Book Review: The Internet Con

 (Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian.)

Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. London, UK: Verso Books, 2024. ISBN: 9781804292143.  (link to publisher)

Genre: technology, Internet

Subgenre: social media, corporations, essay

Format: trade paperback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College 

 

In this small book, the author explains how major Internet companies became the monopolistic behemoths they are now. He also explains how these large companies manage to hold us hostage, making us stay with them even as we hate them and perhaps hate ourselves for staying. 

One thing I've learned in my years online, especially with social media, is that you have to be willing and ready to move on when a site goes to hell. By now, if I have to leave some people behind, so be it, but as much as possible I am ready to pack and go elsewhere when things get bad. In the book, the author reminds us we have the option to move, and he offers some tools to help make the move less painful. 

The book is organized in two major parts: 

• Part I: Seize the Means of Computation. Here the author explains how the companies get big and how for the most part they stay big due to influence, corruption, and legalized extortion. Add to this governments that are either lazy, clueless, and/or in league with said companies, and it does not leave room for hope. However, where there is a will there is a way, and the author provides some possible solutions. 
• Part II: What About. Here the author addresses possible objections including some corporate excuses not to do the right thing. 

The main concept to understand from the book is that of interoperability. It's the ability of different services to connect with each other and users in different places to interact on common ground. What the book explains: 

• "What interoperability is
• How interoperability works
• How we can get interoperability
• How we can mitigate interoperability's problems" (3). 

Mastodon and the Fediverse embody this pretty well. In simpler terms, this is what allows your GMail to communicate with someone else's Yahoo! email and both to communicate with Outlook Email.  For the most part, services like Facebook are walled prisons keeping users hostage. Once you understand interoperability, it makes sense. The author takes time to explain it, shows why it is important, and worth fighting for. 

The book for the most part is accessible, though there are some passages that may get too technical for some readers. The first part also has some repetitive passages, and it is a bit slow reading at times. The second part is an easy read in contrast to the first part. 

The author strives to give solutions, and points out some positive bits of legislation, but in these Hard Times it is difficult to be optimistic our governments would do anything right that would benefit regular people, less so if those things would displease those big tech companies that often keep those politicians in their pockets through political donations as well as dark money. So in the end, this all sounds great, but I would not hold my breath. What I will keep doing is using and learning more about Mastodon and the Fediverse and other open access options. They may be small and not glamorous, but they are not beholden to Big Tech. 

In the end, this is a good read even if it is not an easy read. It's not easy in the sense many folks may not want to hear the truth. Staying in Big Tech's prisons is easier for many folks than making a liberatory effort. 

Overall, I recommend the book for public and academic libraries. For me, as I am starting some research to craft a social media policy for our library, the book gives me plenty of food for thought. Maybe it will give more folks out there something to think about as well. 

4 out of 5 stars.

 

Additional reading notes: 

Why we need to fix tech: 

"Fixing tech isn't more important than fixing everything else, but unless we fix tech, we can forget about winning any of those other fights" (18). 

 

What is reverse engineering: 

"'Reverse engineering' is a time-honored and important guerrilla tactic in all technological struggles. Its meaning is well captured by its name: reverse engineering takes place when a technologist deeply probes a finished product or service to determine how it works, and also how to change or replicate the way it works" (84).  

 

This book qualifies for the following 2025 Reading Challenge: 

 

 

Book Review: Information Literacy and Social Media

 (Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

 

Michele Santamaria and A. Nicole Pfannenstiel,  Information literacy and soci@l medi@ : empowered student engagement with the ACRL framework. Chicago, IL: ACRL, 2024.  ISBN: 9798892555456.

Genre: library science

Subgenre: Information literacy, social media, higher education

Format: trade paperback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College

 

I ordered this book for our library with high hopes, but in the end I was not really impressed. In addition, I do not think the $50.00 price was worth it for this very slim volume. 

As many of these LIS books, and articles as well, often do, this one starts with the common alarmist tone that most librarians are barely competent, mostly technology illiterate, and are clueless about the tech young ones today use. That could not be further from the truth, but I've read enough LIS books and articles to keep seeing that trope. Naturally, the authors are cool, hip, and knowledgeable and bring you their knowledge. The book shows a bit of the messianic tone some parts of librarianship embrace. 

Once you get past the opening we get a lot of LIS theory, reminders, and connections to the ACRL Framework, and arguments for bringing it and information literacy to social media. Some of the authors' points are valid, and others feel a little forced. In the end, the second chapter is a heavy literature review that is a bit of a slog to read. 

The one useful element of Chapter 2 are the reflection questions for teachers and/or library instructors. Taking the time to answer the questions, do some writing and journaling, can be a good preparation for teachers. It can also just be a good reflection exercise. I probably should take some time and do some of the writing. I have done some writing on my social media experiences, but I can always explore and reflect some more. 

The strength of the book is in Chapter 3 where you get the lesson plans and exercises. The plans are cross-disciplinary. The plans are detailed and well-structure. Activities are interactive and encourage students and their instructors to reflect on their experiences of social media and information literacy. Whether we like it or not, and there is a lot to dislike about social media, it is a big part of our students' lives and we should do better in educating them on how to navigate, use it, and evaluate better. This is where the lessons help. 

Every chapter includes a list of notes, and there is also a bibliography at end of the book for further reading or just to check the references. 

Overall, the good part is in the lesson plans. The rest of the theory could have been summarized better and/or kept brief. I do not think the contents justify the book's high cost. I'd say if you must read it to borrow it, scan the lesson plans, skip the rest. Still, I may try to implement a plan or two from the book down the road. Our students spend some time on social media, though from what I see it's not too connected to news and information. It is more for interpersonal connections, but that could be a topic to investigate down further. 

Overall, I liked the idea of the book. I did not like some of the tone of the book, its execution, nor the pricing. Still, it could've been worse. In the end as a whole it was just OK .

2 out of 5 stars. 

 

Additional reading notes: 

 

Students may push back on social media in the classroom: 

"Students bring with them the idea that social media should be reserved for non-academic purposes, an idea reinforced through schooling, teachers, and responsible use policies" (11).  

I somewhat agree with the students. Heck, I remember the days of early social media where librarians were given all kinds of warnings about not mixing work and personal online and where the wrong social media post could get you fired. Librarians on social media now are mostly normalized, but it is still wise at least to keep the professional and personal  somewhat separated. I say that based on experience, but I do admit it is easier said than done to keep the two aspects separate online. Note that while the authors acknowledge the negatives and dangers of social media, they downplay them somewhat to make their argument. I am not saying to completely disengage from social media, though complete disengagement should be an option if desired, especially in the current Hard Times. 

The list of reflection questions for teachers and librarians, starting in page 17 of the book: 

• What social media platforms do I currently use? What do I use them for?
• What do I believe to be true about the social media platforms I am familiar with (such as Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, X, and Pinterest?).
• What negative ideas about these spaces do I need to question and complicate/unravel so I can support learner engagement? 
• What positive ideas about these spaces do I need to question and complicate/unravel so I can support learner engagement? 
• What more would I like to know about these spaces to use them more effectively?

 

The list of classroom space reflection questions, to consider as you use the lesson plans here or for other social media activities, from page 48 of the book: 

• How collaborative is the instructional relationship? 
• How many sessions do you anticipate working on this threshold concept?
• Will the librarian be embedded in the course?
• Will the librarian provide ongoing social media and/or learning management system support to students?
• Does the library have library-specific content available within social media sites that can model social media use in support of learning?
• Does the library have social media accounts used to foster interaction between students and librarians?
• What will librarian instructor presence be like, on and offline?

 

Book Review: Verified

 (Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

Mike Caulfield and Samuel S. Wineburg, Verified: How to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. ISBN: 9780226822068.

Genre: reference

Subgenre: information literacy, internet, research

Format: trade paperback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College

 

This book is an essential guide everyone using the internet needs to have handy. This book teaches how to be skeptical of what you see online and how to evaluate it. In these Hard Times where the internet and social media are full of scams, click bait, rage bait, and all sorts of assorted bullshit, this book gives you the tools to separate the crap from the few good things that remain. This guide can help you navigate the enshittified internet. 

