It's somewhat ironic that such an isolated school district should be the one to have the flexibility and initiative to create such a seemingly good educational model as the Fusion program outlined by Semadini. I love the idea of people getting paid to get better at what they do in general, but especially in teaching. For most education systems, this idea is contrary to culture, and I will personally be pretty surprised if I am ever given contract hours (or even stipends!!) to become a better librarian. While I think self-education should be expected of and compensated for people in teaching professions, I will obviously point out that learning how to educate is always only as effective as the models and techniques taught. When I was teaching English in Japan I did actually get some mandatory paid training time throughout the year, but it was neither here nor there and often had little or even negative effects on my classes. I do like the idea that the Fusion model seems to be flexible, with a "menu" of techniques that can be chosen by teachers. It would be interesting to know just how much principles "point" teachers towards certain goals.
I think educating librarians on basic technology competency actually is rather urgent, at least in my experience, and like the inviting sense of "play" that it uses, rather than making things like a chore. There are many...non-digital natives I've seen working at libraries across the state who actively choose not to educate themselves on basic computer troubleshooting and software that they constantly get asked about. While it's there right to do so to an extent, at some point it does become a professional requirement. I cringe when I see someone at a reference desk get a question about how to print something, betray a terrified look, and then say "I can't help you with that." Or, as the article mentions, put an out of order sign on a computer or piece of equipment without doing any troubleshooting at all.There's a bit of a strange dichotomy in librarianship where on one hand a lot of people talk about the importance of technology literacy and an awareness that people want access to and help with computers. On the other hand, I've noticed at least personally that when it comes to helping patrons at least, the idea is "we're not here to teach people to use microsoft word. There's a class for that." I think not only do staff need to know how to use the technology they provide in a basic sense--and making it seem fun is important since if someone doesn't already know, they probably really don't want to. I think (and predict we'll see) that library staff, even librarians, need to become more open to helping patrons out with the little silly things that seem so obvious. I teach someone how to adjust the volume on public library computers just about every week, and it doesn't bother me. Yes, I know it doesn't require a graduate degree. But neither does a willingness to help people with immediate needs.
Kristin's article is so succinct! It nicely communicates the importance of technical training being about "playing around" and "experimenting" with others rather than "drilling." It's perhaps somewhat counter-intuitive, but I think it's really true that learning how to use machines and technology isn't really best done going through a manual or an extremely strict workshop. I've learned how to use Photoshop and Illustrator this year, and quickly found that following manuals and tutorials was not terribly effective or motivating--I really just had to take the time to play around. Having a professor sit next to me might have been nice, but I've found professional advice isn't always retained as well as discovery on one's own. As with all things, I think there is a balance though, and the success of Kristin's program is a bit surprising if only because it does seem to stray slightly closer to the area of "self-teaching" than one would imagine might be optimal, particularly for learning how to use technology. But again, I think we under-appreciate the usefulness of "play" in making machines work.
The webinars were another fun hands-on learning & teaching experience, and overall I liked how mine went. Carmen and I had good visuals, which we were complimented on, and really used the visuals to drive our discussion. My part of the presentation was very scripted, much more so than the screencast, but I found this wasn't too much of a problem as I had Carmen to help answer chat questions and give feedback while I said my piece. Practice was very important. If I had this to do over again, I would have somehow anticipated that the trial I had been using was some sort of 3-person only room, though I guess I would have thought to have more than one person join the room to test it to find this out. Whoops. I also--and this goes for the webinars I attended to--would have tried to make the webinar even more interactive throughout. That's what the idea of a "live" webinar is all about, having an actual discussion and contributing and sharing ideas. I had polls and invited feedback, but what was received was kind of drowned out since we didn't have time to just chat as we had to constantly move along with the slides and presentation to finish in time. I also would have liked to have decided to do the "web tour" whereas I ended up settling for screenshots, mainly to save time. Overall I think the webinars were fun and successful, though I did constantly wonder, "how can I add value to this, and how can I make use of the fact that there are live people here." It's surprisingly easy when doing a webinar to lapse into a mere lecture with a token survey, where a screencast or a podcast would do the same.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Paul Courant, Twitter
I very much enjoyed last week's talk with Paul Courant, who was surprisingly affable and seemingly very forthright considering the tricky nature of some of the topics we were discussing. It's always nice to be reminded that we're really at the center of a lot of major library action here, where organizations like Google are getting sued and such via projects the University is a major participant in. His reaction to Joanna's incisive question was especially interesting though I wasn't surprised to hear his view that issues libraries like Michigan are facing are basically due to problems with forces outside of academia rather than within academia itself. I do imagine corporations like Sony and so forth do have bigger fish to fry than folks in academia and/or library land. However I do think it's important that an academic library be very cognizant of academic culture and interests affecting thought processes behind certain systems and actions, rather than just painting themselves as bystanders in a world shaped by powers far bigger than themselves.
