Libraries are like doctors. Their role is to give us what we need - not what we want. If we seek reasons why our society is providing fewer engineers, fewer critical thinkers, fewer educated people - one significant piece of the puzzle can be found in the attitude of the Game Librarian.
Libraries' roles vary from community to community, based on their charters or mission statements. It's pretty clear what your opinion is about what you want them to be, but that opinion isn't worth much unless you make it known to your community, and get yourself on the city council or the library board of directors or whatever it takes to make your opinion count.
Your "Friends of the Library" story is standard operating procedure for libraries all over the country. They have a process in place for deciding what books should go on their shelves, and it's not usually based on indexing and shelving whatever is given to them by individuals. It's too bad because many donated materials would greatly enhance their collections, but they have their reasons for following their procedure.
Every librarian I've talked to has said that their responsibility is to give their community what it wants, within certain bounds - not force it to eat it's literary vegetables. (That's what kids get shoved down their throats at school.) Yes, libraries are a community resource, and many strive to put reading in the best possible light, but the scope of that resource is larger than what you apparently want it to be. If you want libraries to go back to being books-only operations, you need to achieve a position in your community where you can effectively affect that change.
I also used to own a small bookstore, and it sounds to me like there's a hint of sour grapes in your post. You talk about libraries being in competition with business. Families with sufficient financial resources will continue to buy and/or rent games, movies, and music. Families that need to get the most out of their dollar will also borrow them from libraries. Libraries make sense as a community resource - a way to pool money, via taxes and charitable contributions, so people can enjoy print and electronic media that they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford for a single reading or viewing.
Maybe you need to communicate with your clients, and tell them that materials donated to the library will not go into their collection for lending to the public, but will be sold off for pennies on the dollar to go into private collections. Let them know that you'd be willing to work with the executor of their estate to get top dollar for their collection, so that the proceeds can be donated directly to the local libary, if that is the customer's wish.
That guy showed himself to be more racist and ill-informed by pointing it out than you ever did by simply using an old colloquial expression. Shame on him - he's the one who should be backpedalling and excusing himself, unless he was making a really lame attempt at being funny.
I was going to suggest a combination of a few fun games, (not necessarily "educational"), and a command line interface.
When my son was quite young he watched me play some old LucasArts games, among others, and one day he insisted on being allowed to play too. Most of the ones that he was interested in were old DOS games, so I showed him how to fire them up. At the age of four he learned how to boot straight to DOS and change directories until he found the executable for the game he wanted to play, which he was soon doing all by himself.
He was strongly motivated to learn how to work from a command prompt because he loved those games and was willing to do whatever it took to play them. A couple of years later when he was six we let him play around on a few kid-oriented web sites, (with supervision), so he got familair with how web browsers worked.
Just how familiar he was proved itself one day when he was watching me surf the web. This was before scroll mice were available, so I was clicking and dragging the scroll bar as I read down the page. I mentioned to him that you could also click the arrow button at the bottom of the scroll bar to get to the bottom of the page.
He put his hand on my mouse hand and looked me in the eye and said, "It's easier if you just hit the "Space" bar to do that, Daddy." (And I honestly didn't know that at the time - color me poorly informed.)
So yeah, put away the game consoles and get your kids hooked by letting them watch you play fun games on the computer, and then show them how to work a command line to get to them...
Whenever I see something about classic LucasArts games I check to see if Grim Fandango is mentioned. It's not quite as old as some of the other LucasArts titles listed here so it made use of a newer engine, GrimE, the successor to SCUMM, and it isn't currently part of the project. (Though there is a passing mention of it on the ScummVM website.)
Many of the older games are a whole lot of fun, but Grim Fandango holds a special place in my heart - bugs, quirks, and all...
And I'm the third or fourth person to mention VectorLinux (which can conveniently be found on the Linux ISO Torrent site) - but there were no references to it on this thread when I clicked on the "Reply to This" link.
I guess we can't all be as unique and cool as you, Mr/Ms Anonymous Coward. (Though at least we're on topic)...
