A couple of weeks ago while reading Jerome Lettvin’s obituary I noticed this gem:
“At MIT, his office in Building 20 was crammed with books, most overdue from the college library. Dr. Lettvin claimed he did not return them because the library would send him the students who wanted those books, and he would interview them as potential assistants.”
Jerome was gaming the library. He was holding onto resources that like-minded individuals desired in order to make professional connections. Cool.
Jerome’s approach clearly has some scaling problems and some issues surrounding content that can’t be stacked in an office (digital content), but he was onto something. People connect through works held at the library and the library should encourage these connections. How do we do that? I’m not sure, but I’m giving it some thought.
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I hear a lot of librarians talking about community, conversation, and connection these days. In my experience the ones who have the most innovative thoughts & have done the most about putting them into practice are teen librarians, so I’d talk to them for ideas.
>> People connect through works held at the library and the library should encourage these connections. How do we do that?
Easy. At the automated checkout kiosks, add a button that a potential customer can select that says, “allow fellow patrons who check out this book to see my email address.” Bonus if the system knows/remembers your email address from the bar code. Customizable sub-setting options might include: professors, students, non-affiliates, etc.
This professor intrigues me.
When you return the book, have an option to “Like” it on Facebook, or just skip that step.
the problem with the idea allowing the library users to publicize what they’re checking out is that libraries are also required by law to keep those very records private. It sounds like the professor was taking advantage of the one loophole
Borrowing a book from library to complete some course doesn’t necessary mean “like minded”.
Professor missed many good candidates who actually bought books (new, used ones or international editions…) outside library.
Once could discover various important and useful items of knowledge, and instead of publishing the knowledge, require that people employ you as a consultant or teacher.
Borrowing books and not turning them back is not a good social practice. If the Dr. was so keen to hire students who were interested in specific kinds of books, he should have spend more time at the library, observing the lending habits of students, rather than stocking books at his place.
In this day, he could have placed QR codes on the books so that students (who are willing) have scanned them and reached to his landing page.
My 2 cents
At Bookneto, a new social learning platform I am building with a couple of my friends, the approach we use is open transparency!
When you add a book or paper to your library, it shows your picture right under the book in the public library. It is an amazing way our users make connections with each other and build even more community within their schools.
Oh, what a great idea!
I wonder how we can do same thing on the Internet.
As a librarian, it is considered a huge professional point of pride to never reveal who has checked out a book. Most folks borrow unremarkable popular fiction, it’s true, but we offer a lot of items on sensitive topics. It is the same as doctor/patient confidentiality, or a journalist who won’t reveal sources.
I think most people would find randomly connecting with strangers at the library over books they’ve shared to be creepy and invasive. There are book-related social networking tools like Goodreads, librarything and shelfari for people who want to connect over books. Or, if you are interested in meeting people in person, you can join, (or start your own!) book club. Many libraries will provide free meeting spaces for book clubs.
The google like button is similar. But starts with people who are friends. They could use the same data for exactly what this is trying to do and do this on all possible subjects and interests on an unimaginably large scale!!
cool article my friend
goodreads.com api is kickass … Prof. should lookup bookshelf by student name and then find intersection with (sexy books) -> A weighted average of analysis of the ratings of reviews the student wrote on (sexy books) -> sort(reverse=True) -> take top N.
If you contact the “homeland” security they will be happy to assist with this project. They have noticed this funny pattern of like minded individuals reading. “Stuff”.
Wow, how many books did he have to hold onto in his office !
Good way of meeting a few people, but also a way of annoying a lot of others.
I am building a tool that I hope will have the same effect. Cool hack by the professor. I can only pray that I become that creative.
Have you seen Mendeley?
http://mendeley.com
Back when we had slips of paper pasted in the front of the library book, with the borrowers name and due date on it, we could just see who had borrowed the book. Yes in “those days” people could be looked up in the phone book, assuming they had a phone.
But there were less than HALF the number of persons in the world then, ditto in the US. We are the goats on the island.
Scribd.com is doing some interesting stuff in this area as well. The company describes itself as “the world’s largest social reading and publishing company.” While there are some technical similarities to SlideShare, Scribd has a much stronger focus on reading and sharing with other users. I like that it doesn’t expect me to create from scratch an entirely new social network, but uses my existing network of Facebook friends.
Book community connections are done through social sites like LibraryThing, it’s much more efficient than the Harvard prof’s method.
Brilliant hack! I think there’re plenty of useful derivatives in this direction, be it within or outside university/school settings.
