The Library of Congress has formed the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, and will be having their first public meeting tomorrow, March 8th, at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The truly interesting thing is that anyone can attend, no prior registration needed. I would love to be able to drop in at Google tomorrow and delve into the topic of Users and Uses of Bibliographic Data, but it isn’t going to happen for me without a tornado, puppy and ruby slippers. Andrew Pace and Karen Markey are among the speakers; it ought to be an excellent day.

Karen Schneider was inspired to dash off an open letter to the Library of Congress on ALA TechSource. Karen Coyle is planning to attend (as per a post to the NGC4Lib listserv) and will likely post info on her blog about the meeting.

I am entertaining the idea of wandering over to Chicago for their May 9th meeting on “Structures and Standards for Bibliographic Data”, which I think I would find almost as fascinating as the user focus of this meeting. Several things would need to fall into place to allow that to happen, including the LOC keeping the meetings open to all without invitation, and I think I shall see what the feedback from tomorrow is before pursuing it.

I find it interesting when organizations forget about fair use when they establish copyright policies. It is especially interesting when the organization is educational in nature, like the University of Southern California.

I think it is necessary to counter blanket statements about copyright with information about the nuances contained within the laws. One place to start is the Copyright and Fair Use page on the ALA site.

But more important is our being observant when our rights are being ignored. Pointing out the exceptions in policies, signs and statements is necessary. If people don’t understand what they are allowed under copyright law, can they truly understand what they are not allowed?

initial link from Open Access News

Sometimes a topic comes at you from several different angles. Hopefully this allows one to see it in a broader fashion…

The college where I work just finished the first week of classes. Many students have incredible financial pressures when it comes to purchasing their required class texts ( see here, here, and here for three representative texts ). I am becoming more and more convinced that the current publishing structure for texts cannot survive. There will be a backlash, whether it be textbook rental systems at schools, or a new publishing mindset like the open text movement.

Wikibooks

California Open Source Textbook Project

Global Text Project (from Open Access News)

Unshelved

From the University of California, Calisphere is an archival collection of digitized images, maps, documents and more.

from ResourceShelf

Every library site should include definitions of basic terms, like the University of Southern California’s.

from ResourceShelf