The book is arranged as follows: 

• Introduction.
• Chapter 1: Get quick context.
• Chapter 2: Cheap signals. 
• Chapter 3: Google.
• Chapter 4: Lateral reading. 
• Chapter 5: Reading the room.
• Chapter 6: Show me the evidence. 
• Chapter 7: Wikipedia.
• Chapter 8: Video games. No, it is not about games. This is more about how videos are used to deceive. 
• Chapter 9: Stealth advertising. 
• Chapter 10: Once more with feeling. 
• Chapter 11: Conclusion. 
• Postscript, which briefly covers large language models, so-called AI, and verification.
• Notes and bibliography. 

Caulfield, one of the two coauthors, created the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate, Find other coverage, Trace the claim). Along with Wineburg, they basically give you a full course on how to evaluate what you see online so you can be empowered and act accordingly. The authors take you through the process step by step. These are skill you can learn with relative ease, and you develop the critical habits taught in the book you'll be able to better navigate the internet. A strength of their lessons is that often they do not take a lot of time. That is because you learn to assess quickly. If you decide to pursue a topic further, the authors show you how to do so. If you assess and decide something is not valid, relevant, or just not worth your energy, you can swiftly move on. Being efficient is a key element here. 

The book is relatively easy to read. Each chapter gives you practical examples and then they explain how to best handle each situation. You then learn the overall lesson so you can apply it when you go online. Chapters also include various tips and pieces of advice. Every chapter ends with a list of takeaways summarizing what you are learning. 

By now I am sure many academic librarians apply the lessons from the book in library instruction. We've done some some of it, but we will be working on adding more formal elements from the book in our instruction sessions. However, you do not have to be in an academic setting. This accessible book works for anyone wanting to learn how to find reliable information, evaluate it, and avoid the rest of the crap out there. In a time when Google largely has gone to shit, this book gives you steps and advice for making some good from Google. You learn how to do lateral reading like fact checkers do, and Wikipedia can be your ally, contrary to what some old time educators may claim. Learn that and more reading this book, then keep it handy for when you need a reminder now and again. 

This book is essential for all libraries. Librarians who have not ready it need to read it and then promote it to their patrons. The book can be beneficial for students in composition classes that require research. It may also be of interest to journalism students, journalists, and other writers who do or should be doing research. I recommend it fully, and I would buy a copy for my personal shelf. 

5 out of 5 stars. 

Additional reading notes: 

What this book can help you with: 

"Instead of being driven by emotion and outrage, you'll come to see your gut reactions as precious gifts that signal you to pause, take a breath, and ask a basic question: Is what I am looking at even what I think it is?" (3) 

 

Google is a search engine, not a truth engine:

"Google is not a dispassionate partner in information seeking who diligently corrects you when you've taken a wrong turn. Google is out to please, trying to determine what you want-- even if doing so means giving you a dubious answer but one you want to hear" (78). 

 And with its high commercialization, predominant advertising model, and now integrating LLM and AI features, it's gotten worse in terms of finding what you actually need. 

Need to beware expertise cynicism: 

"In authoritarian regimes, creating a broad cynicism about all sources of expertise-- the press, academics, professionals-- serves to make sure political power, not truth-seeking, is the ultimate arbiter of what is true" (109). 

This book qualifies for the following 2024 Reading Challenges: 

Article Note: on Chat GPT and academic librarians

This short article out of C&RL News is mostly a very flattering paean of LLM's (large language models) and ChatGPT (one of those LLM's). The authors basically envision ways the tool will displace some workers for an AI (artificial intelligence) assisted future. To be honest, a good amount of this has echoes from the days of Library 2.0 and the hype that went along with it. As I read the piece, I found myself writing small comments and questions in the margins. At times I wondered if the authors had read or seen various news on ChatGPT and AI that are not exactly worshiping the models. 

Here are then some highlights that caught my eye: 

ChatGPT is a...

"...tool that uses deep learning techniques to generate text in response to questions posed to it. It can generate essays, email, song lyrics, recipes, computer code, webpages, even games and medical diagnoses" (99). 

It can also generate, to put it bluntly, a lot of bullshit and right out make up stuff (CNN; AP). 

Also, 

"...ChatGPT has been trained on a large corpus of text, including news articles, books, websites, academic articles, and other sources." (99).

Yes, and a lot of it is outright stolen from creators and/or scraped from the web without any form of compensation or attribution. In fact, some news organizations are suing due to what they see is content theft from the AI companies (via CBS News).  See also this piece out of Futurism on a guy basically stealing content and using AI to "repackage" it to sell. 

One detail from the article that also caught my eye is an optimism that seems to have little regard for any ethical concerns, a somewhat naive assumption that everyone involved will be honest. Keep in mind that very often plagiarism is a concern of faculty in academia. In earlier days, they might ask a librarian for assistance, then they turned to Google, and now they rely on tools like Turnitin (another tool that comes with its own ethical issues, but let's not digress further), and next it is AI. Somehow using a tool that basically steals content to check if content is stolen does not feel right, to this librarian at least. 

The authors do mention plagiarism, but then ask, gee, is a student turning in work done with ChatGPT really plagiarizing? (101). I'd say yes they are, and I say it both as a librarian and a former writing teacher, but the authors use a loophole: since plagiarism is defined as "presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own" and ChatGPT is not a someone, well, you get the idea. That is a nice loophole if you can get away with it.

As for librarian roles, a lot of it according to the article will be basically working as "prompt engineers" to "assist researchers by providing tips in asking the right questions to get the best results" (100). Uh huh. At least we may have some job security teaching faculty, and especially students (we all know faculty are not exactly known for wanting to be taught anything, but I digress), how to tell if some text or piece of art is real or AI generated. That will not be an easy task. 

Authors also mention that researchers may have concerns AI could seep into academic writing. Well, it is already happening as researchers are getting caught passing ChatGPT generated essays as their own for publication (via Futurism, but a small search will yield a few other stories).  

I could go, but I am stopping here because I just do not share the rose colored vision the authors of the article appear to have. At any rate, as I was reading this mercifully short article, other thoughts came to mind. Below then are some links that may not be as rosy in their view of ChatGPT and AI that I read recently as of this post. 

Citation for the article noted: 

Christopher Cox and Elias Tzoc, "ChatGPT: Implications for Academic Libraries." C&RL News, March 2023: 99-102.

 The additional links to consider against the whoopee of the original article in addition to the links I included in my comments above:

• "Researchers warned against using AI to peer review academic articles" via Semafor. 
• "'At best it's wrong, at worst it's dangerous:' More generative AI impacts" via The Wild Hunt.
• "This girl does not exist: how generative AI is destroying commercial art and killing an industry" by Michael M. Hughes.
• And speaking of issues with Turnitin, according to them, "more than half of students continue to use AI to write papers."
   

 

Additional Notes from US Book Show 2022: Session on "Tik Tok and Books"

Another session I listened to after the conference. This is my last set of notes for the conference this year.

 

This panel featured a BookTok influencer (just one by the way) and rest were book publisher marketing representatives. Part of the reason I listened to this panel was curiosity. A couple of people have suggested to me that I should give Tik Tok a try. I remain skeptical. I recently launched a YouTube channel, bare bones as it is, and to add another bit of work filming content, even if it is very short, sounds like more of a work burden and perhaps too high a price for whatever little additional exposure I may get as reviewer, writer, and cartomancer. But, in part to be aware, I listened to what they had to say.

