Creative Commons

Day 15 - 

Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.

 Got it.  Creative Commons allows me to do this:

Image by Lord Enfield (attribution license)

I can share what I want!  Well, not exactly.  I can share what people want me to share.  The 23thingscity blog has an brilliant section on creative commons licenses as does Flickr and Creative Commons itself.

"The Power of Open" declares the Creative Commons website - power indeed.  We all need images for our jobs and personal lives and having access to free, usable content is phenomenally useful.  Unfortunately for people who are making money off their images or wish to keep their content 'all rights reserved', there is no way for them to ensure this.  By putting anything online you are giving up a certain level of ownership of that content.  I don't mean legally, of course, but in practice anyone can steal your stuff.  My friend Chrisdonia has a wonderfully ironically named album on Facebook called 'stealing from myself' in response to his realisation that all of his friends use his professional portraits of them as their profile pictures!  He doesn't use a creative commons license (anymore), so this is blatant (appreciative) thievery.

The law is a minefield.  As a trainee I'm only just getting used to copyright issues, and it is fascinating but often infuriating to communicate.  To readers there are so many rules that seem arcane in a free, downloadable, connected web society.  Our students find it baffling when they can't print out as many pages of their ebook as desired, and yet they see whole books for free on google books.  On Facebook, we share videos from YouTube that have been uploaded by a third party...breaking the rules is just so possible.

As librarians we should know as much as we can about copyright and communicate this to our students.  The university experience is about becoming both expert in a specific field but also becoming fully rounded individuals who are savvy about finding and using information.  It would be so easy for a graduate to be asked to do a presentation at work, take a photo from a google image search and get find themself fired because the organisation gets sued.  Technically, at least.  The fact is this is a highly unlikely scenario.  For many, many people there is no real incentive to look in to copyright licenses and abide by them.  But when it comes to legal there's no excuse.  The law sets boundaries (however complicated) to protect people's content and allow them to decide for what purpose it should be used for. Librarians need to explain the purpose of copyright and make it relevant to users; it is clearly central to making people truly information literate.  With an increasing focus on internet security and intellectual property rights, we should be mindful that a spate of litigation about digital theft may just be around the corner.

Creative Commons is great for two reasons:

1. It's easy.  It's so explanatory, even if you have to dig a little bit to double check the license to begin with.
2. It's flexible.  There are such a range of CC licenses it has an option for anyone willing to share at all

Particularly on flickr and scribd, CC is a big deal.  I hope it comes to prominence all the more on more and more websites, even sites that currently bind content.  Really it's just like teaching: those who can, share.

CSS suxx, RSS doesn't

Day 10 - Thing 6 is to set up a Google Reader but I already have one.  Instead of blogging about my experience of setting it up I think it would be better to blog about how RSS makes the constant flow of information coming onto the web manageable.

I think my Google Reader is quite simply fantastic.  It brings information together in one place.  ALERT!  Avid readers, I know you'll be tutting right now, because I was a little uncharitable about igoogle which also brings things together in one place.  However, the astute reader will recognise that the main thrust of yesterday was that igoogle is an unnecessary gimmick, whereas RSS is not so frivolous.  Google reader looks quite boxy and austere but that suits it's character because it has a serious academic function.  You can find a rolling information source just once, and rather than bookmark it you can add the RSS to your reader.  You see the content and maintain the link, you can assess it as you go along and ditch it later if it proves untrustworthy.  You can follow information on sites that you normally wouldn't visit, your reader doesn't let you forget!  Google reader is the internet users personal magazine.  You are the editor, you can make it as high or low brow as you wish; it's your news, you choose.

I use my reader in a predominantly professional way.  It's where I read CILIP news and library blogs (including all of my fellow 23thingscity bloggers contributions (thing 7 - tick!)).  I also RSS my Library Elf account to ensure I don't get fines at my public library.  I also use it satisfy my interest in architecture and the media and politics.  RSS is bookmarking plus.  Whenever you find a website that updates, RSS is there to keep you linked to it via your reader and brings you the information directly.  The only thing I will grumble about is my reader's constant alerts of information...with numbers of unread articles.  I don't like that, because sometimes an RSS feed is just going to churn so much out, you would never have time to read it all.

The example of the coaster and the mug of tea

Day 9 - I just logged into my igoogle page, but I must confess that it's the first time I've been there since I set it up.  As a homepage it makes a lot of sense, but my homepage on my laptop is my yahoo mail homepage, and my homepage at work is the library catalogue.  igoogle is a great idea, but I don't think it works for me.

