LoomWare

Access Day 1 - 1st Sessions

Cory Doctorow and Richard Akerman Kick Off Access 2009

We got off to a good start with Access today with a keynote from Cory Doctorow. As expected Cory gave a packed session on the latest issues with copyright and the fight for information freedom around the world. I was especially inspired with his rallying cry for libraries and librarians as a critical group that needs to carry the message forward and ensure a balanced approach to copyright. As he said, saying anything bad about a library or a librarian (Margaret Atwood notwithstanding) makes you look like a jerk. So, the key message for me from Cory's piece is to leverage our stereotype an get radical about standing up for informations rights and freedoms - if we don't, then the Cory's and Michael Geist's will be the only voices in a diminishing crowd. And we don't want that. Do we?

Richard Akerman was up next with the Binkley Lecture. Richard's Science Library Pad is a must read blog for academic librarians and scientists in particular. Richard talked about the latest developments in the creation, release and access to data. He had some key points about the move in some jurisdictions to open up government information (e.g. Power of Information Task Force in the UK). His view on data via the 4 categories of Research, Government, Library and Personal data was an effective way to describe the current data landscape and why we need to pay attention. He also provided a number of links to exemplars who are providing access to data. These links will be available in Richard's preso. One of Richard's last points was to contrast making data available via APIs vs Raw Data. Basically, API-accessible data provides you more control over the data, while Raw Data provides greater flexibility re what can be done with the data in a context of a loss of control. To me there is no "2 ways" to provide access to data - Raw Data makes sure that those who can, will find something completely new and innovative in a data landscape which has no walls and chains.

BTW - all Access session are being recorded (video, audio and slide deck feed) and will be made available on the Web as soon as we can get them up there.

Privacy activist asks FTC to halt Google apps

Huh?

I'm no big Google fan when it comes to their dominance of areas I think need to be unfettered and open, but this attempt seems stupid to me. Shutting down Google Apps so the lawyers can make a buck would be a really bad idea. As the article suggests, millions of people, some who pay for the service, would suddenly be without a key resource. I'm all for privacy and for making sure Google is a good corporate player, but not at the expense of the businesses we all work in. If Microsoft had to remotely disable all PCs running Windows while under investigation for all manner of questionable practices we would hear about it. And not from Microsoft.

Side Note: I found it especially funny that the ad that popped up when I came to this URL was a Microsoft one. Coincidence? Hah. Random is best.

Obama Administration Embraces Creative Commons

$1,000 to the First MP to Propose a Private members Bill

OK. Now I'm really getting miffed. This Obama guy in 2 months will do more than all the political parties in Ottawa have for the past 2 decades. Now I know the government information rules are different in the U.S., but come on, a CC license on the President's web page? Can't we in Canada at least pretend to make our government information the property of the citizens of Canada? I will personally donate $1,000 to the 1st MP who puts forth a private members bill to do just that. Hey Justin, how about it? I hear you have a new mouth to feed, so the money could come in handy, no? Are we going to let the new guy beat us in every way?

Scraped from Coyle's InFormation

Google & the Future of Books

To The Public Good?

Thanks to Lynne Murphy for this article from the NYR, which places the Google Books project in the context of libraries, copyright and the public information commons. Highly recommended! A few excerpts...

But we, too, cannot sit on the sidelines, as if the market forces can be trusted to operate for the public good. We need to get engaged, to mix it up, and to win back the public's rightful domain. When I say "we," I mean we the people, we who created the Constitution and who should make the Enlightenment principles behind it inform the everyday realities of the information society. Yes, we must digitize. But more important, we must democratize. We must open access to our cultural heritage. How? By rewriting the rules of the game, by subordinating private interests to the public good, and by taking inspiration from the early republic in order to create a Digital Republic of Learning.

No one can predict what will happen. We can only read the terms of the settlement and guess about the future. If Google makes available, at a reasonable price, the combined holdings of all the major US libraries, who would not applaud? Would we not prefer a world in which this immense corpus of digitized books is accessible, even at a high price, to one in which it did not exist?

Perhaps, but the settlement creates a fundamental change in the digital world by consolidating power in the hands of one company. Apart from Wikipedia, Google already controls the means of access to information online for most Americans, whether they want to find out about people, goods, places, or almost anything. In addition to the original "Big Google," we have Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Images, Google Labs, Google Finance, Google Arts, Google Food, Google Sports, Google Health, Google Checkout, Google Alerts, and many more Google enterprises on the way. Now Google Book Search promises to create the largest library and the largest book business that have ever existed.

