Library Journal - Taiga Forum Holds Inaugural Meeting in Chicago

Library Journal - Taiga Forum Holds Inaugural Meeting in Chicago: "Paul Duguid, coauthor of The Social Life of Information, discussed the trade-off between openness of information (�la Wikipedia) and quality of information. Using three examples from the open source world, he demonstrated how variations in user-contributed data affect accuracy and accessibility. For instance, in the music database Gracenote, multiple user entries for composer (e.g., Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) force users to make their own authority control decisions. In digitizing the novel Tristram Shandy, Project Gutenberg contributors deferred making choices about how to show intentional blank and black pages and footnotes. And, finally, in an entertaining look at Wikipedia, Duguid revealed the edit wars over the biographical entry on Daniel Defoe, with writers adding and deleting his role as a spy. These examples highlighted how the library's traditional role as an arbiter of quality is being challenged by Google and open source content projects."

New College of California "On the Silk Road to Iran"

New College of California "On the Silk Road to Iran": "The purpose of this trip is to follow in the footsteps of those who throughout the centuries have traveled to Iran in order to broaden their world perspectives. The itinerary will include the classical centers of Persian culture such as Shiraz and Isfahan, but will also explore the cultures of the Caspian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. With the trekking across the deserts of the Silk Road of the Iranian Plateau, the crossing of stunning mountain ranges to the exploration of the lush green subtropical Caspian littoral plain, the spectacular diversity of Iran will be experienced.

The trip is organized in such a way that complements the students' study of interdisciplinary humanities by developing insights into Islamic art and architecture, Islamic mysticism, ancient Persian civilization, environmental activism, Persian poetry, Iranian handicrafts, Islamic revolutionary theory and practice, as well as the Iranian response to globalization."

ArchiveGrid -- Open the door to history

ArchiveGrid -- Open the door to history: "ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world.

Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies."

Elevating the Graphic Novel

Gale - Articles - 2006 - 03 - Elevating the Graphic Novel: "The biggest phenomenon in publishing over the last several years hasn’t been Oprah’s Book Club, a new fad diet, or even Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code”. In fact, a good argument could be made that the hottest publishing trend in the 2000s involves the careful combination of pictures and words in a form that strives to break free from its discredited past: the graphic novel."

Juilliard Receives Music Manuscript Collection - New York Times

Juilliard Receives Music Manuscript Collection - New York Times

WSJ.com - Portals Exchange

WSJ.com - Portals Exchange

Sir Peter Strawson - Comment - Times Online

Sir Peter Strawson - Comment - Times Online: "However, his next book, Individuals (1959), a study of substance concepts, is one of the masterpieces of analytic philosophy. Building on insights from Aristotle, Strawson was able to discern, behind the surface variegation of natural languages, certain comparatively (and explicably) firm and permanent features of our natural “conceptual scheme”. He was then able to describe what he had discerned in prose whose rhythms respond perfectly to the camber of his argument, and whose balanced periods attain a Mozartian grace."

Guardian Unlimited | Obituaries | Sir Peter Strawson

Guardian Unlimited | Obituaries | Sir Peter Strawson: "Oxford was the world capital of philosophy between 1950 and 1970, and American academics flocked there, rather than the traffic going the other way. That golden age had no greater philosopher than Sir Peter Strawson, who has died aged 86."

P.F. Strawson 1919-2006

Telegraph | News: "Sir Peter Strawson, who died on Monday aged 86, was a leading light amongst the philosophers concentrated at Oxford during the 1950s and 1960s;"

One former pupil, Bryan Magee, said: "No sooner would I have completed an assertion to him, however small or light, than I would find myself backed up against a wall and the bullets would be smacking about my head."

'The great divide' by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad | Prospect Magazine February 2006 issue 119

Cover story: 'The great divide' by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad | Prospect Magazine February 2006 issue 119: "Cinema, literature and other aspects of western culture are increasingly open to Asian influence. Not so western philosophy, which remains almost entirely sealed off from eastern traditions. Why? Institutionalised parochialism on the part of western philosophers and a loss of nerve among Asian thinkers"

>-- The Garden of Forking Paths --<: Frankfurt on Bullshit

Frankfurt on Bullshit

Philosopher, 65, Lectures Not About 'What Am I?' but 'What Is I?' - New York Times

Philosopher, 65, Lectures Not About 'What Am I?' but 'What Is I?' - New York Times: "Mr. Kripke looks the way a philosopher ought to look: pink-faced, white-bearded, rumpled, squinty. He carries his books and papers in a plastic shopping bag from Filene's Basement."

A Hundred Books in Your Pocket

Hmm.

WSJ.com - A Hundred Books in Your Pocket: "The e-book is back. So are the technophobes who swear it'll never catch on. They were right last time, and they might be right this time, too. Sooner or later, though, they'll be wrong -- and when they are, your life will change."

Bush Proposes Broader Language Training - New York Times

Bush Proposes Broader Language Training - New York Times
Ready to buy books in Chinese and Arabic?