Google Ka Baap

Ever imagined a world without Google! Or, maybe even without Yahoo! or MSN. Well, there are people in this world who live without the net and in this library the internet hardly matters.Since 1968, a small band of researchers at the New York Public Library has been tackling questions reducing life’s infinite jumble to an answer, more or less.

Today, despite the Internet, the band of researchers of what is known as the telephone reference service are still at it. Every day, except Sundays and holidays, anyone, of any age, from anywhere can telephone and ask any question in langauges ranging from Yiddish to Armenian. The band has somewhat five minutes to answer any query meaning the caller gets an answer or somewhere to go for an answer — like a specialty library, trade group or Web site. Researchers cannot call back questioners.

Interestingly, the library staff does not answer crossword or contest questions or do children's homework.Still, the persistence of this service raises its own questions. Like why, in the age of search engines, would anyone bedevil a human being with such questions? And what human being would choose to be so bedeviled?

(via www.timesofindia.com)

Paul Duguid, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, said there would always be a place for such human search engines. “There are dark areas on the Internet,” Duguid said, “vast databases that are not scanned by search engines like Google.”



Also watch the trailers of Wordplay and The Devil Wears Prada here.

Summer Read Guides

This one is from the Business Standard.

And this one is from The Independent.

The "MUST" list

Work again had put me off blogging for some time.I travelled East last month, the entire
IIT-Kgp thing turned out to be a big dampener but then had a lot of fun.Coffee in Communit Bengal..and the Joshi-man.I think of Joshi and I don't stop laughing till my stomach aches.I missed seeing Cal with the other guys as I had my journey back from Kgp itself.

MUST-haves for the season:

The OUTLOOK TRAVELLER's fifth anniversary issue.The issue stocks in some breath-taking photographs from Raghu Rai and the ilk and some invigorating articles from the likes of Pankaj Mishra, Dalrymple et al.There is also an interesting piece on the Select Book Shop of Bangalore which to say the least is paradise for an incorrigible bookworm like me. The origins of this malady are clouded in my brain by the ravages of time but the intensity with which it envelops me amazes me to no end. It was Groucho Marx who once wistfully remarked, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read”.That pretty much sums up all there is to say about man’s two best friends.There I go again, so I must stop here.

Read this on the Select Book Shop from The Hindu.

Digit, the computer magazine is also celebrating it's fifth anninversary and has packed classics like Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much with a host of the regular paraphernalia.A good deal to say the least.

Also, Google is discovering Shakespeare in a new light.Check this out.Here comes, Google Shakespeare. And that brings me to the just gone-by Caferati, which was great fun.

Also check out, the just concluded Hay-on-wye Festival.

MUST-sees for the season:

Also watched Amelie and Lock , Stock and two Smoking Barrels.Hera Pheri's sequel is a complete rip-off of the latter.

And I am really looking forward to Suhasini Manirathnam's Reading between the Lines on Tuesday.

I am hooked on to YouTube these days and l leave you with this funny video from the site.