The Librarian and the Prince of Navigators

January 2nd, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
This cover (envelope) was sent to Miss Alma Jonson at the Library of Hawaii on January 28, 1935 by Harold Gatty (1903-1957), the aviation navigator who was called "the prince of navigators" by Charles Lindbergh. In 1931, Gatty was the navigator for Wiley Post on their record breaking flight around the world. Although he was Australian, Gatty worked for a time for the U.S. Army Air Corps. This cover was mailed from Rockwell Field, Coronado, California where the U.S. Army Air Corps was located. Alma Jonson who was a librarian at the Library of Hawaii did research for Gatty over a period of years. Some of the research was conducted by Jonson as an employee of the Library of Hawaii and some was done for pay outside of her work. Although this particular cover did not have an enclosure, I came across a letter from Gatty to Jonson offered for sale on the Internet. That letter was dated January 27, 1935 and may have been sent in the envelope that I have. The letter reads in part: "The information you sent definitely proved U. S. occupation of 21 years, which will go a long way to establishing U.S. jurisdiction. It is very important that nothing get out about these islands at this time. The Navy and State Department state that occupation at the present time will make the establishment more certain so we are making a move to send an expedition down there to establish occupancy. I am very interested in the information regarding the other islands which you sent me and I appreciate it very much. I would like to get copies of any information pertaining to Midway, Wake, Johnston, Palmyra, Fanning, Jarvis, Howland and Baker...". One can surmise from this letter that the U.S. Army Air Corps is interested in establishing air bases on islands in the Pacific. Did the research performed by Jonson for Gatty have an impact on World War II in the Pacific? I have two other covers sent from Gatty to Jonson at the Library of Hawaii and I have a letter sent by Jonson to Gatty in 1938. From that letter it is clear that Jonson is performing research for Gatty which is not part of her job at the State Library of Hawaii. In the letter Jonson refers to the purchase of covers for Gatty which indicates that Gatty may have been a collector of philatelic covers. This post was also the Library Cover Story for January for the Library History Buff website.

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Library History 2010 Preview

January 2nd, 2010 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Each new year provides opportunities to enjoy and celebrate library history. Here is a preview of some of those opportunities in 2010.

National Library Week which occurs April 11-17 is a great opportunity to make your community aware of your library's heritage. This year's theme is "Communities thrive @ your library."

The American Library Association will launch its first Preservation Week May 9-15 with the theme "Pass It On". The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) of ALA is coordinating this effort. How about a focus on preserving and/or highlighting your library's historical artifacts and archives.

Every five years the Library History Round Table undertakes the sponsorship of a Library History Seminar. This year the event will take place September 10-12 in Madison, Wisconsin. TheCenter for the History of Print Culture in Modern America at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison is coordinating this event. Library historians from around the country will gather to hear presentations on the role of library records as a source of data and information for print culture and library history research.

October is American Archives Month which provides an opportunity to highlight and display library history archives.

November 25 will be the 175 anniversary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie which makes 2010 a great opportunity for communities, libraries, and institutions that have benefited from Carnegie's gifts to celebrate his legacy.

The ALA Mid-winter Conference in Boston provides an opportunity to visit the historic central library of the Boston Public Library and the Boston Athenaeum. The ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. is an opportunity to visit the Library of Congress and many other wonderful libraries in that city.
The Library History Round Table of ALA has meetings and programs at the two ALA conferences in 2010 that will be of interest to library history buffs and historians.

Many library anniversaries will occur in 2010 which provide an opportunity to celebrate library history. Here are a few suggestions for doing that.

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digital media production (spring 10)

December 27th, 2009 by david silver No comments »
in spring, i'm teaching three classes. one of them is digital media production. classes begin january 26, 2010.


digital media production
Tues & Thurs 8:30 - 10:15 am
Education 304

Professor: David Silver
Office: Kalmanovitz 141
Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 10:30 - 11:30 am & by appointment

Digital Media Production is a production course designed around creating, sharing, and collaborating with digital media. Using tools and platforms like facebook, twitter, flickr, yelp, blogs, google maps, and kiva, students will explore ideas of digital storytelling, transmedia, co-authorship, and large-scale collaboration. Readings and discussions about digital media history and culture will accompany and inform our production and participation.

