Just wanted to share these links with readers. They're coming from many directions today, so please forgive the randomness.
1) From Inside Higher Ed is this column by Scott McLemee on "Print or Byte?" discussing the accelerating shift to digital publishing and the "hidden revolution" being driven by scholarly publishers. Much of the column is in fact citing an article appearing in Against the Grain by Sandy Thatcher, director of the Penn State University Press. Of particular interest is the note that, “The sole area of resistance to this revolution so far has been the publication of illustrated books." Think, "art history."
While I agree that there is a particular pleasure derived from viewing artistic coffee-table tomes, I do think that digital publishing of artistic texts can provide something that is more interactive and richer, too. PDFs may not be the answer, but as devices like the Kindle evolve (perhaps into my vision of the thin-film retractable scroll) there is room for an art text digital revolution as well. I would also agree with McLemmee's conclusion that physical books are likely to persist for some time for reasons that go beyond the text.
2) The Library of Congress now has a YouTube channel! Huzzah!
3) net.effect is the blog of Evgeny Morozov over on the Foreign Policy website. This blog looks at "How technology shapes the world." The posts are fantastic and I recommend adding it to your list of reads. It will be interesting to see if he continues to maintain his personal blog as well, though I think that he will. Both are worth checking out.
4) The remix culture may have a new meme, the topic being explored by John Biggs at CrunchGear in "Birth of a meme: Goldeneye Dance." In short, a glitch in a video game spawned an animated music video exploiting the glitch that in turn has spawned live-action reproductions of the glitch by people in costume.
5) In another line of remixing culture, are you aware of the use of Facebook and Twitter to recast literature and history? Ok, not actually using Facebook and Twitter, but parodying the format of these web 2.0 tools to retell Hamlet on Facebook, Pride and Prejudice on Facebook, and a host of spoofy Historical Tweets. Still, I would argue that to successfully do this requires a good deal of understanding about the original work.
6) Robin Ashford, who write the "Librarian by Design" blog, yesterday posted the entry "Should Academic Librarians Assist in Virtual Worlds?" I enjoy reading about her experiences as a RL and SL Reference and Distance Services Librarian at George Fox University and am regularly impressed by how adept she is in Second Life. In this post she asks, "Does it make sense to have a librarian who is conversant and able to assist when needed by faculty teaching classes in those worlds? Might some institutions consider this an asset," a question that reminds me of the challenges we often face regarding the value of course redesign and technology integration. Are these skills being understood and valued for hiring, tenure and promotion?
And finally, two entertaining links:
7) Slumdog Millionaire as movie remix mashup, while it lasts.
8) ToneMatrix, a fun sound toy. This is actually very similar to a feature of the Korg synthesizer for the Nintendo DS.
Anthony...thanks for your Round-Up. Perfect for a Friday Afternoon.
- The Slumdog mashup is timely given our thinking about bringing mashups into the realm of course projects. Nice to have examples...and looking forward to going up this learning curve with you.
- net.effect does indeed look great - added it to my feed.
- LOC on YouTube seems like a great curricular resource. I'm thinking that our students ability to capture and remix these things are becoming more important.
- Funny Facebook Hamlet post, what a great assignment to mimic that with any concept you are teaching (for instance...Facebook Marx Das Kapital. I think that will be one assignment I'll try out.
- Also subscribed to the Librarian by Design blog - looks very good.
Posted by: Joshua Kim | April 10, 2009 at 04:56 PM