Google Wins Again!

So, Google won another round in the fair use battle, now what? Google has been forging the way for the digitization of books for just over a decade now, with little victory steps along the way as they have climbed the ladder of the court system. The Authors Guild has stated that the next stop will be the Supreme Court. Odds are they will face another loss. While this victory may come as little surprise since Google won the initial case against the Authors Guild in 2013 in a US Circuit Court in New York, the victories for HathiTrust when they won their fair use trial in 2012 and the appeal last year only helped to strengthen Google’s case.

What does this mean for libraries? Libraries now have the backing of the courts as well as a clearer definition of what constitutes fair use. Does this mean that they will be more willing to forge ahead, broadening their own digital access to books and other materials? Google’s fight has helped libraries avoid or minimize legal and financial risks by paving the way, thus opening up a whole new direction for digital libraries. Will libraries now be able to digitize their collections for the sake of preservation without worry of copyright infringement? Will they be able to then offer those digital collections for checkout, provided they retain a physical copy?

Perhaps Google’s win raises more questions, but with the support of the legal system, opportunities for digitization have increased for libraries. And, Judge Leval’s statement: “While authors are undoubtedly important intended beneficiaries of copyright, the ultimate, primary intended beneficiary is the public”, certainly is in line with the mission of libraries in general.

For more information see the article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/what-the-google-books-victory-means-for-readers-and-libraries/411910/

Of Ambient Music and Cyber Security

When I was thinking about what I would write about for today's blog post I had planned to do something about the Internet Archive, public domain and derivative works. I was inspired by a really interesting blog post by the actor / gamer Wil Wheaton, where he talks about getting public domain period music for a 1920's themed party; and using free open source tools to rework one of them into his own 90's-style ambient tune. All pretty interesting stuff.

But then, while eating breakfast this morning, I came across this tweet that made me reconsider my topic, and instead I'd like to bring up something a little more serious: National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Perhaps you've seen some of the flyers that OTS and the library have put up around campus and in our labs, warning about identity theft and cloud security. Maybe you haven't. But, regardless, you can find some great information from OTS here about how you can better protect yourself.

It may not be as fun, or exciting, as using free tools to publish your creative works online for the the world to see. But your privacy and identity online are pretty darn important as well.

And, if you use Verizon for the wireless connection on your phone or tablet, and are interested in seeing if they are tracking everything you do while on their network, you can go here. It will tell you if Verizon is adding the cookie to everything you do on the web. Just make sure you turn off WiFi beforehand, since this "feature" only applies to web browsing over their 3G and 4G networks.

Information wants to be expensive.

flickr user nirak

In the late 60's, Stewart Brown posited that information wants to be expensive and free at the same time. That the tension between these competing desires will not go away, they will always fight one another. This continues to be true, and Aaraon Swartz, the young co-founder of reddit found dead in his apartment on Friday, is yet another casualty in that conflict.

To some degree this post is one of those tangential “I was there” articles that come up when some tragedy occurs. I was working on my Library Science masters degree in Boston, and had a staff position as the Stacks Manager for the Architecture and Urban Planning library at MIT, when Aaron hacked us for a bunch of JSTOR articles. At the time the MIT libraries community seemed amused, and the vendor was satisfied when he turned the files over to them.

The Department of Justice, however, went on to press charges. With an attitude characterized by some as a witch hunt, they sustained pressure on Aaron Swartz for what amounted to exploiting a loophole to check out too many books. They continued until, just this past Friday, a truly great man took his life under the relentless threat of decades in prison.

Why call Aaron Swartz a great man? Among many other accomplishments, he helped invent the RSS protocol that brings you this blog, and updates many of your favorite websites. He, as mentioned above, helped found reddit.com, "the front page to the internet," a site that even the President of the United States uses. Aaron worked on the Creative Commons License that lets people freely share their artistic work while keeping their ownership of it. He also founded Demand Progress, which galvanized the public to demand the defeat of SOPA/PIPA, which would have hobbled how we share content on the internet.

He also was a huge ally of libraries, someone who really got what we’re about. Aaron was a founding force behind open access online library, Openlibrary.org. One that sought to have a wiki page for every book, and share its data with anyone in the world. And he fought against the great paywall database vendors put up to keep information out of the hands of the people who can use it, in favor of those who can pay for it.

Information wants to be free, because it’s the nature of people to share. It also want to be expensive because individuals can make resources valuable by keeping them scarce. But you can help break that tension. If you are in the position to publish your research, think about making it available in an Open Access forum or under a Creative Commons license. There is a wide community of scholars who could benefit from your ideas, but who may not be able to access them otherwise.

Self-recycling FTW!

