I have just transferred from Moveable Type to WordPress and I’m still working on all of my settings and styles, importing images for older posts, and filling in non-post related text (i.e. About, etc.). But it is late and I am weary. Hopefully this will get fleshed out over the weekend.
And I Don’t Even Like Beer
I don’t subscribe to the notion that I want the president to be someone I could see having a beer with; I think that is an all around poor reason to vote for a candidate. That said, I suddenly see the appeal of having such a person in office.
Seeing this picture and so many others in the last few months, and hearing his witty, easy style, I have come to realize that I WOULD like to have a beer with Obama.
Following on that is the epiphany that I didn’t really understand the notion some people had that they liked Bush because they thought he was an average Joe and could see having a beer with him, because I would never want to have a beer with a person like Bush, president or not.
In reality, even if I don’t always agree with everything Obama does and would never base my vote on this, it really is very nice to have a president that you like and can relate to. It’s my turn.
Public Policy Update at the SLA Conference – Google Representative Speaks About Google Book Search
Although the Public Policy Update was on the schedule well in advance, the addition of a representative from Google to speak about Google Book Search and the related settlement was a last minute development. Dan Clancy, Engineering Director for Google Book Search, began with a brief presentation on the Google Book Search project and quickly moved into a discussion of the settlement. Clancy spent much of this time attempting to clarify some of the details of the settlement agreement, admitting that the agreement is a very complex document.
He noted that the parties to this settlement include all U.S. copyright holders for books that have been scanned or that Google is intending to scan; it does not cover books published after 1/5/2009. For books published after this date, Google will be able to do direct deals with the publishers. Clancy stressed that rightsholders have a choice about whether or not to participate in the agreement, that they can opt out of the settlement and participate in Google’s partner program or remove books from the database altogether. Through the agreement, Google is authorized to scan and index in-print books, but they can not display any of the material unless the rightsholder gives explicit rights to do so. For out-of-print books, display access is turned on by default; Google then pays into the newly created Books Rights Registry from which money will be distributed to rightsholders as they emerge to make claims.
Clancy acknowledged that there will be some works that aren’t claimed in the Registry and these will continue as orphan works, but he believes a legislative solution is the appropriate way to deal with orphan works. For now, they can provide access to the works while holding money in the Registry for rightsholders to eventually claim. He thinks this effort will encourage the passage of legislation to deal with orphan works. Further, Google still believes that what they are doing is fair use and they are still scanning material that isn’t covered by the settlement.
Clancy then moved on to address some of the concerns he has heard expressed and to take questions from the audience. Specifically, he clarified that the public access terminals are going to be provided to libraries that decide not to subscribe to Google Book Search on an institutional basis. These public access terminals are not special hardware and they are not dedicated terminals. Google is providing the ability for one Internet-enabled computer in each public library building to have full access to Google Book Search.
The data in the Books Rights Registry is public data, which Clancy believes creates a de facto copyright registry to help people find rightsholders of orphan works. In response to a question, Clancy clarified that a hit in the Registry is just a record of who holds the copyright, and does not denote permission given to Google. Further, if a rightsholder opts out of the settlement, the burden is not on them to provide a full list of their works; Google is liable if they screw up.
Clancy maintained that the settlement is designed to foster competition by making Registry data public and not exclusive to Google Book Search. Rightsholders can allow the Registry, which is being created by authors and publishers, not Google, to negotiate on their behalf with any other provider; alternatively, they can execute an agreement directly with Google or any other vendor without going through the Registry at all. When questioned further on how exactly this agreement would help create more competition, Clancy asserted that the Registry will make it easier to identify rightsholders, and other vendors will engage in their own licensing agreements to provide access to publishers’ content and/or scan materials to create a new product. Google has tried to make it so others can invest in a new project, but this doesn’t mean they will. Other providers will get into it if they decide it is a good business. This was perhaps the least convincing explanation given at the session.
With regard to Federal government works, Clancy told us that, in the past, they have limited access because of a concern that there might be copyrighted material within the work, for example in the case of Congressional hearings. However, the settlement allows Google to treat government works as though they are already in the public domain without the fear that there is copyrighted material embedded within.
Clancy acknowledged that this is potentially a 100 year deal due to the length of copyright. So what happens if Google goes away or decides not to continue offering the product? The settlement agreement addresses this concern by requiring Google to make a copy of the content available to the library partners, thus enabling them to find another provider to make the content available if Google is unable or unwilling to do so. While it is Google’s intent to exceed this level, there is an additional clause in the settlement that says that Google has to make at least 85% of the authorized scanned works available. If they fail to do so, they have to turn all of the data over to another provider.