• As of 2022, Tik Tok has experienced large growth and has become the 3rd most popular social media platform with 1 billion active users as of this year. They are 3rd behind Facebook and Twitter. (Publishers are basically tripping themselves with interest in TikTok, or BookTok, as the niche community of book talkers and reviewers is known, due to the platform's very high engagement numbers. Not too shabby for a channel that features videos of 1 to 3 minutes in length.)
• The short form video is appealing to TikTok users. They also mention that finding content on TikTok is easier versus finding content on YouTube. Overall, this is still about the algorithms both platforms use. 
• They cite the "authenticity" in TikTok, that videos there are less staged than in other platforms. (Given some TikTok videos I have seen, they can be just as staged as any other platform.) In theory at least, there is less need to edit, and users say that is appealing. 
• Diversity of voices is cited as a good element in TikTok (so far in the panel, everyone is just gushing about the service like it's the 2nd Coming). 
• The main demographic is 18-34 years old, and it is mainly women (women predominance is consistent in social media overall). Males may or not exist in BookTok it seems, or if they are there, it is in very niche communities, so not as visible. 
• Common BookTok genres that "work well" include romance, romantic comedy, and fantasy. Also some literary fiction. 
• (In a way, the publishers here sound a lot like many librarians back in the Library 2.0 days, as in wanting to be in spaces where they may or not be wanted.) 
• The panel's lone BookToker argues there are niche areas for some genres, depending on interests. The platform has progressed a bit according to them. 
• They may find new books to read from follower suggestions. Finding other BookTokers they like and trust. 
• Sponsored content does not do well on TikTok. Like other reviewers, publishers and authors, especially indie authors, need to tailor their communications to potential reviewers on BookTok. Mass e-mails get mostly ignored (and as a reviewer, I can agree with that. Mass e-mails asking for a random review are e-mails I delete). It is better for authors and publishers to do their own research, find fans of whatever genre they write in or market, and go from there. 
• On publishers reaching into TikTok. (And by the way, let me say again they needed more than one BookTok influencer on this panel.)
• Pay attention to what people are interested in. Making contacts and networking are important. Keep in mind a BookToker may not be interested in your specific book, but they are likely to know someone who does, and if you have a good relationship with the influencer they may be willing to pass the book suggestion on down their network. 
• Overall, BookTok cannot be forced. It needs to be organic. 
• A question I wish they had answered but left "for a later panel" was how to find time for TikTok. (I would have liked the answer now. Managing social media for me to share my blogging and writing takes a chunk of time as it is.) 
• Is TikTok a flash in the pan? The influencer thinks it will stay. (Personally, I am skeptical.) 
• Currently, TikTok is growing, especially BookTok. BookTok is a reviewers' platform mostly. Not all book authors need to be on TikTok, or if they are, they need to do authentic things other than peddling their books; authors already have made that mistake on other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and they need to learn from that mistake. An author "messing up" is basically a "death sentence" on BookTok (i.e. being racist, homophobic, etc.) as BookTokers will just ignore and block them. Also, an author bitching about a bad review is a big mistake, again, one that will earn an author getting ignored and blocked. 
• Transparency for everyone is essential on BookTok. 

 

 

Additional notes from US Book Show 2022: Libraries are Essential, Part 2 session

This is one of the sessions I watched on demand after the conference. 

 

Session: Libraries are Essential, Part 2. 

Session to look at critical areas, especially in the "post-pandemic" times. 

Access to e-books and digital content:

• Yes, publishers' onerous restrictions on e-book purchases for libraries are inequitable (i.e. nothing new here). Publishers then suing libraries over it is just bullying. The bottom line on this issue is that it is about fair and equitable digital access. Publisher greed is not a good look no matter what lip service they give about libraries being good, etc. 
• On digital lending and e-book demand: 
• E-book usage continues to grow. Foot traffic in libraries fell with the pandemic and is not back to pre-pandemic levels yet in many places. Some libraries in fact encouraged use of electronic resources (my library certainly did). 
• Other libraries do report lower materials circulation. For electronic resources, again, publisher onerous demands and restrictions mean that libraries are less able to meet patron demand at a time when demand is increasing. 
• Defining equitable digital access. Collections bridge content gaps. To provide quality content for all in a safe environment. Equitable access to content that reflects the community. 
• Equitable digital access is difficult given publishers' exploitative pricing on e-books, which is often at least 3 times higher or more than print book pricing. So librarians are more likely then not to "license" more e-books and buy print, but this means many patrons can be left out, thus an inequitable situation. This can be blamed on publishers' greed. 
• Advances in technology have allowed publishers to avoid/refuse to offer fair pricing on e-books and electronic resources. Playing victim for them is a common disinformation tactic in their industry. Meanwhile publishers continue to disadvantage libraries. 
• Despite publishers' clout, some librarians are working to advocate for themselves and their patrons. However, it may be serious time, as stated by the librarian from Maryland, for libraries to withhold funding from publishers, i.e. time for boycotts of certain publishers. 
• Contrary to what publishers say, librarians do defend and support copyright. Libraries and schools teach about copyright. When we help a student cite their sources properly, we are defending copyright. 
• With better terms from publishers (as if, but work with me here), libraries could buy more content, including more diverse authors, debut authors too instead or in addition to just the "usual" bestsellers. Libraries propose digital access should be as access for print resources. Bottom line: librarians need to continue and expand their role as advocates, but also steer themselves and patrons to smaller and indie publishers willing to give libraries a better deal. This means then also to steer away from large exploitative publishers. Libraries need to put contingency plans in place. 

Interview with Jennie Rose Halperin, of Library Futures (advocacy group).  

• Publishers may not see everything libraries do to promote reading, culture, uplift communities, and providing new ways for people to understand their world (this is true as libraries go, but it is a very charitable way to see publishers. I'd say publishers are just willfully blind). 
• On a tech positive future for libraries. There are many reasons we need access and use electronic resources. The world is moving more to digital content, and libraries need to be part of this future. However, libraries, largely due (we are saying it again) to publisher onerous restrictions, face various challenges. 

Panel discussion: "We are still not OK: Protecting library workers after the pandemic." 

 

• (I should mention that I loathe the "after the pandemic" phrasing. At this point, the pandemic is not over no matter how much wishful thinking most of society is doing now.)
• This sessions mostly looks at libraries' work during the pandemic (a lot of this falls under the "we did good" category of library presentation). What many often did not realize was library workers' trauma at the time (and still ongoing). Many library workers remained at work in libraries that stayed open. (I worked even as the campus was, mostly, locked down in the early stages of the pandemic. Personally, I never "went home.) The issue of trauma has an impact on everyone. 
• "Normal" is a problem. The pandemic exposed various critical needs and forms of suffering. 
• Keep in mind that libraries, especially public libraries, had been suffering divestment and defunding before the pandemic. The pandemic just made things worse for libraries. 
• Trauma is endemic at all library levels according to researchers. Yet attitudes in library workers can be cavalier, meaning they may leave the work in libraries, get transferred out of public services, or just "mentally check out." 
• On defining trauma. A key difference is when people feel supported and able to cope they tend to see it more as a "bad experience" than as trauma. 
• The pandemic has disproportionately affected library workers of color (PoC). In addition, issues of low pay, white supremacy, mission creep need to be addressed. Still, the pandemic has shown and exposed changes that need to be done. 
• To library directors: it is a certainty your PoC library staff have endured abuse in some form at the reference desk. You nor the rest of the staff should be OK with that nor just let it slip. Directors, you need to make choices then, including policy changes. As leaders, you need to lead, not tolerate racist or otherwise abusive behavior. Period. Full stop. 
• A question asked: what if nothing changes? (I think that scenario is possible if not very likely.) The speakers believe change will come, even if some need to get out of the way. Thinking in 20th century terms is no longer an option. Overall, the speakers are optimistic (but again, what if nothing changes? As I often say, a magnificent question. I do want to believe.)

Panel on library leadership. 

 

• R. David Lankes, on panel, says library leaders need "radical empathy." However, leaders more than not are NOT in touch with front line workers (not surprising. That is a common situation, and one I have witnessed often. But heaven forbid you point it out if you are like me, i.e. a front line worker with no clout). 
• A lot of healing needs to happen in the profession. Asking your front line workers about "the future of libraries" may not be the best thing for leaders to be doing at this time (yea, you may want to shut up about that topic in the Hard Times, at least in front of your library workers). Instead of trying to speculate about futures take care of your library workers first.
   
