Sweet Steam Powered Digital Curation

Or, I read the web today, oh boy

Update: Here’s a link to the orig. post for FB readers.

Some links:

• Nick Bilton, ” ‘Controlled Serendipity’ Liberates the Web,” Bits, NYT

  Curating finds on the web is the new black. Everyone’s doing it.

• Cathy Davidson, “Why is the Information Age Without the Humanities Like the Industrial Revolution Without the Steam Engine?,” HASTAC*, 24 January 2010.

  Steam engine references are like catnip to me, so of course this one I couldn’t let go. The analogy here doesn’t quite work — steam doesn’t help us understand the meaning of the industrial revolution, and anyway it’s arguable that steam wasn’t what the IR was about, per se. But the claim that the Info Age doesn’t make any damn sense without the tools the humanities offer is one that rings true.

• Fabio Rojas,”how to save the humanities,” OrgTheory.com, 24 January 2010.

  An interesting piece, if a tad condescending and a bit fuzzy on what “the humanities” are. Suggestions 1 (“slash doctoral programs”) and 2 (“increase masters programs”) are good as far as they go, but what exactly is going to get universities or departments to act? And get enough of them to act in concert to have an effect? Has an orgtheorist really forgotten about incentives? Suggestion 3 is less helpful, as a commenter (more kindly) points out, because it is ill-informed about the problems with the idea of reclaiming ‘the canon.’

• Finally, here’s the best mnemonic device for the Presidents I’ve heard so far:

I love, love, love this acronym, it’s the first non-French-yet-cool-and-military-industrial-complex sounding humanities org I’ve heard. Sadly, it’s pronounced “hay stack,” instead of rhyming with a primary component of the Goa’uld fleet, which — and trust me on this — would make it way cooler.

Image cite: ian murchison, “59:365 Hot steaming cup of awesome,” Flickr, CC License