A significant wake-up call to increase citizens' access to knowledge and culture, which requires both public awareness and...
Palfrey (Head of School/Phillips Andover Academy; Intellectual Property Strategy, 2011, etc.) reports on his progress setting up the Digital Public Library of America and argues that in the digital era, public libraries are more necessary than ever before.
The author, the founding chairman of the Digital Public Library, is involved with reorganizations of particular libraries, such as Harvard Law School Library. He is known for his expertise in various aspects of Internet policy, including open access and intellectual property rights. Here, Palfrey defends America's tradition of philanthropy-based free public libraries, starting with Joshua Bates' 1852 founding of the Boston Public Library, as well as Andrew Carnegie's nationwide provision of library facilities. “The changes wrought by the digital revolution,” writes the author, “add up to a perfect storm for libraries and librarians. Every kind of librarian…faces a series of problems that can’t all be solved at once using the resources they have today.” The traditional job description of “collectors” and “keepers” of information is out of sync with successive waves of digital technology. Libraries, which lack sufficient financial resources, can't keep up with the flood of printed and digital material. The author argues for the support of public libraries as core institutions of democracy, noting that “the knowledge that libraries offer and the help librarians provide are the life-blood of an informed and engaged republic.” We must preserve the public spaces and combine them with digital platforms, as both will play an essential role in the future. Palfrey provides insight into local efforts in schools and libraries around the country and highlights the individual trailblazers. He also details national and international efforts that are bringing vast resources to the public and dealing with legal and other issues that come up along the way.
A significant wake-up call to increase citizens' access to knowledge and culture, which requires both public awareness and financial support.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0465042999
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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