I've had success with VectorLinux. Based on Slackware, it was designed to run a GUI on older machines.
It comes in two flavors - a stripped-down, basic version that works well for web-browsing and email; and the SOHO version which still runs well on older machines, but comes with a full complement of productivity software.
It appears that only the SOHO version is available on the Linux ISO torrent site. The basic version is available at the VectorLinux site itself.
You know what, it's generalizations like this that make me sick. My father is a professional Excel developer, and he would be VERY disgusted to hear this comment.
You forgot to say "YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!" You must be new here...
Two nights ago at dinner my 12 year old son asked me that, if the Chinese were so upset about missing accounts of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese in Japanese textbooks, were they (the Chinese) reporting their own atrocities against their own people in their own textbooks? A basic study of the events leading up to the Cultural Revolution, and on through the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, provides plenty of material for writing about domestic Chinese atrocities.
While living in Taiwan in the late Eighties I had to spend a few hours in a cramped air raid shelter in downtown Taipei, because the authorities there felt that the Communists might use the protests at Tiananmen Square as an excuse to move against the student's supporters on Taiwan, and retake the island.
Huh? Clinton was never voted out of office, as president. He won both the 1992 and 1996 US presidential elections, and completed the maximum eight years allowed by the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution.
(He just had a little too much fun doing it - and then there was that whole impeachment thing. Glad I never voted for him...)
I think the game has possibilities, myself, even if the show has been relinquished to sydication.
One of the missions of our local public library is to provide "free" (tax-subsidized) broadband access to the public. However, space and funding limitations only allow the county library system to provide 50 or 60 terminals, split between two libraries. The state and county also provide Internet access to public school students through computers set up in each classroom as well as the school libraries.
If the county decided to extend this service, allowing people cheap or "free" (again, actually tax-subsidized) Intenet access through the citizens' own WiFi-enabled computers, I don't see it as too much of a stretch. For many people in the county, the libraries and schools provide their only Internet access. Many of these people already have cheap second-hand computers in their home, but are unable to afford monthly broadband, or even dialup access - so the commercial ISPs would lose nothing from these individuals.
TFA even touches on this...
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon before offering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask permission from Borders before checking out books.
If the commercial ISPs provided premium service, above and beyond the plain vanilla service that a community might provide to its citizens, then they would still be able to attract customers and earn a fair profit.
Did you guys know that Scott Card is a dedicated mormon? Ever since I've learned that the books are just not the same.
As a former Mormon myself, and a reader of several of Card's books, I've found that his Mormonism colors much of his work, and was a direct influence on many of his books. (Such as the Alvin Maker series, for example.)
A non-Mormon can read Card and for the most part never be aware of his religious affiliation. He says that he rarely employs elements of his religion intentionally, but to the initiated it does come through strongly in his writing. Mormonism is a faith that envelopes and consumes the faithful, and comes to bear on every aspect of their lives.
Having said that, he seems like a decent enough guy, well aware of the shortcomings and foibles of many Mormons, and pretty entertaining in person - though I haven't seen him or read any of his stuff in years. While attending BYU 20 years ago I always made a point of catching Card's talks at the annual university-sponsored science fiction conventions.
Getting back on topic, I think that it would be fascinating to see the form of communication described in the New Scientist article move from the pages of science fiction stories into real life, like so many other innovations. (Though in some of the hands-free, face-to-face scenarios described in the article, plain old sign language might work pretty well, too.)
Slashdot Mirror
I still prefer games that allow for good multiplayer action in the home.
;-)
Sounds like your "Final Fantasy" is to find a girlfriend, oh Jedi of the joystick...
Libraries are like doctors. Their role is to give us what we need - not what we want. If we seek reasons why our society is providing fewer engineers, fewer critical thinkers, fewer educated people - one significant piece of the puzzle can be found in the attitude of the Game Librarian.
Libraries' roles vary from community to community, based on their charters or mission statements. It's pretty clear what your opinion is about what you want them to be, but that opinion isn't worth much unless you make it known to your community, and get yourself on the city council or the library board of directors or whatever it takes to make your opinion count.
