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Monday, June 03, 2002 |
I came across an interesting site in my referers today - Kung Fu Grippe. I particularly like this quote in response to the entertainment industry's attempts to lock down digital content:
"In retrospect, do you think Disney would turn back the clock on their videocassette sales over the last 15 years (6 of the top 10 this week)? Considering less than a decade earlier they were on the leading edge of the anti-VCR movement, it's a chunk of history worth keeping in the front of your mind.
Movie-makers hated TV, TV producers hated VCRs, and now, presumably all three wish they weren't losing one kind of marketshare or another to PVRs. Adjust, already."
I also love that this post is categorized under "the man." Damn, I wish I'd thought of that as a category name!
11:27:28 PM Permanent link here
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COUNTER - Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources
" 'The use of online information resources is growing exponentially. It is widely agreed by producers and purchasers of information that the use of these resources should be measured in a more consistent way. Librarians want to understand better how the information they buy from a variety of sources is being used; publishers want to know how the information products they disseminate are being accessed. An essential requirement to meet these objectives is an agreed international Code of Practice governing the recording and exchange of online usage data. No such Code of Practice yet exists' (from SEPW)
This is a very important theme as libraries move more and more into the electronic and digital realm. In order for some libraries to justify their existence, they sometimes need to provide a count of usage of library materials. To this day there is no uniform code for obtaining this number. There should be, so that when administrator ask, 'what methods did you use to obtain these figures?', librarians can point to specific and 'official' rules. Am I also correct in thinking that this system can be used as bargaining power with vendors?" [Library Stuff]
It's so true that libraries need new metrics to fully illustrate the breadth of services they now provide. Check out this slide (Powerpoint) from Navjit Brar's presentation about Mobile Computing at the Kennedy Library (Powerpoint) as evidence.
While I'm not totally sure how to pull it off (especially in regards to privacy concerns), I think there should be a way to use GIS to plot various statistics (database searches, web site hits, circulation, in-library foot traffic, interlibrary loan requests, online catalog searches, reference questions, programming counts, etc.) for a given library. A color, multi-layered map of actual points that represent constituents using specific library services would go a long with legislators.
11:17:48 PM Permanent link here
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"New library weblog: Wilton Library Weblog in Wilton, CT, USA" [Library News Daily]
Welcome aboard, Wilton! I immediately found a great link to an interview with Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth. I remember loving this book when I was a kid, so much so that I made sure to add The Phantom Tollbooth Interactive Story to one of our circulating Rocketbooks to show what interactive fiction could look like on an ebook reader. Hmmm... I wonder if that's a copyright violation. Whoops.
From the interview:
"Dave: I was excited to hear that the Everpresent Wordsnatcher is one of your favorite characters. Last night I was describing him to friends, how he tells Milo, "I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context….It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it."
I love that. It's so clever. Like so much else in the book, it shows entirely mundane ideas in such a fresh light. And of course the wordplay, which is relentless from beginning to end.
Juster: It's the literary equivalent of drawing outside of the lines, thinking outside of the box: follow an idea wherever it goes, play with it. I really do think that's important. We tend to be so directive of the way children think."
10:51:46 PM Permanent link here
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Here's My Weblog Neighborhood. Doesn't look quite right, does it, with that extra bracket and all at the top. Not sure what's going on, but maybe I'll try another harvest. I'm still trying to figure out how to bold my name (how do I add this in a story?), and what it all means.
8:25:26 PM Permanent link here
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 Ralph Hempel wrote me to say he's found a Lego Palm made by Tijger Tsou. Even the stylus and antenna are made from Legos!
"This is the Palm VII that i made out of nothing but LEGO [tm]. It is shelled out from the ordinary Palm VII that was issued to me at work. I use it day in and day out as my normal handheld device.
Other people in the office are often left in a steep bogglement when they see it, especially new employees.
It actually works just like a normal Palm VII. Every button and control works except for the battery cover, but here is a list of what it features:
- Genuine Palm VII systemboard and components embedded in LEGO.
- The power button works, as do all of the buttons on the device in the bottom row.
- There is a stylus which can be inserted/removed just like the regular Palm handhelds.
- There is a fully functional retractable whip antenna.
- The infared port works.
- Very few Technic parts were used. About 8 of them. This was done just to see if it could be done.
- No glue was used! The device is held together with nothing more than friction and an interlocking build design.
- No soldering. The Palm VII was not defaced and can be reassembled in the original case if needed."
8:13:27 PM Permanent link here
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ReplayTV Not Required to Spy on Consumers Says Judge
"In an eight-page ruling, the judge in the case threw out the order (Order on Parties' Motions for Review of Magistrate Judge's Discovery Order of April 26, 2002 [PDF]). Although a number of arguments had been raised opposing the order (such as violation of privacy), the judge based her decision on procedural grounds, holding that it was impermissible to 'require defendants to create new data which does not now exist. A party cannot be compelled to create, or cause to be created, new documents solely for their production.' " [LawMeme]
Denise pointed to Declan pointing to a story in the Washington Post on this, too, although I haven't been able to find it online yet. Declan does provide an excerpt from it:
"U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper acknowledged those concerns, although she overturned the order on the basis that it 'impermissibly' requires Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sonicblue to create data that doesn't currently exist.