Another concern voiced is one of censorship. Specifically, will Google display everything they have rights to and, if not, who will decide what is excluded? Clancy said that their collection development protocol was simply to scan everything a library gave them with no additional criteria in place. He argued that Google would not bother to scan everything if they weren’t intending to provide access to the material. Of course, one could argue that it was easier at the time to simply scan everything in one massive operation and deal with any content objections later on a case-by-case basis. At any rate, there is a provision in the agreement that if Google ever excludes material for editorial reasons, they will tell the library partners and the scan will be given to the library partner as well as to the Registry so that another vendor can provide access to it.
Another concern expressed was pricing – how much will Google decide to charge for Google Book Search, especially once/if it becomes a must-have resource for libraries? Clancy tried to reassure us that it is in Google’s best interest for libraries to be able to access the material. First of all the agreement states two objectives: first is to create revenue for the rightsholders which is best achieved by providing access to materials that can be purchased, and second is to ensure broad access to the materials. Additionally, Google sees this as a long-tail product. They want to make sure lots of people can use it; particularly, they want students to rely on the product so that they’ll continue to use it individually after they graduate. Google doesn’t see the institutional subscriptions as the big bottom line. Individuals don’t have to subscribe in order to search or preview the materials, unlike other database vendors that charge for searching. Clancy believes these reasons create a force to provide the product for a reasonable price or libraries will just turn away the institutional subscription.
The issue of privacy was dealt with in a similar fashion. Privacy of user data is not discussed in the settlement agreement at all. Google believes that the best way to deal with this is by engaging with libraries as they go into individual agreements. It will be part of the deal between Google and the library/consumer at the time of the transaction. Google will not be asking for user information from schools and libraries and they won’t know who the user is at an institution even if there is a cookie on the computer in the library. Ultimately, Clancy believes that libraries won’t sign the agreement if they believe there is a problem with the privacy terms.
While Google’s case does benefit from a clarification of some of the finer points of the settlement agreement, I left the session feeling slightly dissatisfied. One of my main criticisms is that so many of the answers given to reassure us that Google was not a monopoly refer to these “other vendors” who will enter into their own agreements with publishers, scan their own books, and make the content available if Google does not. While there are a few big players out there that might compete, I remain skeptical that many other vendors will have the clout to convince publishers to enter into additional agreements in the first place, or have the resources to scan and provide access to the content in the second. And, as usually happens, with the passage of time and the ability to ruminate on the discussion, I have thought of additional questions that I wish I had asked.
And now put your hands together for. . .
Here’s my basic re-cap of the Opening Session Keynote Address by Colin Powell. Powell started by saying the librarians at the national Defense University warned him that librarians were angry about something he’d said early on as Secretary of State. I thought maybe he was going to address the OTHER thing we were upset about him saying. But it was something about telling the State Department they had to get rid of all their old research and books.
He tried to educate the State Department workers that all the barriers to information exchange that used to exist are gone. He noted it’s a transactional world, not a calendar world anymore. He wanted to update their information with every transaction, not every 30 days.
You’ve got to move faster than your opponent/competitor. You have to move at speed of light, because that is how fast information moves.
He wonders how many people still bookmark sites. Everything he ever wants to find again is indexed on Google. Yes, I do still have bookmarks. Bookmarks to the deep web are still quite useful. Also bookmarks to already vetted web sites are often better than the first 10 results from Google.
This keynote feels like a stand-up routine with lots of random thoughts. He wonders where it’s all going in terms of instant information access. I, too, am wondering where it’s all going, but by “it” I mean the speech.
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, 9/11. We are safer with more security, but he told President Bush that we were starting to pay too high of a price. Students were not coming here anymore because of difficulties getting Visas. Students are good to have here because they get to know us, they stay here to impart their knowledge, or they go back to their country to help them become better. We have to keep ourselves open.
Okay, back to the stand-up routine.
Oh, leadership now.
The followers get the work done, not the leaders. You have to give them a sense of mission, a sense of goals, and a sense of purpose. And it has to come from a leader who is passionate about that purpose.
Leaders have to invest in people and give them what they need to get the job done.
Leaders have to acknowledge and congratulate employees for what they have accomplished.
Good leadership also means punishing people when they’re not getting the job done. A leader who is unwilling to prune an organization cannot be a good leader. Employees know who should be pruned and are waiting for a leader to do it.