I'm not (yet) hooked into the google machine.  I suspect igoogle's intention is to encourage that to happen as it brings all of the company's services into one place e.g. googlemail, search, translate, blogs etc.  I certainly don't begrudge it - google is clearly a great, innovative company that has made the internet an easier place to navigate and it often feels like their competitors are constantly battling to catch up.  However I'm still quite a fragmented internet user.  For instance, I use yahoo mail and yahoo used to own delicious but when they sold it off and created diigo, I didn't move with yahoo I stuck with delicious.  However, I would never use yahoo search or bing I always google.  I tweet and use facebook but don't use selective tweet to update my facebook status.  Maybe I am not fully engaging yet with web 2.0 by using different providers and not syncing my internet applications.  igoogle is clearly a way to streamline your internet experience.

However, I like the way I use the internet.  I don't want to be drawn into one monopoly, I have been using the internet for at least 13 years and have developed habits and customs just as one would living in a particular city for that length of time.  Clearly the intention of igoogle is not to get all of your information from the little boxes with their tidbits, rather it is a personalised page of links to your favourite websites and products.

So, it's all about bookmarking.  I already do this much more effectively in my web browser.  My favourite sites constantly sit on my screen on my bookmark toolbar along with a link to the rest of my bookmarks in organised folders.  A google search box is sitting in the top right hand corner, and I can change it to a wikipedia or amazon search with just one click.  I have constant access to my mail account because it's my homepage.  You see, google, I don't need you because firefox does it all for me.  My browser acts as the required bridge between my service providers and offers me searchability of the wider internet to access further information.  It does igoogle's job already.

An analogy springs to mind:
Imagine you didn't know your times tables (some of us don't need to imagine this too hard...)  To help you out you have a coaster with the times tables on it.  For your last birthday your partner bought you a mug with the times tables printed on the bottom, so when you finish your tea you can swat up.  However, the problem is that you are an accountant and you constantly need your times tables.  With the mug you need to drink an entire mug of tea at a time to get the answer of your times table query.  However, the boring flat coaster gives you the answer straight away.  Rather than having igoogle as your homepage and clicking to return there to link to information, the browser links you to your information sources directly.  I'm not a google mug.

...of all the silly things...

Day 8 - Following on from Monday's mention of silly things on the internet, this is great.  There is clearly no economic incentive here, but anyone who photographs owls with unfortunate faces out of sheer love is a bigger person by far.

Me-google

Day 6 - I'm setting up an i-google account for Thing 4.  I've chosen the 3D views theme, which currently is showing me the pyramids from above. It's not really 3D, more 'satellite from above' but it was the best of a fairly generic bunch.  A few friends of mine have i-google as their homepage on their laptops, and I've always thought it seems quite useful, although not something that I think would stop me visiting individual websites anyway e.g. BBC News - somethings are force of habit/moderate obsession.  We'll have to see about that.  I've added BBC News as one of my gadgets, along with dictionary, Pacman and Google Translate - an invaluable tool in finding interlibrary loans abroad!  What strikes me most about some of these gadgets is how ridiculous they are - virtual panda, anyone?  Cat picture of the day?  The internet is just full of people who make silly gadgets/websites/apps and make money from it.  It truly is the playground of the entrepreneur.  Now to play some pacman, sitting on the desk will never be the same again...

EDIT: Oh dear, we don't have right plug-in down here, so I think that one will bite the dust.

Showing off your best bits

I'm interested in blogs that talk about the specifics of what an organisation does.  I'll illustrate this with Penguin Books.  We all know you can find out what Penguin publishes and buy Penguin titles on their website, but by linking from their website to their blog Penguin can talk about the specifics of what they're publishing, company achievements and inside information.  Similarly, to use a library example, Bath Spa University has a library blog, where the librarians update and inform readers about current projects.  It is used as a way to communicate current information, as the bloggers themselves put it:

"Its purpose is to inform you of many of the complex and diverse services the library provides at Bath Spa, as well as some useful tips on how we can improve your study."

That's exactly what information professionals should be doing; our trade is all about making information accessible.  Using the tagging system, it is also possible to find information on specific topics within Bath Spa Library's blog, which stops it being a jumbled feed of all and everything in between.  Using a blog in this way is essentially the same as maintaining a 'news' section on a library website.  However, using a separate blog host allows the librarians themselves to write content and upload it, without having to liaise with IT colleagues about formatting, fonts etc.

