I enjoy building things, especially if there is a “let’s see what we can find to make this work” factor involved.

With that in mind, it should be obvious why Building a High Speed Scanner from Trash and Cheap Cameras has me salivating.  I think I shall have to examine the materials and time needed for this…

found via Librarian.net

Jessamyn posted this link, in an effort to help identify the library.  I wasn’t the first to come up with the correct answer, but it was a treat to scan several pages of Google Images containing library frescos before finding this result.

Why you can’t find a library book in your search engine is an article in The Guardian.  It is a good overview of the broader issues surrounding the OCLC Licensing problem, and is written for the general reader (i.e. this is the article you should recommend to all your non-library friends (and perhaps even some of your library friends).

found on Librarian.net

Over the past few days, I have been gathering my thoughts together in order to post an essay-style overview of the issues surrounding the OCLC records policy changes.  As of now, I am going to put those thoughts aside, as Stefano Mazzocchi has posted an excellently rational and well thought-out essay on the topic.

I feel glad that I have injected some of the points he mentions into my own posts.  OCLC is a tiger (my own reference) defending its territory; this means they feel threatened.  Stefano described how OCLC can become the lady, opening up their process and becoming a hero to librarians, bibliophiles, and geeks worldwide.

Can they take a cue from the Open Source movement and adjust their business model to better fit their actual position in the biblioverse?  Stefano is hesitant about their chances; I have a lot of respect for many of the people and projects at OCLC, and feel that they can achieve nearly anything the set their collective minds towards (except to maintain a monopoly on the course they seem to have chosen).

found via Librarian.net

The Tech Static is, as stated on the site, “Your collection development resource for technology titles”.

They are using a blog to house reviews of technology books and resources, and are planning to publish monthly.  It looks as though they will become an excellent resource not only for collection development, but for personal selections as well.  I am looking forward to their reviews!

from Librarian.net

Google has reached a settlement with the group of publishers who filed suit in 2005 over the book digitization project.  It is a legal document with many elements, and I cannot hope to make an overall evaluation of the agreement with just the amount that I have browsed (much less with my limited ability to discern the true meaning of legalese).  However, there are a couple of sections that raise questions:

7.2 Fully Participating Library Uses… (b) Use of Library Digital Copies… (vii) Personal Scholarly Use and Classroom Use. The Fully Participating Library, if part of a Higher Education Institution, may allow faculty members and research staff of that Higher Education Institution to read, print, download or otherwise use up to five (5) pages of any Book from its LDC [Library Digital Copy] that is not Commercially Available for the following purposes: (1) personal scholarly use (for each Book, no more than once per person per term) and (2) classroom use in such Higher Education Institution that is limited to the instructors and students in the class and for the term in which the class is offered; provided that (a) the Fully Participating Library does not know at the time of such use that it is in material non-compliance with Section 8.2 (Security Standard, Security Implementation Plan and Security Audits) with respect to uses of the LDC authorized pursuant to this Section 7.2(b)(vii) (Personal Scholarly Use and Classroom Use), and (b) the Fully Participating Library keeps track of and reports all such uses of Books to the Registry in the course of the audit conducted pursuant to Section 8.2(c) (Audits) or, otherwise, upon reasonable request of the Registry, provided that such requests may be made no more than semi-annually. The Registry may make information from such reports regarding the usage of an individual Book available to the Rightsholder of such Book upon request of the Rightsholder. A Fully Participating Library may not read, print, download or otherwise use a Book or Insert through its LDC pursuant to this Section 7.2(b)(vii) (Personal Scholarly Use and Classroom Use) if such use is available through the Institutional Subscription and the Institutional Subscription service is offered or is available to the Fully Participating Library (whether for a fee or as a beta product) at the time such Fully Participating Library seeks to make such use.” (page 76)

The agreement defines Commercially Available as “…that the Rightsholder of such Book, or such Rightsholder’s designated agent, is, at the time in question, offering the Book (other than as derived from a Library Scan) for sale new through one or more then-customary channels of trade in the United States.” (Section 1.28 on page 4)  Does this mean that if a researcher or faculty is able to read (or print) only up to 5 pages of the scanned book each semester for personal scholarly use – and then only if the book is not able to be purchased through “customary channels of trade”?

Am I interpreting this correctly?  Is this not a severe restriction of the “Fair Use” clause of copyright?  Why would a researcher want to agree to such limitations when the physical item allows for a broader use?  I may be misreading this section, however, and hope to have it clarified in the near future.