Your "Friends of the Library" story is standard operating procedure for libraries all over the country. They have a process in place for deciding what books should go on their shelves, and it's not usually based on indexing and shelving whatever is given to them by individuals. It's too bad because many donated materials would greatly enhance their collections, but they have their reasons for following their procedure.
Every librarian I've talked to has said that their responsibility is to give their community what it wants, within certain bounds - not force it to eat it's literary vegetables. (That's what kids get shoved down their throats at school.) Yes, libraries are a community resource, and many strive to put reading in the best possible light, but the scope of that resource is larger than what you apparently want it to be. If you want libraries to go back to being books-only operations, you need to achieve a position in your community where you can effectively affect that change.
I also used to own a small bookstore, and it sounds to me like there's a hint of sour grapes in your post. You talk about libraries being in competition with business. Families with sufficient financial resources will continue to buy and/or rent games, movies, and music. Families that need to get the most out of their dollar will also borrow them from libraries. Libraries make sense as a community resource - a way to pool money, via taxes and charitable contributions, so people can enjoy print and electronic media that they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford for a single reading or viewing.
Maybe you need to communicate with your clients, and tell them that materials donated to the library will not go into their collection for lending to the public, but will be sold off for pennies on the dollar to go into private collections. Let them know that you'd be willing to work with the executor of their estate to get top dollar for their collection, so that the proceeds can be donated directly to the local libary, if that is the customer's wish.
Dude... I wouldn't sweat it.
That guy showed himself to be more racist and ill-informed by pointing it out than you ever did by simply using an old colloquial expression. Shame on him - he's the one who should be backpedalling and excusing himself, unless he was making a really lame attempt at being funny.
I was going to suggest a combination of a few fun games, (not necessarily "educational"), and a command line interface.
When my son was quite young he watched me play some old LucasArts games, among others, and one day he insisted on being allowed to play too. Most of the ones that he was interested in were old DOS games, so I showed him how to fire them up. At the age of four he learned how to boot straight to DOS and change directories until he found the executable for the game he wanted to play, which he was soon doing all by himself.
He was strongly motivated to learn how to work from a command prompt because he loved those games and was willing to do whatever it took to play them. A couple of years later when he was six we let him play around on a few kid-oriented web sites, (with supervision), so he got familair with how web browsers worked.
Just how familiar he was proved itself one day when he was watching me surf the web. This was before scroll mice were available, so I was clicking and dragging the scroll bar as I read down the page. I mentioned to him that you could also click the arrow button at the bottom of the scroll bar to get to the bottom of the page.
He put his hand on my mouse hand and looked me in the eye and said, "It's easier if you just hit the "Space" bar to do that, Daddy." (And I honestly didn't know that at the time - color me poorly informed.)
So yeah, put away the game consoles and get your kids hooked by letting them watch you play fun games on the computer, and then show them how to work a command line to get to them...
Thanks for pointing that out - I'll take a look at it.
Whenever I see something about classic LucasArts games I check to see if Grim Fandango is mentioned. It's not quite as old as some of the other LucasArts titles listed here so it made use of a newer engine, GrimE, the successor to SCUMM, and it isn't currently part of the project. (Though there is a passing mention of it on the ScummVM website.)
Many of the older games are a whole lot of fun, but Grim Fandango holds a special place in my heart - bugs, quirks, and all...
Many of the people attending this clinic are in the age range of 12-24 years old and are mostly male.
"Mostly male?!" Hah! This Internet addict is 100% male, baby! USDA Prime beef!
(This message posted by a guy who calls himself "sockdoll"...)
... am I so out of touch that I don't even realize what I'm missing, or are people just as stupid as ever?
Yes.
And I'm the third or fourth person to mention VectorLinux (which can conveniently be found on the Linux ISO Torrent site) - but there were no references to it on this thread when I clicked on the "Reply to This" link.
I guess we can't all be as unique and cool as you, Mr/Ms Anonymous Coward. (Though at least we're on topic)...