We are now competing with billions of people and we need to educate our children. It’s an economic and moral issue. The high school dropout rate is a disgrace.
America has to be a leader. History and destiny has given us this role. Although our standing has suffered in the last few years, people still line up at US embassies wanting to come to America.
Our openness to the rest of the world is our greatest strength. As long as we never forget that, we’ll make the world a better place.
Eli asks a question – Issues of transparency and openness of government info, both foreign and domestic.
He’s always been a believer in openness and transparency, although not to the point of not having necessary protections. Wonders how you can even stop openness. Also important for existing information to get where it needs to be. Openness may have a certain degree of risk, but you should always have a bias towards transparency.
Has been reluctant to go on any of the social networking sites because he doesn’t want his life to be THAT open. Has drawn a personal limit.
Overall, I enjoyed the speech, but as I mentioned earlier, it felt a lot like a stand-up routine with lots of random one-liners. Honestly, it felt as frenetic as seeing a comedian working out new material. Powell was funny and engaging and charming. But what did the speech have to do with information? Yes, he addressed it at times, but in such a disjointed way that I was having trouble finding any sort of through-line. I was not as thrilled as most of the SLA tweeps tweeting on the speech.
I am, however, really looking forward to Neil deGrasse Tyson at the closing session.
Your Timing Sucks
I am so very skeptical of Google’s latest conveniently-timed issue of the Google Librarian Newsletter. Does Google really think we have such short memories and are so gullible?
A bit of background. In December 2005, Google launched its Librarian Central blog and newsletter. This quarterly publication was dutifully updated (mostly) on schedule until May 2007. Then it stopped. On the blog that June, they noted they were going to take a “summer break”. It was a long summer.
In June 2008, the librarian blogosphere started questioning whether or not we had been used (or allowed ourselves to be used) by Google in their quest for access to books for their scanning project. Steven Cohen really hit on it with his June 29th, 2008 post to Library Stuff. Conveniently, just 2 weeks after the brouhaha erupted, a new issue of the Librarian Newsletter was released. What, like Google wouldn’t be aware of the mini revolt brewing?
Then, again, nothing.
Nothing until this week when the Librarian Newsletter was once again released. (In spite of the April 6th date, it wasn’t posted until the 21st). Funny, ha-ha, the first paragraph starts with “After a 6-month hiatus, the Google Librarian Newsletter has returned!” Try 10 months.
Fully 70%* of the newsletter has to do with Google Book Search and why it is so awesome. Oh, you mean that controversial project that led to a controversial settlement, opposition to which is starting to pick up steam in the media and in the library community? A settlement that the court still has to approve and for which objections are being accepted until May 5th?
Please. I’m not an idiot. I’m not saying I support or oppose the Google Book Search settlement. This actually has nothing to do with my feelings on that topic either way. However, I do strongly oppose being seen as a patsy.
Hey, Google. Librarians have great memories for little details. It’s one of the things that makes us good at finding information. We’ve also been used by big publishers before, too many times to be comfortable with. But we’re getting feistier and less willing to roll over. We’re not some awkward schoolgirl who will forgive your absence and agree with anything you do just because you’re back and ready to give us a little attention when you want something. Give us just a smidge more credit than that and try being a bit circumspect when giving us your bread and circuses.
*2079 words in the newsletter, 1436 words in the articles about Book Search
What’s next? A pedicure?
A couple of weeks ago, a young raccoon came in to WildCare after being stuck in a garbage can with her sibling for at least a week. The trash can had accumulated several inches of water during a rain storm. Unfortunately, her sibling died in the can.
By the time she was found and brought to WildCare, she was emaciated, cold, and shivering so badly she was almost having seizures; the pads on her paws had been rubbed raw from her attempts to climb out of the can. She is small, approximately 5 pounds on intake, and was a very late season baby last year, probably born in August. At this age, she and her sibling should still be with their mother.
After spending a week in a flooded garbage can with a dead sibling, she was absolutely filthy. Last Sunday, after a week of good meals, she was much stronger and stable enough for a little clean up.
In spite of her small size, she’s still a formidable raccoon so she needed to be anesthetized before we could safely risk bath time.
All right already, I’ll do the “25 Random Things About Me”
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
(To do this on FB, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
1. My first car was a Chevy Cavalier hatchback. I named it Siegfried and I got all teary-eyed the day I left it on the car lot after trading it in for a Saturn. I couldn’t help but think how betrayed he must feel after years of service.
2. In high school, I was particularly fond of reading romance novels, aka smut books. Nothing like sitting in the hallway of your Catholic high school before class reading about throbbing man parts and dewy lady bits.