I'm glad this week's assignment regarding signing on to twitter as I am reluctant to participate more than absolutely necessary is "social media" and this obviously needs to change. To use an SI 500 obsession I guess one reason is just the problem of information overload--I don't use things like google reader or twitter often because I feel I am already bombarded with more than enough information, and I like to think if something is important enough, I will take the time and energy to find it myself. But it not using things like twitter I miss out on a lot of opportunities, and for better or worse I really just need to be tuned into all the major ways people find and share information.
For my tweets, I retweeted blog posts of a librarian I happen to be following who basically does focus on social media like facebook and twitter. Aaron Tay, at musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com. Of his posts, I found the one listing the most influential libraries on twitter to be very interesting because it was dominated by large public rather than academic libraries. One might imagine academic rather than public libraries should be the most present on twitter or facebook (another post I tweeted had to do with the fact the NY Public was the biggest library on facebook) because of the clientele: college kids should theoretically be the most active on twitter, right? I wonder if it's due to the fact that public libraries often have to scramble the hardest for funding, and so are more active and have been quicker to get onto the web 2.0 social scene? I don't seem to be personally acquainted enough with academic libraries and their digital incarnations to have a very strong opinion on the matter and would appreciate those of others. Aaron has hypotheses, including that public libraries have a larger audience and so are followed more (I don't think this accounts for the discrepancy. There are plenty of academic libraries with huge user bases) or that public libraries are more aggressive in following users. This is really interesting because when thinking about things like Twitter, I always initially think of it as a way for libraries to market themselves and get users' attentions, rather than a way to follow them and get information on them, which is also very important. If nothing else, I'm going to use twitter from that perspective, as I have harped on how public libraries especially need to be extremely and innovatively in touch with the communities they serve.
I'm glad this week's assignment regarding signing on to twitter as I am reluctant to participate more than absolutely necessary is "social media" and this obviously needs to change. To use an SI 500 obsession I guess one reason is just the problem of information overload--I don't use things like google reader or twitter often because I feel I am already bombarded with more than enough information, and I like to think if something is important enough, I will take the time and energy to find it myself. But it not using things like twitter I miss out on a lot of opportunities, and for better or worse I really just need to be tuned into all the major ways people find and share information.
For my tweets, I retweeted blog posts of a librarian I happen to be following who basically does focus on social media like facebook and twitter. Aaron Tay, at musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com. Of his posts, I found the one listing the most influential libraries on twitter to be very interesting because it was dominated by large public rather than academic libraries. One might imagine academic rather than public libraries should be the most present on twitter or facebook (another post I tweeted had to do with the fact the NY Public was the biggest library on facebook) because of the clientele: college kids should theoretically be the most active on twitter, right? I wonder if it's due to the fact that public libraries often have to scramble the hardest for funding, and so are more active and have been quicker to get onto the web 2.0 social scene? I don't seem to be personally acquainted enough with academic libraries and their digital incarnations to have a very strong opinion on the matter and would appreciate those of others. Aaron has hypotheses, including that public libraries have a larger audience and so are followed more (I don't think this accounts for the discrepancy. There are plenty of academic libraries with huge user bases) or that public libraries are more aggressive in following users. This is really interesting because when thinking about things like Twitter, I always initially think of it as a way for libraries to market themselves and get users' attentions, rather than a way to follow them and get information on them, which is also very important. If nothing else, I'm going to use twitter from that perspective, as I have harped on how public libraries especially need to be extremely and innovatively in touch with the communities they serve.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
I'm Embedded in What, Now?
The Montgomery essay was nice because it actually made me feel rather young, which doesn't happen these days. College undergraduates use the internet? Even facebook?! I wholeheartedly agree that students are online and can and should be engaged there. Seriously, I did very much like two points from the article:
-" Instruction on library resources, such as databases, has to relate to a class assignment or project so that students recognize the value in understanding their usefulness (Matthew & Schroeder, 2006)." I absolutely agree. I never had library instruction growing up that quite did this convincingly. It did not promote transfer, and it would have been more engaging if I had a class (that wasn't painfully obviously set up to be a library class for library's sake) which had an assignment explicitly requiring information literacy instruction.