Learning Goals:
1. To learn how to use digital media creatively and effectively;
2. To learn how to use digital media collectively and collaboratively;
3. To learn how to learn new tools quickly and independently; and
4. To learn about and participate within the intersections among digital media and social justice.

Required Texts/Costs:
o All readings are either a) free and online or b) will be made available for free in the library and outside my office.
o Although students will be able to complete their assignments with a free flickr account, you are encouraged, especially if interested in photography, to purchase a flickr pro account for $25.
o All students are required to make one $25 micro-loan, via kiva.org, which will be returned in full.

Calendar:

Tuesday, January 26
o Introduce ourselves, distribute syllabus, and discuss course expectations.
Thursday, January 28
o Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, New York Times Magazine, September 5, 2008.
o Rachel Dry, What Would Warhol Blog? Washington Post, August 16, 2009.
o Clay Shirky, How social media can make history, Ted Talks, June 2009.

Tuesday, February 2
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Social Networking in Plain English, Common Craft, June 27, 2007.
o danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1).
o Kate Miller-Heidke, Are You F*cking Kidding Me? (Facebook Song), YouTube
Thursday, February 4
o Justin Smith, Exclusive: Discussing the Future of Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Inside Facebook, June 3, 2009.
o Stephanie Clifford, Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal, New York Times, July 30, 2009.
o Lori Aratani, When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook "Friend," Washington Post, March 9, 2008.
o Kevin Bankston, Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 9, 2009.

Tuesday, February 9
o Demo Day: Facebook
Thursday, February 11
o Henry Jenkins, Why Heather Can Write, Technology Review, February 6, 2004.
o Samantha M. Shapiro, Revolution, Facebook-Style: Can social networking turn disaffected young Egyptians into a force for democratic change? New York Times Magazine, January 22, 2009.
o Ira Glass, On good taste ... This American Life (Video: 5:20).

Tuesday, February 16
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Twitter in Plain English, Common Craft, March 5, 2008.
o Ben Parr, HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter, Mashable, April 16, 2009.
o Mashable, How #FollowFriday Works
o Marko, Twitter Etiquette: 7 Common Sense Rules for Twitter, Twitter Tips blog, December 20, 2009.
o Virginia Heffernan, Hashing Things Out: How Hashtags are Remaking Conversations on Twitter, New York Times Magazine, August 7, 2009
Thursday, February 18
o Steven Johnson, How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, Time, June 5, 2009.
o Michael Wesch, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, presented at the Library of Congress, June 23, 2008 (Video: 55.33).

Tuesday, February 23
o Demo Day: Twitter
Thursday, February 25
o Noam Cohen, Refining the Twitter Explosion, New York Times, November 8, 2009.
o Stan Schroeder, How Twitter Conquered the World in 2009, Mashable, December 25, 2009.
o Adrian Higgins, We can't see the forest for the T-Mobiles, Washington Post, December 15, 2009.

Tuesday, March 2
o Lee and Sachi LeFever, Online Photo Sharing in Plain English, Common Craft, January 9, 2008.
o Virginia Heffernan, Sepia No More, New York Times Magazine, April 27, 2008.
o Michael Kimmelman, At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus, New York Times, August 2, 2009.
o Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Part II, Time Magazine.
Thursday, March 4
o Noam Cohen, Use My Photo? Not Without Permission, New York Times, October 1, 2007.
o Noam Cohen, Historical Photos in Web Archives Gain Vivid New Lives, New York Times, January 18, 2009.
o Jennifer Woodard Maderazo, Flickr Changes Lives, Launches Photog Careers, MediaShift blog, August 2, 2007.
o Chris Colin, Nasty as they wanna be? Policing Flickr.com, SF Gate, September 29, 2008.

