This week’s 4cast:
1. Could We Have Some Privacy, Please?
Last month, when a widely read report labeled Google as “hostile to privacy,” some of the other major search engines saw a chink in the armor. Ask.com has just unveiled a tool to allow users to easily anonymize their search records, and everyone else is scrambling to promote and/or change their data retention policies.
- Google named worst privacy offender in study (Ars Technica)
- Poor Privacy Grade Reflects Google’s Growing Power (Wired)
- Microsoft To Anonymize Log Data; Calls For Industry Standards Along With Ask.com (Search Engine Land)
- Privacy Is The New Black (TechCrunch)
2. Harry Potter Cannot Save Everything
Named after the now-concluded series of books, the “Harry Potter Effect” has been said to permanently turn young folks from video game junkies into voracious readers. However, a current study by the National Endowment for the Arts casts some doubts on this theory.
- Potter Has Limited Effect on Reading Habits (New York Times)
- Kids reading fewer books despite Harry Potter hoopla (San Francisco Chronicle)
- Long Form Fiction and Mozart’s Operas (O’Reilly Radar)
- The Kids Aren’t All Right: Despite Harry Potter, teenagers aren’t reading (Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age)
3. Libraries, In Your Facebook
So if teens aren’t reading, what are they doing? More and more (teens and adults) are flocking to Facebook, which is now threatening MySpace for social networking supremecy. And with the recent rush by developers to create Facebook applications (see 4cast #57), libraries are trying to find new, novel ways to meet their patrons on the pages of Facebook.
- but once librarians get to facebook, what do they do there? (librarian.net)
- Facebook application for bookies; what makes the social web so *#@$ing awesome (LibrarianInBlack)
- Facebook to library apps: drop dead (See Also…)
- The New Facebook Developers Platform: Why Libraries Care (BIGWIG Presentation) (Libraryman)
4. Reports of Dewey’s Death Being Greatly Exaggerated
The Wall Street Journal just published an already much-blogged about article regarding the Perry Branch Library in Gilbert, Arizona, which is the first public library in the country to completely ditch the Dewey Decimal System (see 4cast #58) in favor of a more natural, bookstore-like organizational approach.
- Discord Over Dewey (Wall Street Journal Online)
- Dewey Discord in WSJ (Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology)
- Hello Wall Street Journal readers! (librarian.net)
- Raising Arizona (ALA TechSource)