-"[One-shot sessions]give librarians the opportunity to create a connection with students but also give the perception that the librarian is a guest presenter."
Also agreed. I understand time and budgets enforce the traditional set up where librarians are gust presenters rather than seemingly "secondary instructors" and I hope we can advocate interactions which are structured as to come off as long-term relationships.
Also it's very interesting to think about how this more directly applies to a public library setting...
The Matos et al article was very interesting in how it considered the phenomenon of librarians being assigned to a department or group without actually having a physical base to work form as a strength rather than a weakness or sign of lack of funding, saying "it is the extension of the library across the wider organization that brings richer rewards over time." I like this positive framing of an issue, and do very much agree that in such a situation "faculty-students have to support the concept of the librarian in their building for it to have a chance to succeed." As always, librarians do need support, and there is a point to which all they can do is put the people who might support them in the best possible position to.
While the examples of librarians making things happen in a super mobile way was interesting and did evoke the "entrepreneurship" spirit some call us to have, I must admit as positive as I feel about programming, etc. I would not really want to be a totally baseless librarian...at least not until I became extremely confident in my abilities. I like change and being on the go, which is part of what draws me to librarianship, but to be completely a mobile lecturer is a bit much. I love having face to face interactions and as much as I embrace the online solutions the article mentions, I want them to be just part of my professional life, not the main thing.
From chapter 7, I must say all the examples seemed impressive and encompassed a sort of gold standard that I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to match. At least I can learn by example. I agree that teachers need to have a thorough understanding of their subject and teaching methods, and I think any teachers that have such a thorough understanding as to be able to adapt to the various unpredictable directions the some of teaching styles laid out in the examples deserve to be paid handsomely. In general, the idea seems to be to start with what students are truly interested in, and then use that to get at not standardized tests and drills but really an understanding of the principles behind things, which is what will serve students in the long term. I'm unabashedly enthusiastic about such an approach, and also cognizant that there are AP exams and standardized tests to be worked with: as I said before regarding summative vs formative feedback and the like, we need to help facilitate a cultural and social change to help facilitate learning like this. We can do it...! I'll be very interested to hear the lecture on this piece and others' responses as to the viability and the main points we can take away from the chapter.
-" Instruction on library resources, such as databases, has to relate to a class assignment or project so that students recognize the value in understanding their usefulness (Matthew & Schroeder, 2006)." I absolutely agree. I never had library instruction growing up that quite did this convincingly. It did not promote transfer, and it would have been more engaging if I had a class (that wasn't painfully obviously set up to be a library class for library's sake) which had an assignment explicitly requiring information literacy instruction.
-"[One-shot sessions]give librarians the opportunity to create a connection with students but also give the perception that the librarian is a guest presenter."
Also agreed. I understand time and budgets enforce the traditional set up where librarians are gust presenters rather than seemingly "secondary instructors" and I hope we can advocate interactions which are structured as to come off as long-term relationships.
Also it's very interesting to think about how this more directly applies to a public library setting...
The Matos et al article was very interesting in how it considered the phenomenon of librarians being assigned to a department or group without actually having a physical base to work form as a strength rather than a weakness or sign of lack of funding, saying "it is the extension of the library across the wider organization that brings richer rewards over time." I like this positive framing of an issue, and do very much agree that in such a situation "faculty-students have to support the concept of the librarian in their building for it to have a chance to succeed." As always, librarians do need support, and there is a point to which all they can do is put the people who might support them in the best possible position to.
While the examples of librarians making things happen in a super mobile way was interesting and did evoke the "entrepreneurship" spirit some call us to have, I must admit as positive as I feel about programming, etc. I would not really want to be a totally baseless librarian...at least not until I became extremely confident in my abilities. I like change and being on the go, which is part of what draws me to librarianship, but to be completely a mobile lecturer is a bit much. I love having face to face interactions and as much as I embrace the online solutions the article mentions, I want them to be just part of my professional life, not the main thing.
From chapter 7, I must say all the examples seemed impressive and encompassed a sort of gold standard that I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to match. At least I can learn by example. I agree that teachers need to have a thorough understanding of their subject and teaching methods, and I think any teachers that have such a thorough understanding as to be able to adapt to the various unpredictable directions the some of teaching styles laid out in the examples deserve to be paid handsomely. In general, the idea seems to be to start with what students are truly interested in, and then use that to get at not standardized tests and drills but really an understanding of the principles behind things, which is what will serve students in the long term. I'm unabashedly enthusiastic about such an approach, and also cognizant that there are AP exams and standardized tests to be worked with: as I said before regarding summative vs formative feedback and the like, we need to help facilitate a cultural and social change to help facilitate learning like this. We can do it...! I'll be very interested to hear the lecture on this piece and others' responses as to the viability and the main points we can take away from the chapter.
