Intellectual Property and Copyright

Copyright and intellectual property in general is a sticky situation for libraries. Librarians tend to work on a shoe sting budget in most cases either to preserve funds for other projects or because there are no funds so obtaining copyrighted materials such as images, songs, and character licensing too work with is cost prohibitive. However, pirating those same resources is wrong. Which makes creative commons the best things since sliced bread for those of us who would like to use high quality pictures, graphics and songs and yet would like to avoid getting sued or hurting other peoples ability to make a living. As I understand copyright and intellectual property law it boils down to, if people can't benefit from creating, inventing or researching then they are less likely to do it and we would all be poorer for that loss of potential.

Telling tales out of School:

As I was reading this article three things stuck with me. One: document what you do and when you do it in a way that you can use later because no one is going to take your word over someone else correct documentation. Besides, if you know other people are working on the same things you are when you start collaborating with them and everyone is still friendly is the time to get these details worked out upfront so that there is less of a chance for hurt feelings or miss understandings in situations where your career is on the line.

Two: Pelletier damaged her reputation horrible by going outside of the normal boundaries for pursuing her case, she lost more then she won not only for herself but also for other researchers. The way the article is presented it makes it seem as if this Post-Grad student was just not willing to pay the dues that her professional requires of her and that she should not have brought the suit because it made scientists look as if they were out for money not intellectual enlightenment and the betterment of the human race.

Three: I didn't realize how convoluted academic research situations were. As someone who is not interested in being in an academic situation I had never considered how truly dependent each researcher was upon the goodwill or ethical standards of the person heading the lab, project or group because the room for abuse is tremendous.

Intellectual Property and the Liberal State:

Copyright isn't about stealing from the public pool of information and resources its not about capitalism, its about recognizing that creating, writing, researching, designing are skills that produce more items for the vast pool to enjoy but it takes time and energy to do. Rewarding people for doing these things is a side benefit of copyright not the purpose of it. The author gains a copyright so that they can then go and sell a manifestation of the idea not the idea itself which once its out there its no longer controllable. What I mean is that a writer writes a book and they can sell the manifestation of the book such as a bound edition in a book store they are getting the right to produce the manifestation and stop anyone else from producing it without paying for it. To further simplify copyright is just a mechanism for giving someone credit where credit is do.

Revising Copyright Law for the information age:

New formats and new technology creates problems when we try and deal with it as if it was not new. I liked the practicality and the straight forward writing, it was the easiest to read. Creative people create because its what they do, after the item is created then making it profitable or support itself is the next step. Although what can be done is not the best place to start to determine what should be done it will result in the most likely solution that can be implemented sooner rather then latter.

Who owns native culture?

The article started out talking about an artists right to record and control aboriginal artwork which is believed to belong to the whole clan and that the artist is just the tool to record or create a physical manifestation of the tribes legend. Just when the article was getting interesting it was revealed that the case was brought to prove a point and to solidify land rights. Mainly, the aboriginal people used paining and stories to prove their had ownership of land, which I find slightly suspect. I could paint a picture of a nice piece of land and it wouldn't make it mine regardless of how many stories I found about that land. The other point that ruined the usefulness of this article was that it was determining rights for people who were not present and didn't have a voice in the proceedings.

However the small portion on the "fair use Doctrine" was interesting and something that comes up a lot where I work when we put together a photo montage and include music, when I put together a book club flyer and use copyrighted cover art, when I do a lot of things that could be questionable but is usually protected under the fair use doctrine according to my understanding of it.

Week 9

Literacy In American Lives

I was very impressed by this book. I really liked the fact that she disclosed all of her interview questions, and completely laid out the purpose of her study, how she was going to do it, the problems she though she would run into and didn't try and hide her purpose and intentions from the interview subjects. Everyone involved in this porject was treated with dignity and their stories were all told with respect for their situations and experiences. The manor in which all of the different lives are tied together to form a comprehensive look at literacy through out different times, values, and environments was well done. I was struck by the change in literacy standards. Literacy went from being unimportant as long as you could do the work you had to do such as farming or factory work to being something that we take for granted. Now it surprises us when we run across someone who is over ten and can't read the newspaper or a sign in some language. Illiteracy is often viewed now as a situation in which the person can't read English rather then that the person can't read in any language.
The most memorable part of the book for me was the when she said that children who have parents who don't value literacy are less literate. Its such a simple obvious thing but at the same time its so easy to ignore or misconstrue. You can talk until your blue in the face about the importance of education but if the parents don't do as they preach then children will not internalize the message. If there are no reading materials in the house other the the child's school books then the lesson that doing school work is important will not be believed.

week 8 Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

After finishing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I was ready to write the blog post except I couldn't decide if I should write the post I want or the post that is expected. being contrary by nature I am going with the post I believe in.

