What’s Happening Man?
Read Drop City by T.C. Boyle. Better yet, listen to the audio book while reading the book. The experience is even greater. Lots of pot smoked, acid dropped, factions formed and misguided hippie thinking. (I get to say this, as I work in an alcohol and drug research library. If you need to know the truth about toad licking or Freud, I know the right books.)
Also, thank you David Silver of Silver in SF for the amazing Web 2.0 lecture and discussion. Which reminds me, library students, you must read Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger (Hardcover – May 1, 2007). This should be a required text in any information organization and/or cataloging class. Both Weinberger and Silver have overlapping discussions about the idea of Web 2.0 and what it offers but from different angles. Weinberger discusses new ways of controlling and organizing information and Silver, in his lecture this evening, focused on the facilitation of conversation. Both addressed the economic and political implications. The discussion that took place during Silver’s talk was animated, though not heated. Most of us were librarians after all! 
And all of you Googlers out there looking to push buttons had better look out. I’m doing my research for the next debate about value of libraries vs. the internet. And there are a total of five libraries in Berkeley serving over 100,000 people. NOT nine. Nor do all of them offer the same service. One is a tool lending library. Check your stats and figures before complaining that there are too many libraries for the people.
11 days and counting to the HONEYMOON! Mahahual here we come!