• Flexibility is necessary in the Hard Times. Leadership needs to communicate consistently and clearly. It might also help if leaders take the same risks as everyone else (I am definitely not holding my breath on that). 
• Leaders need to do more than give pretty speeches (and this was said without irony given that we are listening to some very pretty speeches).
   

 

 

Some thoughts and observations from ALA Annual Conference (Virtual) 2021

 

 

This was my first ALA Annual Conference, and I was glad that it was virtual. I was glad not just due to the ongoing pandemic but also because it meant I did not have to travel anywhere. In addition, it also meant that neither me nor my library had to get a small mortgage or a "juice loan" for me to travel someplace, pay for accommodations and travel plus the cost of the conference itself.

Let me disclose upfront that the main reason I went was because the Appalachian College Association (ACA), one of our local consortia, had some spots for college members to send some of their staff to ALA Annual. Apparently there were some leftover professional development funds that had not been used due to the pandemic. At any rate, I applied, and I got them to pay for the conference. Thank you ACA. Otherwise I probably would not have bothered. I have not been an ALA member for years, and a big reason is ALA's prohibitive costs for things, plus I will just say I have other issues with ALA and how they run things, but that is another post for another time. 

ALA Annual is not know for its academic offerings. That is what ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) is for, which I attended once back in 2013 (link to my first post on the conference. If you search the blog you can find the other post notes I made). So I decided to focus more on collection development, specially graphic novels. Our library has an excellent graphic novels collection, and as of this post it is our most circulating collection. I also tried to focus on civics and civil rights issues, topics important to librarians, but that I rarely hear about here. A lot of not hearing about such things here is having to deal with the daily grind of everyday work. There is not much time left to think about things like big picture politics when I am more concerned with working with my students, local projects, so on. But I am digressing, so let me get back on track. 

I did the following sessions at the conference: 

• Wednesday, June 23: 
• Danny Trejo, speaker. Sponsored by Simon and Schuster. I did a few other sessions, but for me this first session set the tone for the rest of the conference, and it was my highlight. Like most speakers at ALA Annual, he was pitching his new book, his memoir Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood. As of this post, I am currently reading the book, and I hope to have a review of it on The Itinerant Librarian soon. Danny Trejo is very strong as a moving and authentically sincere speaker and individual with a raw honesty. 
• Declan Shalvey, author of Time Before Time, presented by Image Comics. I made a note that this title can be a possible addition to our library's graphic novel collection. 
• Darryl Cunningham, the cartoonist of Billionaires: the Lives of the Rich and Powerful, presented by Drawn and Quarterly. I noted this one sounds like a good addition to my personal TBR list as well as possible acquisition for our library. The book looks at the lives of Jeff Bezos, the Koch brothers, and Rupert Murdoch. I think it may be a timely selection in these Hard Times. On a side note, Mr. Cunningham also has a forthcoming graphic novel about Vladimir Putin that sounds interesting too: Putin's Russia: the Rise of a Dictator.
  
• Guy Delisle, cartoonist of Factory Summers, presented by Drawn and Quarterly. In the book, the author looks back at his high school job. During the presentation, author mentions all the years he can spend writing on a book we might read in two hours, but if we are reading it, he feels he has done his work. He adds comics are good for illustration and also for explaining things. As reader and librarian, I've often found a good nonfiction GN can be a great tool to explain and teach on a complex topic (or not so complex but visual works better). 
• Keiler Roberts, cartoonist of My Begging Chart and Joe Ollman, cartoonist of Fictional Father, both from Drawn and Quarterly.
• June 24: 
• I listened to Nicole Hannah-Jones discuss her 1619 Project. She spoke on how in school African American history was never taught. Now that you mention it, I did not get a whole lot of that either in school nor even as an undergrad. I think 1st formal African American history course I took was in grad school.For me, aside from grad school, a lot of what I have learned on this has been effort on my own to find books and resources to learn. 
• Listened to Belgian author Judith Vanistendael now. A new author to me, presented by Europe Comics. The author was a pleasure to listen to, very warm, and the company rep was good too overall. At one point during the presentation, audience member asked about her art process (she is author/illustrator). She has actually pulled out some of her sketches to show us the process of how the book developed, then compared to a book page. Very visual. 
• David Copperfield speaking of magic, his personal magic museum, and his new book David Copperfield's History of Magic.  Presented by Simon and Schuster. Copperfield speaks of magic as an art form. Magic brings out in us a sense of wonder and discovery.
• Via Gibbs Smith, I listened to Peter Hiller, author of The Life and Times of Jo Mora: Iconic Artist of the American West. I knew very little of Jo Mora, so finding this fascinating.
• Listened to the Red Hen Press author showcase featuring Dariel Suarez, Lily Hoang, Thea Prieto, and Kazim Ali. Ali's book, New Moons, sounded interesting and possible acquisition for our library. It is a compilation of Muslim voices in America.At the time of this post, Edelweiss Plus had a review copy of this, which I downloaded. I hope to write a review of it for The Itinerant Librarian after I read it.
• Dr. Leana Wen spoke on public health, COVID-19, the pandemic, and her memoir Lifelines.  Her three takeaways: 
• Public health saved your life today. You just don't know it. 
• All of us and all of you (in libraries) are public health warriors too. 
• We all need to make our own tables, not wait for anyone else to go first.
• June 25: 
• Via Drawn and Quarterly, listened to Sophie Yanow, cartoonist of The Contradictions.
• Stanley Tucci talking about cooking, and of course his new cookbook, Taste: My Life Through Food, was interesting and a bit of fun. 
• June 28:
• I caught the encore of the session on the First Amendment and libraries. What I noted at the time: To be honest, as much as they are trying to be somewhat optimistic, this is seriously depressing given the clusterfuck in the U.S. and how rights are being suppressed in states while the federal administration seems asleep at the wheel.
• And I ended it listening to former President Barack Obama on June 29. What I jotted down at the time: There may be things I do not agree with him (I think like many Dems he can be seriously milquetoast), but some good points, and he seems to mostly act in good faith.

A challenge for me is that the conference offered sessions with many authors and publishers that sounded interesting, so selecting which ones to listen to at the time was not easy. Still, I do appreciate some of the recordings of sessions were available later for me to go back and listen to things I may have missed the first time. 

Since I am not a member, I pretty much ignored the administrivia and member organization meetings. To be honest, if I was a member, I'd probably ignore them too. This makes me glad that as a librarian, I am not on a tenure line or such. One of my colleagues was on a tenure line at a previous place, and she says only reason she had to go to ALA or ACRL was because tenure work required it (the "service" part). 

I took very minimal notes, and at the time I mostly did small live tweets on Twitter mentioning sessions and brief impressions or comments. You can look up my handle (@bloodravenlib) and add the hashtag #ALAAC21 to the search, and you can find my notes if interested. I also used that thread to make a list of titles I was interested in both to read personally as well as for possible library acquisition. 

 

Overall, I did like the virtual experience. Getting some professional development done from my desk without expensive travel was worth it. Would I do ALA Annual again? If they offer a virtual option for folks like me, I'd consider asking if my library would fund it. I am not saying for them not to do in person. Go right ahead, and if travel is your thing and you got the money for it, you do you. I am saying the virtual option should also be available as an alternative for folks who may need a more affordable option, refuse to or cannot travel, so on. 

Article Note: On social media as platform for academic library marketing

Citation for the article: Wesley Wing Hong Cheng, et.al., "Social Media as a Platform in Academic Library Marketing: a Comparative Study." Journal of Academic Librarianship 46 (2020): 1-8.

This article looks at use of social media for marketing academic libraries. Libraries often hope to use social media as a tool to better engage their patrons. Given the popularity and ubiquitousness of social media, there is a need for library professionals to learn new skills and best practices in this area. The authors write that "librarians should know how to use these tools effectively by understanding behavior, culture, and etiquette of different users" (2). The librarians and library staff also need to examine how their patrons use and engage with social media. This article looks at an evaluation study done at University of Hong Kong Libraries on how effective or not use of social media was to market the academic library. The study focuses mainly on the library's Facebook page. Information was gathered via a quantitative survey created and distributed via a Google Form at the HKU campus. A total of 101 responses from faculty and students were collected.

