Library Blogs

Han’s book provides insight into current events—Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Russian propaganda, etc.—Big Data is the new Big Brother and it is Big Business. All of our sharing, all of our liking, all of the tracking of our every digitally connected movement (both voluntary and involuntary) has created the digital panopticon. We are transparent, we are quantified, we are stored and retrieved, we are added and reduced. We are packages of data to be bought and sold. But, Big Data is a Smart Power. It is friendly and it is Likeable. The power of Big Data is that it knows us and increasingly it can shape and predict our behavior.

As noted in Dining with Jane Austen II: No Such Thing as Lunch?, dinner shifted from noon-time to evening over the course of the 18th century, but this change occurred slowly and unevenly, with the result that certain households - especially those with claims to urbanity and fashion - might eat their main meal of the day much later than others. In Sense and Sensibility, The Dashwoods dine at 4pm at home in Barton Cottage, but in London, Mrs. Jenning’s begins dinner at 5 o’clock. In Pride and Prejudice, dinner is served at Longbourne at 4:30, but the fashionable Bingleys bring their London hours to Netherfield and dine at 6:30pm.

Update on work done by the Digital Preservation Unit including efforts on the Digital Preservation Lab, digital file formats, and community outreach.

In the second of two posts, Informationists from the Taubman Health Sciences Library share their research project to improve library integration within the U-M School of Nursing curriculum. Using a mixed methods approach, they are investigating undergraduate student information seeking needs and behaviors.

In just a couple of short weeks, the CVGA will be involved in an Art & Gaming Symposium, which will bring together academics, game makers, and game players to discuss the role of art in gaming. How is art reflected in games? How does one create art through games? How do we view games as art? These questions will be explored through speakers, panels and discussion in a one-day symposium on Saturday, April 7, 2018, on the campus of the University of Michigan & the Ann Arbor District Library.

Fifty years ago, on March 16, 1968, in the Vietnamese village of My Lai in Quảng Ngãi Province, American soldiers, led by Lt. William Calley, summarily executed over 500 men, women, children, and babies at point blank range.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, the time and contents of meals gradually shifted. By the turn of the 19th century, dinner had become detached from its earlier noontime association and might be eaten anytime from mid-afternoon to as late as six or seven o’clock in the evening. However, lunch had not yet become a commonly established sit-down meal. Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755 defines “lunch” or “luncheon” as “as much food as one’s hand can hold,” in other words, a sort of snack that might be eaten anytime between meals.

In two blog posts, Informationists from the Taubman Health Sciences Library share their research project to improve library integration within the U-M School of Nursing curriculum. Using a mixed methods approach, they are investigating undergraduate student information seeking needs and behaviors.

On Friday, April 6, 2018, Asia Library, the University Library, and the Center of Japanese Studies presented a symposium, "Sacred Scriptures in a Secular Society: Hand-Copying Buddhist Texts in Japan."

Sometimes, working at the library is like a box of tennis balls.