Sonicblue 'would be required to undertake a major software development effort, incur substantial expense, and spend approximately four months' to gather the required information, Cooper wrote in an eight-page order. She said the plaintiffs could get the same information through a survey."
So the judge overturned the order, but said the company could still gather data in a different way.
Addendum: cnet has picked up the story now, too, and they note the introduction of the latest in the ReplayTV line of DVRs:
"Separately, Sonicblue on Monday unveiled its ReplayTV 4500 series, the next generation of its 4000 series devices. The new version adds modem support for standard phone lines, new software and pricing between $449.99 and $1,749.99. The 4500 is designed to boost the product's appeal to mainstream consumers and retailers. It will be available shortly at retailers such as Good Guys, Amazon.com, The Wiz and Tweeter."
I'm pretty sure we'll be buying a third ReplayTV (probably the 80-hour version) during the summer, so I'm glad Sonicblue went back and added modem support for phone lines, although I could just attach it to our existing network. It's too bad the 4500 series doesn't have two tuners so you can record one show while watching another. Then you could steal twice as many commercials from Jamie Kellner!
10:58:17 AM Permanent link here
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Rejoice - it's here! Steven Cohen's article about RSS For Non-Techie Librarians is now available on LLRX. It should actually be called "News Aggregators for Non-Techie Librarians" because it illustrates how using an aggregator (Newzcrawler specifically, but the concept in general) can make librarians more efficient. (And really, the benefits would apply to anyone that is active on the web, so don't think this is just for librarians.)
"In order to keep current, like many librarians I had all of the web sites that I visited daily bookmarked (about 50) in my browser at work and I would painstakingly visit each site throughout the day. Of course there were days that visiting each site was not possible (on very busy days I was lucky to get to one). And if three days went by without reading these favorites, I would get too bogged down trying to catch up. This was all before I was introduced to the wonderful world of RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds. Now, I get almost all of the content I want from all of these sites delivered to one place as soon as the site is updated, saving precious time. The most amazing part is that I am notified when any of the sites I subscribe to are updated within minutes. And I didn't have to be an experienced techie to set-it-up."
I've been waiting for this article to arrive so that I can start using it as a handout. If you're not using a news aggregator, Steven will show you why you should be. It will also help you understand why I think some form of RSS news aggregation will play a major part of our information lives in the future.
Great job, Steven!
9:48:10 AM Permanent link here
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Next Generation Library Users (PDF)
"Stephen Abram, VP Corporate Development, Micromedia ProQuest - slides from his e-Libraries 2002 talk." [Library News Daily]
A very interesting presentation that is quite similar to my Information Shifting one, and we make a lot of the same points. (Note to self: get the update online!)
I concentrate on the impact the Net Generation will have, while Stephen takes into account all age groups. My favorite point he makes is that librarians have to "move from physical access to intellectual access." It's a complementary view of "information shifting."
8:18:13 AM Permanent link here
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Public Access to the Public Domain
"Brewster Kahle, the man behind The Internet Archive and Alexa, wants to digitize all the out-of-copyright (and thus Public Domain) books and put them on the Web. Read more for his email describing his plans and co-conspirators for the project....
If we want to help people put a pile of books online here is a strategy:
- take a large catalog of books in libraries,
- tag each entry with its US copyright status,
- prioritize those that are out of copyright,
- try to inspire the world to digitize the out-of-copyright books,
- format the books for online distribution,
- organize the resulting digitized books,
- cause enlightenment in all corners of the globe.
Status:
- Get catalog: Research Library Group (rlg.org) is up for it and will have their catalog ready in July. Maybe OCLC would be up for it too....
- Format: archival and access formats are a problem. there is no "MP3" of online books yet. Of course keep the high rez scans (IA will provide free storage for any needers) and then have some meetings where we try to get the list of supported access standards down to a manageable number. I suggest a gritty meeting in August in San Francisco that, again, the IA can sponsor." [via Aaron Swartz]
A very interesting idea that is certainly doable. I wanted to make sure that Ernest and James see this so that we can move forward with out own idea and maybe even work with Brewster on this.
7:57:49 AM Permanent link here
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Preferred Movie Formats
"I attended an 'event' today that included a dealer in, shall we say, videos of questionable origin. The titles included all the ones you might expect: Fellowship of the Ring, Attack of the Clones, Spider-Man, etc. I was actually tempted by a couple of things, but decided that I would probably turn around and buy the authorized versions when they are available just for the packaging and extras. But I also noticed something interesting: this particular individual had copies of all the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. With the rise of the DVD, and George Lucas proudly proclaiming they will not be able in that format until 2005, I thought it was interesting to see a market has developed for content that has been available for years but in a format that is not." [LibraryPlanet.com]
Emphasis above is mine. Applies to MP3s, too.
12:04:39 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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25.77% - Scheduling
