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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Recurso educativo Open Access |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
2008
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ817322 |
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Table of Contents:
- Failure Is Always an Option Chudnov, Daniel Libraries Coping Computer Software Library Automation Electronic Libraries Failure Personal Narratives Access to Information Web Sites Things are failing everywhere. A few years ago, several large companies disappeared almost overnight in a series of scandals. This year, the mortgage industry imploded. More recently, stalwart financial and insurance corporations have been dropping like flies. Failures happen on a smaller scale too. Recently, the all-caps word "FAIL" became a mocking web catch phrase to describe poorly conceived projects, server breakdowns, or other calamities. The people running the popular micro-blogging site Twitter struggle so much to keep up with traffic that the oddly reassuring image of a whale they post when the site goes down came to be known and loved as the "Fail Whale." In early September, colleagues from a former job of the author's shut down one of their libraries. They closed a physical location, and two longtime staffers lost their positions. Restaurants and small businesses come and go all the time, websites go up and down all the time, but a library closing hits close to home. What people do or don't do when it all comes to an end says a lot about them. In this article, the author encourages the readers to take a closer look at how people fail and to be willing to share what they've learned when things go wrong.