Category: bibliomancy

Domino

The texts selected in this section function like a domino game and invite readers to follow the paths of main actors of the cultural history of the southern part of Europe, and beyond.

Fokidis, Marina, “South as a State of Mind” (2013) in Publishing Manifestos: an international anthology from artists and writers edited by Michalis Pichler, MIT Press, 2019, p. 227.

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A clearly frustrated Dewey, stymied by the Librarian’s reticence, turned to his friends in the publishing industry, namely Frederick Leypolat and Richard Rogers Bowker of Publishers Weekly. The plan was to goad publishers into working with Charles Cutter on cataloging their own books through the insertion of a paper slip containing the bibliographic information that could be used by libraries. The response from libraries was tepid. They viewed the scheme with skepticism and doubted it would provide the final answer to their cataloging needs. And following a few more halting attempts at collaboration between the Library Bureau and the publishing industry, Dewey was still left searching for the answer to a question he posed in one of his early editorials in the Library Journal – “Is it practicable for the Library of Congress to catalogue for the whole country?” “Practicable” or not, the Librarian of Congress had other plans.

The Library of Congress, The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures, Chronicle Books, 2017, p. 87.

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The spectacular mind meld” and biological mirroring effects of video games and other coordinated activities require players to be in the same physical space at the same time. You can’t sync over email or text message.

But what if you want to strengthen relationships with friends and family you’re not able to see in person as often as you’d like? Although you won’t get the same mind-and-body connection, you can increase your real-life social support systems through online game play. In fact, research suggests that online games are an especially powerful relationship management tool-they make it easier for us to maintain more active social relationships, so we have support from others when we need it most.

McGonigal, Jane. Super Better: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver, and More Resilient, Viking 2015.

Pluralistic ignorance is an information problem, as Andrew K. Woods, a legal scholar who introduced me to the concept, points out. It happens because we don’t know what’s going on in other people’s minds. Whenever we’re faced with a socially dicey, delicate subject — Do other people notice that this company is in trouble? How much sex are other students having? — we’re too squeamish to talk openly. Without correct information, we get it wrong.

_{Thompson, Clive. Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better, New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014, p. 253.}

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If you’ve ever attended an intro session at your school’s library, you’ve listened to the librarians lower their voices and speak in reverential tones about peer review: the touchstone that separates rigorous research from mere opinion, hearsay, and the untutored opinions of your know-it-all roommate. At its most basic level, peer review is a form of quality control, a process that scholars came up with in the 1700s to protect the public from shady information. It gets its name from the fact that before a study is published, it’s evaluated by experts in the field — “peers” — who decide whether the work passes muster.

_{Caulfield, Mike, and Samuel S. Wineburg. Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online. Chicago London: The University of Chicago Press, 2023, p.122.}

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It took a few months for us to realize that allowing patrons to use the service without having visited a library home page first produced problems. First, patrons entering the service from the generic Library LAWLINE promotional page did not always understand that they would be getting help with legal research. Some thought they would be getting free legal advice (we became adept at referring patrons to free and low-cost legal service information).

^{Matheson, Scott. “Library Lawline: Collaborative Virtual Reference in a Special Library Consortium.” In Digital versus Non-Digital Reference: Ask a Librarian Online and Offline, edited by Jessamyn West. New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 111.}

“Host” from Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, p. 287

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SOLOMON: Never mind that. Anyway, so what you have is a judicial disaster, and because of that judicial disaster, we have all the wars that you see now. Because of their inability to write a constitution, they ruined their chances for survival. That is my theory — my philosophical theory. If you don’t write a book by which you’re going to rule yourself, you are opening the door to all kinds of things only God knows.

How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti, p. 215

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I put the watch on, pulled the elastic of my sleeve down over it so that the glow of the dial wouldn’t be visible by accident, and sat back against the hill to make a few quick notes. While there was still some natural light, I could write and watch.

Zahra watched me for a while, then laid her hand on my arm. “Teach me to do that,” she whispered.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler, p. 185

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