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In another single-topic Digital Campus, we react to the news that Dan is headed to the Digital Public Library of America as its Executive Director (no tears, no tears) by forcing him to tell us all about it. Special guests on the podcast include Berkman Center and DPLA Technical Workstream member David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know and Everything is Miscellaneous as well as Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows and The Big Switch. Issues raised include Internet centralization, the future of public libraries, and Mr. Potato Head.

Links
Nicholas Carr, “The Library of Utopia,” MIT Technology Review, April 25, 2012. Available at http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/427628/the-library-of-utopia/

Running time: 49:45
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A few days before we recorded the latest episode of Digital Campus, Apple visionary and guru of all things cool in digital technology Steve Jobs announced that he would step down as CEO in what we assume will be the end of his adept micromanaging of the business. Tom, Dan, Amanda, and Mills mused on what Jobs’ legacy will be and how the tech world may or may not be different without him. Will we feel like orphans now that the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Sphere can no longer descend upon us at times of severe tech ennui? And what about those other digital orphans — the “orphan books” we hear so much about? Amanda reviewed for us the latest on this subject coming out of the University of Michigan Library and some of us agreed that we will henceforth banish the term “orphan work” from our vocabulary. Why? Listen and learn. And from what we learned about student searching skills, someone should start teaching students more about online quests for information. That someone could be you.

Links to stories covered in the podcast:

Stanford Silicon Valley Archives
Orphan Books Online
Student Searching Skills

Running time: 37:56
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Can print on demand shake up academic publishing, book buying, and reading habits? Another terrific guest joins us on the podcast for a feature segment on the promise and perils of print on demand: Yakov Shafranovich, a software developer who specializes in print on demand services including PublicDomainReprints.org, covered in several prior Digital Campus episodes. We spend most of the news roundup debating the impact of the Harvard faculty vote in favor of open access scholarship, while also covering Blackboard’s victory in a flimsy patent case. Picks of the week include a good new podcast, a flashy historical website, and an easy way to add images to your blog posts.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Harvard Open Access Policy
PublicDomainReprints.org
New Academia Press
European Navigator
First Monday Podcast
PhotoDropper

Run time: 58:32
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Are open educational resources such as iTunes U and thought-provoking dot-coms such as BigThink.com a distraction from the mission of professors and universities, or the wave of the future? Tom, Mills, and Dan debate the merits of “open access” intellectual content in the feature story. We also follow up on Dan’s experience with buying a book from PublicDomainReprints.org, compare the MacBook Air with the small, cheap laptops discussed on the last episode of Digital Campus, and discuss the launch of Flickr Commons. Our picks of the week point to three great ways to use RSS feeds more effectively.

Links mentioned on podcast:
PublicDomainReprints.org
Flickr Commons
MacBook Air
iTunes U
BigThink.com
Berkeley’s YouTube Channel
Google Reader Sharing
ReadBurner
Yahoo Pipes
FeedJournal

Runtime: 51:15
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