Some takeaways from the article for me: 

• A definition of marketing: "Johnson (2014) defines the term marketing from a library context, which is to determine the wants and needs of the user communities, to develop the products and services to respond, as well as to encourage users and potential users to take advantage of those products and services" (qtd. in 1). 
• On perception of the Facebook page they found that "although respondents generally agreed that the use of library Facebook could be beneficial, some issues such as a lack of attractiveness, shortage of technical staff, and too much spamming might hinder them from participating in the HKUL's Facebook page actively" (5). 
• Suggestions from the article: 
• Use casual language and friendly tools so you can create a positive social media environment for users. 
• Introduce training sessions on library marketing with topics such as effective communication and use of social media tools. 
• Adjust posting frequency after investigating when users are most active. Do keep posting frequently. 
• Criteria you can use to evaluate how your social media is performing include numbers of likes, shares, and comments on posts. These are measurable and can be used to set benchmarks. 

 

 

Article Note: Facebook, Instagram, and Academic Library User Engagement

Citation for the article: 

 

Tammy Tim Wai Chan, et.al., "From Facebook to Instagram: Exploring User Engagement in an Academic Library." Journal of Academic Librarianship 46 (2020): 1-8.

The article looks at academic library use of Facebook and Instagram and how effective or not they are in engaging library patrons. Instagram has been picking up traction as social media users show a strong preference for photo apps and viewing images over text. The authors analyzed posts and usage from Facebook and Instagram plus they got student feedback from interviews on campus to do the social media evaluation. The study took place at University of Hong Kong Libraries, so keep that in mind when reading this as some things that apply over there may or not apply in the United States. Still, I think there are some lessons that can be learned. The authors hope that this study helps other librarians do similar evaluation efforts in their institutions as well as help them craft better social media policies. 

The research period of the study was from January to May 2019, a semester. They interviewed 8 students, graduate and undergraduate, for the feedback gathering stage.

Some article takeaways for me: 

• The authors cite a study indicating that Facebook was the most popular social media platform in Hong Kong, but they also found that user engagement with the library's Facebook page was low. I found that interesting because our library's Facebook page does get a good amount of engagement at least in terms of views and a few comments. It is enough that our library wants to keep using it even with Facebook's known issues regarding things like user privacy (but that is another conversation). Our campus students are very active in Facebook groups, and we often share library FB posts on student groups.
  
• They have a social media team: "Three library staff from the Public Relations and Development team, who are a manager, a graphic designer, and a student helper, respectively, are responsible for handling the matters of both Facebook and Instagram channels, such as content management, reporting, and publicity creation" (1). Granted, we are a much smaller campus, but we can barely get a student worker to do the social media consistently, and as for the librarians, it is often done when we remember to do it or something important needs to be shared. To be honest, I wish we were more mindful about library social media, but the usual issues of time and priorities seem to come up often. This also brings up another point the article makes and that is that we could and should improve content to other material besides operational announcements. We currently do some additional things on Facebook, but not enough in my humble opinion. 
• This also highlights another issue the article brings up: "The librarian's inadequate knowledge and lack of training about the use of SM, and limited support and resources from the institutions were some of the major obstacles to the success of libraries' SM" (2). I know that what I know about social media has been mostly self taught including a lot of reading as well as practice and trial and error. These things were not really taught in library school in my time. Now we do get LIS school graduates who get some degree of training in social media, and other online technologies such as podcasting; in fact, we recently hired a "Digital Initiatives Librarian" just for that kind of thing. However,  the emphasis on that is use of digital tools and online research; it is mainly for digital scholarship, which by the way is a glamorous trend now (much like Library 2.0 was back some years ago). The Digital Initiatives are great, but social media does not fall under this purview (again, another conversation). At any rate, outside of library school, institutional support for social media use, training, and policies is usually lacking. 
• This also highlights the issue of workload when it comes to social media, which library administrators often fail to recognize. They like when the social media works well and makes the library look good but rarely do they credit the work that goes into making it happen. Heck, back in Hong Kong, it was the students interviewed who were thoughtful about librarians' workloads: "All the interviewees expressed concern about the increasing workload of HKUL staff to manage the SM sites, as they believed lots of efforts, time, and skills should be needed" (5). Certainly more thoughtful than here in the United States.
  
• The authors cite research that observes that academic libraries tend to use social media for disseminating information, marketing, publicity, and answering inquiries. Marketing seems to be most successful use. 
• When it comes to Facebook versus Instagram, they found Instagram got more engagement of the two. 
• Authors list the categories they coded the posts in. I am noting them in part because some of these could be ideas for content additions here. For us, we do some of this, but some consistency is where we really need the work. See Table 2 in the article: 
• Library news dissemination
• General library operation
• Recruitment (i.e. hiring. Job advertisements)
• Marketing library events (we do some of these already, a bit less so now due to COVID-19, but we have managed to also do some virtual events)
• Library facilities (for example for us here, items about the St. John's Bible)
• Library in-house collections (we do some of this in form of reference book of the week and graphic novel of the week highlights. This content could be expanded, say a review now and then)
• Other services
• Publications (this can be highlights of campus publications for example. We do some of this with the faculty publications display but not really pushed as much on social media)
• Information or knowledge sharing or other events (like monthly observances, we do some of that here)
• Information acquisition suggestions
•  Why is good social media content important? "They observed that the majority of posts were about the information of library general operation and library events, which were useful. However, they felt that an SM site full of these uninteresting posts would be very dull and unattractive" (5). And yes, posts with pictures of cute animals do remain popular. 
• Users do expect entertaining and interesting content, so things like memes, humor, greeting, are appreciated and desired (7). 
• "Scholars further explain that academic libraries should have a formal policy that defines the market strategy and communication tone on SM sites, and designate a team to manage the SM sites" (7). And yes, this also has the usual CYA angle. 

 

Booknote: Burning the Books

(Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

Richard Ovenden, Burning the Books: a History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-674-24120-6.

 

Genre: nonfiction

Subgenre: books and reading, history, libraries, archives, preservation, LIS

Format: hardcover

Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library

 

As the subtitle states, this is a history of the deliberate destruction of knowledge. Destruction can go from warfare and pillage (what the author might charitably call "displaced or migrated" archives, but we'll get to that). As of this post, the book is relatively up to date on the issue, an issue that not many regular people think about or even realize. Even when it comes to their own data online and how it is being raided and monetized, not many people think about it nor do they give a passing thought as they sign up for yet another online service or social media site, casually and willingly giving them their information. 

The book is arranged into 15 chapters. Each chapter is a case study illustrating the deliberate destruction of knowledge and information. However, it is not just destruction. The book also presents stories of librarians, archivists, and other ordinary people working to save knowledge, often at great risk to their lives. Each chapter can stand alone as an essay. The chapters together give a picture from ancient times to the modern day. 

Ovenden is the director of Oxford University's Bodleian Library, so the book does have a bit of a British focus and voice to it. Being British, i.e. from a former colonial power, he does tend to minimize some pillaging of artifacts, files, books, etc. from former colonies. Those are the files often labeled as "displaced or migrated" as in forcefully migrated from the former colony to colonial powers. Heck, let's be honest, the Bodleian holds a significant number of things that really belong to other countries, and they are not about to return them anytime soon. I did have mixed feelings reading this book given the issue of archives pillaging and him taking a bit of pride in it. 

Putting that issue aside, the book does make some good points that everyone should consider. The latter parts of the book where the author discusses digital archives and texts and issues of preservation are a must read. He also goes over issues of privacy and how so much information is now controlled and exploited by private corporations who have no concern about things like preservation. If we do not take action to preserve things now, there will be very little if anything for the future. 