As I read the book I kept thinking how horrible it must have been for Henrietta Lacks, dealing with a medical system that didn't respect her as a person but only saw her as a cancer carrier. I felt horrible for her children who were abandoned to a sadistic monster and an indifferent father in a neighborhood without any support regardless of the family that was around which seemed to be more of a hindrance then a help through out the book. It saddened me to read how the Lacks family lived, especially Deborah who's mental health was questionable.

However, when I was reading the book I kept thinking and so what. What if the doctor who did the biopsy had gone ahead and explained to someone with out a high school education cutting edge science that few understood in that time and got her consent to do scientific testing since its unlikely she would have said no you can't do testing on my cells that might cure cancer. Based upon circumstantial evidence she would have signed or done what the doctor told her to do because she was in a charity ward in pain the last thing she would have cared about was what the doctor was going to do with the part of the tumor they took out.



The point that was made over and over was that millions were spent buying HELA cells, and the family got none of it. Well, the cells themselves wouldn't have been worth anything with out Grey's growing it and recognizing it? No, what would have happened is that Henrietta would have died of Cancer, her children would have been left in the hands of a monster and an indifferent father and all the horrible things that happened would have happened to them, but, science would not have advanced or done the research that they were able to or are currently able to do because of her cells. What did science do wrong? Not get consent, well the rules and the country was different then you can't take 2010 beliefs and hold 1951 actions up to them and expect the outcome to be good, if it was we wouldn't do it.



In the end I also found the book to be condescending to the family it was supposedly their story and she kept saying She wanted to learn about HELA and the women behind the cells. She also wanted something from the family, information and a story to make her reputation. Her reputation is well established by the hundreds of copies already sold. and yes she set up a scholarship to help the family and that was a stand up action but it doesn't cover for the fact that she wrote the story in a manor that makes the Lacks family look bad although if what was presented are unvarnished facts then there was no help for it but still, isn't the author just one more person to use Henrietta Lacks's cells for her own ends?

Week 7 Teach the User

Teaching at the Desk:

After reading the article by Elmborg my first reaction was that Elmborg has not spent any significant time at a reference desk in a long time. Patrons come in and some of them want help to find resources and some of them want help finding out how to find resources. The first population is not going to be happy to sit through a lesson on a database or something else they want you to search for them or they want you to show them the section where their books are going to be. Unfortunately, the majority of patrons that come to my public library fall in this category. They don't want a long drawn out process of questions and demonstrations and are mostly looking for oh the information on bats can be found in the 599 let me show you.
The second type of patron who comes in and wants to find out how to find information is looking for simple answers also, oh your looking for a dead third cousin well Ancestry.com is the best way to find them, let me show you the database. Well, yes you can teach them and its a wonderful day at the library when a you can teach a patron a new skill but seriously those patrons are far and few between and usually have an idea of what kind of information they are interested in being able to find out.
The other issue I had with this article is "Perhapse the hardest part of learning to teach is learning to ask questions rather than supply answers" the function of a reference librarian is to provide answers to questions Socrates might have been able to get away with answering questions with questions continuously but the rest of us who work a reference desk had better be able to give answers or we will quickly be reassigned.

Toward a User-Centered Information Service

The reference interview is useful for situation in which the patrons asks a question that is unclear then asking questions to get at the heart of the question is great and serves a useful purpose but when poking at simple questions based upon the assumption the patrons don't know what they want and even if they do they can't communicate it to us is ridiculous. Patrons often come to the desk and ask a broad question in those cases I point them to the correct section and ask if I can help narrow it down if they can't find exactly what they are looking for. Its not our job to pry its our job to give them access to information and provide direction if they want it.

Value of Information

Information is only as valuable as the confidence and purpose that goes into collecting it. In the article the author talked about value line and helping his mom get a car when all she wanted was a newer version of what she already had and probably a guy to talk to the salesmen so she could be sure of getting a good deal. The interesting portion of that article was the realization that the author came to about respecting other people's information needs and levels and not forcing resources down peoples throats because its the "right" thing to do.

Enola Gay

As I was reading the article I was not sure why the having the bomber was so controversial even reading the arguments and things I still didn't understand why it got so huge and I feel like I need to revisit this article after a little more research or at least after class discussion.

Revisit:
The only thing from this article that I can get out of it is to be sure of the displays that you set up. Make sure that you are willing and able to defend and explain the reasons behind the displays that are put up and to make sure that the organization you are apart of or putting up the display with in is going to support you if people object to the content or subject of what you have designed.

