http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/world/middleeast/syria-crisis.html


Srebrenica, anyone?
Again, things like this bring up big questions- should we intervene? How much? Is it our duty? How do we react? I could go on and on.

And Access For All...

Great Editorial by Susan Crawford about the changes that need to be made regarding access to technology/Internet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/opinion/how-to-get-high-speed-internet-to-all-americans.html?hp

People like to talk about how we need to become America the Innovator again. But when Comcast and Time Warner dominate the market for high speed internet, a lot of people miss out. I'm fortunate enough that I live within the range of a small wireless company called USI Wireless. They partnered with the City of Minneapolis to really get themselves all over the city, so people could easily have access to cheap(er) wireless internet access.
It's so easy to lament about past America, to wish we could be top of the crop again. Historiography has a term for this- frontierism (Look up "Frontier Thesis" on Wikipedia for a little background). It's a reaction to the Turner Frontier Thesis and says that we like to think back and romanticize our past- but that's just not how it is. Yes, I am very much summarizing.
But my point is this- we can wish and lament all we want, but it is not an easy fix. There are many pieces to the puzzle and this is just one. It will take a lot of overhaul and work to see even small improvements.

New Pew Research Survey Regarding Libraries

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/pew-survey-finds-reliance-on-libraries-for-computers-and-internet/?ref=technology

New research coming out saying that patrons want more technology options in libraries- which we kind of already knew. And is understandable, as has been noted time and again in times of economic distress, people use the library more because they can't afford them on their own. Except instead of books, it's computer/internet access and ebooks.
At the bottom of the article it talks about conflicting messages- that a great amount of people still get print from their library.

So what should a library do? Get rid of print stacks to make room for more computer/technology hubs?

Well, at least now I know what's wrong with me...research rapture. And also, I wish the "Magic Treehouse" books had been around when I was a kid.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/rapturous-research/?hp

Google is...good? FTC says yes

So for now, Google's somewhat controversial practices are ok, at least in the eyes of the FTC. Will be interesting to see how this affects internet search practices in the future.
Think this is a good thing for consumers, or will it only get worse with the ads and misleading?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/business/google-finds-a-line-between-aggressive-and-evil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp