Boing Boing » libraries

Access Copyright Canada goes on anti-fair-dealing war-path

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:46:59 +0000

Michael Geist sez,

Months after the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a stinging defeat to Canadian copyright collective Access Copyright by ruling for an expansive approach to fair dealing and the government passed copyright reforms that further expanded the scope of fair dealing, Access Copyright responded yesterday with what amounts to a desperate declaration of war against fair dealing. Access Copyright has decided to fight the law - along with governments, educational institutions, teachers, librarians, and taxpayers - on several fronts. Most notably, it has filed a lawsuit against York University over its fair dealing guidelines, which are similar to those adopted by educational institutions across the country. While the lawsuit has yet to be posted online, the Access Copyright release suggests that the suit is not alleging specific instances of infringement, but rather takes issue with guidelines it says are "arbitrary and unsupported" and that "authorize and encourage copying that is not supported by the law."
Most of Access Copyright's longstanding arguments were dismissed by the Supreme Court this past summer. To suggest that a modest fair dealing policy based on Supreme Court jurisprudence and legislative reforms is "arbitrary and unsupported" is more than just rhetoric masquerading as legal argument. It is a declaration of war against fair dealing.

Access Copyright's Desperate Declaration of War Against Fair Dealing

Lecture on stone-wall building, with miniature stone wall built

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:29:02 +0000

Brian sez, "My library hosted Kevin Gardner, a New Hampshire native and builder/restorer of traditional New England stone walls. He talked about the history of stone walls in New England, and how they shaped - and were shaped by - the landscape and circumstances of the region and country. I thought BoingBoing readers would be interested in the talk alone, but the bonus is that the entire time he's talking, he's also building a miniature stone wall from rocks he brought in two five-gallon buckets."

Chelmsford Library Anytime: Exhibits and Videos (Thanks, Brian!)

Editorial board of Journal of Library Administration resigns en masse in honor of Aaron Swartz

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:13:18 +0000

The entire editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration resigned en masse. Board member Chris Bourg wrote publicly about the decision, and an open letter elaborates on it, stating that their difference of opinion with publisher Taylor & Francis Group about open access, galvanized by Aaron Swartz's suicide, moved them to quit.

“The Board believes that the licensing terms in the Taylor & Francis author agreement are too restrictive and out-of-step with the expectations of authors in the LIS community.”
“A large and growing number of current and potential authors to JLA have pushed back on the licensing terms included in the Taylor & Francis author agreement. Several authors have refused to publish with the journal under the current licensing terms.”
“Authors find the author agreement unclear and too restrictive and have repeatedly requested some form of Creative Commons license in its place.”
“After much discussion, the only alternative presented by Taylor & Francis tied a less restrictive license to a $2995 per article fee to be paid by the author. As you know, this is not a viable licensing option for authors from the LIS community who are generally not conducting research under large grants.”

Pretty amazing that Taylor & Francis thought that they could convince authors -- who weren't paid in the first place -- to cough up $3000 for the right to use their own work in other contexts. Talk about being out of step with business realities of publishing!

What could a library do with a gigabit Internet connection?

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:48:13 +0000

Marijke Visser from the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy writes with this provocative question:

What could a library do with a gigabit broadband connection? What kinds of services could they do that they can’t without that big of a connection? Thinking way away from the typical services libraries offer now, what are some really big ideas that would need that much connectivity? These services could happen outside the library walls, in relationship to other community organizations and/or government agencies… How would a library hooked up to a gig benefit its community?

Well?

Canadian government muzzles librarians and archivists, creates snitch line to report those who speak online or in public without permission

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:12:24 +0000

Canada's Conservative government has issued new regulations to librarians and archvists governing their free speech in public forums and online media. According to the Harper government, public servants owe a "duty of loyalty" to the "duly elected government" and must get permission from their ~~political officers~~ managers before making any public utterance -- or even a private utterance in an online forum that may eventually leak to the public, to prevent "conflicts" or "risks" their departments.

The Tories have also rolled out a snitch-line where those loyal to the party line can report on their co-workers for failing to maintain ideological purity.

“Once you start picking on librarians and archivists, it’s pretty sad,” says Toni Samek, a professor of library and information studies at the University of Alberta. She specializes in intellectual freedom and describes several clauses in the code as “severe” and “outrageous.”
The code is already having a “chilling” effect on federal archivists and librarians, who used to be encouraged to actively engage and interact with groups interested in everything from genealogy to preserving historical documents, says archivist Loryl MacDonald at the University of Toronto.
“It is very disturbing and disconcerting to have included speaking at conferences and teaching as so-called ‘high risk’ activities,” says MacDonald, who is president of the Association of Canadian Archivists, a non-profit group representing some 600 archivists across the country.

Regular readers will remember that Canada's librarians and archivists led a charge to save Canada's National Archives when the Harper Tories broke up the irreplaceable collections and flogged them off to private collectors at fire-sale prices.

Federal librarians fear being ‘muzzled’ under new code of conduct that stresses ‘duty of loyalty’ to the government [Margaret Munro/National Post]

(Thanks, Dad!)

My talk on copyright, ebooks and libraries for the Library of Congress

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:10:17 +0000

Last fall, while on the Pirate Cinema tour, I stopped in at the Library of Congress to give a talk called "A Digital Shift: Libraries, Ebooks and Beyond," which was an amazing treat. The LoC people were delightful and the building and its collections were outstanding. Now, they've put the video online!

A Digital Shift: Libraries, Ebooks and Beyond

Wikipedia and libraries: a match made in heaven

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:43:29 +0000

John Mark Ockerbloom's "From Wikipedia to our libraries" is a fabulous proposal for creating research synergies between libraries and Wikipedia, by adding templates to Wikipedia articles that direct readers to unique, offline-only (or onsite-only) library resources at their favorite local libraries. Ockerbloom's approach acknowledges and respects the fact that patrons start their searches online, and seeks only to improve the outcomes of their research -- not to convince them not to start with the Internet.

So how do we get people from Wikipedia articles to the related offerings of our local libraries? Essentially we need three things: First, we need ways to embed links in Wikipedia to the libraries that readers use. (We can’t reasonably add individual links from an article to each library out there, because there are too many of them– there has to be a way that each Wikipedia reader can get to their own favored libraries via the same links.) Second, we need ways to derive appropriate library concepts and local searches from the subjects of Wikipedia articles, so the links go somewhere useful. Finally, we need good summaries of the resources a reader’s library makes available on those concepts, so the links end up showing something useful. With all of these in place, it should be possible for researchers to get from a Wikipedia article on a topic straight to a guide to their local library’s offerings on that topic in a single click.
I’ve developed some tools to enable these one-click Wikipedia -> library transitions. For the first thing we need, I’ve created a set of Wikipedia templates for adding library links. The documentation for the Library resources box template, for instance, describes how to use it to create a sidebar box with links to resources about (or by) the topic of a Wikipedia article in a reader’s library, or in another library a reader might want to consult. (There’s also an option for direct links to my Online Books Page, if there are relevant books online; it may be easier in some cases for readers to access those than to access their local library’s books.)

From Wikipedia to our libraries (via Making Light)

(Image: library card, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from raqkat's photostream)

Seed lending library

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:54:00 +0000

Basalt, CO's public library has added packets of seeds to its circulating collection: you grow 'em, pick out the best fruits, and harvest the seeds and give them back to the library for the next patron:

Here's how it works: A library card gets you a packet of seeds. You then grow the fruits and vegetables, harvest the new seeds from the biggest and best, and return those seeds so the library can lend them out to others.
Syson says tending a garden in Western Colorado can be frustrating. The dry climate, alkaline soils and short growing season keep many novices from starting. She'll take seeds from the plants that withstand pests and persevere through drought.
"If you save seed from those plants, already, in one generation, you will now be able to grow a plant that has those traits," Syson says.

How To Save A Public Library: Make It A Seed Bank [NPR/Luke Runyon]

(via Neatorama)

Libraries and Makerspaces: a match made in heaven

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:30:04 +0000

I wrote a guest editorial for the Raincoast Books site, in honour of Freedom to Read Week. It's called "Libraries, Hackspaces and E-waste: how libraries can be the hub of a young maker revolution," and it's about the role of libraries in the 21st century:

Every discussion of libraries in the age of austerity always includes at least one blowhard who opines, "What do we need libraries for? We've got the Internet now!"
Facepalm.
The problem is that Mr. Blowhard has confused a library with a book depository. Now, those are useful, too, but a library isn't just (or even necessarily) a place where you go to get books for free. Public libraries have always been places where skilled information professionals assisted the general public with the eternal quest to understand the world. Historically, librarians have sat at the coalface between the entire universe of published material and patrons, choosing books with at least a colorable claim to credibility, carefully cataloging and shelving them, and then assisting patrons in understanding how to synthesize the material contained therein.
Libraries have also served as community hubs, places where the curious, the scholarly, and the intellectually excitable could gather in the company of one another, surrounded by untold information-wealth, presided over by skilled information professionals who could lend technical assistance where needed. My own life has included many protracted stints in libraries — for example, I dropped out of high-school when I was 14 took myself to Toronto's Metro Reference Library and literally walked into the shelves at random, selected the first volume that aroused my curiosity, read it until it suggested another line of interest, then chased that one up. When I found the newspaper microfilm, I was blown away, and spent a week just pulling out reels at random and reading newspapers from the decades and centuries before, making notes and chasing them up with books. We have a name for this behavior today, of course: "browsing the Web." It was clunkier before the Web went digital, but it was every bit as exciting.

Libraries, Hackspaces and E-waste: how libraries can be the hub of a young maker revolution

Confessions of a fifth grade punk

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:58:34 +0000

From Taylor-Ruth's Tumblr, a page from her fifth grade diary. She was unquestionably the most punk fifth grader she knew, and possibly the most punk fifth grader in history. If you're trying to place the chronology here, note that Taylor-Ruth identifies as an Indiana high-school senior (she's also a great cartoonist!).

actual diary entry from when i was in 5th grade oh my god (via Wil Wheaton)

Publisher launches $3,000,000 suit against academic librarian who criticized its books

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:59:33 +0000

An academic librarian at McMaster University wrote that "The Edwin Mellen Press was a poor publisher with a weak list of low-quality books, scarcely edited, cheaply produced, but at exorbitant prices," a point of view supported by survey data. The Edwin Mellen Press responded with a libel suit, naming both McMaster and the librarian, and seeking $3,000,000 in damages. McMaster has been publicly silent on the matter, but it deserves wider attention.

I've had my share of negative reviews, including some that I thought were materially unfair. Though I earn my living as a writer and a publisher, I can't imagine using the law to silence my critics. But Mellen has a history of suing and threatening people who criticize its products.

No one likes bad reviews; but Mellen’s approach is not to disprove the assessment, pledge to improve its quality, or reconsider its business-model. It is to slam McMaster University and its librarian with a three million dollar lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court, alleging libel and claiming massive aggravated and exemplary damages. The matter is pending.
The lawsuit is threadbare. With respect to the parts of Mellen’s list with which I am familiar, the librarian’s statements noted above are all true and the quality judgments are correct. (And this survey suggests that would be a common assessment.) Moreover, on the facts in this situation, it is obviously fair comment, and public policy considerations strongly suggest that university librarians enjoy a qualified privilege with respect to their assessments of the quality of the books they consider buying for their universities. It would be a disaster for universities, students, researchers and the taxpayer if aggrieved publishers were permitted to silence discussions of the quality of their publications by threats of lawsuit.

Shocking attack on academic freedom at McMaster by Edwin Mellen Press? (Thanks, Jill!)

Rise of the Graphic Novel: everything you need to know about the comics field in 70 pages

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:53:13 +0000

Stephen Weiner's seminal Rise of the Graphic Novel has had a second edition. Rise builds on Weiner's influential work in cataloging and charting a course through the field of graphic novels for librarians around America and the world, spinning out a compact, fascinating narrative of the history of graphic novels, from the Yellow Kid to the modern explosion of Pulitzer-winning, "respectable," multi-media, highly lucrative graphic novels of today. For such a short book -- 70 pages -- Rise covers a huge amount of ground, from The Spirit to R Crumb, from indie comix to Cavalier and Clay, from Death Note to Understanding Comics and Sandman. Even Boing Boing's own Elfquest gets a chapter.

This is a perfect book for anyone trying to wrap her or his head around the field of comics, a quick and smart overview of the field that spans both decades and genres. Whether you're developing a syllabus, improving your library's collection, or just trying to get a better sense of the field and the good stuff you might have missed, Rise is well worth a read, and worth keeping around afterwards for reference.

Plus: there's a dandy introduction by Will Eisner himself!

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of Graphic Novel (Second Edition)

Interlibrary Loan is awesome

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:46:34 +0000

Denizens of BushcraftUK discuss Willie Sundqvist's "Swedish Carving Techniques," a rare tome that goes for £100 and more. Then one of them has the bright idea of asking his local library to get one through Interlibrary Loan, the original P2P file-sharing network, and shortly thereafter, he gets a copy to read, courtesy of the Seattle Public Library. Go libraries! (Thanks, Andrew!)

Library gift-shop, on wheels, in LA

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 03:19:53 +0000

Katie from the Library Foundation of Los Angeles sez, "The Library Store On Wheels, a mobile truck version of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles' beloved Central Library gift store (which LA Weekly named 'LA's Best Gift Shop'this year) hits the road December 10. Over the next two weeks, we'll be taking the mobile store around to different Los Angeles Public Library branches, as well as Amoeba Music. Packed to the gills with the most lovingly-curated selection of lit-themed gifts and nostalgic library decor, all proceeds from the store will go to benefit the Los Angeles Public Library."

Absurd licensing terms imposed on public domain works by libraries and museums

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:35:16 +0000

Dee sez, "Keneth Cerws' published studies take copyfight to libraries and museums where restrictive - often absurd - copyright claims and licensing terms are forced on those requesting images of art works and scans of books and documents where the original work long ago entered the public domain, often decades or centuries ago. This raises relevent questions about fair use, academic and research use and how we treat copyright for new images and renderings, often digital images, of old works that many consider vital pieces our common human history, heritage and cultural commons."

Museums face steady demand for images of artworks from their collections, and they typically provide a service of making and delivering high-resolution images of art. The images are often intellectually essential for scholarly study and teaching, and they are sometimes economically valuable for production of the coffee mugs and note cards sold in museum shops and elsewhere. Though the law is unclear regarding copyright protection afforded to such images, many museum policies and licenses encumber the use of art images with contractual terms and license restrictions often aimed at raising revenue or protecting the integrity of the art. This article explores the extent to which museums have strained the limits of copyright claims and indeed have restructured concepts of ownership and control in ways that curtail the availability and use of art images far beyond anything that may be grounded in the law. This article examines the relevant copyright law applicable to the making and use of reproductions of art images, and it identifies the challenging pressures that museums face as they strive to make policies in the context of law but that also serve the multiple competing interests coming to bear on officials and decision makers inside museums. The article analyzes selected policies from major museums and provides an original construct of forms of “overreaching” that often appear in written standards offered by museums for the use of images. The analysis of policies also demonstrates that museums have choices in the shaping of institutional policies, and that breaking away from familiar policy terms can sometimes better serve institutional and public interests.

Play RPGs, board games and mini golf tomorrow—at your library

LibraryLab — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:07:49 +0000

International Games Day @ your library is an annual initiative of the American Library Association to reconnect communities through their libraries around the educational, recreational and social value of all types of games. Now in its fifth year, this community event has brought more than 100,000 people together to play games over the last four years.

On Saturday, November 3—that's tomorrow!—more than 1,000 libraries from all 50 U.S. states and countries such as Australia, India, Japan, the Philippines and the United Kingdom, will once again hold a variety of gaming activities that include board games (both classics and the more social modern titles), video games, mobile games, card games, and more. In addition, libraries can compete against each other in two international video game tournaments playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart time trials.

If you haven’t attended a Games Day event at your library yet, you may be in for a surprise:many libraries are offering a game experience you won’t find elsewhere in your community. For example, some libraries are running life-size versions of games like chess, CandyLand, Clue, Tic-Tac-Toe, Yahtzee, and more.

Other libraries are running LARPs, role playing games, pen and paper games, and even mini golf in the library. And it’s not just for the kids. Families are invited to play together, and some events are targeted at adults (trivia contests, Halo tournaments) and even seniors (Wii bowling). Participating libraries are even running a day-long game of Global Gossip (Americans know the game as Telephone) where a phrase will be transmitted from location to location around the world to see how the information mutates as it moves internationally.

Find out if your library is participating in this year’s event by checking the map. If they aren’t participating this year, help them plan an event for next November. Libraries welcome your help and expertise in teaching people new titles and types of games.

Cory in Edmonton tomorrow morning

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:34:22 +0000

Hey, Edmonton! A reminder: I'll be at the free PAGES library conference tomorrow morning at the Stanley Milner Library. My keynote is at 9:15 AM, followed by a Q&A at 1130h and a signing at 1, before I head out to Vancouver for the Vancouver Writers Festival where I'll be doing two ticketed events; one with William Gibson and the other with Margaret Atwood and Pasha Malla. There's more stuff in Vancouver to follow, then Victoria, Seattle, Toronto and Boston (here's the full schedule). I hope you'll make it -- tell your friends!

Cory in Bethesda tonight

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:00:37 +0000

Hey, DC! I'm heading to Bethesda today for my Pirate Cinema tour -- I'll be at the Bethesda Public Library tonight at 7PM. Come on out and say hi before I head to Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Toronto and Boston! Here's the full schedule.

Kids' librarian literary sleeve tattoo

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:42:03 +0000

Today I stopped in at the Whitman Branch of the Philadelphia Free Library to participate in the Field Family Teen Author Series, which distributes books to teens, then brings their authors in to speak about them. The kids' librarian at the branch was the brilliant Heather Warren, who's overseen a total overhaul of the way kids' services are provided at her branch. She also has a completely awesome kids'-literature-inspired sleeve tattoo (done by Bird of the Black Vulture Gallery, which she graciously allowed me to photograph and post here. Thanks, Heather! (And thanks to the Aurora and the folks from the Fields Series and the kids who came down, too!)

See the full set

Panorama of a despoiled library

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:04:28 +0000

Jeffrey sez, "Because there aren't enough things to be sad about in the world. Behold, a once-glorious attic full of books falling victim to entropy and vandalism. I don't know the real story behind this, but I know a sad sight when I see it."

Weberei Eibau Walddorf Dachbodenbibliothek (Thanks, Jeffrey!)

Idea Box draws community to public library

LibraryLab — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 05:01:30 +0000

The Idea Box at Oak Park Public Library is a new experiment in community participation and library programming that invites visitors to “explore, learn, and play.” The 9 x 13 glass-enclosed space opened in March and has already played host to several popular exhibitions.

Before the Idea Box opened, the space was home to a cafe and coffee shop. When the cafe closed, library staff and leadership thought hard about what they could put in that space that would engage the community and create something new. Assistant Director Jim Madigan had the idea to turn the room into an arts-focused community space; the Idea Box was born and the scope of the project has expanded to include science and technology-based exhibits as well as art.

The Idea Box is highly visible; every visitor to the library walks past it, so everything that takes place there has to be interesting, interactive, community-focused and participatory. Another goal is that the exhibitions appeal to all age groups. For National Poetry Month, the library painted the Idea Box walls with magnetic paint and filled them with magnetic poetry that visitors could use to create their own poems. Customer Service Manager Monica Harris noted how successful this exhibition was in terms of engaging all age groups: ‘You’ve got small kids in here, you’ve got senior citizens in here, you’ve got teenagers in here, and everybody is kind of doing their own thing and looking at each other’s work…Everyone can really approach this on their own level and make it work for them.”

The Real Art Work (RAW) exhibition featured 17 artists actively working on their art in the Idea Box. Artists were scheduled for every hour that the library was open during the three week exhibition period; they created all different kinds of art at all different levels of expertise. Pieces were hung on the Idea Box walls as the artists completed them.

“It has been really exciting to be in a place where the creative experience inside is always changing,” says Harris. “The visual representation of the art has grown as the three weeks have gone on.” According to Harris, working in public was a new experience for the artists too. Many of them were used to working in their own homes or studios, and have found it inspiring to work in a new space and with an audience When the RAW exhibition concluded, art created during the exhibition went on sale, with 20% of the proceeds benefiting Oak Park Public Library art fund.

Christina Endres for the Library as Incubator Project. [Original]

Librarians, teachers: sign up to get free copies of my forthcoming YA novel Pirate Cinema

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:55:08 +0000

As many of you will know, I'm about to kick off the tour for a new YA science fiction novel, Pirate Cinema, which comes out next week. As with all my other novels, I'll be putting up Creative Commons-licensed editions of the book for your downloading pleasure.

Now, whenever I do this, many readers write to me and ask if they can send me a tip or a donation to thank me for sharing the book with them. This isn't a great way for me to earn money, as it cuts my (awesome, DRM-free, kick-ass) publisher out of the loop. I've come up with a much better solution: I publish the names of librarians, teachers, and other affiliated people who would like to receive hardcopies of my books, and then point generous donors to that list, so that they can send copies there. I pay an assistant, Ogla Nunes, who keeps track of who's received their donations, crossing their names off the list when their requests are fulfilled. We've collectively donated thousands of books to schools, libraries and similar institutions. As one reader said, this is like paying your debts forward, with instant gratification. What a fine thing indeed.

Here's where you come in. If you're a librarian, teacher, or similar person and you would like a free copy or free copies of Pirate Cinema sent to you by one of my readers, please send Olga an email at freepiratecinema@gmail.com with your institutional details and your name so that we can populate the list and have it ready for release day, so that the generous impulses this generates in my readers can be converted to instantaneous action.

We just did this for Rapture of the Nerds, my novel for adults, co-written with Charles Stross, which was published earlier this month, and got an amazing response, both from would-be donation recipients and donors. But with your help, we can leave that signal success in the dust with Pirate Cinema.

Here's a plot-summary to whet your appetite. I hope I'll see you on the tour!

Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household’s access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal.
Trent’s too clever for that to happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly he learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke.
Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds….

Read the prologue from Pirate Cinema

Save the Canadian National Archives

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:47:33 +0000

Readers will remember that Canada's national archives are in trouble: they've undergone a $9.6M cut, with more to come. The collections are being sold off to private collectors, many outside of the country. Now the Documentary Organization of Canada has weighed in: "Lisa Fitzgibbons, Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), succinctly states a case for continuance of sustainable funding of Library and Archives Canada."

Library and Archives Canada advocacy message from DOC

Cory at Oakville Public Library (and other Toronto stops) this week

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:15:26 +0000

Great news, West Torontonians! The free Oakville Public Library event I'm doing next Wednesday has been opened to all comers (it was previously teen-only). There's refreshments, too. You need to pick up a ticket at a local OPL branch, or you can call or email (ecole@oakville.ca or 905-815-2042 ext. 5037) to book ahead. Hope to see you there!

Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, For the Win) will be at the Oakville Public Library to introduce high school students to his latest novel, Pirate Cinema! Pick up your free ticket at all Oakville Public Library branches starting September 10 for your chance to hear Cory read from his book due out October 5. He’ll then talk about creativity, copyright and bill C-11 followed by a Q&A.
Wednesday, September 26: 6-8pm
Central Branch Auditorium – 120 Navy Street
Refreshments will be served

And for those of you in central Toronto, I'm at the Glenn Gould Variations this weekend and I'll be at BakkaPhoenix books on the 27th at 7PM.

OPL : Cory Doctorow!

Librarians to Hachette: Seriously? You want to triple the cost of ebooks?

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:46:31 +0000

The American Library Association has decried Hachette's decision to increase the cost of library ebooks by 220 percent. Hachette is the same publisher that has demanded that authors it publishes lean on Tor books to reinstate DRM on their books. Way to handle the 21st century, folks.

"After these tentative steps forward, we were stunned to learn that Hachette plans to more than ~~double~~ triple its prices starting October 1. Now we must ask, “With friends like these …’

"We are weary of faltering half steps and even more so of publishers that refuse to sell ebook titles to libraries at all. Today I have asked the ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group to develop more aggressive strategies and approaches for the nation’s library community to meet these challenges.

"Libraries must have the ability to purchase a wide range of digital content at a fair price so that all readers have full access to our world’s creative and cultural resources, especially the many millions who depend on libraries as their only source of reading material.”

This Just In: ALA Decries Hachette’s 220% Library Ebook Price Increase (Thanks, Aaron!)

Librarians! Teachers! Sign up for free copies of Rapture of the Nerds!

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:02:38 +0000

Charlie Stross and I have a new book out and I'm about to put up a website where readers can download free, CC-licensed copies of it in ebook form. As with other recent books, I'm going to collect and publish the names of librarians, teachers, and public institutions that would like to get free copies of the hardcover, and then ask people who want to thank me for the free ebook by buying copies for these institutions.

So! If you're a librarian, teacher, instructor, or similar, and you would like a free copy of Rapture of the Nerds for your institution, please send your name and the name and address of your institution to freerotnbook@gmail.com. I think we'll launch the site early next week, and it'd be great to go live with a good, long list of potential donation recipients, so act quick! My assistant Olga Nunes (thanks, Olga!) is staffing that address and will get your listing up ASAP.

Note for teachers: this isn't a young adult novel, and it deals with some decidedly adult themes and contains a lot of cussin'. Here's the plot summary:

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.
Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun.
The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander…and when that happens, it casually spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden apple.
So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth's anthill, there's Tech Jury Service: random humans, selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.

