INSIGHT The latest titles from your sector. Book reviews
Anarchy in the archives and the mystery of history
THIS book deserves a far more exciting title – anarchy in the archives? The mystery of history? The great government cover-up? It is an examination of how information is hidden from the people, either deliberately or accidentally, and what can be done to minimise the gaps in the archives (or “silences” as the authors describe them). The book discusses the causes of these “silences”: society’s simple inability to keep every record; poor cataloguing; deliberate decisions by government not to release or to destroy records. The authors point out that the Foreign and Commonwealth Offi ce concealed the existence of 20,000 intelligence records which were sent to London from the colonies when they were granted independence until 2011 and access to these records has the potential to re-shape our understanding of the British Empire.
The authors discuss several failings with Freedom of Information legislation that prevent citizens from accessing certain records. What once might have been thought ways to fi ll the “silences” such as digitisation have turned out to have their failings: not so much the issue of digital obsolescence as a deliberate failure to record decision-making such as
52 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Exploring the potential of the Internet of Things in libraries
Thomas, D., Fowler, S. & Johnson, V. The Silence of the Archive. London: Facet Publishing, 2017. 224 pp. ISBN: 978 1 7833 0155 3. £64.95, £51.95 to CILIP members.
that which came to haunt Hilary Clinton during the US Presidential election when she used a personal email server instead of her offi cial account. This book should be read by historians and history students as a way to explain gaps in the historical record and understand the limitations of the records that have survived.
Suggestions are off ered on how to minimise these silences such as engaging with the hidden voices and promoting legislative changes to ensure that records are curated in an environment of openness. This would be an excellent addition to any university library.
Dr Lisa Peters University of Chester
JIM Hahn is an Illinois academic librarian specialising in prototype technologies. He is concerned that librarians face “profound” funding and service challenges as a result of fears that networked information and easily-available online resources threaten the future of print. Complex classifi cation schemes and unwelcoming building design are, he says, further barriers to library use. For Hahn, other challenges arise from the diffi culties of curating and describing big data. He claims librarians have seen technology as a saviour which has not always lived up to its promises. Hahn explores how one development, the Internet of Things (IOT), can improve life for both those running libraries and their users. IOT relates to internet-connected devices from fridges showing when food has passed its eat- by date to fi tness trackers, “wearables” for remote heart- rate monitoring, apps warning ships of possible collisions and automated transport. For libraries IOT has great potential: helping assess usage, improve services (including access to content) and save staff time by alerting users to available desk, computer or book availability, monitoring and activating the humidity, temperature and lighting in rare-book collections, improving stock control, predicting future
Hahn, J. The Internet of Things: mobile technology and location services in libraries. Library Technology Reports (53:1). Chicago: ALA, 2017. 28 pp. ISSN: 978 0 8389 5984 8. $43. Preview chapter:
https://bit.ly/2Orq8BJ
needs and even providing self-guided tours. It can also warn of equipment failures. Nevertheless, the technology raises privacy, security, ethical and staffi ng issues.
The author considers privacy and security in the context of the Snowden revelations, off ering suggestions for creating privacy policies. Much of the content is based on his own case-study of a mobile application for location- based services in a university undergraduate library. This rather limits its relevance and value and unfortunately the style is repetitive and in places hard to follow.
Ralph Adam Harrow
September 2018
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
