Copyright is a funny thing

Courtesy lisnews.com, I learned some interesting (and seemingly opposing) copyright-related news.

Some guy is trying to convince others that he's copyrighted the @ sign. He's been sending out invoices with the low, low price of $10.00 that grants a one-year license for "Internet and E-Mail online communications." Unfortunately, I bet he's made some bucks. In contrast, Woody Guthrie's tune "This Land Is Your Land" now belongs to all of us. And I'm guessing Woody would have wanted it that way. Finally, in an act of defiance against copyright-protection-gone-mad, the Ann Arbor District Library is refusing to purchase Sony/BMG copy-protected CDs for the forseeable future. These suckers come armed with a rootkit that does evil things to your PC if you attempt to copy tunes onto your computer or MP3 player.

Movies confront the evils of rumor and gossip

First thing this break, we went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. One of its themes is the damage that can be caused by rumor and gossip, in this case the pernicious buzz that Harry put his own name into the Goblet of Fire. Even Harry's best friend Ron believes the rumors (don't these people KNOW that dark magic occurs ALL THE TIME and that Harry has demonstrated his integrity NUMEROUS TIMES???). A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about going to see Good Night, and Good Luck, a wonderful film about journalist Edward Murrow's efforts to expose Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign of gossip and innuendo. We've got some great books in the library that examine this era in detail. Among them are Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (973.9 Sch71m) by Ellen Schrecker, Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition (973.92 F226r) an oral history by Griffin Fariello, Joseph McCarthy: The Misuse of Political Power (973.9180924 M12c) by Daniel Cohen, The Cold War Comes to Main Street ((973.918 R72c) by Lisle Rose, and Red Scared! The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture (973.9 B28r) by Michael Barson and Steven Heller. Why is it that we can't see these gossip firestorms for what they are, as they are occurring?

Here are some samples (from Barson and Heller's book) of the kind of propaganda that was so pervasive during McCarthy's "glory" period. I like the image of the Senator presumably sweeping the Capitol free of Communists.

Anthropodermic bibliopegy -- say what??

Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the technical term for books bound in human skin. I learned about this strange, rather uncommon practice via librarian.net. Other tidbits picked up from recent RSS feeds:

Check out the librarian trading cards on Flickr. No, I haven't done one yet. Via Librarians Internet Index, we learn the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. Just in time for Thanksgiving. We also learn that what looks too good to be true probably is. And we get a peek at MIT's cute wind-up $100 laptop.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Weeding the library "garden"

Weeding. That is, taking books out of the collection. Small libraries, and especially school libraries, have almost as much obligation to cull their collections of out-of-date, seldom-used books as they do to add current, needed books to the collection. Don't get me wrong - we've got plenty of classics and, yes, wonderful old stuff on our shelves. But we're squished into a tiny space here and I'm forced to systematically remove if I ever want to add the new.

(Parenthetical aside: fortunately, a goodly portion of our castoffs find homes in either the Oak Street high density remote storage facility or the Bookstacks. So these items are not truly gone, they are merely Elsewhere).

Right now the weeding cycle has reached the fiction section, a particularly difficult area to reckon with. But really, does a library of our size need a 756-page volume of Irwin Shaw's short stories? Or those 1970s young adult novels with 1970s-looking teens on the cover? Or even a second copy of The Secret Garden?

Weeding is a very sensitive issue in libraries and it's often done in the dead of night, when no one is around to see librarians actually removing books. Even as we pull books for this project and put them on a cart, students come by and discover them anew. Much sturm and drang ensues when they find out what we are doing - "But you can't take that book out of the library!" I'm tempted to put the books on display with a sign that says Books on the Chopping Block, or some such. Those that don't get checked out would go, the others would stay. But then I'd have to stand behind my word and find the space.

It's out! The new Harry Potter movie -

Corinne, lucky dog, went to last night's midnight screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (823 R797hg). Perhaps Mad Magazine's parody of the movie will suffice until I can get to the theater myself.

