Week 7 Reading

Howstuff Works "How Internet Infrastructure Works"
I was surprise when the article mentioned redundancy. In our past classes, we have been talking about technology, like databases, work to reduce redundancy. However, in the case of DNS, redundancy is a good thing. If one DNS fails at any given level, another one is there to take its place. I feel this can also be applied to routers. There seems to be an infinite number of paths through the internet by which routers can send information packets. They of course try for the simplest of fastest path, but there are likely to be countless others.

Dismantling Integrated Library Systems
This article made me think back to Christina Borgman's Scholarship in the Digital Age, which we had to read for LIS 2000. Her main point is that digital scholarship is still in its infancy and is still missing some key aspects. She also advises that libraries, scholars and publishers need to communicate with one another to form a system of scholarship that suites everyone. I would ILS creators and vendors to that list. It seems to be some miscommunication between libraries and the ILS vendors. Libraries expect their ILS to work a certain way or work with certain other technology and it ends up not being so. If ILS vendors are kept in mind while digital scholarship is being formed, libraries would be better able to organize and access all the information digital scholarship can offer.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page on Google
I knew I liked these guys. Their wish to do good (as in good deeds, not in "well") is sincere and evident in their work. I think a major part of Google's success is that they are never satisfied with what they have accomplished. They never say "What we have is good enough. We don't need to think of any more improvements." They are not even close to running out of ideas, and I doubt they ever will be.