Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch has a blog post taking a critical look at tagging and the history of web metadata attempts. He notes that metadata has largely been useless and overly complicated for use in the overall web and argues that tagging has the same problems, one major problem being the lack […]
Yahoo! has added a search page specifically for content licensed under a CC license. Stuff like this makes me love search wars.
Excerpt:
Three months after undertaking an ambitious project to digitize thousands of books, Harvard University Library (HUL) and the Google Print project are facing scrutiny from publishing organizations, who claim the project may infringe copyright law.
Read on @ the Havard Crimson Online
Earlier this month, Greg Duffy posted a fascinating dissection of Google Print with details on how Google’s cookie apparently works and an algorithm for getting past the copyright restrictions. Excerpt:
Most web browsers allow small text files, called cookies, to be stored on behalf of web servers … this allows a persistent state to be […]
The BBC has a great overview on the current state of DRM and ‘trusted computing.’ This is something that will likely have a strong impact on libraries considering how quickly we are moving to electronic publications and restrictive contracts. While I don’t know the details regarding what trusted computing is capable of […]
Last week SFGate ran a story discussing the storm surrounding the unreleased Fiona Apple album. What’s really interesting is that it vividly demonstrates the faultiness of the RIAA fear mongering toward p2p. You see, the album has leaked online and fans are sharing it like crazy. According to the RIAA fictional narrative, […]
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), one of the entertainment industry’s most powerful congressional allies, will remain at the forefront of the national debate over copyright and illegal downloading after being named to head a new subcommittee on intellectual property.
from WaPo
It’s a rather unfortunate path we are headed down. /. discussion here
The Findory neighborhood for Bibliotheke shows all of the related blogs on Findory and represents their relative ‘connectedness’ through size and shading.
Findory itself is pretty cool. As you read articles or blog posts it changes the ranking of other articles, thus personalizing the interface by giving you stories according to your past reading.
Over at Loomware Mark Leggott has linked to a fascinating look at the evolution of a Wikipedia article as demonstrated by John Udell. Using the heavy metal umlaut entry, he shows how certain threads go through life cycles, how vandalism is swiftly corrected and the way in which the famous Wikipedia self-correcting NPOV mechanism […]
Google is now strongly backing developers and open source with Google Code. Nice to see that the code is also hosted on SourceForge. There’s also an Updates from code.google.com blog over at blogger.
A book locating/lending phenomenon known as the “Dewey Decimal System” — enabling users to get access to copyrighted text for free — has sent shockwaves through a panicked publishing industry.
“Why would anyone pay for a book once it’s accessible for free?!” - Publisher’s spokesman Brent Aullett
continue reading @ Salon…
from turtleyclub.net
What it does:
removes ads on most Google pages
fixes fonts on most Google pages
Google web search:
adds links to other search sites (”Try your search on…”)
in news results, adds links to other news sites
in movie results, adds links to other movie sites
in weather results, adds links to other weather sites
in product results, adds links to other product […]
Here’s a collection of links to Doctorow DRM/Web 2.0 stuff from Boing Boing over the past few days.
EFF paper: Digital Rights Management: A failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world
Excerpt:
The “DRM hypothesis” is that the public is dishonest, and will do dishonest things with cultural material if given the […]
TangognaT suggests some good online resources for librarians.
Catalogablog notes that the Open WorldCat deep linking tutorial has been updated. By setting your library up in the system, users will be able to see your holdings when a Yahoo! or Google search matches something in the WorldCat database. See the OCLC Open WorldCat page for more info.
The NYTimes ran an article today discussing the future of the online newspaper model. There has been quite a bit of criticism of the way online news sites give free access to current news and either make users pay for archives or not have them complete (or not have archives at all). I’m […]
From the BBC:
Police in Mexico City, one of the most crime-ridden capitals in the world, have been told they must read at least one book a month or forfeit promotion…If they do not read at least one a month, they lose their chance of being promoted…The policemen will be regularly tested to make sure they […]
Barbara Fister makes a number of great points in this Library Issues article. On online books:
Evidence suggests people will pay for the convenience of reading sustained texts offline. After all, the 9/11 Commission’s report became a bestseller even though it was available for free on the Web. The National Academies Press, which makes the […]
University of Texas’ Dennis Dillon wrote this short article in the December Chronical of Higher Education discussing the problems libraries face in an electronic future. As he points out, journal subscriptions are skyrocketing while simultaneously growing in number and becoming more specialized, creating a situation where libraries may be forced to become more specialized […]
Don’t mess with the librarians at Burlington Library.
A Burlington, Washington man has been ordered to pay a library $150 and do community service after he was arrested for overdue library books.
The arrest was for failure to appear before a judge to answer charges of “Detaining Property.” The property was library books the man had checked […]