TheMeriLibrarian

Needing this today. Thank you for making this feed.

Information is a commodity. The Internet led the belief everything is at our fingertips more cheaply or for free. After decades of underfunding and outright cutting professional info institutions - journalism, libraries - our democracy is weaker, not stronger.

You get what you pay for.

I have known about and have been experiencing the myriad of ways the roll out of digital technology in education (and society writ large) has been totally bungled. We can and must do better.

So honored to have been asked to take this on — and ready to get to work!

We are in an absolutely critical moment in history for information access and equity in the US. If you have an idea, please reach out. I’m more than happy to help you hone your ideas and navigate the submission process.

I concur. So soothing.

Tales from suburbia: Someone raced me to a lone shopping cart at the entrance of the grocery store. I was nearest, but when I paused to ask if she needed it, she snatched it away and I was left bewildered for the rest of my time there. I’m still not sure what I actually managed to buy.

Some days - especially when I start to feel lost in the guilt of believing I’m not doing enough because there’s so much that needs doing - I have to remind myself of this very thing.

Here's my own article about it from 2020. It was clear to me then, but clearer still today, that transformation to meet this moment requires bottom-up transformation that looks like fighting racism and misogyny, which includes anti-trans bigotry, and learning to work together toward common goals

A map of the US colored spastically with red, yellow, and blue crayon. The meme says “Big weather system coming through. Here's what we know so far.”

Good morning, skeeters! Attack the day with the confidence of a meteorologist. And stay warm.

We Finally Know Why There Are Quotes Around "Wuthering Heights" Okay, makes sense honestly.

This is my all time favorite book and I was interested to read this article on it. Initially after hearing some things about the movie, I wasn’t too excited about it, but now I may actually watch it.

www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainmen...

Most adults don’t understand how tech is made and operates, yet it’s all tossed at our children without explicit instruction on how to use it properly.

Children are not small adults and the executive functioning demanded of them writ large is not appropriate nor necessary.

Many adults have demanded for decades that schools mirror “real world” by using all of the latest tech. “They need to know how to use this for a job.” Most of benefited from school and learning in a pre-Internet world.

Children deserve time and space to learn before using tools meant for adults.

😆 that’s perfect

John Cusack wants to talk about paywalls. The movie star says that by selling their public-records-based reporting, news outlets are compromising one of journalism’s essential civic roles.

Please read and share ⬇️

John Cusack wants to talk about paywalls.! 🦋
www.cjr.org/the-intervie...

A helpful thread, including the report’s problematic and seemingly contradictory conclusions.

Still, good to see others reaching the conclusion that school leaders and educators need to pause the uptake of GenAI.

Now let’s keep resisting narratives of inevitability that serve tech companies.

Exactly

AI’s Memorization Crisis Large language models don’t “learn”—they copy. And that could change everything for the tech industry.

"Sam Altman has defended the technology’s “right to learn” from books and articles, “like a human can.” This deceptive, feel-good idea prevents the public discussion we need to have about how AI companies are using the creative and intellectual works upon which they are utterly dependent."

How A Major Life Event Changed My Friendships A big life shift made me rethink who really shows up — and which friendships are worth holding tight.

I’ve read so much about how men are isolated, but women hurt from lack of and breaks in relationships, too. We ALL benefit from better human connections.

www.thegirlfriend.com/relationship...

Seriously.

The last stanza.

Words matter. Language matter. Context matters. Humanity matters.

Best thing people can do in today’s digital environment- learn how to access settings and turn stuff off.

It won’t stop everything, but it’s an act of resistance that does stop some things. You don’t have to feed the monster. You can do some things without doing everything.

We have freely shared and given away so much that billionaires exist and control the digital landscapes in which we have played for decades. It’s utterly stupid to know this, shrug and then keep going as if there’s nothing to be done about it.

I see no reason to hold back on anything less than shouting from the rooftops about how terrible this is. No one - child or not - should be forced to engage or be used by LLMs. With the Internet and social media, we have been abdicating our autonomy to the point where too many are numb to it.

I’d like to enjoy my hobbies without feeling a need to make them a side hustle, but also secretly I’d like it if my hobbies could lead to a side hustle that leads to a full income.

Ice cream cake is the best kind of cake, but also not technically cake in a traditional sense, but both ice cream and cheese cakes do meet the definition of cake as per Merriam-Webster, 2a: a block of compacted or congealed matter.

Now that I think of it, I was definitely an undiagnosed AuDHD kid: I said yes to things to please my parents and also because whatever it was was new and exciting, but then never followed through because I was too scared to do something new and it was out of my comfort zone.

My new favorite Christmas carol

Literally laughed out loud.

Why isn’t this guy Time Person of the Year?

The more you know