The Utopian Library is a peek into the world of modern public librarians; if one had an idea that they’re relatively passive, concerned only with how to find things when asked, think again. Public libraries are – by definition – democratic institutions, levelers of power and privilege. (I’m sure this argument is not original to me, but don’t off-hand know where it comes from. Please help me out in the comments – js.)The Utopian Library‘s author is atypical, perhaps, in that she blogs. But not in that she’s doing her job in a self-aware way, knowing how important it is, and trying to invent, re-invent, locate, and appropriate new information tools. The Utopian Library.
Tag Archives: information
Separating signal from noise, or re-reading a message with the expectation of different words
Writing in the context of the discovery process in civil litigation, Anne Kershaw and Joseph Howie write in Law Technology News of the fallacy of reviewing identical copies
of electronic messages as if each were, in effect, a separate paper document.
In civil litigation, this increases delay and cost.
In the context of intelligence analysis – particularly open-source – it’s a point ignored at the risk of missing important data – or reviewing it too late. A single item duplicated in volume is still a single item – the first is signal, the others merely noise.