem after his speech sucked. It was a gigantic buzzkill that ultimately took away from the thunder of president Obama’s speech. The speech given by the reverend was awesome though. It was actually pretty funny towards the end. He said something like “ Yellow stay mellow, brown stay around, red move ahead, and white embrace what is right”  His speech was incredible because he was able to give an incredible dedication because of who he is to the civil rights movement and at the same time make everyone laugh. The most incredible part of this inauguration was the amount of people brought together under one president from every color, race and religion. And being from DC it was the most packed I have ever seen it!!!!