Letters to the Editor

 

Happy Reading
Just wanted to say I loved the article “Five Propositions about Happiness.” That was really fun to read. Mary Timmins is an excellent writer! Her style fit the topic perfectly. Good job.

Leanne Lucas ’78 las
Homer

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Librarians Not Out Of Touch
I was disappointed to read in the otherwise interestingly thought-provoking article “O Brave New Web” (March/April 2010 issue) [that] two alumni felt compelled to use libraries and librarians in a negative way in comparison to Web 2.0 and Semantic Web tools.

In Mary Timmins ’99 article, she quotes computer scientist Roger Johnson ’65 eng, ms ’66 eng, phd ’70 eng, as saying “instead of being restricted – like information in a library” when talking about the exponentially developed Internet. The library and librarian as “gatekeeper” role has mostly disappeared. Academic and other librarians have to restrict online resources to those who pay for them (students, faculty and staff) to maintain licensing agreements. But otherwise our role has largely shifted to that of guide and teacher, helping users effectively search the Net for the most appropriate resources for their needs. As a longtime public services librarian, I rejoice in the shift of librarianship away from “cop” to “teacher,” thanks to the Internet. 

Johnson’s disparaging note about libraries was not as strong, however, as Mr. Theo Gray’s ‘’86 las. Timmins quotes Gray as saying Google is akin to getting book recommendations from a reference librarian, while [the new Wolfram search engine] Alpha has “taken the books out off the shelf and read them all and understood the formulas and digested the information that’s in there.” I wonder why Mr. Gray thinks reference librarians have not read the resources to which we refer users? In most universities, academic librarians serve as subject bibliographies for several disciplines and become familiar with key works in the fields. We have at least some basic knowledge of the best reference works in a discipline, and when we do not, we refer our users to a colleague who does. Plus, we do not have a behind-the-scenes formula where recommendations can be sponsored and vendors can buy their way toward the top of a hit list, as with Google!

As an alumna as well as a former employee of the University of Illinois, I have always been proud to have been on campus when Mosaic and Netscape debuted and to have learned HTML coding very early on at Illinois. It was disappointed to hear some of the researchers who helped make and who are making the Internet revolution progress have so little understanding of libraries that they choose to use them as negative examples.

Sara R. Tompson, ms ’87 lis

Los Angeles

 

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14,289 Trees And Counting
Steve Anderson’s ’55 media letter in the new Illinois Alumni [March/April 2010] was stimulating about The Daily Illini’s role in our journalism education. Steve was a younger classmate friend in journ school. 

In my junior year I liked to go down on Friday nights and work the rim [on the copy desk] when Gene Shalit ’49 las was copy editor. He was just as funny then as [the movie critic] for NBC years later. No mustache while at the UI, however.

My proudest accolade from him was the night I wrote a two-deck, two-column headline: C-U City Councils Sign Death Warrants for 14,289 Elm Trees (refusing to pass a tiny sales tax increase to fund treatment of Dutch Elm disease, which was creeping into the community).  Someone had gone out and counted each tree!

With a shake of the head, Gene looked up and said, “Good one, Rodge!” and put the story on the bottom of page one for the next morning’s Saturday Daily Illini.

I don’t think you are old enough to remember the tall, beautiful, arching elm trees that used to flank The Quad on both sides. I miss them still!

Great story on our Johns Hopkins surgeon [Julie Freischlag ’76 las]! Kudos to the writer [Amy F. Reiter, ms ’03 media] and IA editor!

Richard K. Rodgers ’53 media

Atlanta

 

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Gone With The Wind
Brian Great’s ’88 aces monstrosity of a wind turbine (“The Windmill of His Mind, “March/ April 2010 issue) may be great for  his business’s bottom line, but it just goes to illustrate how, in the long run, wrongheaded, liberal-based ideology (e.g., Al Gore and alleged anthropogenic induced climate change) ends up poisoning the visual landscape and environment both. As a landscape architect, I know firsthand that if every business, let alone homeowner, were to erect a wind turbine, the visual blight painted on the landscape would far exceed anything the roadside billboards of yesteryear produced. And it took decades to get rid of most of them.

In addition, the effects of wind turbines on human nervous and sensory systems as well as their impacts to bird flight and migratory patterns are typically conveniently ignored. On large-scale wind farms, such impacts are multiplied tenfold. And obviously, they only work when wind is actually blowing. Wind turbines should only be used for very remote locations where no other power is reasonably available.

The most economical and least impact-producing way to address our nation’s energy needs is through the use of nuclear power. It’s clean, has an insignificant impact on the land and is proven safe. The sooner we get off the Al Gore, “going green,” profiteering bandwagon and start catching up with what the rest of the world already knows, the sooner we can easily and safely supply our nation's enormous energy needs.

Steve Paukstis ’73 faa

Mundelein