I'll never leave town again

At least not when it means coming back from paradise to the frigid temperatures of the Midwest. And not when it means coming back to e-mail of Large Proportions and a to-do list that has no end. But the school seems to have stood without me and there was even a fresh issue of the Gargoyle waiting. Among its many tidbits, I look forward to reading the review of George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck and have already enjoyed the photo montage of the fall production, Neil Simon's play Rumors. For the second issue in a row, gossipy student blogging has appeared in the Jeers column. Sorry, no links from this blogger!

Okay, here I am at the Hawaii Library Association Conference, with five minutes left on my Internet access time. Our room at the Fairmont Orchid could easily accommodate a family of four. Nice change for this librarian. As for the Big Island itself, it's hard to believe I'm on the same planet, let alone in the same country. Flora, fauna, ocean, sky - all unbelievable. Everyone is incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Biggest news is that I was here to witness the official launch of Loriene Roy's candidacy for presidency of the American Library Association. Away from all sources of local news while I'm in Hawaii, Loriene is the one who told me about NCAA's rejection of the University of Illinois' appeal regarding Chief Illiniwek.

More for the sake of appearances

Ever like to do something just to shock and dismay utter strangers? Courtesy the LibrarianInBlack, I have discovered a source for fake book covers. Wrap your serious reading inside such titles as How to Cheat Your Way Through College, How to Overcome Nymphomania, and Laser Eye Surgery at Home. The back of How to Get Your Sister Kicked Out of the House reads "Sell her stuff for cash, get her room & allowance, starter-kit enclosed."

This blog will be quiet for about a week while I am gone for a speaking gig at the Hawaii Library Association conference. No lie. If I find a nice wifi spot, I may post an entry or two. Or maybe not.

Weird Illinois

Cordelia suggested we get Weird Illinois (977.3002 T218w), by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, and, boy, am I glad she did. These guys cover all things creepy, bizarre, odd, and just plain weird. There's the guy who collects partially eaten sandwiches that were bitten into by celebrities. The house with no square corners. America's only Hippie Memorial. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon. And my personal favorite, a sculpture called The Spindle, located in a shopping mall in Berwyn, Illinois. The creator, Dustin Shuler, skewered eight cars on a huge nail in the center of the parking lot:

Content creators

That's what this fresh report from the Pew Internet & American Life project calls online teenagers. If you go so far as to download the full pdf report, you can find out such tidbits as:

Some 57% of online teens create content for the Internet. That amounts to half of all teens ages 12-17.
33% of online teens share their own creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos.
22% report keeping their own personal webpage.
19% have created their own online journal or blog. 38% read them.
About one in five Internet-using teens (19%) says they remix content they find online into their own artistic creations.

Interesting implications in that last one. And, of course, there are some notable gender differences:

Older girls ages 15-17 are the most likely to blog; 25% of online girls in this age group keep a blog, compared with 15% of older boys who are online.
Older teen boys with broadband connections at home are the most likely to say they get music and video files online.

Books not only make you smarter...

They can make you look smarter too. In fact, for some people, that's the only reason to buy books. Courtesy lisnews.com, I learned about a study done in England which shows that "more than one in three consumers in London and the south-east admit having bought a book 'solely to look intelligent'." In other words, books are the new snobbery. The problem seems to focus on books that hit the prize lists. Those are the titles people want to be seen with, but they aren't necessarily the titles people actually read. "Some consumers hedge their bets by keeping two titles on the go - one an impressive book to show other people, the other an escapist work to enjoy." I'll carry my fluff proudly, thank you.

Math books...but not the kind you think

This image doesn't look like it would adorn the cover of a math book, but in fact illustrates Amazing Logic Puzzles (793.73 W679a) by Norman D. Willis. Intrepid Rif Raf book club members have selected "Math books...but not the kind you think" as this week's topic. And what an assortment we have on display! Titles like Slicing Pizzas, Racing Turtles, and Further Adventures in Applied Mathematics; The Joy of Pi; and Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. We've also pulled books about art, music, sports, etc. that feature some math principle or other. For example, this sample from Pathways in Juggling (793.87 Ir8p) by Robert Irving and Mike Martins is chock full of math vocabulary. Lovely words like "columns," "vertically," and "parallel" all describe this move called the "Multiplex":