January 18, 2010 – New York Times

Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

Continue reading. Click here.

What is a library? What makes a library? What should a library be in the future?

As a library director, and someone who has worked in libraries for over 20 years, I have some opinions.  But what do you, dear reader, think about the topic?

In the most recent USA Today article about his decision to de-book (print on paper) the library, Cushing’s head Jim Tracey says:  It was really to save libraries five, 10, 15 years down the road,” he says. “What the students are telling us is: ‘We’re not using the print books. You can keep giving them to us, but they’re just going to collect dust.’ So we’re saying, ‘Let’s be honest: Let’s give them the best electronic information available.’    To read the entire article click here.

Read, think and respond to the queries opening this blog post.

                                                             – Alison Ernst, Library Director

image: http://www.photoeverywhere.co.uk

From the Wall Street Journal Online:

Why Email No Longer Rules… And what that means for the way we communicate.

“Email has had a good run as the king of communications. But it’s reign is over.”  To read the article, click here.

Well, what do you think? How are your communication patterns developing? Is the article an target or way off?

                                                             – Alison Ernst, Library Director

Hilarious image by Asher Sarlin, via LifeHacker.com

From Information is Beautiful
Sept.8, 2009

The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions

I notice these days that I can spend hours at my computer, in a cloud. A swampy blur of digital activity, smeared across various activities and media and software.

Emailing, writing, tweeting, designing, browsing, taking calls, Skyping, Facebooking, RSS Feeding – all blurred into a single technological trance.

I seem to switch randomly from one to the other. But actually is there a subtle hierarchy in this cloud? Do I prefer some distractions over others? I think so.

Continue reading the article here /Read – Think – Respond

The rope pull is synonymous with Shadow Lake, so this week, instead of recalling rope pulls past, it’s worth considering the condition of the local mere.  At left is our earliest view of what was once known as “The Laundry Pond,” taken before the class of 1891 built the dam which raised the water level by several feet and created the pond which we all know and love. This image was shot from in front of the original school laundry, on the far side of the lake, looking towards campus. Today’s lake is beginning to look like the lake in this view, albeit for a very different reason: plant life and silt are raising the level of the floor of Shadow Lake. From the creation of the dam, through the mid-20th century, the lake assumed the borders you see in this view from about 1915, though notably, in 1928, crews of student workers spent a weekend cleaning debris from the lake bed and marge. From that date until the mid-1960s, the lake was left to its own devices, and it slowly began to choke on natural siltration and burgeoning aquatic plant life. To save the lake, the dam was opened, and it was drained in the spring of 1965. Through much of the summer the lake bed was allowed to dry, and in August, dredging began. This view, taken on August 30, 1965, shows this was no small project.

These stark views of the rope pull from the fall of 1965 and the fall of 1966 (above at left and right) show the empty lake, and the time it took to refill during the next year or so.

For decades after this, the lake closely resembled the body of water shown in the 1915 image, above. But more than forty years have passed since that dredging project was undertaken, and, the present state of Shadow Lake, shown in this 2009 photograph by Craig Hefner, contrasts dramatically with that early view. Without intervention, the lake will slowly, but surely, disappear. The question now is, What should we do about Shadow Lake? Do we allow nature simply to run its course, or should we drain the lake and dredge again, or should we seek some less invasive but still effective means of recovering the beauty of the lake in our midst? Is there a viable middle course? What do you think we should do?

From slate.com’s Green Lantern
By Nina Shen Rastogi
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009

“Over the summer, the high school where I teach had a complete makeover—which included replacing all our old chalkboards with whiteboards. I’m happy not to be breathing in any more chalk dust, but with all those plastic pens I’ll be throwing away, is the new system really any better for the environment than the old?”

Read the Green Lantern’s answer. Think. Respond.

By David Abel, Globe Staff  |  September 4, 2009

ASHBURNHAM – There are rolling hills and ivy-covered brick buildings. There are small classrooms, high-tech labs, and well-manicured fields. There’s even a clock tower with a massive bell that rings for special events.

Cushing Academy has all the hallmarks of a New England prep school, with one exception.

This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks – the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

(Keep reading. Click! )