toread: Book-ish Territory: A Manual of Alternative Library Tactics

Posted on by jessamyn

Every so often it’s really useful for me to remember that while I’m here in the rural US helping people use email and scan photographs, there are some people not far away who are really finding the cool edges of the profession. I like to know what these people are up to, even as the paths we may take towards information liberation may be different. This text: Book-ish Territory: A Manual of Alternative Library Tactics by architect NIkki O’Loughlin is an exciting and interesting way of conceptualizing the idea of libraries as a public space not just for the public but by the public. I’ve had my nose in it all afternoon. Also there is a librarian petting a gila monster. One section is all about “station libraries” small libraries in private homes or businesses that existed and functioned as extensions of the public library system in Syracuse. Did you know that before 1950 many trains included a library car, with books? So much more, plus a bibliography. Go. Read. [via, via]

let’s be honest about the ebook situation

Posted on by jessamyn

Been doing a lot of reading and not enough writing the past few weeks, getting taxes sorted, preparing for SXSW and doing some SOPA follow-up. Sarah Houghton has a great post about ebooks, the current situation with some publishers opting out of providing ebooks to libraries and what she is doing about it at her library. I agree with her that if we want to solve the problem, we need to be honest about what we’ve been doing and what others have been doing, notably publishers that are making it difficult for us to provide their titles digitally. Libraries want to do this and we can’t. Patrons should know that, and know why.

As a librarian and as a reader, I am tired of publishers walking away from the library table. I have no problem with them walking away from a particular third party vendor, but only if they have a plan in place to offer up their own platform or be signed with an alternate vendor already. Gaps in service, gaps in availability of their titles to our patrons equals stupidity in my opinion. Walking away from the library eBook market makes no financial long-term sense, nor does it continue the positive relationship that publishers and libraries have cultivated for centuries to help bring information and entertainment to people.

I think it’s about damn time we, as library professionals, started getting the public riled up about this too. We need legislation passed (or copyright law clarified) that states that indeed, libraries can license/purchase and lend out digital items just like they can with physical items. Fragmentation and exclusionary business practices hurt the people we serve. As a librarian I feel we must stand up, as a profession, and say “no more.”

Bobbi Newman also has some scripts you can use when talking to patrons. Sponsored, in part, by: https://safecasinosnotongamstop.com/

“What do they expect us to do, go to the library?” a wrap-up of the SOPAstrike

Posted on by jessamyn

Congress, it's no longer okay to not know how the internet works.

I was surprised by how much activity there was yesterday over SOPA/PIPA.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that SOPA/PIPA are the House and Senate versions of a bill proposed to address the proliferation of websites that facilitate access to copyrighted content for free. I’ve spoken previously about my opposition to this legislation and took action by making my site, Casino online t?i Complete Sports, go dark using a WordPress plugin to register my displeasure. On MetaFilter, we created an interstitial clickthrough page so that everyone visiting the site would see it and be encouraged to contact their representatives if in the US, or take other actions for non-US users. I knew other sites were taking similar measures, most notably Reddit, but I was personally surprised at just how big it got and how quickly.

And by the time I called Patrick Leahy, the guy who was actually responsible for drafting PIPA, and his Montpelier office said they were having technical difficulties and to please call the Burlington office, I knew something was up. And I spoke to a staffer who clearly thought I was some sort of “Hey the internet sent me” person, telling me “It’s not like Google says it is” and seemed surprised though maybe not pleased when I went into the details of what my objections to the law were. And I used the internet like usual, except things weren’t usual. Wikipedia was dark (read this link for some laughs). Reddit was dark. BoingBoing was dark. Cheezeburger network and Craigslist had clickthroughs. Google did a custom logo. In fact I found it a little tough to predict which sites might go dark. The Syracuse iSchool had a very well done page. ALA hadn’t done anything in the morning but thanks to a little nudging, had a message of support up in the afternoon. The protest made the news. Here’s a quick roundup of some screenshots I made, in case you missed some or all of them. And, to bring this full circle, here’s Jon Stewart talking about how this sort of thing just might drive people back to the library.

Ultimately what is interesting to me is what happened. Several legislators changed their votes (check yours here). It was interesting seeing these roll in over Twitter before turning into more official sounding statements later in the day. At last count twenty senators announced opposition to the bill this week. Check this graphic. That, to me, is sort of a big deal.

Getting serious about SOPA – what librarians need to do

Posted on by jessamyn

SOPA 2011
Original image thanks to Christopher Dombres and Creative Commons licensing.

I oppose SOPA unequivocally; it’s vague, it’s anti-free-speech, and it won’t solve the problem it’s designed to combat. One of the things that is tricky about SOPA–the legislation moving through Congress that threatens to enact stiff penalties for online piracy–is the number of things you need to understand to even understand what it does. I’m very good with computers and I had to spend sometime getting my head around it. I suspect my legislators may not even understand what it means to start messing around with DNS files to essentially take a website “off the internet” if it’s found [through a not-very-confidence-inspiring process] to be hosting infringing content. The website I work for hosts almost no content but links to a lot of things and we could be mistakenly shut down for linking to people who host “illegal” content.

So, I think we need to do a few things: understand how this bill is supposed to work, be clear in our opposition to it as a profession, work with other people to inform and educate others so that people can make their own informed choices. Here is a short list of links to get you started.

I feel that we as a profession need to be understanding this legislation and the mechanisms that it is threatening to dismantle or undermine. When big media companies who already enjoy tremendous market dominance and access to legislators and platforms for distributing their message decide they have their minds set on something, it’s important to balance the playing field.