Overall this is a pretty good book. Though aimed at general readers, it feels a bit more aimed at librarians and archivists, so to some it may be preaching to the choir. Yet for general readers, the book provides a good historical overview and a good discussion of key issues. Despite some issues, I think more people outside places like academia and elite circles need to read this. In the end, I liked it. It od not perfect but it is pretty good. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

* * * * * 

Additional reading notes: 

Author's motivation to write the book: 

"This book has been motivated by my own sense of anger at recent failures across the globe-- both deliberate and accidental-- to ensure that society can rely on libraries and archives to preserve knowledge. The repeated attacks on them over the centuries need to be examined as a worrying trend in human history and the astonishing efforts made by people to protect the knowledge they hold should be celebrated" (5). 

On the difference between libraries and archives. There is some generalization in the statement, and I am sure a librarian and an archivist or two may wish to add a thing or two. Still, for the lay person this may be useful or at least make sense: 

 

"Archives are different from libraries. Libraries are accumulations of knowledge, built up one book at a time, often with great strategic purpose, while archives document directly the actions and decision-making processes of institutions and administrations, even of governments. Libraries often hold some of this material as well-- the printed Journal of the House of Commons, for example-- but archives are by their nature full of material, often mundane in its character, not intended to be read by a mass audience" (8). 

Just a nice quote: 

"There is nothing more to the credit of a library than that every man finds in it what he seeks" -- Gabriel Naude, 1627 (qtd. in 71). 

When Flickr lowered the limit of free photo storage in 2019, it illustrated the fickle nature of many free online services and why you always need your own backups: 

"The problem that the Flickr case throws up is one of trust in the companies that now control knowledge online. Active users will have known about the coming changes, and were perhaps able to move their data on to other platforms. Others who did not move fast enough perhaps lost images of their lost ones or a photographic record of their adventures. Gone in the blink of an eye" (200). 

A relevant question given the U.S. elections in 2016 and 2020: 

"Where so much political campaigning takes place in the realm of social media, how can we be sure that our feeds are not being manipulated unlawfully, and that online campaigning is being done openly and fairly, and with the consent of individuals, unless the data collected by those companies can be archived for open scrutiny" (210). 

On the dysfunctional relationship between people and tech companies: 

"At the heart of the current relationship between the public and the major tech companies is the problem of trust. We all use their services, partly because we have become reliant on them, but increasingly the public does not trust them. Society has created a huge bank of knowledge but has privatised its ownership, management and use, even though the knowledge was created freely by individuals around the world. Arguably the owners of the companies are beginning to be viewed by the public with a sense of dystopian fear and suspicion" (213). 

To sum up, the author presents the five functions of libraries and archives we lose when they get lost or destroyed: 

• "Firstly, they support the education of society as a whole and of specific communities within it. 
• Secondly, they provide a diversity of knowledge and ideas. 
• Thirdly, they support the well-being of citizens and the principles of the open society through the preservation of key rights and through encouraging integrity in decision-making.
• Fourthly, they provide a fixed reference point, allowing truth and falsehood to be judged through transparency, verification, citation, and reproducibility. 
• Finally, they help root societies in their cultural and historical identities through preserving the written record of those societies and cultures" (225). 

 

Some books from the book's bibliography I may want to read later: 

•  David E. Fischman, The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. (2018). ISBN: 9781512603309.
• Meg Leta Jones, Ctrl+Z: the Right to be Forgotten. ISBN: 9781479876747.
• Gabriel Naude, Advice on Establishing a Library. (This is available for borrowing via Internet Archive)
• Rosenbach, A Book Hunter's Holiday. (also available for borrowing via Internet Archive)
• Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. ISBN: 9781541758001.

 

 Book qualifies for this 2021 Reading Challenge: 

 

Article Note: On 2020 Top Trends in Academic Libraries

This article is a summary of what the ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee considered to be "top trends" for 2020 for academic libraries. It was looking at the two previous years. Keep in mind this was written before COVID-19 hit. Still some things still apply in the COVID-19 era. This article can be a refresher or an update tool for librarians who may not have kept up on these topics. 

Some things I took away from the article: 

• Change management was a trend. At the time they emphasized a "need for preparing a workforce for uncertainty and ambiguity." Given the COVID-19 era, that is quite an understatement now. Library administrators need to be working on this and doing their best to help their workforce function and be trained to work in these uncertain times. 
• Learning analytics was a trend, and it has become yet another buzzword in academic libraries. The idea is to collect student learning data related to library use in order to understand students better. The idea, supposedly, is to then learn from that date to serve students better and of course, the ever popular making sure the stakeholders know our value. However, "many academic librarians are growing every more skeptical of the value of LA, especially as their use relates to student privacy, student agency, library ethics, and student trust in libraries as institutions." To be honest, when it comes to LA, student privacy and other concerns are rarely if ever considered nor mentioned as we send out yet another survey or assessment tool to collect yet more data. 
• Something to add to information literacy instruction: ". . .libraries should 'consider using information literacy instruction as a vector to introduce algorithmic concept and their ethical implications." 
• Social justice, critical librarianship, and critical digital pedagogy were identified as a trend. These are just a continuation as these have been around for more than two years now. 
• Definition of critical librarianship: "'Critical librarianship acknowledges then interrogates the structures that produce us as librarians, our spaces as libraries, our patrons as students, faculty, and the public.' It is grounded in 'a librarianship that. . . disrupt[s] the status quo, that center[s] a commitment to social justice and social change, . . . and that grapple[s] directly with the problems of power concentrated in the hands of only a few.'"
• As often the case, things like this have good ideals can often become too much theory and not enough practice. The movement as been criticized "for being inaccessible, exclusionary, elitist, and disconnected from the practice of librarianship." Criticizing critical librarianship is certainly not something popular nor something seen very often. 
• Streaming media was a trend, and it has become a bigger trend in the COVID-19 era as professors scramble to put as much of it as they can in their courses, which for the libraries often means scrambling to find content, help the faculty put it up in their online classes, and making sure copyrights are not violated, something that faculty rarely care about when they do things like streaming stuff they get off Netflix. "With increasing support for online and hybrid courses, as well as flipped classroom pedagogy, the appeal and desirability of streaming content is clear." More so in the COVID-19 era. 
• Student wellbeing is identified as a trend. Like what? We did not care about students before? Anyhow, stories about students struggling in the COVID-19 era have been on the rise, so naturally colleges and libraries doing stuff, or at least giving good lip service, on student wellbeing has been on the rise as well. Wellbeing is one of those keywords you hear when concerns arise about things like retention and success. 
• Again, keep in mind, this was written before COVID-19: "As a result, institutions are increasingly looking at supporting students holistically and promoting student wellbeing as possible contributors to their success and retention. Libraries are well-positioned to help, due to their central locations, longer operating hours, and perception as a safe space, with some stressing the importance of collaborating with campus partners, social service agencies, and professionals." 
• Things like longer operating hours are not the case in many libraries, including hours. During an academic term, we went down from opening until midnight to closing at 9p. Decreased traffic in the library meant we could not justify later hours. Much of our services also went virtual, and so have other campus services.
  

 

Citation for the article: ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee, "2020 Top Trends in Academic Libraries: a Review of the Trends and Issues Affecting Academic Libraries in Higher Education." College & Research Libraries, 81.6 (2020). (Link to article: https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/24478/32315). 

Some items from the Notes I would like to look over later: 

• Mary Lee Kennedy, “Research Libraries as Catalytic Leaders in a Society in Constant Flux: A Report of the ARL-CNI Fall Forum 2019” (Association of Research Libraries and Coalition for Networked Information, January 2020): 18, https://doi.org/10.29242/report.fallforum2019.
• Gwen Evans and Roger C. Shonfeld, “It’s Not What Libraries Hold; It’s Who Libraries Serve: Seeking a User-Centered Future for Academic Libraries,” January 23, 2020, https://sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/OhioLINK_ILSUserCenteredFuture_1.23.20.pdf.
• April Hathcock, “Learning Agency, Not Analytics,” At The Intersection, January 24, 2018, https://aprilhathcock.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/learning-agency-not-analytics/.
• Kyle M. L. Jones, “‘Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should’: Practitioner Perceptions of Learning Analytics Ethics,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 19, no. 3 (July 2019): 408, https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2019.0025.
• Emily Drabinski, “What Is Critical about Critical Librarianship?” Art Libraries Journal 44, no. 2 (April 2019): 49.
• Davin Helkenberg et al., “Education for the Common Good: A Student Perspective on Including Social Justice in LIS Education,” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 59, no. 4 (October 1, 2018): 270.
  