3. Every guy I’ve ever dated (or wanted to date), with the possible exception of my first high school boyfriend, was a soccer player at some point in his post-pubescent life (i.e. not just a group of 5-year-olds kicking each other in the shins). I really like soccer players.
4. The first albums I ever bought were cassettes of Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits and Barry Manilow Greatest Hits. I bought these because my brother refused to sell me his old cassette player unless I also took these tapes off his hands.
5. I have always fought a “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” mentality, with an urge to collect just about anything one could collect. As a child, in addition to my straw collection, I used to collect pretty rocks at the beach. I was limited by adult supervision to only the rocks I could fit in my pockets, but I would fill up my socks as well so I had lumpy cankles. I didn’t fool anyone, but I usually got an “A” for effort and got to keep the extra rocks.
6. I am really good at weaning orphaned foster care raccoons. Not only do I make a really nice looking raccoon diet, one that you might consider eating if it weren’t for the fish and mouse bits sprinkled throughout, but I can also work the tough love. If the raccoon is fat and healthy, I will aggressively reduce the number of bottles and amount of formula once they hit weaning age. I’m okay with letting them get a little hungry so they have a reason to explore the bowls of luscious fruit, yogurt, egg, and meaty bits.
7. I started volunteering at WildCare after going to the Marin Humane Society to look into volunteer options there and coming home with another cat.
8. I hate having people look at me when I cry. My dad and I have an unspoken agreement that, if we are watching a sad movie together, we will silently, without speaking or looking at each other, retreat to separate ends of the house to compose ourselves in private. Steve got this memo but ignores it and always looks over to see if I am crying. Yes, I’m crying! I always cry!
9. Music moves me emotionally. Even if a movie is not very good, I can be quickly moved to tears by an emotional or patriotic swell of music. The one exception to this is at the end of The Wrath of Kahn. The first time I ever saw it was with Steve. I got sufficiently teary-eyed when Spock died, but I burst into laughter when Scotty started playing Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. The idea that Scotty, about whom there was never an inkling he played the bagpipes, was suddenly playing them because, of course he would, he’s Scottish, was absurd to me. I continued laughing as the full orchestral version surged. Steve still hasn’t forgiven me.
10. When I was in 6th grade, my best friend and I used to play GI Joe. We would trade off who was Lady Jaye and who was Scarlett. It was a tough call because Lady Jaye was obviously so much cooler, but Scarlett got Duke who, at the time, I thought was cuter. I’ve since realized I was wrong and Flint was definitely the manlier man.
11. When I first moved out to California for an internship at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, I didn’t know anyone except my cat. I had adopted Cassady my senior year of college and we drove across the country together that summer. Appropriate since she was named after Neal Cassady who was the basis for Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s On the Road. Anyway, when I got to California and knew no one, I used to take Cassady with me as I drove around getting a sense of the area. I even put her on her leash and harness and took her with me up to the regional park on a couple of occasions.
12. I would consider going vegetarian for ethical/humane reasons, but I really don’t like many vegetables and beans and have trouble accepting tofu. I don’t know what I would eat other than cheesy pasta all the time.
13. I like tomatoes but I don’t trust tomatoes with an unknown provenance. Unless I have at least purchased the tomato and cut it up myself, or preferably grown it myself, I just don’t trust it and will usually pick it off of whatever it is on. I will make exceptions depending on the food item and who is serving it. After all, it’s hard to hide it when you’ve scraped all the tomatoes off your bruschetta.
14. I remember my First Confession because I was so nervous I totally forgot what I was supposed to say. I blanked once I got in the confessional. The priest practically yelled at me when asking who I was. I finally managed to stumble through “Bless me Father for I have sinned” and made up a few sins to confess. I think my first Confession was also my last.
15. I played the alto saxophone in grade school band. Kenny G was hitting it big when I was in 6th grade or so and I begged my parents to buy me a soprano sax. They had the good judgment to put me off a year until I lost interest in the sax altogether.
16. I have never been athletic. I ran track and played basketball in junior high, but was never very good. Our basketball team actually won some championship when I was in 7th grade, but it was certainly not due to my efforts. I believe I made 1 basket in 2 years. But I was pretty good at defense, never letting the person I was covering get a hand on the ball.
17. I skipped 8th grade; for a very long time I was always the youngest person in any group of peers. It was a real shock when that stopped being the case.
18. I used to pull my own hair when I was a baby. Apparently, the harder I pulled, the louder I screamed, and the louder I screamed, the harder I pulled. My mom loves telling this story.