Librarian tattoos

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:08:21 +0000

On Mental Floss, Jill Harness's collection of librarian tattoos. Above, Elizabeth Skene's card-catalog sleeve, by Frank William of the Chicago Tattoo Company. Right, Michelle's super-librarian tattoo, chosen to represent her career as a high-school librarian, based on Mary Marvel, and done by Chris Cockrill of Avalon II Tattoo.

11 Amazing Librarian Tattoos (via Making Light)

Little Free Library #2646 is open for business

Amy Seidenwurm — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:37:24 +0000

Back in May, I posted about a nearby Little Free Library I happened upon, and promised to open my own. Well, we did it yesterday.

Little Free Library #2646 was built by my good friend Wesley Smith with much manly help from my husband Russell Bates. I painted it and gathered books.

We put it on a sad vacant lot near our house and a nursery school. We've already had donations from neighbors of all ages and a few books have been borrowed.

You can learn more about opening your own Little Free Library or supporting them here.

Great Moments in Pedantry: Librarian critiques Twilight Sparkle's professional practice

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:01:06 +0000

At Neatorama, librarian John Farrier helpfully points out some places where fictional pony librarian Twilight Sparkle could stand to improve her professional practice. It is simultaneously a dedicated bit of pony fandom and an interesting overview of the many responsibilities of a real-world librarian.

Conducting a reference interview is the act of translating a patron’s request into terms that are congruent with the library’s resources. It may surprise non-librarians to learn this, but yes: reference interviewing is a skill. And it is one that Twilight should develop.

A good reference interview begins with the librarian conducting him/herself in a manner that is welcoming. Helping the patron is the first priority of a librarian working the reference desk. The patron is not a distraction or an annoyance. In the first reference interview in the series, Twilight interacts with her patron, Rainbow Dash. “Can I help you?” is a good beginning. But her tone and body language suggests that she would rather not.

... Twilight has some good reference interviewing sense. One pitfall that rookie librarians fall into is to give professional advice instead of information—especially medical and legal advice. In “Cutie Pox,” Applejack and Applebloom visit the library and asking for medical advice. Twilight, aware that doing so could expose the library and herself to liability, deftly avoids doing so and refers Applejack and Applebloom to Zecora, a qualified medical professional.

Read the rest of the story at Neatorama

SparkTruck: Taking Making on the Road

LibraryLab — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:07:43 +0000

Meet SparkTruck, an “educational build-mobile” for the twenty-first century.

Dreamed up by a group of Stanford d.school students and funded through Kickstarter, SparkTruck is a mobile maker space currently traveling across the United States. At schools and summer camps and libraries around the country, the SparkTruck team offers workshops to help kids “find their inner maker” as they design and build projects like stamps, stop-motion animation clips, and “vibrobots.”

This might seem all shiny and new. And it is—but only in part. What’s so striking (and exciting) about SparkTruck is the way it combines old and new. It does so in the tools it gets kids using, which range from pipe cleaners to laser cutters. It does so in its educational approach, which combines cutting-edge (get it?) STEM and design pedagogy with the fundamentals of an old-school shop class. And it does so in its method, which combines the iconic, century-old technology of the bookmobile with the hot new form of the maker space.

In doing so, SparkTruck joins a growing number of libraries which are combining time-tested principles (like equal access to information) with new technologies (like 3-D printers), putting in maker spaces and media production labs alongside bookshelves and meeting rooms. As I’ve argued over on bookmobility.org, these combinations make sense because reading and making actually have a lot in common. They’re both creative processes that take existing materials and combine them in new ways. Getting people engaged in those kinds of processes—through imaginative thinking, contemplation, hands-on problem-solving, and collaborative learning—is what both maker spaces and libraries are all about.

Taking that commitment on the road with scissors and hammers and 3-D printers and a great big bookmobile-like truck, SparkTruck serves as a laboratory for new approaches, as well as a reminder that trying new things doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t!) necessarily mean tossing old ones out. After all, what would those vibrobots be without classically crafty pipe cleaners and tongue depressors? And what would a library be without the creative, participatory, straight-up awesome experience of reading?

SparkTruck schedule [sparktruck.org]
How to arrange a visit from SparkTruck [sparktruck.org]
SparkTruck YouTube channel [youtube.com]

—Derek Attig, bookmobility.org