Available Online Free

Evan Roth: Intellectual Property Donor

Some of the genius work by Evan Roth (Graff Research Lab) is captured in a Creative Commons licensed work entitled "Available Online Free." [Note: file format = PDF]

In our mix & cut-up culture, how long before we move beyond copyright in all but the most stringent cases?

Via: Brandflakes

Mary Holt: Carnegie Textile Designer

Mary Holt Interview: NeoCon 2008 (her piece starts @ 1m18s)

Last night I had the opportunity to sit and chat with Mary Holt about her creative process. The event was organized by Belinda Binford (Dan Binford & Associates), and several designers in the Columbus (OH) area attended.

Mary was very accessible, and she spoke eloquently about how she and the other Carnegie designers create new textiles. Holt indicated that she will often follow designers' fabric memo requests as one way to forecast trends over the next year or two--Holt understands that designers, by practice, are very forward thinking. Additionally, Holt looks at catalogs like Room and Board to get a feel for current color trends.

In response to being asked how new designs are created, Holt responded, "We are very collaborative." Holt and the other Carnegie designers use a communal pin-up board to inspire new ideas and designs. The designers will discuss certain pieces of the board that grab their attention, and they will organically build off of one another. Carnegie's designers build up and tear down their pin-up wall. So, in a sense, their studio is able to remain fresh through this continuous process.

Thanks to Belinda Binford, the Columbus area designers, and Mary Holt, good food and good conversations were inevitable.

If you're a designer and happen to come across this post, I would love to hear about your creative process. Feel free to e-mail me at bryan [at] theloars.com or bryan [dot] loar [at] fitch.com

Fitch_Librarian: Yeah, I Tweet Now

I think I've done it more to see what the cool kids are up to. Also, I set it up like I do with most things for Fitch's Resource Library (RL), RL-centric and personal info secondary. Not sure if that is the way to go in Twitter, but that's how I'm rolling now.

Feel free to follow me if you're into [retail] design and/or librarianship.

http://twitter.com/Fitch_Librarian

Bill Stout Interview

Image:tpbrown

Bill Stout of William Stout Architectural Books gave an interesting interview in NYT.  When he speaks about the books on his shelves, he says, "Like a photo album, diary or record collection, these books constitute a sort of life history." 

Well said and intoxicating to the collector.

Via: ArliSNAP

Danielle Maestretti: Utne's Shelf Life

Shelf Life: Stories from the Utne Reader Library (Episode #3) from Utne Reader on Vimeo.

Maestretti highlights various articles in several magazines which span quite disparate categories.  Very informative and very well done.  Hmm...I might take a page out of Maestretti's playbook for Fitch.

More Coraline Marketing Genius

Image: Libraries in Coraline circus/rat font

Make your own here.

Via: Brandflakes

Benetton Fabrica's Library

Library from Fabrica on Vimeo.

"Fabrica, Benetton’s communication research centre, was set up in 1994.
The fruit of the Group’s cultural legacy, is based in Treviso, Italy in
a complex restored and enlarged by Tadao Ando.



Fabrica is not a school, advertising agency or university. It is an
applied creativity laboratory, a talent incubator, a studio of sorts in
which young, modern artists come from all over the world to develop
innovative projects and explore new directions in myriad avenues of
communication, from design, music and film to photography, publishing
and the Internet."

Che Bellissima!

OSU's Online Library Resources Trump Physical Library

Ohio State University will close its bricks & mortar Business Library this spring.  Materials will be integrated into the now under-construction Thompson Library.

OSU's Lantern quotes Larry Allen, communications coordinator of OSU Libraries

"Library resources are available electronically," he said. "This makes the balance between providing access to information and providing study space more difficult."

Via: The Lantern

Monika Grzymala

Transition 2006, Marion Goodman Gallery, New York, (detail)

Recently I've been captivated by multi-dimensional works, especially works that somehow mix 2d linework in a flat, 3d style.  Grzymala is part of the exhibition The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing which runs until May 10, 2009.

The Fragility of Information

Image: ezola

OhioLINK's recent failure and subsequent down time are a reminder of how fragile information can be.

I recognize the incredible advancement in information access and storage in the digital age, and I wholeheartedly embrace the advancement (in most cases). So, I'm no neo-ludite. However, I have written about a well-tested archiving technology--its called a book.

I went to Kent with Lowell Lybarger who, at the time, had some interesting ideas concerning the energy needed to maintain the massive data farms we're amassing. Specifically, he was concerned with how to create the energy, our depenance on non-renewable fuels, and the entire enterprise's sustainablility.

Is our current practice concerning electronic data sustainable? My guess it is not.

Below is an e-mail from Anita Cook, OhioLink's Dir. of Library Sys.

Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:52:52 -0500
From: Anita Cook

Really bad news this morning. The massive failure and the subsequent
rebuilding of a controller wiped out some key directories for the EJC, EBC, and DMC. In other words, these machines are up and running and you can search or browse the metadata for the EJC and DMC but no objects are attached to them.

This means no abstracts, no full text for the EJC and no digital objects of any kind for the DMC.

Ebooks is getting a "Service Temporarily Unavailable" message. It is suffering the same fate but is reacting differently.

The directories have to be rebuilt which is an arduous task. The engineers, after being up for 48 hours needed to get some sleep before they start this process, so they are sleeping this morning and will start this task later today. We don't know how long this will take.

The OSearch databases are up, but you will not get a link to full text since the EJC is down. You will get links to the Central Catalog though.

That's the news. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.

Anita

OhioLINK

Rotterdam Art and Culture Building's Reading Room

The "trees" actually mask an existing column. Sweet design by OD-V.

Via: Dezeen

The Villanueva Library

Images: na/blog, Lord Tito

The use of traditional and local materials along with the simple monolithic design tie the structure to its community's roots.  However, the reconfiguration of the materials gives the library a more modern feel.

Via: Picchi, F. (2008). A Library for Villanueva. Domus (920), 90-92.

Coraline Marketing

The marketers Coraline have developed a strategy to create media buzz. 50 unique boxes filed with intriguing clues both tied to the story and to other integrated marketing initiatives. The boxes and their contents are beautifully crafted, and they've been sent to 50 influential bloggers.

Imagine what you could do for your library.

Via: Brandflakes

More Images: Notcot