The British Library also does blogging.  A lot.  Masses of it.  I follow numerous BL twitter feeds, and they have a full range of blogs on the BL blog website.  If you take a look at these blogs they include expert bloggers, essays about special collections and series of blogs on their current exhibition.  This is an excellent way to raise interest in your resources and show off special collections that are normally reserved for researchers.

At a CPD25 conference last year, the head of libraries at London Metropolitan University spoke about the need for libraries to diversify and differentiate by showing off unique resources to encourage use and demonstrate their value in the face of tough budgetary decisions.  At my own institution I would love to see a British Library style blog incorporated into our electronic resources for our very special collection of copies of The Athenaeum.  There is already a section on the library website about using this collection, but this is really the only promotion of this resource.  We get a few enquiries from researchers, but a blog would raise the profile of this resource enormously and would make for an interesting read.  A few weeks ago I was seeking information for a researcher about the coinage of 'folk-lore', and found reviews of newly published works by Hans Christian Andersen, Dickens and Wilkie Collins!  It was fascinating to see these reviews in their original setting.  Inviting collaboration between university academics, library staff and researchers to occasionally blog about the content of this little used resource would make for fascinating reading, exciting work and demonstrate something that web 2.0 is great at doing: bringing new life to the old.

OCB (Obsessive Compulsive Blog-checking)

Yesterday afternoon I went on a graduate trainee trip to the British Library, and by the time I got home in the evening I couldn't stop myself - I checked my blog.  I was delighted to see colleagues had commented, that I had been added to the list of 23 Things City bloggers and that 75 people had viewed my page.  After watching some TV and reading, I then checked my blog again...twice, delighted to see a few more views.  Now I'm on the desk again, I have opened up the LMS, cleared expired holds from the holdshelf, checked the self-return boxes and I'm back on my blog.  However, now I find nothing much has changed; I have 88 views on my ticker.

While I didn't expect to find blogging so thrilling (as you'll well know from day one), I'm now a bit frustrated by how slow it is.  I've been tweeting for a couple of years now and it is instant gratification.  There's always something happening, new tweets popping into existence, people respond to your tweets sometimes within minutes; slowly but surely it has become an acceptable social network to use when working, revising and at all other times via smartphone.  We'll be getting to twitter in a few weeks, and I don't want to jump the gun, but an initial impression is that I have moderate OCB - enthusiasm for my new blog - and I'm willing to be sated but I'm not quite yet, because nothing much has happened.

Hello world

I started keeping a diary in July 2005.  I had just finished my A-levels and I was nervously awaiting my results, desperately hoping that I'd done enough to go to university in Edinburgh.  It was a summer of change, of strengthening friendships, getting my head around having an overdraft, moving out, feeding myself up before moving out, being 'a proper adult'.

In 2005 the blogosphere was probably less crowded than it is today, but it wouldn't have been too 'far out' to ditch the notebook and blog about my university experiences as a fresher.  Interestingly the thought never crossed my mind.  The idea of a blog is an online journal, and yet the paper and web-based versions are massively different things.  One is self-publicising, open to dialogue and impossible to delete.  The other is a totally private arena where you can express any opinion, write about absolutely everything because it's only you who you intend to ever read it.  One hopes that everyone respects that, of course...

I hope that writing this blog about work will give me a fresh insight into blogging as a whole.  I already tweet (@OliverRobert if you know me), but I protect my tweets after frustrating experiences with endless spam.  This probably defeats the point of tweeting at all, it hardly allows me to enter the global debate or break news.  But I find it works me for, as I mainly tweet about tea and political outrage, communicate with friends and just read the headlines while I do other things online.  When it comes to 'macroblogging' (coined a term?) for an exercise like 23 Things City it makes perfect sense to reflect in an accessible arena, to help us share our thoughts and ideas.  Blogs seem like an excellent way to share information, whether it's a workplace blog, a product blog, or on a specific theme.  A couple of friends of mine write hilarious and informative posts about their adventures travelling in India on the Frankelby family blog, which is a great way for us all to know they're doing well.

However, I think for too long I've had a prejudice against blogs.  I associate them with all those people who excitedly type away, or even make vlogs, about their (is it too harsh to say mundane?) every day lives. As a militant diarist I don't know why they'd want to disclose so much without going off on random tangents, adding personal confessions, remembrances and rants.  But, I suppose, one persons mundane is another persons intrigue.  In our open, globalised world, you never know who is going to be reading.  I could end up a minor celebrity on some far flung pacific island as a result of this.  But maybe that's my problem: I really hope not.