Another New Thing

I've been busy with a new (new to me) Thing called LibraryThing. I'd heard about it already last summer by word of mouth (of a librarian), but I finally put my nose to the grindstone recently and started LibraryThinging, that is, cataloging my home library online. Currently, 50 books down, about 2000 more to go. Hey I'm counting my husband's and my children's too. Lots of items obtained in garage sales and library friends' used book sales. So far so good.

LibraryThing is a Web 2.0 application because of the social aspects in it. While registering, I identified myself as a Blogger participant, too. I'm learning more about that every day as I go, and the more I know, the better I like it. Good thing.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/exlibrisemk

Hurry up and wait

Well, I signed up for the PLA National Conference to be held in Minneapolis this coming March, as a last minute "early bird". New vistas! Right now I'm most excited about attending the Friday luncheon meeting with Louise Erdrich, but the program is loaded with events I wish to attend. Now, what should I wear? I hope other MILI participants will come, too.

Beyond Fair Use?Lit/Folklore Instruction Aid? Enjoy the Widget!

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Good olde Led composed this piece on the basis of Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, who in turn received his inspiration from the Kalevala, the Finnish National Epic, ancient runes that were sung from generation to generation and gathered into a book in 1835. Eccentric British academics are nuts about Kalevala. So there, we're connected -- Finns, Brits, Led Zeppelin. Involves plagiarism and no concern whatsoever for copyrights. Grey area but brilliant results.

Praise the wiki

Interesting session on wikis and copyright issues in our meeting -- only I went home as confused as ever on copyright issues, especially with the conceptual side of it, dissemination vs. copyright protection. - But wikis, well, I became convinced of the virtues, if the community of a particular wiki really can be restricted for privacy, and yet no signing up required like Google likes us to do for everything, market research I'm sure for the most part. Never any real time these days for a thing to stand the test of time, just intuition, common sense, instant information, peer review will do for guidance, I guess--

http://www.esnips.com/doc/3e316533-cdb0-4d5f-a9da-bd24b5e5723d/03.The-Battle-Of-Evermore

Thing 10 again

Just a quick additional comment on copyright - at least one may use 10% or 30 sec of anyone's (?) video clip under the terms of fair use any time, apparently, with no dire consequences. Given all that's available out there, those are stringent terms I think!

A New Thing -- e-books

It seems that e-books get a more enthusiastic reception from students than from the more, hmh, mature persons, but how is it in practice? The teens in our house, otherwise avid readers, spend no time whatsoever on e-books although they seem to spend huge chunks of their lives staring at the screen. And do interactive features change the picture at all -- publishers keep trying but -- ? Informational e-books seem to have some following, if forced sometimes. Are they being purchased at an increasing rate for school libraries?

Thing 10

Reading Thing 10 -- copyright and plagiarism -- is instructive and confusing at the same time, just like I remember it in library school classes, although there wasn't enough on copyrighting there in any consistent manner, only much about fair use, to encourage us to use material rather than not, I presume? Working at a publishing company opened my eyes to dangers in commercial use -- every scrap of text, drawings, photos could potentially be grounds for a lawsuit if improperly used, and much time and effort went on checking back to ensure that no copyright law was violated. This was an arduous process when dealing with Hollywood, Disney and such; say, you want to use production stills for a children's book and need to somehow contact Tom Cruise's people -- shudder, shudder--

Still, it had to be done and was done, and of course, it's really better that way in the end, unless the item is truly in public domain and that takes a long time--

In school environment plagiarism is certainly more of an issue and well worth watching for.