Tuesday, March 9
o Demo Day: Flickr
Thursday, March 11
o Gina Trapani, Geek to Live: Flickr Advanced User Guide, Lifehacker blog, February 15, 2006.
o Adam Ostrow, Flickr2Twitter: Flickr Enters the Twitter Stream, Mashable blog, June 30, 2009.
o Ben Parr, 5 Impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr, May 11, 2009.
o Try out iMapFlickr.

Tuesday, March 16: SPRING BREAK!
Thursday, March 18: SPRING BREAK!

Tuesday, March 23
o Kathleen Richards, Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0, East Bay Express, February 18, 2009.
o Deborah Gage, S.F. Yelp user faces lawsuit over review, San Francisco Chronicle, January 8, 2009.
Thursday, March 25
o Stephen Baker, Will Work for Praise: The Web's Free-Labor Economy, Business Week, December 28, 2008.
o Eric Karjaluoto, Is Tim Ferriss acting like an asshole? ideasonideas, August 11, 2009.

Tuesday, March 30
o Demo Day: Yelp
Thursday, April 1
o Stacy Schiff, Know it All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise? The New Yorker, July 31, 2006.
o Rob Walker, Handmade 2.0, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2007.

Tuesday, April 6
o Scott Rosenberg, Putting Everything Out There [Justin Hall] from Say Everything.
Thursday, April 8
o Tom Coates, (Weblogs and) The Mass Amateurisation of (Nearly) Everything... plasticbag.org, September 3, 2003.
o Doree Shafrir, Would You Take a Tumblr With This Man? New York Observer, January 15, 2008.

Tuesday, April 13
o Christian Kreutz, Maptivism: Maps for activism, transparency and engagement, Crisscrossed blog, September 14, 2009.
o Christian Kreutz, 6 innovative grassroot mashups for transparency, Crisscrossed blog, May 5, 2008.
Thursday, April 15
o Mark S. Luckie, 7 Unique and innovative maps, 10,000 Words blog, October 21, 2009.
o David Sasaki, Maps for Social Change and Community Involvement, Idea Lab blog, April 24, 2009.
o Rex Sorgatz, A Data Point on Every Block: An Interview with Adrian Holovaty, Fimoculous, February 14, 2008.
o Try out Green Maps.

Tuesday, April 20
o Demo Day: Google Maps
Thursday, April 22:
o Collaboration Workshop

Tuesday, April 27
o Henry Jenkins, "Searching for the Oragami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling," in Convergence Culture, pp. 95-134.
Thursday, April 29
o The Extended Reality of Cross-Media Storytelling, Power to the Pixel, February 4, 2009.
o Why So Serious? Marketing Overview
o Welcome to a World Without Oil
o Stefanie Olsen, Provocative politics in virtual games, CNET News, March 28, 2007.

Tuesday, May 4
o Alice Rawsthorn, Winning Ways of Making a Better World, New York Times, August 30, 2009.
o Frontline/World, Uganda - A Little Goes a Long Way, PBS, October 31, 2006.
o Martin Plaut, Internet loans swing towards US, BBC News, June 10, 2009.
o Erick Schonfeld, Four Years After Founding, Kiva Hits $100 Million In Microloans, TechCrunch, November 1, 2009.
Thursday, May 6
o Demo Day: kiva

Tuesday, May 11
o Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Atlantic, July/August 2008.
o David Carr, The Fall and Rise of Media, New York Times, November 29, 2009.
Thursday, May 13
o To be determined.

This class has no final exam.

Grading:
20% - Reading quizzes and in-class assignments
20% - Class and online participation
20% - Demo Days
20% - Projects
20% - Final Project

If you are concerned about your grade, you can request a meeting with me anytime during the semester.

Rulez:
1. Read all assigned readings and view all assigned videos prior to class.
2. In class, listen to and learn from everyone.
3. No late work accepted.
4. If you have no new work on Demo Day, do not come to class.
5. Publish work under your own name.
6. Starting January 28, no drinking out of non-reusable containers in class. Be creative with your thirst-quenching solutions.