19. I did a radio show for 2 and a half years with a friend in college. I recently digitized my old tapes and transferred them to CD. Steve keeps saying I should post a clip to my blog. I will if I ever come across one that doesn’t make me cringe with embarrassment.
20. When I was in 1st-2nd grade, I saw a speech therapist because I had a hard time pronouncing my “S”’s.
21. I started college as a musical theatre performance major, but gave up the performance dream after my first year. I got so nervous at auditions that I was almost incapacitated. In fact, I came very close to skipping my audition to get into the School of Theatre Arts in the first place because I felt so sick to my stomach. Since college, I have gotten better and done a few shows with the local community theatre, but I still struggle with auditions. I never have the same trouble with performances because there is validation in being cast and it just seems easier and more natural to me. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I had had access to beta blockers back in college.
22. I am very frugal and hate to waste money. I bring leftovers to work every day for lunch and I maintain an iron control over the thermostat at home. But I can’t pass up a good sale so I sometimes buy things I don’t really need to save a few bucks.
23. I want to do a volunteer vacation at the Best Friends Animal Society in Utah someday.
24. My first job was at Taco Bell. I worked there for 8 hours every Saturday through the school year (more in the summer) from age 14-16. I started working there because I wanted to go to Europe with a chorale group and my parents made me pay for half. I appreciate that they always made me pay for the extra stuff I wanted. When I started at Taco Bell, I made $3.35 an hour. Later the minimum wage was raise to $3.45 an hour. It took a while to pay for half of that Europe trip.
25. When I got my belly button pierced a few years ago, I would fill a glass with warm salt water and sit with it cupped around my belly button for a daily soaking. I really freaked my dad out that Christmas when I used one of the glasses he usually used to drink scotch for this purpose. I can be wicked this way.
Mmmmm. . . Delicious. . .
The concept of the “booth babe” has been familiar to me since 1999 when I got an Expo pass and went to the E3 convention in L.A. for the first time. These are the beautiful women who are hired to work at trade shows to lure attendees into the booths for specific companies/products. I was very amused by the sexy and scantily clad women I saw at E3, which is a predominantly male-geek-dominated trade show.
Alas, the library conferences I have attended since then have been, shockingly, barren of booth babes.
Perhaps this should be re-thought.
My “contact” at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco today sent me pictures of the Delicious Monster booth. They were promoting their new Delicious Library software for cataloging books, movies, music, software, toys, tools, electronics, & video games. Honestly, what other choice did they have than to employ the Sexy Librarian booth babes?
As their web site says, “Visit our Delicious Librarians in Booth 2602″.
I appreciate the sexy librarian as much as anyone else, possibly more. But I have to say, I think there would be an issue if I showed up to work one day dressed like this.
A Photo Tour of Northern Illinois
Having completed our tour of Tennessee, it was only fair that we keep the camera at the ready for our trip to Illinois. Let the snarky comments ensue.
I’m sorry, but what does this even mean?
You can barely see the joke here, but Steve insisted on taking this picture. In real life, it is one I-DOT worker working while 2 other workers watch him. Steve has a history with Illinois road construction. . .
This place has been here for years. Why bother going to Las Vegas?
Ah, I used to love eating freshly fallen snow.
Everyone, even the cops, drives like the speed limit is 65 anyway (so somewhere between 70 and 80). Keeping the speed limit on the interstate so low just makes criminals of everyone. Which, I suppose, is appropriate in Illinois. . .
As Blago said, “If they don’t perform, f*** ‘em.” (page 33)
Ah, the proud Illinois plains state farming tradition.
A Photo Tour of Middle Tennessee
Steve and I needed something to entertain ourselves as we toodled around TN over our Christmas visit. We decided to capture anything that caught our attention, looking for visions that were, perhaps, representative of a different way of life than the one we’re used to. Nothing like a little caustic sarcasm to say “Merry Christmas!”
As Steve said, “Flaming skulls are cool. . .”
Hey Betty Sue, can I take your 5-year-old for a motorocyle ride? I have this adult helmut she can wear. Don’t worry if it’s so big she can barely hold her head up. That’s just extra protection!
Now the entire town can drink and bathe in holy water!
With such a flare for marketing, why in the world are the stores in this MALL closing?
Does this really need a caption?
I was surprised at the lack of signs advising me that I am going to Hell this year. I usually see a good 5 or 6 of them. Alas, all I could find was this big sign on the side of the interstate. I wonder, are these the only 6 they could remember? Or just the most important ones?