Group items tagged

An article covering the online legacy we leave behind once we've passed away, and who or how it is managed. Companies are gradually becoming more aware and making some concessions towards "digital estate planning" but there are still legal concerns or grey areas, such as a surviving parent using an accessing the social media account of a child who had died.

Much like the recent lawsuit by Edwin Mellen Press against a librarian who was critical of the company on a blog, OMICS in based in India has also sued a librarian, in this case Jeffrey Beall who runs the Scholarly Open Access blog. I remember seeing and reading his comments on OMICS. What is notable is the extent of the lawsuit, threatening not only civil but criminal charges in India and the US, and demanding from Beall $1 billion dollars, plus $10,000 just for sending the notice of the lawsuit out.

A CBS video about how items from the National Archives are being targeted by thieves--in this case by a noted historian who used his access to steal material.

One of four articles from the New York Times about the debate if we still need libraries--focusing mostly on Internet access rather than other services.

Predicted for a long time, this may be either good or bad for libraries. Good as it may drive some traffic back to libraries, bad as it may end up shutting off the archiving of online news articles and aggregation services that allow a quick overview of what the media is talking about. If news articles continue to be archived in services libraries have access to then it would be a win-win.

A victory for fair use, with scanned materials that are used in the HathiTrust. The HathiTrust repository use materials scanned from the Google Books but he access is more restrictive, allowing full text searches only with the copyright holder's permission--but does allow full text for readers with print disabilities. A Federal judge ruled this is covered by fair use, while related lawsuits against Google continue.

An article that revisits an older issue (Amazon wiping or removing a book from a Kindle), just this time it was an entire eBook collection and was deleted because of a problem with the user's account. It reinforces what copyright holders have always had but weren't able to enforce until the digital era, that users have only rights to access or use a work, not to actually own it, and those rights can be limited. Further, Amazon is a private company that can dictate policies; all the user knows is her account is "related" to a blocked account without knowing why or how.

The librarians of Mali are doing as much to conserve literature as to save their heritage. A vast majority of manuscripts have not been transcribed and remain in their original form, with some dating back to the 13th century. Timbutku is known for it's manuscript libraries, with several publicly accessible collections and at least 24 private collections.

The Free Library of Philadelphia has a program in which free NOOK Simple Touch e-readers are loaned to patrons over the age of fifty. However, the NOOK is completely inaccessible to patrons who are blind. Library personnel had discouraged two blind patrons from even attempting to check out one of the devices. The library had also been issued letters from the Department of Education regarding the obligation of federally funded institutions to purchase accessible e-book readers and other technologies. It's not clear from the release what steps the library may have taken to remedy the situation or how it escalated to the point of a lawsuit.

Jay Leno demonstrates how a 3D printer is used to create new parts from scans of original car parts that would have been exorbitantly expensive to manufacture. Some libraries have looked at getting these, in particular MST, as while expensive they would provide a product and service not readily accessible for engineering and technical students.

A really interesting way to define librarianship. He says that librarians provide expertise in making accessible, navigating and making sense of the social transcript. Do you agree?

An article from 1992 about the of books to be replaced by the then-new technology of hypertext. I find it an interesting contrast that back then the change was a new method of reading and access, while today's eBooks are more typically a print book repackaged for an electronic device.

In France eBooks are only 1.8% of the general market, and total sales of books have actually increased by 6.5% from 2003 to 2011. Some interesting conclusions are drawn from this, namely that prices for French language books are fixed by government decree and set by publishers--not by price discounters such as Amazon, and last year the publishers lobbied to do the same for eBooks. The French government is also friendly to booksellers, offering grants and help with rent. The result is French language bookstores are doing well, while some such English language bookstore such as the 30 year old Village Voice are closing because of the competition from resellers like Amazon and eBooks. The article surmises that the French are really only delaying the inevitable, but I find it curious that nothing is really stopping them from turning entirely to eBooks now, the main factor is cost rather than convenience or access.

The Internet Archice is now offering over one million items as peer to peer BitTorrent downloads. While in one sense it is only a different download method for materials that are copyright and royalty free, it is Torrents have been controversial as they are often used to download pirated movies and software. However, the Internet Archive does have a point in that it improves access for users with limited bandwidth. Downloads include 1.2 million books and 9,000 videos and movies.

If you don't already know what 2 factor authentication is - it's the use of a second out of band communication channel that is used in addition to your password. In the case of Google it means that when you go to log in they will send you a text message with a 6 digit numerical code that you'll type in as well. This means that would be hackers would need to not only know your password but also have physical access to your phone.  I've already enabled this feature for Google apps @mobiusconsortium.org - if you'd like to enable it for your account (it takes like 10 minutes to get set up and fix your applications) just let me know. 

Paul Otlet was a Belgian inventor who had several visionary ideas, such as a "World City" which would be a gathering of all the leading institutions of the world that would radiate knowledge and the Universal Decimal Classification scheme which is still used in some libraries. He also had a concept in 1934 for a radiated library that was in some ways a precursor to the Internet. It was limited by the technology he knew at the time, and consisted of a center where users would call in to ask for research and information to be displayed, which would then be displayed on a television screen. Aside from the need to call in some of his concepts are similar to early community access cable television.

I would say this is still more of a niche interest than an "antidote," but it does say something that people would still prefer to use the Espresso Book Machine and publish a physical copy of a book and it still sells rather than create it as an eBook on Amazon or Google Books. Probably the most useful aspect is for small independent booksellers to maintain a large accessible inventory but only keep and produce a small physical supply as needed, which could also apply to libraries--however not mention in the the articles is these units also have a hefty price tag of over $100,000.

This is a highly critical but reasoned examination of the state of the Library and Archives Canada. The author feels that the national library is losing focus by breaking up parts of it's collection, putting undigitized materials into remote storage where they are harder to access, cutting hours, and reducing staff by up to 20 percent--all of which contribute to the dissolution of the country's past and heritage. What he doesn't offer is an examination of what brought the national library to this state (unavoidable funding cuts or bad decisions to streamline or both) and what can be done to fix it.

An interview with William Noel, curator of the Walters Art Museum, which recently featured the Archimedes palimpsest in its collection-- both physical and digital.  What's wonderful about that is that its digital collection is under Creative Commons license. I'm a bit confused as to why Noel thinks that libraries don't want to advertise their collections, unless he's referring to the fact that libraries typically contain copyrighted material in their collections.

Oh, and you can get to the digital exhibition of the Archimedes palimpsest at http://archimedespalimpsest.net/. It's not terribly user-friendly (to quickly look at the images, select "Google Book of the Archimedes Palimpsest"), but being able to access the raw TIFF images is pretty darn cool.

An interesting web vendor that is offering interactive textbooks, which is in some ways the repackaging of the original "multimedia" CD-ROM's of the early 1990's, but now offered as a "book." They claim to be partnered with McGraw-Hill and Pearson, and it looks like a user needs to have a perpetual account to use their material although offline access is allowed. Some features such as streaming video and music are separate from the book so they are not true stand alone files, and purchasing a book as an app is currently only for a handful of titles. The list price of several of the books is very steep, and my main concern is how well the multimedia is integrated with the text and if there is any ability to share or transfer a license, which I can't find listed in their website FAQ.