digital

The Mundaneum

July 22, 2018 0 Comments
The Mundaneum

Until last week I’d never heard of the Mundaneum.  But it’s such an exceptional institution that it deserves to be much better known. To visit the Mundaneum as it is today you need to go the Wallonian city of Mons and search out the Rue de Nimy.  There, in an adapted department store, you’ll find […]

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Popeth yn Gymraeg, yn llythrennol

February 2, 2018 0 Comments
Popeth yn Gymraeg, yn llythrennol

Beth sydd ei angen er mwyn cyrraedd miliwn o siaradwyr Cymraeg erbyn y flwyddyn 2050?  Llawer o bethau, heb os, ond un ohonynt yw cynnydd mawr iawn yn y maint o’r deunydd yn Gymraeg sydd ar gael i bobl – pethau i’w darllen, i’w gweld, i’w glywed. Ystyr ‘ar gael’, y dyddiau hyn wrth gwrs, […]

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Reading and silence

August 20, 2017 2 Comments
Reading and silence

I’m working my way, slowly – that seems the best way – through Sara Maitland’s A book of silence, and I’ve reached the part where she discusses the paradoxical relationship between reading and silence.  On the one hand, reading the way we do it today is a silent communion between writer and reader.  Silent, on […]

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Right to be forgotten?

August 21, 2014 0 Comments
Right to be forgotten?

If you’ve used Google to look for a personal name during the last few months you’ll have spotted this notice at the foot of some pages of search results: Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Click on the invitation ‘Learn more’ and you’ll discover that Google is attempting to […]

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Community journalism: a MOOC case study

July 14, 2014 1 Comment
Community journalism: a MOOC case study

Courses provided online across the world at no cost to the student are causing waves in higher education. The Open & Online report to the Welsh Government (March 2014) called on higher education institutions in Wales to think carefully about what benefits they could derive from offering online courses, including MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), […]

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MOOCs and other animals: ‘open & online’ report published

April 3, 2014 1 Comment
MOOCs and other animals: ‘open & online’ report published

The Welsh Government today published a major report entitled Open & online: Wales, higher education and emerging modes of learning.  The report covers all aspects of courses and resources freely available online at higher and further education levels in the UK and beyond. It contains the most up-to-date and balanced assessment so far of Massive […]

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Introducing electronic legal deposit in the UK

November 6, 2013 0 Comments
Introducing electronic legal deposit in the UK

One of the greatest of Lynne Brindley’s achievements during her twelve years in charge of the British Library was to remain steadfastly true to the Library’s aim, shared with the other UK copyright libraries, of extending the law of legal deposit to encompass publications in digital form. This article casts a retrospective and sometimes rueful […]

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Emily Dickinson’s reticent volcano

November 1, 2013 1 Comment
Emily Dickinson’s reticent volcano

It’s taken a long time for Emily Dickinson to come out. During her lifetime (1830-86) only ten of her roughly 1,800 extant poems were published, some of them without her knowledge.  After her death her manuscripts lay disregarded by all but a few.  It was not till 1955 that anything close to a complete edition […]

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Tangible intangibility

October 12, 2013 1 Comment
Tangible intangibility

‘Tangible intangibility’: the present and future of research libraries The Charles Holden Lecture, Senate House, University of London, 10 October 2013       First of all, I’d like to thank the Friends of Senate House Library for inviting me to give this year’s Holden Lecture. Charles Holden, of course, was the architect of the […]

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