Gary Hamel’s blog post on the Wall Street Journal is titled The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500, but the issues contained within the post are ones that are going to touch upon all businesses and organizations, including libraries.

He lists 12 “work-relevant characteristics of online life” that will impact the workplace, including:

• All ideas compete on equal footing.
• Leaders serve rather than preside.
• Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
• Power comes from sharing information, nor hoarding it.
• Intrinsic rewards matter most.

All of these are features of organizations that are in a better position to survive, simply because members are motivated to be adaptive, communicative, and supportive.  Think about groups and workplaces you have been a member of… most of your negative associations with them likely would be less critical if one or more of the ideas above were a greater part of the environment.

These ideas will slowly creep in, championed by those who have experienced the benefits a group/organization/business gains by applying them.  Resistance will be the unspoken response by those whose power lies in control of information, expression, and rewards.

The mix of these ideas will affect different groups in different ways, but they will affect every group, including libraries, in a profound manner.  The greatest benefits go to those who can successfully adopt the attitudes and behaviors that will ultimately succeed within that group.

Which of these offers the greatest opportunity for your situation?  What can you do to begin/continue the transition?  Think about this, because it is up to you to change your own approach, and encourage others to change theirs, as well.

found via Lorcan Demsey’s Weblog

The impending release of the Kindle 2 wireless reading device has been all over the news this week, accompanied by many reviews and commentaries.  One response to a new feature strikes me as extreme, however:

“Some publishers and agents expressed concern over a new, experimental feature that reads text aloud with a computer-generated voice.

“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won’t confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.

Source:  Wall Street Journal

On one level he is correct:  the audio rights, like movies and other adaptations, are derivative and subject to negotiation.  However, text reading features are considered an assistive technology, and to attempt to make the output a derivative under copyright law opens a nasty can of worms.

Imagine if reading Goodnight Moon to your two-year-old was considered a “performance” and required permission… that’s how nasty and worm-ridden this can is.

One example of a negative effect of this viewpoint basically involves any website that would sell audio books, including Amazon.  How would someone with a visual impairment be able to order the audio book version of a title without using a screen reader?  In addition, how would they know whether a website allows for the use, under copyright law, of their own website by someone with a screen reader?

Note that we aren’t discussing audio books, which are derivative works, and are mostly very professionally produced and are meant to enhance the experience of the book, not simply to allow the person to experience it at all.

The argument by the Author’s Guild representative is a nasty legal mess that we should not consider reasonable under copyright law.

found at Open Access News

A CBS News producer has been fired for plagarizing a Wall Street Journal column by Jeffrey Zaslow about how children and adults view libraries in different ways.  The CBS report by Katie Couric has been removed from their website.

The article is interesting, although it is a shame that it came to my attention because of someone’s mis-appropriation of it.

spotted via the Drudge Report