Week 7 ..... Take 7

The Internets

I love Howstuffworks.com it is such an entertaining website to go to to figure how to fix something or just to kill time. This article on the internets shed some light on how my magic wireless connects me to the world wide web. I never knew what any of the acronyms stood for, if anything at all. There was a very good use of pictures on the article to explain a kind of complex idea. I would have to say the POP, NAP, Backbone, then Internets picture was the best clearing up something that was foggy to me due to all of the technical jargon.

Google

I mean all of the conspiracy theories about Googles taking over the world can't be true right? Come on, who else would have a gigantic wall that showed where Google was being used all over the world in real time? Bond Villains that's who. Don't be surprised if you read one day that Sergey and Larry actually did buy Iceland and then received a visit from James Bond and MI6. When I first saw the time on the video, I was not too excited, but the guys from Google delivered a very entertaining 20 minutes. It's nice to see that Google is basically allowing for people to be creative and follow what they want to do. Google has such a ridiculous hold on the Internets that allowing this freedom is not hurting them one bit. Plus with Google Grants they are actually giving back to the communities that use them. I hope I have future bosses that can still kid around with laser pointers.

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems

I didn't really pick up on the main point of this article. Pace seemed to flip flop on every section whether he was for change in ILS or not. In the third section he says "Not only is creating a completely new ILS unrealistic, but Roland Dietz, Endeavor's president and CEO, suggests that even "incremental functionality improvements [to existing systems] are more and more expensive." But then in the following section he says "Libraries will benefit from these new solutions, and many will choose to purchase the products from their ILS vendor, with whom there is often a strong relationship." Then he goes back to saying how expensive a change will be coupled with problems of a new system. And then in conclusion he brings up the open source movement and how it will help library systems. I understand the importance of ILS and how they effect the transfer of information, but I don't think Pace can figure out what side of the fence he wants to be on.