I've had success with VectorLinux. Based on Slackware, it was designed to run a GUI on older machines.
It comes in two flavors - a stripped-down, basic version that works well for web-browsing and email; and the SOHO version which still runs well on older machines, but comes with a full complement of productivity software.
It appears that only the SOHO version is available on the Linux ISO torrent site. The basic version is available at the VectorLinux site itself.
You know what, it's generalizations like this that make me sick. My father is a professional Excel developer, and he would be VERY disgusted to hear this comment.
You forgot to say "YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!" You must be new here...
I couldn't agree with you more, thus my "pot and kettle" subject line. They are both guilty of a degree of revisionism and obfuscation.
"It takes one to know one." "Two wrongs don't make a right." "People in glass houses..." "I know you are but what am I?" etc.
Two nights ago at dinner my 12 year old son asked me that, if the Chinese were so upset about missing accounts of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese in Japanese textbooks, were they (the Chinese) reporting their own atrocities against their own people in their own textbooks? A basic study of the events leading up to the Cultural Revolution, and on through the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, provides plenty of material for writing about domestic Chinese atrocities.
While living in Taiwan in the late Eighties I had to spend a few hours in a cramped air raid shelter in downtown Taipei, because the authorities there felt that the Communists might use the protests at Tiananmen Square as an excuse to move against the student's supporters on Taiwan, and retake the island.
But we'll let you wear the daft hat.
The insensitive clods are coming out of the woodwork for this story...
...even if the show has been relinquished to sydication.
Or relegated, or whatever.
(D'oh!)
...after Clinton was voted out of office
Huh? Clinton was never voted out of office, as president. He won both the 1992 and 1996 US presidential elections, and completed the maximum eight years allowed by the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution.
(He just had a little too much fun doing it - and then there was that whole impeachment thing. Glad I never voted for him...)
I think the game has possibilities, myself, even if the show has been relinquished to sydication.
One of the missions of our local public library is to provide "free" (tax-subsidized) broadband access to the public. However, space and funding limitations only allow the county library system to provide 50 or 60 terminals, split between two libraries. The state and county also provide Internet access to public school students through computers set up in each classroom as well as the school libraries.
If the county decided to extend this service, allowing people cheap or "free" (again, actually tax-subsidized) Intenet access through the citizens' own WiFi-enabled computers, I don't see it as too much of a stretch. For many people in the county, the libraries and schools provide their only Internet access. Many of these people already have cheap second-hand computers in their home, but are unable to afford monthly broadband, or even dialup access - so the commercial ISPs would lose nothing from these individuals.
TFA even touches on this...
Forcing public broadband networks to ask permission from Verizon before offering service is akin to forcing public libraries to ask permission from Borders before checking out books.
If the commercial ISPs provided premium service, above and beyond the plain vanilla service that a community might provide to its citizens, then they would still be able to attract customers and earn a fair profit.
That's my take on it anyway...
Yes it's a skill, and not just a technology - but it looks cool as hell, doesn't it? :-)
Did you guys know that Scott Card is a dedicated mormon? Ever since I've learned that the books are just not the same.
As a former Mormon myself, and a reader of several of Card's books, I've found that his Mormonism colors much of his work, and was a direct influence on many of his books. (Such as the Alvin Maker series, for example.)
A non-Mormon can read Card and for the most part never be aware of his religious affiliation. He says that he rarely employs elements of his religion intentionally, but to the initiated it does come through strongly in his writing. Mormonism is a faith that envelopes and consumes the faithful, and comes to bear on every aspect of their lives.
Having said that, he seems like a decent enough guy, well aware of the shortcomings and foibles of many Mormons, and pretty entertaining in person - though I haven't seen him or read any of his stuff in years. While attending BYU 20 years ago I always made a point of catching Card's talks at the annual university-sponsored science fiction conventions.
Getting back on topic, I think that it would be fascinating to see the form of communication described in the New Scientist article move from the pages of science fiction stories into real life, like so many other innovations. (Though in some of the hands-free, face-to-face scenarios described in the article, plain old sign language might work pretty well, too.)