Friday, March 31, 2006

the third wave of feminism

The third wave - at a computer near you
Feminist blogs are booming. But are they globalising emancipation - or just playthings for the rich and well educated?

Some academic essays on feminism, gender and technology can be found here

Saturday, March 25, 2006

web portal


Finally finished the web portal for my digital libraries class and handed it in yesterday after a few (very) late nights of staring at the computer screen. It's not assessed on design skills (phew) but on information retrieval and classification skills, so I have been trawling through the web for the most resourceful sites on architecture for students in the UK (who are the target audience I have chosen) and abstracting/summarising each site. Maybe one day if I buy server space again and have the time to expand on it further, I will upload it and hopefully it will be of some use to others.

public libraries

Outcry over loss of public libraries

Library overhauls to lure back adult readers

This is really shameful but I haven't been to a public library in this country. I use the academic one at school for research, work in a commerical library, used to volunteer at a NGO/charity one and have also stepped into a few other specialised and museum libraries for interviews, but not been to a public one *bows head in shame*...except for the Idea Store at Whitechapel briefly but that was just to admire the building. I must definitely, definitely get myself to the British Library soon.

wikipedia

Wikipedia study 'fatally flawed'
A study on the accuracy of the free online resource, Wikipedia, by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as 'fatally flawed'.

The previous study that was mentioned is this
Wikipedia survives research test
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

No....I believed in the survey, I really did. I do adore Wikipedia though, despite its (occasional) inaccuracies and biases. One day I'm going to create a scholarly entry titled 'The pile of dirty clothes sitting on my room floor', or 'Cheryl's increasing addiction to ebay' and upload it on Wikipedia. Just you wait and see.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

if robots could write novels



Creative sparks: The artistic lives of machines

"Creativity is fundamentally human", writes Ken McAllister, so what happens when we are relieved from our duty to create? (from the latest issue of Adbusters.)

Monday, March 20, 2006

top 1000 intellectual works in libraries

Saturday, March 18, 2006

dorkfest

Dork Fest

A weekend gathering at the edge of art, science and uselessness. Dorkfest 2006 is a two day showcase of inventions and explorations into electricity and its (stranger) uses. The event will give the public an opportunity to see the creations from a global network of dorks. (Although others might call them artists, inventors, programmers and musicians.)

Possibly nerdier than a Star Trek convention. Yay!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

literary tradition?

Behind every great male writer ...

The women behind some of the most esteemed male writers (not Dan Brown), and the men behind respected female writers.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

ad astra!

Monday, March 13, 2006

Library of unwritten books


Library of unwritten books

An art project in which people are asked to describe ideas for books that they have thought of writing. From those interviews limited edition mini-books are made and then exhibited.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

recent acquisitions



The university library has been holding second hand book sales lately, and I was very lucky to pick up 6 books for the price of two pounds. Two pounds! That is less than what I usually spend on lunch. And they are such good books as well...I found Jean-Paul Sartre's 'What is Literature?', Gunter Grass's 'The Tin Drum', F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Crack-up with Other Pieces and Stories', a biography of Sartre by Maurice Cranston and 'Britain since 1945: A Political History' by David Childs (I think I need to brush up on my British history since I have limited knowledge in this field and have lived here for more than 2 years now, so this seems like a good place to start).

Picked up two more books at the second hand book market under Waterloo Bridge today: Truman Capote's 'Breakfast at Tiffany' and Tom Sharpe's 'Wilt'. However, with all the readings I have to do for school, I don't know when I actually have the time to read these books. May have to put most of them aside for later. Still, I'm gleeful to score some good bargains.

for those who like beckett

The centenary of his birth in April is coming up so there's a Beckett Centenary Festival 2006 at the Barbican, with film and stage adaptations of his works. Also, in The Guardian today, there's a long article on Sam the Man.
The full text of Waiting For Godot can be found online here.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

work #1

I love my job. Every morning when I come into work I make myself a cup of hot chocolate and then settle down into my seat to scan through newspapers and news websites for the lastest in aviation news (I work for a law firm that specialises in aviation law). From the BBC to The Guardian to the Telegraph to Financial Times to insurance newspapers, my duty is to sift through them all and compile articles on airlines/airplane crashes for the daily bulletin for the lawyers who are too busy to go through the papers themselves. Thus, I am their conduit of information....I compile the bulletin, send it to the general office to be distributed, mass-email the lawyers and then upload it to the intranet. The rest of my time at the legal library is spent doing more 'traditional' library tasks like dealing with journals, checking in/out books, looseleafing and occasionally dealing with inquiries.

Recently a friend remarked that my job is pretty "grim", which I suppose it is because I'm always scouring for articles on airplane crashes (on slow days when there are no air crashes, I actually feel a slight hinge of disappointment.) But by default I get to keep up to date with current affairs, so I feel like I'm constantly learning (on some occasions I may even find an article or two in the Financial Times interesting, which is quite disturbing).

Thursday, March 02, 2006

world book day



Happy World Book Day, everyone!

A slew of links today to commemorate this special event:

Firstly, the World Book Day site.

Also: SPIT-LIT 2006 celebrating women's writing

An article on the beauty of books in the Times today: A book of beauty is a joy for ever . . . it will never pass into nothingness

Lastly, ever wonder what Shakespeare looked like? The only true painting of Shakespeare - probably