Another section that gives me pause:

Section 3.8 (b) Effect of Changes in Law. Google will be able to take advantage of any future legislative change(s), such as legislation allowing the use of orphan works (if enacted), that put Google at a competitive disadvantage in its use of Books in any Google Products and Services that are subject to this Settlement Agreement; provided, however, that Google may choose to receive the benefit of such change(s) only if a third party is actually taking advantage of such law(s) in connection with services that competitively disadvantage Google in its provision of any such Google Products and Services; provided, further, that no changes in the “fair use” doctrine as codified in Section 107 of the Copyright Act shall trigger this Section 3.8(b) (Effect of Changes in Law).” (page 37)

So if a legislative body, such as the United States Congress, passes a law that allows for broader use of this type of material (i.e. a change in copyright law), Google can only put the broader use into Google Books if it can demonstrate that another company is already taking business away from them by implementing it; otherwise, Google must keep the higher restrictions in place.

In addition, what happens if “fair use” is broadened?  It won’t trigger this section.  Does that mean that Google can follow fair use, or that Google cannot?  The fair use provision seems to be placed on an equal footing as the “competitively disadvantage” clause.  Does Google pass along the broader use understanding, or does it just pass?

For better or worse, this settlement is going to dramatically change how libraries use electronic books.  Hopefully the overall agreeement implements a positive experience for all parties involved, and that my concerns (and the concerns of others) are either misread clauses or taking a section out of context.

The element of this agreement that holds great promise is the potential for institutional access to the entire collection of scanned books.  Imagine having millions of books available to our patrons via a usable and cost-effective agreement.  We are moving towards the future; are we ready for it (and the future for us)?

Further information and links:

• Contents of the Google Book Search Copyright Settlement
• Librarian.net
• Official Google Blog
• Panlibus Blog
• Open Access News

In February, I wrote about the shootings at Northern Illinois University, which happened about 100 yards away from a former co-worker (and current friend). I stressed that until something like this happens in your community, it seems remote and somehow not fully real. However, we must strive to remember that these things happen in real communities, to real people, and that individuals, organizations and institutions (such as libraries) can do much to be better prepared for tragedy.

Jessamyn at Librarian.net writes about a horrific murder which indirectly involved the local public library, and how they have reacted. As you read her post, and the news articles she links to, ask yourself what your library or organization can do now to be prepared for not only this type of event, or a shooting, or a book challenge, but what you can do to simply be prepared.

Once you have thought about it, discuss it with your co-workers and community members. Solicit ideas. Take the best ideas and put them into action. You may never need this, but if the unthinkable happens you will be in far better shape than if the only response is “we never imagined it could happen here!”

Do it this time, starting today… because you cannot predict where, or in what form, the next horrific event will occur. At worst, you will be prepared for something that may not happen; at best you may save lives.

ReadMe is a wiki containing Ask MetaFilter questions along the lines of “What should I read… ?”

This can be a great resource for book clubs, reading groups, and for anyone looking for book recommendations for nearly any topic.  I should note that the MetaFilter crowd can get a bit snarky at times, as with nearly every online community (and are sometimes nsfw) but they are nearly always interesting, and even if you ultimately don’t agree with them, thought-provoking.

found via Librarian.net

Schemes to Add Functionality to the Web OPAC is a posting by Disruptive Library Technology Jester (a.k.a. Peter Murray of OhioLINK) in which he lays out a basic categorization of ways in which libraries can get their OPACs to do more.

This list is interesting in many ways, not the least of which is that on first read this seems to be a very good foundation for examining the options available to libraries.  So much depends on the current state of your library’s OPAC (which integrated library system (ILS) you have, how it is hosted, who has the authority to make changes, and your library’s human/technical resources), but this gives a starting point to see just what a library can do with the available resources.

Over the years I keep revisiting a desire to revamp OPACs that are sorely in need of improvement.  When I worked for a Voyager library, I set up this and this (each developed by someone else, but that I configured to work for my library).  I haven’t found anything like these for my current situation, but Scriblio sounds like a possible option.  The faceted searching alone would make it worthwhile.  I may get creative over the next couple of months…

found via Librarian.net

When TechCrunch posted about images of the pages of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being available via a torrent site called The Pirate Bay, they were reporting about a newsworthy event within their blog’s scope (technology and society).

Scholastic, the publisher of Harry Potter, thinks differently. They have served a takedown notice to the site, which has responded by publicizing the notice and explaining their position. They are likely to be safe in this, as Salon, CNet, and The New York Times all posted the information on the same day.

Consider this:  does this blog post aid in violating Scholastic’s copyright? If you think it might, please note that every link in this post (including the one’s in the p.s.) can be found independently via Google. When does the right to provide information about an event become publicity for that event? When does giving out information become aiding in the abusive use of said information?

