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Libraries Are 31337

Posted by Roblimo on from the internet-is-just-a-giant-library dept.

tiltowait writes In response to the incredulity expressed in this story about the technical prowess of libraries, I'd like to present a short essay titled "Librarians: We're Not What You Think" - read on for more. Update: 10/20 18:15 GMT by M : The author has also put up his essay on his own webpage. From the spinster librarian in It's a Wonderful Life to the crochety archivist in Attack of the Clones, librarians are often portrayed (in everything from movies, musicals, children's books, literature, science fiction, comics and cartoons to pornography - yes, pornography) as something less than noble or admirable. The perception of librarians has been a popular topic recently, with several articles focusing on the fringe-type librarians (ska, rockabilly, bellydancing, modified, bodybuilding, laughing, and lipstick). Although something of an anti-stereotype, these people illustrate the range of librarian personalities.

Many people may hold the image of a librarian as a shushing school marm who does little more than stamp and shelve books because that's all they've seen librarians do. Well think again - that's about as inaccurate as believing that Alan Greenspan is nothing more than a glorified bank teller. The job titles may change but the mission of the profession remains the same: organize information and help people find it. Libraries have been around a lot longer than the Internet, and even library technology can hold its own with the best out there. For example, Google's savvy results ranking was hardly the birth of citation analysis (next up: metadata - cough, cataloging, cough), and there are enormous library systems that also predate the Internet.

Although library geeks and technology nerds may have contrary images, in today's world the boundary between the career of the librarian and the information technologist is disappearing. Librarians today not only administer Web servers and dynamic databases to help manage large digital collections and thousands of electronic resources, they teach people how to use library systems. And just as enlightened computer engineers are advocates of noncommercial software and campaign for online rights, the library profession has a long history of staunchly defending freedom - from book burnings to the FBI's Library Awareness Program to the latest copyright battles and almost all other current issues in intellectual freedom.

Check out LISNews.com (recognize the format?) and some library blogs if you're interested in reading more about real librarians.

16 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Did I make it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I sure hope so.

  2. yo yo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    yo yo yo YO

  3. Da Rastaman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Yo bro, da Rastaman spreches (www.rasterman.com):For once I have some news to write that has nothng to do with my life or projects. I'd like to - for the first time ever, say something political. If you're bored - stop reading now, but some people won't like to read this. Our prime minister, John Howard, is rattling his chains of war and wants to follow the USA inot a war with Iraq. What on earth is he thinking? Haven't we learnt from Vietnam? What has Iraq done to us to warrant this? I am with the majority of Australians. I do not want to join with the USA in their war mongering efforts and attack Iraq. I actually think that we should not even be thinking of it. Let them be. What happened in New Yok on September 11, 2001 was wrong. It was gahstly - I have many friends across the USA and I feel for them - but this does not give the USA the right to just go and find someone to attack because Bush has a temper tantrum. Australia is not about war or violence. We are a peaceful country - I know I don't want anything to do with with this war, and no one else I know fo here does. Let Iraq be. They have done us no wrong.

  4. Well, only one word... by Scarblac · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    OOK! Ook ook ook, ook ook. Ook ook. Ook ook ook ook ook. Ook? Ook.

    --
    I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    1. Re:Well, only one word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Finally someone has transcribed this.

  5. Doesn't matter, its not a business-model any more. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Breaking news!

    Stallman and the free software foundation has proposed this new business-model to replace "the library are 3l337" business-model:

    1: Write free software.
    2: ?
    3: Eat a banana.
    4: profit!

  6. Re:Doesn't matter, its not a business-model any mo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    1.Get idea

    2.Grow beard

    3.Leave your work at AI labs

    4.Forget personal hygiene

    5.Make sure you have smelly feet

    6.Create WM and make a logo of your smelly feet

    7.Rant about the name of software that somebody else has created and named

    8.Profit

  7. Re:call em information broker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Do you think this business-model is good?

    1: Write free software.
    2: ?
    3: Eat a banana.
    4: profit!

  8. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Ah good, I almost forgot idiots still existed.

  9. Widening is 31337 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    SLASHCODE IS NOT!
    H

      • WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWW

        The worlds most infamous troll!
        Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
        Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

  10. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    that's funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.

  11. Re:Doesn't matter, its not a business-model any mo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    1. Download movies, music and text.
    2. Enjoy life.
    3. Fuck profit!

    4. Eat a banana.

  12. Bug? by Twintop · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    This might be slightly offtopic, but did anyone else notice the lack of quotes around this story's italicized parts?

  13. NAVEWEISS IS LOOKING FOR A GIRLFRIEND by Elkobim · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Help him find one. K? thx.