20 Minute Workshops: The New Vogue?
Once again I very much enjoyed actively performing and participating for a class! I was most amazed by how much groups managed to cover in 20 minutes or so, as I came in feeling that this would likely be a big problem, and that I wouldn't take as much as I liked from the experience as the workshops were so much shorter than most I tend to see and be exposed to. However, forcing us to concentrate on the essentials really seemed to bring out the best in everyone, and while no one got terribly deep or detailed, I think I have retained most of what I learned, at least a week later. I wonder if the "20 minute workshop" might become the new vogue, in the way that having short snippets for screen casts seems to be very effective.
It was interesting to see the very wide arrange of approaches we took, especially in the participatory sections. I think my group was skewed way towards the side of open-ended discussion, where the thinking and discussing with group members was core and while we didn't come up with hard and final answers there were some very creative answers. Other groups tended more towards working with a problem that did have a correct solution which added to our knowledge, and others were in between. Overall the approach to the participation sections seemed to reflect the topics well. I guess before I get to giddy about how much fun the projects are in this class I need to keep reminding myself that we're all very polite participants and real life isn't always so devoid of lemons. Maybe we should haul in a group of disgruntled grouchy people or something to serve as audience for next time to ratchet up the discomfort level and get some practice? Because I don't have it in me to be grouchy.
It was interesting to see the very wide arrange of approaches we took, especially in the participatory sections. I think my group was skewed way towards the side of open-ended discussion, where the thinking and discussing with group members was core and while we didn't come up with hard and final answers there were some very creative answers. Other groups tended more towards working with a problem that did have a correct solution which added to our knowledge, and others were in between. Overall the approach to the participation sections seemed to reflect the topics well. I guess before I get to giddy about how much fun the projects are in this class I need to keep reminding myself that we're all very polite participants and real life isn't always so devoid of lemons. Maybe we should haul in a group of disgruntled grouchy people or something to serve as audience for next time to ratchet up the discomfort level and get some practice? Because I don't have it in me to be grouchy.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Webinar: A conference call with a chatroom?
While the webinar last week was fun and insightful (I believe it was my first one!) I would have liked us to have used a bit more of the options and functionality of elluminate. I certainly understand that our intrepid presenter might not have wanted to appear on screen, and I can relate. But not having really used the whiteboard, and not having the ability to see each other or speak to the presenter, the experience was reduced to a sort of conference call where one side couldn't speak but had to communicate through a chat box. In other words, a real conference call could theoretically have been just as fruitful, if not more. I do suppose the webinar saves on phone bills, and having our input in text form forced a sort of orderly manner and made it more possible to look back on previous comments.
Therefore, I think it will be interesting to see what folks do make use of when we do our own webinars. I think the voting functions especially could be very useful, and the whiteboard can be used to place helpful images that lend context to the discussion. I also hope most of us choose to be visible via web cam as I think it does add to the experience, and happy, confused, and slapping icons that pop up next to your name on a long list aren't ideal for emoting. Again, I don't mean to lay our fairly vanilla experience at the presenter's feet as it was very gracious of her to talk to us at all, and it was helpful to hear a real live blogger/librarian's outlook on Harper Collins. Actually, I wish I would have thought about the webinar a bit more in advance and come up with more interesting questions.
Planning for this week's workshops has been pleasant enough, though much more uncertain than planning for book clubs. When I think "workshop" I don't tend to think "ethical issues" but rather explicit skill building or project demos. Those "workshops" that do cover ethical issues are often, in my experience, thinly veiled opportunities for the group holding the workshop to push their own ideas or agendas. This is something I hope to avoid in our workshop, and something that libraries obviously need to be able to avoid, especially if workshops are led by library staff. And while obviously the goal is to teach, it's challenging to wrap my head around the idea that I'm not teaching someone how to do something per se, but rather exposing a very complex question which has no one best solution. I suspect these workshops, as far as they're interactive, are going to be very dependent on the enthusiasm and willingness of participants to express ideas. So the goal for me seems to be to put people in as good a position as possible to do so.