At this point, neither Google, nor the authors, nor the publishers, nor the district court is likely to modify the settlement substantially. Yet this is also a tipping point in the development of what we call the information society. If we get the balance wrong at this moment, private interests may outweigh the public good for the foreseeable future, and the Enlightenment dream may be as elusive as ever.

OLA Presentation Online

Disrupting the Library Transporter Beam

I have loaded a copy of my OLA talk on my blog (32 MB). I ranted and ruffled a few feathers using the Star Trek transporter (a malfunctioning one at that) and the Transmogrifier from Calvin and Hobbes as the key to commenting on: vendor vs Open Source ILSs; dysfunctional Big Deals for journals; cyberinfrastructure and virtual research environments; community-based digitization; and a global open library system. After some examples from the UPEI labs, I summed it up by using another recent scientific discovery, the cloak of invisibility: We can don our cloak of invisibility and fade into the background, or we can, like the murder of librarians who faced down Donald Rumsfeld over the Patriot Act, wear the cloak so we can become more radical and activist to protect the information commons. Given all that has happened of late with rapacious journal publishers like Sage trying to gouge educational institutions and OCLCs boneheaded move to own the world's bib records, I was feeling a bit punchy, like libraries were losing their identity and forgetting why we are here. Maybe I'll record the next rant :-)

Why you can't find a library book in your search engine

Guardian Piece on OCLC vs OpenLibrary

Interesting article on the OCLC vs OpenLibrary debate and the recent attempts by OCLC to put a stranglehold on the world's bib records.

OCLC WorldCat Record Policy Petition

Good Summary of the OCLC Record Policy Issues

I would encourage anyone who uses OCLC WorldCat (member or not) to view and sign this petition, authored by Elaine Sanchez of Texas State University-San Marcos. This is one of the best summaries I have seen of why the latest OCLC policy is bad and is worth reading a few times. Please help ensure that libraries maintain their lead in promoting open access and open data by signing this petition.

URGENT: Canadian DMCA about to come down again

Here We Go Again

I still can't get over the fact that a sitting government in a country like Canada can operate in such secrecy. Here is the message I forwarded to the PM, Minister and my MP. The boingboing link above has the info you need to do the same, so please take 5 minutes out of your day to ensure we maintain a fair and balanced copyright framework!

Prime Minister, I am writing to express my concern that the Canadian government will again attempt to pass new copyright legislation which is clearly against the wishes of Canadian citizens and creators. I am also concerned that repeated signals that Canadians are interested and concerned about their fundamental rights in this context are being ignored by the government of the day, particularly as evidenced by the desire to pass this flawed legislation without any public consultation.

I hope that you will ensure that Canadians truly have a say in their ability to educate themselves and that we maintain a balance between the rights of the public and creators by postponing this pending legislation, allowing those who may choose to re-elect you to have as strong a voice as the media lobbyists in Ottawa. Canadians expect good government, not secret government - we also expect our government to respect the citizens of this country and the democratic processes we have in place to ensure a fair and balanced society.

Sincerely,

Mark Leggott

Scraped from boingboing

Is Your Daily Life Enslaved by the Electronic World?

Unfortunately I Would Have to Say, Yes

I got this one from my good friend Michael Dudley, as we recently discussed our mutual tendencies to get way too busy and, at least in my case, tethered to the infernal laptop/blackberry combo. I struggle with this one constantly and found this short piece from MediaCulture particularly interesting, especially from the point of view of privacy and mini-celebrity. It also made me think more and more about my recent decision to delete my Facebook account - alas, when I find the time :-( This seems more and more like a good idea because: 1) I don't check it regularly 2) I like my friends, but I can keep in touch in person and other more satisfying ways 3) I increasingly find the ways Facebook can be abused hard to accept 4) it will probably be dead in a year or so anyway, so why invest so much in a fling? Anyway, you get the idea...

Copyright lawyer tells universities to resist "copyright bullies"

Universities Need to Take a Stand in Policy

I liked this piece from ars technica on the role of universities in the ongoing litigation between downloaders and the RIAA. I particularly thought her point about the need for universities to maintain an open network and develop policies that encourage appropriate behavior, rather than enforcing one particular party's view on what constitutes appropriate behavior. While this has not hit Canada in a big way, the cursory mention in the throne speech of the governments desire to renew the copyright legislation has me a little concerned of what is coming. The specific piece from the speech:

Our Government will improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform.

Oh oh :-(