•  Nicole A. Branch, “Illuminating Social Justice in the Framework: Transformative Methodology, Concept Mapping, and Learning Outcomes Development for Critical Information Literacy,” Communications in Information Literacy 13, no. 1 (March 2019): 4–22.
• Karen P. Nicholson and Maura Seale, eds., The Politics of Theory and the Practice of Critical Librarianship (Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2018).
• Mary J. Wise, “Naps and Sleep Deprivation: Why Academic Libraries Should Consider Adding Nap Stations to Their Services for Students,” New Review of Academic Librarianship 24, no. 2 (April 3, 2018).
• Ian Godfrey et al., “Supporting Student Retention and Success: Including Family Areas in an Academic Library,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 17, no. 2 (2017).
• Samantha G Hines, “Connecting Individuals with Social Services: The Academic Library’s Role,” Collaborative Librarianship 9, no. 2 (2017).
• Elizabeth Ramsey and Mary C. Aagard, “Academic Libraries as Active Contributors to Student Wellness,” College & Undergraduate Libraries 25, no. 4 (October 2, 2018): 328–34.

 

Some thoughts after using NewTumbl for a bit over a year now

 (Crossposted from The Itinerant Librarian)

As I mentioned last year in my end of year thoughts and reading list post, I started a blog over at NewTumbl back in June of 2029 to replace the Alchemical Annex, which I closed down from Tumblr. Alchemical Annex for me is mainly a bit of experiment, a bit of free writing and posting, and a bit of stuff for fun. I call it the "refugee from Tumblr" blog since that was the motivation for trying out NewTumbl. Now that I have used it for a year and a half give or take, and I've had time to kick the tires and take it for a ride as they say, I am going to write out some thoughts as an informal review. So, in no particular order, here are my thoughts on the site. 

• A strength of NewTumbl is their ratings for blogs and posts system. The ratings through F (family friendly), O (safe for work), mature (NSFW), X (explicit, really NSFW), and their extreme rating of W (they call it Wow! and not safe for anyone. As I understand this one, this is for stuff even too extreme for X rating but still legal content). You can learn more about their ratings here. Ratings in theory give you a good level of control for your blog content and for what you see on your feeds. Feed is based on tags you choose to follow and users you choose to follow. In practice, getting a formula you are comfortable enough for your blog and your feeds is not as easy as it sounds. Yes, I like the idea you can rate posts, and I like the idea people can then adjust what they see based on ratings. You rate your blog, and others see it or not based on their level of comfort. For example, I now have an X-rated blog (more on that in a moment), which means I can see any blog and its content at X level and below. People with a rating below me would not be able to see any content I rate higher than them. They can see posts I rate at lower levels but nothing higher, so they would only see the parts of the blog that fit their comfort level. 
• As I mentioned, calibrating your comfort level (what you want to see) and your blog level (what you may want others to see of your content) is not easy. I reflected on this on Alchemical Annex back in July 2 and again in July 5 of 2019.
• The ratings system is mostly human based, and to a large measure it does depend on people flagging things if they are not accurate. The results can be inconsistent. For one, I found a lot of people rate lower than they should be, i.e. a post that by definition is likely X gets an M rating because the user may be trying to skirt rules or just trying to get more views (or their threshold is higher despite the definitions from NewTumbl). The result is at times, if you have a lower rating of M for example for your comfort level, X-level stuff slips in because some users are just not scrupulous enough or may not care. This is another reason that getting a good comfort level on NewTumbl is next to impossible short of filtering everything out, but if you do that, you see very little since not many people are rating at the lower levels of F and O. 
• So, why did I end up rating my blog with an X rating? Mainly because I started getting some followers who had a higher level I had, and to see their material, I needed to raise the comfort and blog ratings. A big disadvantage of the higher X rating is that regular viewers may not see parts of the blog unless they are signed into NewTumbl (and they have a high enough rating). However, for posts below X rating, and I think for me that is actually most of my content there, if you have the URL link to the blog, you see that content just fine.  Having an X rating for the blog was not a decision I took lightly, but I felt it put me at a disadvantage. However, it does mean I have to more actively filter my feed because to be honest I do not want to be seeing porn all the time. Hey, I like porn as much as the next healthy male, but I do have my limits. NewTumbl does give you the option to filter the feed by levels, which means I can just tell it to see stuff that is just F and O on the feed and filters the rest out. One thing NewTumbl can do is make users a bit more thoughtful about the content they post and share and have a bit more control on what they see or not. 
• What kind of content do I post? I use the blog as a second place to post my cartomancy content. I do a daily Tarot card pull on Twitter, and I cross post it at Alchemical Annex. It is just another alternative, though those posts get very little views and interactions if any. I also posts or repost memes, some pin ups, other bits and pieces of art, trivia, some vintage things, quotes, i.e. stuff one may keep in a commonplace book. 
• What do other people post? From what I see, you get a lot of memes. All kinds of memes from humor to politics (on both sides of the U.S. spectrum. Don't really see much politics from other places). A lot pictures of things people like. A ton, and I mean a seriously huge amount of porn. NewTumbl basically became the Mecca if you like posting and sharing porn and adult images. Nothing wrong with that. After all, they billed themselves as the adult alternative to Tumblr, as the place that will not censor you (as long as you mind the broad rules), and people have run with it. If you set your comfort level to X, or even M as I mentioned, you will see porn. There is no escaping it. If that is your thing, then this is the place for you. If it is not, I honestly think you should either stay with Tumblr or try someplace else for your microblogging. 
• Features on NewTumbl. I think it is safe to say NewTumbl is a Tumblr clone. It is not the only one, but it was one of the first that has been growing. You can do pretty much anything you might do on Tumblr.
• You can post and repost content from other users. You can also like content from other users and you can mark it as a favorite. If you mark as favorite,  you can then view your favorites in a single feed. This is pretty much as you would do in Tumblr .
• You can set your "home" (where you start when you log in) to your dashboard, which shows activity related to  your blog (any reblogs, likes, favorites, comments, so on you that you've gotten on your blog) or the general feed (shows content based on tags and users you follow). I have mine set up to go to the dashboard when I log in. 
• Types of posts you can do: text posts, photos (and pictures), video, quotes, links, and audio. However, not all of those work. In reality, you can do: 
•  Text posts (which include some limited editing ability; you are not getting anything like a WYSIWYG option, but you can link things in text posts).
• Photos and pictures can be uploaded and you can add text underneath. However, you cannot embed images in a text post. So for example, if you want to make a text post and put a picture in that post with a caption, you cannot do that. 
• Quotes. Sort of a text post. It puts the quote in a bubble when it displays, and gives you space to put in source of a quote. You can also add comment on the quote in text. If you share quotes, say a quote or thought of the day, this may be useful. I suppose you could do the same in a text post but this makes it look nicer. 
• Link. You can post a link to something like a website, a video (the link; you cannot embed videos), or anything else on the web with some comment. 
• Audio. That option is just for looks. Seriously, I have tried it and nothing happens. It looks like they intended to have some way to embed audio but they have not gotten around to it. 
• Video. It supposed to be to either upload a video or embed one from a place like YouTube. The functionality is pretty limited. Embedding from YouTube or such is not working. Like the audio function, it seems to be there for looks. The uploading video function does not seem consistent neither. I honestly do not bother with it. Overall, it is a bit of a fail in usability for NewTumbl.
  