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Library History 2009

December 21st, 2009 by Larry T. Nix No comments »

There were some library history highlights in 2009 and a few lowlights. If you have others to suggest, let me know.

The Special Libraries Association did an exceptional job of celebrating its centennial this year. Nice job on the special postage stamp for this occasion. I highly recommend their celebration as a model for other library groups. A number of other libraries and library organizations also celebrated key anniversaries this year including these.

The Library History Round Table of the American Library Association continued its active promotion of library history. I was pleased to meet many of the members of this group at the ALA Conference in Chicago where they sponsored some great programs. If you are interested in library history, this is the group for you.

Under the leadership of editor David B. Gracy II, there were excellent quarterly issues of Libraries & The Cultural Record in 2009. We library history buffs are grateful for the dedicated research of those who get published in this journal.

The North Carolina State Library put a digital collection commemorating the legacy of North Carolina's public libraries online. It is nice to see a digital project with a primary focus on library history. There aren't many of those.

The Wisconsin Library Heritage Center celebrated its one year anniversary in March and inducted its second group of individuals into the Wisconsin Library Hall of Fame in October. Wisconsin Library Memorabilia exhibits took place at the Milwaukee Public Library, the South Milwaukee Public Library, and the Door County Library.

Although not in a prominent location, the excellent "Art and Architecture in Illinois Libraries" exhibit was on display at the ALA Conference in Chicago in July.

On a personal note, I was pleased to receive the Edmund Lester Pearson Library Humor Award for 2009 and to be inducted into the Molesworth Institute.

This Library History Buff Blog celebrated its one year anniversary in November.

A couple of failed opportunities:

The American Library Association failed to take advantage of an opportunity to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of its move to Chicago at its annual conference in Chicago.
I did a small part to bring attention to this occasion and to highlight ALA's history.

ALA's Public Library Association failed to acknowledge the 160th anniversary of New Hampshire's public library law, the first statewide public library law in America, which occurred one year before the passage of Great Britain's public library law.

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Rev. Wight and Wayland’s Public Library

December 21st, 2009 by Larry T. Nix No comments »
Reverend John Burt Wight played a major role in the passage of the 1851 Massachusetts Public Library Law and the legal establishment of the Wayland Free Public Library. The story of how this came about is well told by Jesse H. Shera in Foundations of the Public Library: The origins of the Public Library Movement in new England 1629-1855 (Shoe String Press, 1965). The seeds of a free public library in Wayland, Massachusetts began with an offer of a gift for this purpose from Francis Wayland, the President of Brown University in 1847. The Wayland Town Board took action to accept the gift and to initiate the establishment of a public library in 1848. The free public library began operation in August, 1850, almost four years before the Boston Public Library started lending books. A question arose, however, as to whether the Town of Wayland had the legal authority to take this action. As a result, Rev. Wight who was the representative from the Wayland district to the State Legislature was asked to seek a state law enabling the establishment of free public libraries. He carried out this task in an exemplary fashion and the state law was unanimously enacted by the legislature and approved by the governor on May 24, 1851. This was the second statewide law enabling the establishment of free public libraries. It was preceded by the New Hampshire law. Continuing his role as an advocate for free public libraries, Rev. Wight printed 4,000 copies of a circular in support of these libraries and distributed them postage collect. That circular read in part, "Nor is the establishment of public libraries premature. The people are prepared for their introduction by the proprietary and common-school libraries which have preceded them, and by the increasing desire for information which is spreading through all classes; and will approve them, and provide for them, and welcome them everywhere, as soon as they shall be led to consider and understand their nature and importance. The universal establishment of such libraries in this Commonwealth - and may I not say in the New England states, in the United States, and throughout the civilized world -is a question of time." The Wayland Free Public Library makes a good case that it is the first free public library in Massachusetts, not the Boston Public Library.

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