Weekly Reader

Stupid Questions, Smart Answers
"'Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.' That’s something my dad used to say to me all the time when I was growing up. I’d ask something like, 'Hey, Dad, are you going to eat that piece of chicken?' And he’d say, 'No, I just put it on my plate to cover a bare spot.' Lesson learned: Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Unfortunately, we don’t always have that option. Sometimes, like when we’re interviewing for a job, we have to try to come up with a smart answer, even if the question is ... well, 'stupid' might be a bit harsh. Perhaps 'lame' would be more accurate. Or 'canned'—a canned question, just begging for a canned answer." -- Rob Jenkins, Chronicle Vitae News, 3/26/14

Melvil Dewey: Compulsive Innovator
"While most Americans know very little about ALA founder Melvil Dewey (1851–1931), nearly all are familiar with his signature achievement, the Dewey Decimal Classification system, which today governs the arrangement of library books in nearly 150 countries. Surprisingly, this ingenious search engine—the Google of its day—that he first published in 1876 reveals much about the man himself, as it was a direct outgrowth of the inner workings of his own mind." -- Joshua Kendall, American Libraries Magazine, 3/24/14

Higher Professional 'Ed,' Lifelong Learning to Stay Employed, Quantified Self, and Libraries
"The 2014 Horizon Report is mostly a report on emerging technologies. Many academic librarians carefully read its Higher Ed edition issued every year to learn about the upcoming technology trends. But this year’s Horizon Report Higher Ed edition was interesting to me more in terms of how the current state of higher education is being reflected on the report than in terms of the technologies on the near-term (one-to-five year) horizon of adoption. Let’s take a look." -- Bohyun Kim, ACRL Tech Connect Blog, 3/23/14