Hi! I'm Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction librarians at Langsdale Library, and I also teach the Information Literacy (IDIS 110) course in first-year student learning communities. 

Self-Recycling

My IDIS 110 course includes a rather detailed discussion of copyright and plagiarism. One interesting concept often missed in academic treatment of these topics is something called "self-recycling." The usual search engines give little in the way of a useful definition, so I will explain it briefly here and point out some good and bad self-recycling practices.

Definition and Example

At its most basic, self-recycling is taking a project you created for one class and handing it in for another class. To be very clear, turning in the exact same project in multiple classes, without explicit permission from all professors involved, is considered academic dishonesty (also known as "cheating"). However, it is a quite different--and very good--idea to go back to a good topic in later classes, updating and customizing your work based on the requirements and content of each course.

Here's an example of self-recycling done right. Way back in the fifth grade, I did a history project about the Spanish Armada and Philip II's attempted invasion of England. I collected a fair pile of resources, made note cards and an outline, and wrote a decent paper about the series of events. A few years later, I took that foundation, added stronger sources, and wrote a much-improved version for a high school European history class. I did a third research paper about the Spanish Armada for a college Iberian Peninsular history course, this time writing in Spanish and focusing on the long-term impact on the economies of Spain and Portugal. What's important for academic integrity is that I updated my research and changed the major focus each time I returned to the topic.

Here are some benefits to (proper) self-recycling

• You already know you like the topic. DO NOT underestimate how important it is to like your research topics in school.
• You save mental work figuring out the background of a topic or event.
• Recycling (or "up-cycling") an idea is a really good way to dive deeper into the topic or event. The more you know, the more you have to say about it.
• Most people in the "real world" actually work on one project for longer than a semester. This is especially true of research done by your professors.

Here are some negative things to consider

• Some professors hate self-recycling of any sort. They want students to learn new things, to grow their minds in unexpected directions, and to develop a broader understanding of the world (as opposed to a deeper understand of one topic). They might be right, especially for undergraduates. I invite debate on this point.
• Every professor seems to have their own way to make assignments unique. They may require different kinds of sources, they may use a different citation style, or they may ask you to--you know--relate the topic to concepts covered in that particular course.
• Sometimes it's easier to start all over again.
• If you use your favorite topic for an assignment that you eventually come to hate, you might not ever want to work on that topic again.

As you wrap up final exams and projects, think about things you learned this semester that really interested you. Was there a topic you loved learning about? Save all the work you did on it, you might get a chance to return to the same topic again. Just don't forget to ask permission!

Open Data Applications

Hi! I'm Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction librarians at Langsdale Library, and I also teach the Information Literacy (IDIS 110) course in first-year student learning communities.

In my course, I like to include a segment where students demonstrate an interesting web site or web-based tool that relates to information literacy. I saw some interesting (and occasionally controversial) demos this semester, including these two:

Microsoft's "Pedestrian Route Production" Mobile App 

Sometimes called the "Avoid Ghetto" app, this tool recommends walking directions based on weather, crime statistics, and population demographics. The app has received a lot of attention, due in large part to protests from civil liberties organizations, which claim that it highlights social discrimination and drives away potential business from the neighborhoods that need the most attention.

The Baltimore Sun's Homicide Mapping Website 

This site, not-so-affectionately called the "Baltimore Death Map," shows a map of Baltimore homicide victims as far back as 2007. Clicking on a pin shows the victim's name, age, gender, race, cause of death, and a link to any Sun articles about the homicide. A bit disturbing, I suppose, but an intriguing way to reveal the darker side of living and dying in Baltimore.

About the Open Data Movement

Both of the above tools demonstrate intelligent use of information made available by "open data" practices. The idea behind open data is to provide certain statistics and data freely for people to use without worrying about violating someone's intellectual property restrictions. A lot of governments and cities are providing this kind of data, and app and web developers are making really interesting reports and tools.

Baltimore's Open Data 

Baltimore city has two top-notch open data projects. There's OpenBaltimore with its goal of providing "access to City data in an effort that supports government transparency, openness and innovative uses that will help improve the lives of Baltimore residents, visitors and businesses" (Hint: recently got a parking citation? Look it up here). There's also the VERY nice CityView map, which offers various base maps of the city and numerous data layers (for example, you can see a sobering map of the many vacant buildings).

New article on copyright

Confused about what's fair in love, war and using multimedia?

A recent blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a new article providing students with guidelines for educational uses of multimedia. The authors, professors of communication and English education, provide information for students on determining fair use, legal cases involving the use of multimedia and scenarios for students to use in judging fair use.

With the enormous rise of multimedia projects and use of video or audio clips in classroom presentation, this is important reading for students and faculty alike.