Libraries and AI
Bonus post
The following post is part of a Seed Pod collaboration about libraries. Seed Pods are a SmallStack community project designed to help smaller publications lift each other up by publishing and cross-promoting around a common theme. We’re helping each other plant the seeds for growth!
Two posts in one week, what!? If you read Tech Tales in your email - over half my readers - you get a bonus read today. You don’t need to do anything different unless you want to dip a toe into the deeper waters of writers on Substack. Substack is the Internet platform I and thousands of other authors publish on. Today’s post is an expansion of, and an introduction to, an article I published 6 months ago.
Small Stack is an initiative to lift up all the little authors on Substack and help them find their people. There are lots of littles. If Substack shared readers per publication in a graph we’d see a bump of the big publications on the left and then a never-ending tail of smaller pubs on the right. Imagine a Camel with a really long tail 🐪
It feels a bit like when the Internet was young and you could happen upon all sorts of interesting stuff without trying very hard. Serendipity. Substack doesn’t make finding these smaller pubs easy and the SmallStack community is trying to solve that.
I bet when you saw AI in the title you thought eeew that’s the opposite of the cozy space libraries occupy in my mind. My original post was how AI will decrease the time it takes us to learn new things and it’s already doing that. Here’s an update from a Substack that focuses on AI in Education:
When Students Trust You with Their AI Secrets, Real Learning Begins
Libraries do a remarkable job keeping up with the times - love their eBook program and app Libby. Back when I was doing research in college you had to use microfiche readers to go back and read old newspapers or periodicals the Library didn’t have space for. The Internet does a much better job then fiddly sheets of microfilm with chonky machines to read them and AI is makes all this information even more accessible.
Here’s my post on AI and Learning from March:
Compress the learning curve
Humans are the biggest babies on the planet. I don’t mean the size of our fat heads because Elephants and Blue Whales are the clear winners there. Humans come in last across the animal kingdom in how long it takes us to develop basic life skills and learn how to communicate - years and years and years! Many animal parents hide away 1000’s of eggs and ju…
best, Andrew
Want to see more posts from this Seed Pod or join in on the fun? Head over to our thread to learn more!
Ah, I remember the microfiche days. I spent one summer working for my history professor, and I would spend hours sifting through 19th-century Texas newspapers, searching for articles about a prominent Socialist from that era. Google was around then, but libraries were only just starting to digitize.
That is very specific and curious! Our local libraries have an English learner program and and my wife tutors there a couple of times a week. Maintaining that third place spot is important