Week 6 Information as information

not an

In the databases of library literature there are tons of articles about the definition of "information" and what the implications of that definition these articles fall into that category nicely. However, the one thing about all of the articles on the subject that I have read is that they all contain a strong element of circular reasoning. The best example of this in these articles is in the Buckland article, " if anything is, or might be, informative, then everything is, or might well be, information." Creating a definition of a word with out using the context that the idea functions in is really an exercises in futility and of little value once its hashed out, which is probably the problem I had with this article and others like it. I am a practical creature I believe in ideas and theories but only when the application has a purpose or becomes a foundation for something later on, All things considered after class this article might just find a circular file of its own to live in as my Files already have a better information definition article from 551 which is the same basic idea with a degree of usefulness woven in.

Hope Olson's article The Power to Name.

User vs system is an old argument in catalog construction. Folksonomy has been gaining favor for a while and up to a point I agree that its nice to be able to tag things however I want them so that I can find them easier later but at the same time I can't help but thing that all of these things have to go together and can function together better then they function independently.

A good cataloging system need to have a well worked out controlled vocabulary behind it so that people can use it and find it when they are looking for similar things getting to specific in a card catalog search isn't really in the searchers best interest when subject searching because you lose out on general resources which might have a chapter or two on the specific subject that the researcher wants. Control vocabulary terms as a foundation doesn't prevent more in-group terms from being added to a record in order to do a minority justice where as including only the term that the minority uses would do them a disservice as it would prevent the majority from finding those resources. The key is to cross-reference subject terms as completely as possible, as long as the end result of a search for pigs gives you swine it shouldn't matter what term is first or more often used. The other minor issue is that sometime you have to give the end user more credit then Olson's article seemed to give them most people are willing to start their search in the catalog general and then browse the section for what they are really looking for.

Everything is Miscellaneous

This book is a dinosaur, it has out lived its relevance. Yes digital information can be organized in many ways and physical things can only have one physical place. The book had no new information to offer a population that familiar with google. To add insult to injury the author knew he didn't have a lot of informaton to work with becasue he continued to repeat the same information over and over and over and over and over and over just in different words in an attempt to either sound smarter or write a longer book. I probably would think better of the book if I would have read it before google was a verb, but that time is long past.

Week 5 Privacy rights

The article on Access to Online Local Government Public Record basically reaffirms to my mind that we live in the age of the stalker with just a little bit of information to start with its scary how much can be found out about a person, as anyone who has found themselves on the wrong side of a news camera can a test to. How many times has a persons life been torn apart by the media aided by sunshine law or freedom of information laws. I personally believe that the general public's right to know stops at a private persons front door. Politicians give up the right to privacy but the average person minding their own business has not by any action or consent given a reporter the right to view their digital life.



Personally I find I don't truly have an opinion about stem cell research that doesn't change based upon the last thing I read or the age of the patrons I have dealt with that day so I would like to move on and focus on the Last article.



Body Research - ownership and use of Human Tissue



I believe that we own the cells we generate unless we choose to donate it for a specific cause, People donate blood to help save lives but until that blood leaves their body for that purpose its their blood, we would be outraged as a collective if people just randomly walked up to someone with a needle and took their blood why are we not outraged with the idea of someone walking off with a biopsy specimen? Just because it was removed for our own good and we consented to that removal the expectation is that after tests are run its going to be disposed of permanently not disposed of by giving it a new identity.



The supreme court has a lot of issues to look at and take into account but the reason they are the highest court in the land is to make the rules that work for everyone and are best for the country not to pixy on their job by making half rulings.



I was a little confused that people though that they could have their tissue sent to a different lab just because a researcher changed jobs after all you donate tissue to an institution and a cause not a person.



The one point that all of these article reinforced is that once something is in the public domain be it information or tissue there is no protecting who has access to it so be aware of what is out there and don't publish or donate anything you wouldn't want your stalker to collect.

Week 3

Roma Harris's article was just another example of someone screaming at the top of their lungs about librarianship going the way of the caveman. Well, as chicken little found out the sky is not falling down and libraries will always need librarians to staff them and to keep up the professional work that they are doing.

Great pain was taken to point out how new technology has changed cataloging yet its interesting to note that in the majority of independent libraries cataloging is one of the few places where a paraprofessional is seldom used or if they are its under the eye of a true cataloger.

The other thing that struck me as wrong about this article is that although the author keeps saying de-skilled what they really mean is a non-MLS librarian rather then someone who is unskilled in the area that they are working in, at my library there are people who have been working in libraries longer then I have been alive and I would not call them unskilled or diminishing the library in any way. Para-professionals will always be used in libraries because few libraries can afford to completely staff themselves with MLS's so reserve a few key positions with in the library organization

In summery librarians are going to do just fine and Roma Harris is a MLS snob.