Therefore, I think it will be interesting to see what folks do make use of when we do our own webinars. I think the voting functions especially could be very useful, and the whiteboard can be used to place helpful images that lend context to the discussion. I also hope most of us choose to be visible via web cam as I think it does add to the experience, and happy, confused, and slapping icons that pop up next to your name on a long list aren't ideal for emoting. Again, I don't mean to lay our fairly vanilla experience at the presenter's feet as it was very gracious of her to talk to us at all, and it was helpful to hear a real live blogger/librarian's outlook on Harper Collins. Actually, I wish I would have thought about the webinar a bit more in advance and come up with more interesting questions.
Planning for this week's workshops has been pleasant enough, though much more uncertain than planning for book clubs. When I think "workshop" I don't tend to think "ethical issues" but rather explicit skill building or project demos. Those "workshops" that do cover ethical issues are often, in my experience, thinly veiled opportunities for the group holding the workshop to push their own ideas or agendas. This is something I hope to avoid in our workshop, and something that libraries obviously need to be able to avoid, especially if workshops are led by library staff. And while obviously the goal is to teach, it's challenging to wrap my head around the idea that I'm not teaching someone how to do something per se, but rather exposing a very complex question which has no one best solution. I suspect these workshops, as far as they're interactive, are going to be very dependent on the enthusiasm and willingness of participants to express ideas. So the goal for me seems to be to put people in as good a position as possible to do so.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Club of Hearts
I thought the book discussions in the hearts group were a lot of fun and vote we do stuff like that every class. That all of our groups went for the max time and still had stuff to talk about spoke to everyone's generous participation and earnest engagement, and I hope at least a little bit to our hard work in setting up the discussions. In general, and this holds true for book clubs I've been around besides in this class, people very much enjoy bringing prior knowledge and experience to texts and quickly abstracting ideas into underlying issues. This is somewhat at odds from the idea that questions must be "firmly rooted in the text" as I thought questions that required extensively close reading, especially for my group's discussion, were not picked up on as much as application questions like "what would you do differently" or "how can we deal with this issue in real life." I think this trend is magnified tremendously when working with larger texts, as a "book club" would tend to do, as at most a scene or event comes into focus, not precisely how something was written in a certain way and why. So while at first I understood "firmly rooted in the text" to mean questions that really necessitated one to have a certain page in front of them, and probably to have read and formed an opinion of said page, I wonder if we can tweak it to a more flexible, "just don't completely lose sight of the text." I will say at the least that a book discussion versus an English class is by nature more flexible and will cater more to following paths discussants are interested in, which are almost invariably to do with application and large, easily debatable issues. This may come at the expense of imparting close-reading or analytical skills. It really is impressive if one can foster both.
I think my group chose some rather challenging stuff, and while it wasn't a slam dunk, we did try to both allow for open assessment and interpretation while prompting some close analysis. Potential was there. It takes a tremendous amount of effort on both discussants and moderators parts to do both. I think a main challenge in discussing stuff such as our poems is not to lead too much based on the analysis you've already done, and to be patient enough to let everyone do work on their own.
I think my group chose some rather challenging stuff, and while it wasn't a slam dunk, we did try to both allow for open assessment and interpretation while prompting some close analysis. Potential was there. It takes a tremendous amount of effort on both discussants and moderators parts to do both. I think a main challenge in discussing stuff such as our poems is not to lead too much based on the analysis you've already done, and to be patient enough to let everyone do work on their own.
Workshop, Code, and HC Readings
I thought the workshop reading was doubly relevant. It provides an example of the rationale and consideration behind creating a particular workshop, each of which may not have been particularly surprising, but which I'm sure takes practice to master. It's also important in that it talked about creating "library assignments" specifically, something I'm sure many of us we'll be tasked with, especially if we work at school or academic libraries. I remember my "library assignments" and I believe they were always scavenger hunts, and I agree that scavenger hunts are NOT a very good way to become a very good library user, or at least to become "information literate." The over-specific facts in scavenger hunts do not very well reflect the sort of research one tends to need a library for (i.e. not for fact checking) and crucially lack the "relevancy judgment" skills that really are important. It's one thing for a user to be able to guess some librarian's favorite reference book for some tidbit, but its more important to be able to judge and locate sources that are relevant to a topic. This is what libraries and librarians aim to facilitate. So unsurprisingly, out of the things to watch out for, I especially liked the need to find a happy medium between over-specified vs. under-specified challenges or assignments, important both as a library worker teaching people how to use a library, and an educator in general. I don't want to overstate myself, a scavenger hunt could still be OK for making sure users can search a catalog for a title they already know, but I don't think they're ideal for more than the basics.
