Category Archives: The Land of Suede Elbow Pads

The Wookie Always Wins

Paul Campos over at Lawyers Guns and Money makes an interesting observation about the lingua franca of our modern world, pop culture references: [...] at this point I find that the only two film references that I can always count … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Technology, The Best Minds of My Generation, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads | 2 Comments

A New Utility: The Library as Critical Infrastructure

Everyone who plays the board game Monopoly knows that the real power properties to own are the utilities. If you have Water Works, the Electric Company and all four railroads in your pile, you’ve got a solid chance of winning, … Continue reading

Posted in Libraries, Technology, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads, What The Internet Needs Now | 3 Comments

Off to LA

We’re heading down to LA to visit friends and family. While there, I’ll be attending the Innovative Users Group Conference in Annehim. This means no posts until late next week, as if that’s different then my normal posting schedule, or … Continue reading

Posted in Libraries, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads, Travel | 1 Comment

Elsevier’s Ethics Problem Goes Way Deeper

Elsevier it appears, was even less ethical, if you can imagine it: In a statement to The Scientist magazine, Elsevier at first said the company “does not today consider a compilation of reprinted articles a ‘journal’”. I would like to … Continue reading

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Academic Ethics? What Are Those?

Pharm giant Merck came up with a novel way of advertising their drugs: they made up a phony peer-review Journal. And guess who published it for them? Every academic’s favorite publishing behemoth, Elsevier!* It’s a safe guess that somewhere at … Continue reading

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Not-So-Balanced Libraries

Previously on The Invisible Library: After discovering that a two year old blog post of mine had been citied in a book on how to make libraries work better in the web 2.0 world, I wondered aloud about the context … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Librarians, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads, Web 2.Oh Really? | 2 Comments

Where Are Blogs Bred? In the Heart Or In the Head?

Last night, I was searching Amazon for something completely unrelated* and happened upon this book, Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change, by Walt Crawford. The author is trying to find the middle ground between the old school library way … Continue reading

Posted in Books, By the Power of the Interweb!, Librarians, The Land of Suede Elbow Pads | 2 Comments