• What you do see often are short animated GIFs (often porn clips) and some very short video clips, which I am guessing people upload since there is no function to link and embed. 
• You can filter types of activity to see on your activity, so basically sort things by just the likes you are getting or any comments. 
• You can follow people, and they can follow you. While NewTumbl claims there is an option to block people you do not want following, in reality it does NOT work. They claim to block someone they have to follow you first, which makes it a joke because more often than not on social media you want to block out anyone who bothers you, who may be offensive to you, or you just do not want to see period. Most social media ranging from Facebook to Twitter have easy blocking options to make things more comfortable for the user. There is NONE of that here. Believe me, I have tried and looked. This is a big failure on the part of NewTumbl when it comes to usability. 
• You can set up a queue of posts so things can post to the blog over time. You can also set the frequency in which those posts in the queue get posted. For example, I have the blog's post with enough content to post once a day. 
• However, another big fail is that there is NO way to schedule posts to specific dates like most other blog platform does. You can just add them to the queue but they post when they post. You can move posts in the queue around a bit so one thing posts before another, but even this process is somewhat difficult. Basically, it is very much a "set it and forget it" kind of thing. Lack of ability to schedule posts on a specific date is a significant limitation. Even Tumblr allowed one to schedule posts on specific dates, like content for Christmas/holiday season.
• You can make posts and save them as drafts. However, the draft queue is not that much better than the queue in terms searching and moving things around to put in certain order. 
• You can hide certain blogs and tags from your feed, though this also works fairly inconsistently. 
• Tagging. You can tag your content. An issue is that a lot of people do not due to laziness or carelessness, so if you want to hide certain posts, many that fit a tag will slip because some  user did not bother to tag things. 
• There is some limited function to personalize the appearance of your blog, things like having an image banner, adding some personal links, a short statement what your blog is about and a title, those kinds of things. 
• Having said that, there are a lot of users that do not bother with any of that and just leave their blogs as untitled. On a related note, a lot of people just set up a blog but not post content of their own, nor do they reblog. They just lurk. To me that is not a big deal, but there are some users who get very anal retentive about disliking followers with no content of their own. Oh well. 
•  You can get post alerts. This usually means you got flagged. This allows you then to revise a post, say change a rating. Until you revise, a flagged post becomes invisible. So for example, if you rate something as M, but it is really X, and you get "caught" (i.e. flagged), you get an alert. You then either revise the post content or change the rating for the post to get back in circulation. Once you learn the feel of the land, at least for me, alerts become rare to non-existent. First few days I got some persnickety monitor that flagged every other thing (not unlike Tumblr, except Tumblr uses their algorithm). Once I learned the ropes, I've not had any issues. The flagging system has its advantages (human based) but also disadvantages (again, human based and now and then you get some fuckbagel who is either way too literal and anal or one that does not have anything better to do than flag to bother people. The latter kind is relatively rare to be honest, so there is that). 
• Speaking of the ratings, they do offer you the option to become a monitor. There is a process to apply, and they review your flags to get you a proficiency rating (i.e. how well you match their ratings rubrics). If you work your way up to "community monitor" there is a small payment that those folks can earn. Some of the information on that program is here.  
• I have given thought to applying and seeing if I can make it to becoming a community monitor. I am sure my librarian skills could help, but realistically speaking I do not have the time to just go around looking for things to flag or not. Having said that, I do appreciate the self policing efforts, which are more than many other sites do. 
• Their search function. This is not very good to be honest, but then again, search functions for most social media are bad. Facebook's search function is notoriously bad for instance. In NewTumbl, you can type in a keyword, say cats, and you first get any blogs that may contain "cats" in title or content, then searches NewTumbl for any posts containing "cats." Notice it is not a matching search. For example, type "tit" and in addition to what you might expect (tits, i.e. female breasts), you can also get things like "unTITled," "TITanic," "TITillate," etc. There is no exact match, and it finds anything containing the set of letters you type. This makes for a pretty poor search function. 
• Speaking of searching, finding anything on your own blog is also next to impossible. You can see your blog, and if you tagged things well, a site search can bring up your posts, well, for the most part. However, there is no specific way to search your blog that is easy if you want to find a specific post. So if you recall you posted a particular post, but do not recall when, search may or not help you find it. At least Tumblr allowed you to see your blog's posted queue by month so you could at least scroll and look. NewTumbl does not even offer that.  
• Advertising. It is a free to use platform, so supported by advertising. The ads show up in your feed and they sort of try to look like other posts, though they are identified as ads. The main issue with the advertising is not that they advertise. It is that they have chosen to use the worst porn ads imaginable. I am talking about the kind of cheesy and ethically dubious porn ads you only see on not so good porn sites and on seedy parts of the Internet: shady personals, the "click here to meet hot women in your area," ads for dubious male enhancement, and other less than tasteful ads. I get the site has to monetize. Believe me, I am not opposed to some ads. But for crying out loud, that is the best they could do? By the way, even if you have your comfort set up to low levels you will still see the porn ads in your feed even if all you set up to see was Dr. Seuss and memes and about cats. Their choice of advertising adds a seriously seedy element to NewTumbl overall. 
• They have a chat function. These are fairly basic chat rooms. Chat rooms can be labeled according to level (F, O, etc.). However, I have no idea who creates chat rooms nor who picks the topics for rooms (assuming people even stick to a topic). I certainly do not have the option to create or set up a chat room. Most chat rooms to be honest are basically sex related and fairly explicit kind of chat rooms, so if that is not your thing, chat rooms will be pretty useless to you. The chat rooms, if there are people in it, do allow you to invite someone to a private chat. However, traffic in chat rooms seems to be fairly low. I personally find the function fairly useless.  This is something they probably could have done without. 
• They also have a trivia competition feature, but I have not tried it out. It appears to be something that may provide some form of micro reward to users. As I said, this is the one feature I have not tried out, so I cannot comment on it. 
• You do have the option to delete an account, and it does not seem difficult. However, there does not seem to be an option to export your blog content should you decide to leave (or if there is, I have no found it, and I did look). Tumblr at least gave you an export function.
  

So let's do the final thoughts. 

If you are into adult content, and you really like your porn, then this is definitely a place for you. 

If you are not into that, you can filter it out when you set up your profile and blog, but odds are content you will see will be much less. There are just not that many people who do "mixed" content or stuff other than posting adult imagery. Practically no one posts any text. Much like Tumblr, images are the main type of post, and they are the post most favored and most likely to get other users' attention.  

In terms of functionalities, NewTumbl does the very basics to be a Tumblr clone. However, there are a few features I feel it should have that they do not have, and that just makes the site less effective and useful. If you want a micro blog for "shits and giggles" as they say, then this is an OK site for that. However, if you were doing OK in Tumblr, at this point in time, even if you hate Tumblr's current owners, you may be happier or more comfortable there. I do not see a reason you would want to move over to NewTumbl unless it is for the adult content. Granted that Tumblr's algorithm is a pain, but if it is not bothering you because your content is relatively safe, I see no reason for making a move. You can do what some people do and keep their Tumblr and open a blog in NewTumbl to test it out, but as I said, if you are happy over there, you may be better staying over there. 

Sense of community is still lacking in NewTumbl. Granted, they are a new site and a small operation, so they do not have the time, reputation, nor resources that Tumblr or other bigger social media sites have. Having said that, community sense is still limited. On the positive, looking for sex friendly (who may or not be sex positive, that is another question) and explicit material loving people, then NewTumbl could be for you. If you have any other interests, you may be better off looking elsewhere. That could change over time if more people come over, although from what I see, I do not see the current patterns expanding anytime soon. If you have more mundane interests like books and reading, you are not going to find enough if any people with similar interests in NewTumbl.

For the moment, I am keeping the blog and account. For the most part, I have the filters set up to something that works for me, but it did take some effort to get there. I am not sure if I would keep it long term given the lack of community and the limitations on some functions, like scheduling posts. In addition, when they were starting out, the owners/producers of the site would update on progress and report on new features, fixes, so on. They have gone awfully quiet, and the site does not seem to be upgrading or updating things much; that video non-function shows no sign of being implemented for instance. So long term, it is possible I abandon the site and end the experiment. It would be nice to export things, but to be honest, if not, it would not bother me. Overall, this is my review based on my experience as a fairly active user of the site.

And that is that.