For example, how about tying TA/RA classified postings in with the library catalog? e.g. a professor recruiting TA/RA’s would also include a reading-list in each entry, from which the library’s system would link up with its eCatalog. Upon checking out matching title(s), the student would receive an alert via his registered contact channel (email, twitter, …) with pointer to the job(s) linked to the individual books he borrows.
If he gets his students by stealing books, did he get tenure by stealing their ideas?
Um, NOT cool, sorry. By keeping those books out and trusting the library to send him the students who asked for them, this professor ensured that only those students who knew that they wanted a precise book would have access to it. What about all of the students who browsed the stacks looking for something interesting in a subject area and didn’t see those books because the professor never returned them? I’m sure some of them would have found those books very valuable – if they had been able to discover them.
I agree with the general point that we should try to find ways to help people with similar interests connect at the library. But we shouldn’t do that by catering to people who feel they are entitled to break the rules – and who possibly deprive other patrons of the resources we’re supposed to be sharing with all members of our community, not letting a single person hoard.
Sorry, one more thing to add — what about the students who knew they wanted the book and saw it was out but were too shy to approach a librarian to put it on hold or didn’t know how to put it on hold? Another group of patrons excluded from access to the resources this library was supposed to be equitably sharing.
i agree with a couple of commenters regarding this not being cool. the library is truly at fault for releasing the name of the patron who checked the books out and i don’t care if the patron gave them authorization. not only that, but then you are sending unsuspecting students to a situation that they are not informed about to be “observed” and “interviewed.” kudos (inject sarcasm here) to the professor for sheer laziness in not having to get up from his desk but 20 lashes with a wet noodle for the library as co-conspirator and temp agency.
I do think that was an excellent idea to pick out the best like-minded assistants out there. Clever!
A Clever idea to network with like minded collegues!!!!
Open source software! If you want to connect to potential students/assistants/partners, just publish your code and see who uses/tweaks/enhances it. It’s how I got my first job in IT, by the way.
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Surprisingly refreshing blog blurb.
Love your perspective. Great blog post .. thank you!
I guess that’s his version of social networking, I don’t think it’s going to be replacing Facebook anytime soon but it’s still an interesting social experiment.
I agree with of the commenter here that it should not be like coz in that way students or the young are thought of some crab mentalities in the most in appropriate place like the library. It really made me think for a while.
Great blog post .. thank you!
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Good way of meeting a few people.
Quite a smart way of getting assistants. No wonder he was an MIT professor. There are more and more interesting ways that people “game” others in order to benefit … it’s sort of fascinating and almost “hollywood” like. Thanks for the fascinating, yet succinct post.
I do think it was an excelent idea, maybe not the right think to do, but a great idea, the library is one of the places in the world with more posibilities, you can meet the most interesting people and get the best links
excellent, these initiatives need to encourage reading and learning midiante books, are primordial in the intellectual development of all people.
Interesting post, I think society just has to evolve on it’s on and in it’s on way. There’s many different
ideologies out there, but I believe acceptance is becoming a more and more common practice.
Whoa.. This is great.
I wonder how long it will be until there’s only digital content in most libraries…
“Easy. At the automated checkout kiosks, add a button that a potential customer can select that says, “allow fellow patrons who check out this book to see my email address.” Bonus if the system knows/remembers your email address from the bar code. Customizable sub-setting options might include: professors, students, non-affiliates, etc.
This professor intrigues me.”
That’s a perfect idea! Yes, same here. What an interesting and creative way to find assiantants! Haha.
A refreshing way to meet new people. Clever but at the same time restricting access to the material for those who wouldn’t take the time to find him.
Great Share..!!
Would students who notice a professor like Dr. Lettvin having so many books overdue from the library even consider working for such an un-organised person?
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[...] This has the essence of a great idea. I’ve always wondered what methods people could use to connect to each other on a one-on-one basis, based on a common goal or hobby. [...]
[...] Gaming the library | The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory Interesting note about an MIT professor who "hacked" (socially) the library as a way of recruiting interesting students [...]
[...] does not easily fit into a digital repository. The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory has an interesting anecdote of a professor who hoarded a particular set of books just for the chance to meet the students who [...]
[...] The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory points out a fascinating part of Jerome Lettvin’s obitiary: At MIT, his office in Building 20 was crammed with books, most overdue from the college library. Dr. Lettvin claimed he did not return them because the library would send him the students who wanted those books, and he would interview them as potential assistants.” [...]
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