putting the rarin back in librarian since 1999
Folksonomy, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mess. An impressionistic transcript by Cory Doctorow.
It’s a deep philosophical issue: Ontology is a controversial subject. The idea that it’s possible to cleave nature at the joints is controversial. Yes, there are countries, Uzbekistan is a country, but ask a physicist or a biologist and the categories are very fraught.
Andrea’s at CiL and has some tips for presenters that are right on the money. I went to show off one of our library databases at an elementary school yesterday. Everything was fine until we got to the database login page. For some reason IE wouldn’t let us in, the tech guy had gone home, and no one else knew if there was a firewall or virus software on the machine. Fortunately, I had brought all the screenshots of the database that I had used when I was demonstrating it on public access TV. Oddly, the demonstration search I had used for the TV show just happened to be the same as the name of the town I was in. I walked away from that talk looking well-prepared and smart instead of tech-clueless and frustrated. And that IE problem we were having? We switched to Safari as an afterthought when I was on my way out, and we logged in to the database no problem, vexing!
The fiddling librarian is looking for some advice for publicizing the WiFi node he’s setting up at his library. Anyone been there, done that?
Interesting wrinkle in the Google Print Library project as it’s being worked out at Harvard Library. Publishers think Google needs to ask their permission before it copies their works, even if they’re in the public domain.
“The law does not permit wholesale copying (which is what digitisation is) by a commercial organisation of works that are still in copyright,†she wrote. “It is also illegal to make those works available digitally once they have been copied.â€
Morris wrote that Google needs to obtain permission from publishers before using their work. While she wrote that it may be impractical to ask every publisher, Google should ask permission through collective licensing organizations.
Also interesting, seems that while Google Print actually destroys the books it scans, Google Print Library does not.
Aaron outlines a few classes he wishes he could teach at his library. I have always maintained a similar list in my head, here are some titles.
“Where is all the porn that people are talking about?” Even in an unfiltered environment, good free porn can be hard to find. We’ll discuss how to locate what you’re really looking for and learn all new meanings for the words virus and trojan.
“P2P, it’s not just for music and porn anymore!” With more people joining peer-to-peer networks lately, there’s more to download than ever before. You can get software, television shows and even games. Learn how to effectively search and download whole new media types.
“How to really cover your tracks” While it’s pretty difficult to be truly anonymous on the ‘net, there are a handful of techniques that can boost your anonymity above the threshhold of most average citizens ability to figure out who you are.