I just published a new issue of my free newsletter. The main article is, entirely by coincidence, about ebooks and libraries — a coincidence because Amazon just announced Kindle, its ebook hardware. November 19, 2007

The future of book nostalgia: Anthony Grafton’s New Yorker article on why libraries will always be with us shows the power of book nostalgia. What we owe: As parents we need to fight to let the Internet we love be a settled part of our children’s lives.

By the way, Everything Is Miscellaneous is available for Kindle. Cluetrain is not. Also by the way, I just got a link from Urs Gasser to his contribution to a recent conference on the future of books. [Tags: books ebooks kindle amazon libraries everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Aargh. Steven Levy’s excellent article on the new Amazon e-reading device came out a day before I was about to send out the new issue of my newsletter, the main article of which is about the future of books. I hate when that happens! Well, I’ll send it out anyway, and will link to it here tomorrow. Damn the pace of human events! [Tags: books libraries steven_levy amazon ]

Jay Rosen has another initiative launching today: Enabling a dozen beat reporters to have a social network composed of people who know the topic and have an interest in having the coverage be thorough, accurate, and deep. Very cool experiment. [Tags: media journalism jay_rosen everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Debatepedia wants to collect the best arguments pro and con for issues that matter. It’s not a place for people to shout at each other. On the contrary, it aims at assembling reasoned arguments.

It’s a noble idea. I don’t know if it’ll catch on, of course, but I do like the way the Web is shortening the MTBNI (mean time between noble ideas). [Tags: debatepedia wikis debates reasoning everything_is_miscellaneous ]

If you’re interested in the future of books and libraries, and if you’re in Cambridge MA on Tuesday, you should come to the Berkman Center at 12:30 to hear Aaron Swartz talk about the Open Library project, which is gathering a global, open and free list of every book it can find out about. It’s also attempting to help with the problem that books exist at multiple levels of abstraction: There’s Hamlet, editions of Hamlet, Hamlet in anthologies, Hamlet in translation, books based on Hamlet, etc. This is an important and fascinating project.

We serve lunch. Please RSVP. See you there…or on the webcast. (Details) [Tags: open_library aaron_swartz libraries books_everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Here’s Alan Watts talking to IBM (1 2), probably in the early 1970s, although I’m just guessing. Very Alan Wattsian, very Sixties yet contemporary, and very enjoyable. Here’s a bite:

“But nature itself is clouds, is water, is the outline of continents, is mountains, is bilogical existences. And all of them wiggle. And wiggly things are to human consciousness a little bit of a nuisance, because we want to figure it out.”

(Thanks to Steven Kruyswijk for the link.) [Tags: alan_watts everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Dave Winer has come up with a clever way of reslicing the NY Times. Not only does it group articles by keyword, the layout creates a histogram of the topics. [Tags: dave_winer ny_times nytimes everything_is_miscellaneous media metadata ]

After years to talking about our move to “good enough” information, I’m just a little late to learning that Herbert Simon coined a term for this phenomenon in 1957. Yes, it’s the fiftieth anniversary of “satisficing.”

I found this via a very interesting blog post at Just Communicate by a knowledge management grad student who, in the course of discussing the wisdom of Cory Doctorow’s Metacrap article, also points to a post by Steven Bell at the Association of College & Research Libraries blog, on using social sites to move good enough research beyond good enough. [Tags: satisfice herbert_simon everything_is_miscellaneous cory_doctorow just_communicate ]

After years to talking about our move to “good enough” information, I’m just a little late to learning that Herbert Simon coined a term for this phenomenon in 1957. Yes, it’s the fiftieth anniversary of “satisficing.”

I found this via a very interesting blog post at Just Communicate by a knowledge management grad student who, in the course of discussing the wisdom of Cory Doctorow’s Metacrap article, also points to a post by Steven Bell at the Association of College & Research Libraries blog, on using social sites to move good enough research beyond good enough. [Tags: satisfice herbert_simon cory_doctorow just_communicate ]

Michael Wesch, who did the incredible info-visualization YouTube, The Machine Is Us/ing Us, has now done the same to explain the change from paper-based information to digital information. In just a few minutes, he explains the thesis of Everything Is Miscellaneous (which he credits, thank you). It is a brilliant piece of work. And totally delightful. [Tags: wesch everything_is_miscellaneous ]