And how does that affect a library’s role in answering reference questions, and providing access to information? Note that I am not limiting this line of questioning to copyright violations…

p.s. Jessamyn at Librarian.net has posted a link to a site that summarizes much of the posted book, chapter by chapter. I warn you that the first thing your eye will see on the page, assuming it is true, will tell you a major, major element of the story. I won’t know for a few days whether this has spoiled my reading of the book, but you get to decide whether it is better to wait and let J.K. Rowling tell you herself. Jessamyn’s post is here, if you decide to take the risk. The direct link to the summary is here.

Comment (7/23/2007):  I finished the book early this morning; the creator of the summary gets more items wrong than right.  So, if you looked and haven’t read the book yet, you may not have spoiled the fun!)

A post on the Freakonomics blog titled “If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?” contains some interesting parallels to some of today’s copyright/publishing concerns.

from Librarian.net

Michael Gorman, former president of ALA, has riled up some people with his posts on Britannica Blog titled Web 2.0 : The Sleep of Reason (part I) and (part II).

He makes some excellent points about scholarship and the perils that accompany a lack of authority, but wastes his efforts by railing against the internet as a whole, and against those who participate in generating content (ironic, given that he is making these points in blog entries).

These posts are well worth reading, though, as they do make excellent points and raise valid issues. Unfortunately, you have to wade through the “traditional publishers good” vs. “web publishers bad” chaff to get to the wheat of his argument.

The goal is high quality information, no matter how it is created or accessed.

found on Free Range Librarian, also: good commentary on Librarian.net

Update:  Free Range Librarian has a follow-up post with an announcement from Britannica Blog….

OCLC is announcing a new pilot project called WorldCat Local, intended to provide tools to help find materials close to the user. These tools will likely include circulation information, full-text capabilities for available resources, and eventually social networking features.

The program will begin later this month in select areas, starting with the University of Washington. I don’t know if you have to enter library card info to access the resources, or if you can simply use a local zip code to try this out.

Jessamyn at Librarian.net has a very relevent post about libraries who cannot afford to join in, and how it affects the WorldCat users in those communities.

from ResourceShelf

Open Data : What Would Kilgour Think? is a post by Jay Datema about the recent settlement between the New York Public Library and iBiblio regarding the latter’s harvesting of records from the NYPL catalog.

I am increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of metadata being copyrighted.  This includes, but is not limited to, Dewey Decimal Classification and MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) records.  These are tools that follow shared rules, developed and honed by communities and experience, that we use to store information about our collections.

We use these metadata systems in order to have a shared method of storing, finding, and retrieving what we have.  They should not be confused with the resources we make available, the software we use to search for them, nor should they be considered intellectual property, as they exist solely to describe something else.

The standards behind each of these systems is important to the library community.  It does not increase the value of our collection if we lock our MARC records using copyright; it only keeps other libraries from sharing our information, which decrease the value of libraries in general.

As with all good standards:  the standards themselves should be well-defined, controlled, and updated as frequently as necessary.  Their benefits should be available to anyone who can put them to good use.  The library community (including companies and corporations) should recognize the value of the commons, and strive to make our metadata available for the benefit of everyone.

from Librarian.net

Where can us library types get our temporary tattoo fix?  No need to head out on that highway, just take a gander at Archie McFee!

Could be a good promotional idea for a library….

from Librarian.net

Just in time for my 200th post, Unshelved has created a poster for ALA’s online store based on their (Unshelved’s) “Read Responsibly” theme (I have the shirt, and it is one of my favorites).

from Librarian.net

This potential earthshaking announcement is buried in the awarding of a Mellon Grant to Maison Bisson for work on an innovative merging of blogging software and library catalogs (I’ll just say that it is detailed, and interesting, and could change the OPAC in ways we have only dreamed about).

I was only able to find the Creative Commons MARC records information in this blog post, so I will leave this as unconfirmed at this point.  If it is accurate, however, it could be a great step towards making electronic records available to libraries with little or no budget for automation.

from Librarian.net (and read Jessamyn’s take on this… it spells out the potential of this announcement)

This list is from Rachel, aka The Liminal Librarian. The comments add a great deal of information beneficial to those of us who present, as well as those of us who organize conferences.

At this moment, it is too much information for me (RFS is one week away, and nothing seems ready), but it will be reviewed as part of my approach for next year’s conference.

from Librarian.net

This is a neat toy, an interactive artwork, and a trip down memory lane all in one… the Catalog Card Generator lets you type in information that is displayed on a card catalog-type display.  Try it out, you will find it compelling.  The handwritten notes fields are especially neat.

from Librarian.net

Movie Licensing USA is a licensing agent for many of the largest studios in the U.S., and describes themselves as being an easy step towards showing movies in your library without risking copyright issues.

from Librarian.net