    --

    I want tender love now!
    Elkobim
  14. Re:call em information broker sugarbitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    If I had to read books written by people with your total lack of control over the language you use and everything said being conjecture I would go fucking mental from that way before an interlaced monitor would cause said insanity. Oh, interlaced monitors, that's before your time kiddie.

  15. Re:call em information broker sugarbitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Sorry, I'm not well versed in shit LCD displays, you must be through your use of inferior hardware.

    But TFT is one of many Active Matrix technolgies. You make it sound as if you know quite a bit about display technology, but you come across as a PhD in display technology - as you do for most things. And you are not.

    Over the past five years progress in active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCDs) has been spectacular. Five years ago the questions were whether these complex devices could be made and whether they would gain market acceptance. Today those questions have been answered affirmatively; the only remaining questions are how low the cost of AMLCDs can be, how fast they will penetrate the display market, and how good their ultimate performance will be.

    Liquid crystal displays are inherently simple and are intrinsically capable of the high performance desired for many display applications. However, expecting adequate nonlinearity sufficient to operate high information content displays places an unreasonable burden on the liquid crystal (LC) material itself. The value of using nonlinear circuitry in series with the LC pixel (Lechner, 1971) was recognized quite early in the technology. The use of thin-film transistors (TFT) as the preferred nonlinear element is based on the pioneering work of Peter Brody (1973), the "father" of the TFT active matrix.

    Although many active matrix technologies have been explored, the dominant ones today are hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin-film transistors, metal- insulator-metal (MIM) diodes, and low-temperature polysilicon (p-Si) thin-film transistors. Although a-Si TFTs were suggested quite early (LeComber, 1979), the first commercial product was a pocket TV that used polysilicon TFTs (Morozumi, 1985).

    The active matrix is a method of addressing an array of simple LC cells--one cell per monochrome pixel. In its simplest form there is one thin-film transistor for each cell. This arrangement is shown in Figure 5.1.

    Figure 5.1. Simple TFT Active Matrix Array

    A row of pixels is selected by applying the appropriate select voltage to the select line connecting the TFT gates for that row of pixels. When a row of pixels is selected, we can apply a desired voltage to each pixel via its data line. When a pixel is selected, we want to apply a given voltage to that pixel alone and not to any nonselected pixels. Those nonselected pixels should be completely isolated from the voltages circulating through the array for the selected pixels. Ideally, the TFT active matrix can be considered as an array of ideal switches. The operation of this active matrix would be as follows:

    Appropriate select voltages are applied to the gates of the first row of the TFTs while nonselect voltages are applied to the TFT gates in all other pixel rows.
    Data voltages are applied at the same time to all of the column electrodes to charge each pixel in the selected row to the desired voltage.
    The select voltage applied to the gates in the first row of TFTs is charged to a nonselect voltage.
    Steps 1-3 are repeated for each succeeding row until all of the rows have been selected and the pixels charged to the desired voltages.
    All rows are selected in one scanning period. Thus, if there are 500 lines and the time to load data into each selected line is 50 micro sec, then a single scanning period is 25 msec, for a field-scanning rate of 40 Hz.

    The performance required of the TFTs in the active matrix depends on the display performance requirements--number of lines, number of gray levels, operating temperature, pixel density, and so forth. The TFT should behave as an ideal switch--zero on resistance and infinite off resistance. We can plot actual TFT on-current per micron of channel width and off-current per micron of channel width as a way to compare different TFTs and to predict their suitability for differing display applications (Firester, 1987). Figure 5.2 is this type of plot with a number of reported TFT data. An "ideal" TFT would be in the upper left corner of this chart.

    Figure 5.2. TFT Leakage and Drive Characteristics

    The need for address and data line drive circuitry is another general aspect of active matrix displays that should be considered. A 1000 x 1000 simple monochrome active matrix has 1 million TFTs and requires 2000 connections to external drive circuitry. Currently these external circuits use flex-printed circuit board connections, elastomeric interconnects, tape-automated bonding (Tomita, 1989), and even chip-on-glass technology (Ishihara, 1989). Cost projections for these external-drive circuits range from about 40% of the direct material costs of display manufacturing (Mentley, 1989) to about 50% of the total system costs (Firester, unpublished).

    Many developers have been pursuing the integration of this drive circuitry with the active matrix itself. The basic supporting argument is that, given yields adequate to fabricate an active matrix with 1 million perfect TFTs, several tens of thousands additional TFTs forming the drive circuitry will not substantially decrease the overall yields. Indeed with redundancy the yields can be enhanced. Nonetheless there is disagreement whether total system yields are enhanced (Mentley, 1989; Morozumi, 1989) or decreased (Ishihara, 1989) by the addition of integrated drive circuitry.

    Perhaps the application for which integrated drivers will be most important is LCD projectors. Here the system cost advantages of small LC light valve size push designs to smaller and smaller pixel periodicities, which also strain available fine- pitch external interconnect technologies.