This space has been dormant for a while. When we were in San Diego (oh so many years ago) Shinjoung had a blog called “Expect Resistance” and I had one called “Library Autonomous Zone” (Which @Declan so rudely deleted when I left UCSD). We parked our combined archives here, always thinking we’d continue as a joint project. Well, life got in the way and we’re only now bringing this space back to life. We’ll still continue to blog about issues pertaining to government information over at Free Government Information but will use this space for larger issues surrounding librarianship, information commodification, copyright, civil rights and the like (see the categories on the right for more of what piques our interests). Stay tuned for more.

Related posts:

1. Blogs Clog Google
2. Information, Silence, and Sanctuary
3. Back After a Break!

David Berman, Archives & Museum Informatics, wrote an article in D Lib magazine (Decemeber 2006) recapping Jean-Noël Jeanneney’s Critique on Google. I think all librarians need to read and think about those 5 critiques that Berman addresses.

Related posts:

1. Google and it’s transparency
2. Struggling with google
3. Google and public discourse

I was talking with friends over thanksgiving dinner about google (you can tell I can’t stop thinking about google!). We agreed that it is problematic that there is very little public discourse on google despite their increasing expansion into all areas of the cyberworld and it’s infrastructure. We were speculating why there is no public discourse:

1. Ignorance: Maybe people have no idea what are the implications of google’s expansion in our daily life. They don’t perhaps don’t realize that google tracks our search terms, serves advertising based on our email content, etc.
2. Fear: It’s interesting that there are no critical views on google among librarians or higher education. It’s possible that people think that there will be the possibility to work with Google in the future (University of CA and University of VA are two recent sign-ons) and they don’t want to jeapardize by criticizing them. Many academic institutions are already working with them and many others want to join the race.
3. Conflict of interest: A large number of people are already associated with Google in one way or another. So it is difficult if not illegal for those people who know best about google’s inner workings and practices to criticize those practices because of their position.

Whatever the reasons for the lack of public discourse, silence is not the solution. If ignorance is the reason then we have to find the way to educate our public and ourselves. If fear is preventing the public discourse then we need to create a community where we can engage in critical dialog and encourage people to discuss about how the decisions we make now will affect future generations of library users and the world’s citizens. If conflict of interest is the reason then we have to ask ourselves whose interests are being looked after?
I think this is the time and I hope we don’t wait too long.

Related posts:

1. Struggling with google
2. Google FAQ
3. 20 great google secrets

I thought no one was reading my blog since I haven’t posted anything for a long time. But since I restarted the blog a couple of days I found out that my friend, Jim Jacobs, was picking up my new blog posts via RSS. I guess you never know who will read your blog in cyber world

Speaking about Jim, I had a chance to talk him on the phone today. I always think he is one of the library world’s visionaries but few library administrators recognize his brilliancy since he is way ahead of them (and I’m not trying to butter him up ).

I mentioned to him about my mental struggle with google as a library tool. One thing he pointed out that I think is really important is the concept of transparency. No one knows how google works. There are so many mysterious layers between google search technologies and users.
This is crucial distinction between libraries and Google. When I teach a library class to students I am able to teach how knowledge is organized in the library and how Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings and LC classification that we use are biased and western culture/dominant ideology-centered — for more, see for example, Sanford Berman’s Prejudices and Antipathies.

With Google, I can’t teach students about the intricacies of how knowledge is organized and why, in google’s search results, certain links are on the top and the others are not. Worse, I don’t even know what is included and what is not included. Google claims that they will organize the world of information, but I am wondering whose world they are talking about.

Organizing knowledge is inherently subjective and its subjectivity has to be revealed in order to challenge the oppression/bias embedded in our culture. One thing that the library community can do while they are dealing with Google is to point out to their user communities about google’s opaqueness in terms of how things are organized and be aware of it’s implications.

Related posts:

1. Blogs Clog Google
2. Struggling with google
3. Google and public discourse

Haymarket books is a non-profit, progressive book distributor and publisher, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change.

Related posts:

1. Lessig and Doctorow on free e-books
2. Google Books is a Bookstore, Not a Library
3. The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World