Library downstairs, housing upstairs. Read more about the library-housing project being built in St. Paul Minnesota. [thanks tricia]
Tag: library
hi – 28nov
Hi. I went to the Somerville Public Library on Buy Nothing Day (this past Friday) and it was closed up tight. As I sat outside enjoying the sunshine, I must have seen fifteen people go up to the front door and try to open it. I understand why the library is closed on Thanksgiving, I would have been concerned if it hadn’t been. But, except as an extreme cost-cutting maneuver, being closed the day after Thanksgiving seems to be a bad customer service move. People are home from work, kids are home from school. Everyone is out and about. Balancing a happy staff with a happy patron base I’m sure is always a challenge, but I was still sad to not be able to go to the library on Friday. More on my holiday weekends, my haircut, and some digitial divide hurdling on my personal site.
1,082 books, the Penguin Classics Library, replaces personal library lost in a forest fire
I always wondered what sorts of people bought the entire Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection [$8K at Amazon, with free shipping]. Well one sort is the librarian who has lost her entire personal library in a forest fire. She has no TV, no children, four cats and one very generous and thoughful husband.
Thousands of scorched tree trunks still range up the hillside across the street from Ms. Gursky’s new home here, but inside the house, her library is well on the way to recovery. In September, Ms. Gursky received a birthday gift from her husband that earned her the envy of her book-loving friends: the complete collection of the Penguin Classics Library, 1,082 books sold only by Amazon.com for nearly $8,000.
[thanks kathleen]
hi – 11sep
Hi. Just for the curious, the Sargent Memorial Library is my original library and Shirley Warren is my original librarian.
google print on hold, continued
Google Print Library going on hold over copyright is big news in our world. Copyfight followed up on the story. Of particular interest is the comments with people speculating on the copyright-kosherness of a publicly traded for-profit company freely scanning, copying and indexing content that is not owned by them without negotiating for rights. Other popular copyfighters Siva and Seth have worthwhile insights.
Siva “Once again, I think we should recognize that unless we think copyright should not exist, copyright holders should be able to decide when to license their works to other companies. This is far from absolute. But it’s common sense and generally true. Only in unusual circumstances, such as when markets fail to provide an essential public good, should we consider radical moves. This is not one of those cases. The service is not an essential public good — just a cool idea. And the market was not failing. Publishers were at the table…. Google messed up by going all unilateral on the publishers. There was no market failure here. Transaction costs were not prohibitive. They were working out the deal. This was not the recording industry shunning Napster. This was how copyright is supposed to work.”
Seth: Why is Google doing this book-scanning project? It’s not because it’s just so cool (even if it is). While coolness may justify a small-scale promotional project, the scanning efforts are expensive. So Google, as a company, obviously sees some value in the effort. This is not wrong. But it’s also a direct conflict with the granted monopoly know as copyright. Whenever there is value, particularly commercial value, there is conflict over who should be able to receive it.