To transition to the HC readings, the item on the ALA code of conduct I found relevant to this situation was IV: to advocate balance between interests of information users and rights holders. This is a fair, worthy goal and I am all for it. However I wonder if we are finally in a world where we can no longer do this alone, at least not directly, in the case of situations like the battle of HC. I am very much loathe to go to the "shouldn't the GOVERNMENT do that?" excuse that public librarians often seem to evoke, especially when it comes to providing services like computer access. But when it comes down to a case like this, legislators really are the ones who can ultimately truly "balance" the interests of rights holders and info users, and its only massive public pressure (not just library pressure) that can bring that about. So libraries' job, to me, is not to directly get publishers to be fair to library users by boycotting or complaining to them, through their own private channels. It's to help the public to realize the issues, so that they can pressure legislators to create a fair playing field, if they are inclined to.
So, as I'm always more interested in hearing about ideas regarding what to do rather than what's wrong, the first HC link I followed was the boycottharpercollins website. I find the phrase that content "self-destructs" after 26 uses to be funny.
It's actually used in the CBC report on the subject as well. I'm pretty sure the files actually just go inert. Well, "explosive" language being used anyway. The website to me was once again harmless enough to me, and a bit misdirected. Yes libraries should be vocal with publishers regarding their and their users' interests. No, I don't think HC is lacking in letters, as the website basically asks one to send, and even has a template set up for a librarian, not a user. Instead, I think libraries need to be sending open letters to their users, as it's the public that must be behind any major political or legal shifts that are going to result in real, lasting change. Again, I hope we don't let that number "26" distract us too much. The practice of limiting downloads per copy at all is a legitimate issue--arguing about the number of times allowed concedes the issue.
Speaking of the CBC, and the other major reports for that matter, I think these do just as much for our cause as raising an in-industry outcry to HC, in that they get the word out to the public. That being said, the CBC report at least really didn't get into the issue in a way that made it seem urgent.
Finally I read the Potash Overdrive letter to see what actions they were taking, and found it to be more or less a mea culpa as to be expected. Putting the HC material (actually "26 check-out limit material") in a separate catalog is a nice gesture, and helps libraries not buy such material ever-so-slightly I guess. It's an act of neutrality, and probably not quite worth the rather positive comments it seems to have generated. I admit I don't know quite enough about them and their owning interests to expect or not expect them to do anything but appease as many parties as possible.
To transition to the HC readings, the item on the ALA code of conduct I found relevant to this situation was IV: to advocate balance between interests of information users and rights holders. This is a fair, worthy goal and I am all for it. However I wonder if we are finally in a world where we can no longer do this alone, at least not directly, in the case of situations like the battle of HC. I am very much loathe to go to the "shouldn't the GOVERNMENT do that?" excuse that public librarians often seem to evoke, especially when it comes to providing services like computer access. But when it comes down to a case like this, legislators really are the ones who can ultimately truly "balance" the interests of rights holders and info users, and its only massive public pressure (not just library pressure) that can bring that about. So libraries' job, to me, is not to directly get publishers to be fair to library users by boycotting or complaining to them, through their own private channels. It's to help the public to realize the issues, so that they can pressure legislators to create a fair playing field, if they are inclined to.
So, as I'm always more interested in hearing about ideas regarding what to do rather than what's wrong, the first HC link I followed was the boycottharpercollins website. I find the phrase that content "self-destructs" after 26 uses to be funny.
It's actually used in the CBC report on the subject as well. I'm pretty sure the files actually just go inert. Well, "explosive" language being used anyway. The website to me was once again harmless enough to me, and a bit misdirected. Yes libraries should be vocal with publishers regarding their and their users' interests. No, I don't think HC is lacking in letters, as the website basically asks one to send, and even has a template set up for a librarian, not a user. Instead, I think libraries need to be sending open letters to their users, as it's the public that must be behind any major political or legal shifts that are going to result in real, lasting change. Again, I hope we don't let that number "26" distract us too much. The practice of limiting downloads per copy at all is a legitimate issue--arguing about the number of times allowed concedes the issue.
Speaking of the CBC, and the other major reports for that matter, I think these do just as much for our cause as raising an in-industry outcry to HC, in that they get the word out to the public. That being said, the CBC report at least really didn't get into the issue in a way that made it seem urgent.
Finally I read the Potash Overdrive letter to see what actions they were taking, and found it to be more or less a mea culpa as to be expected. Putting the HC material (actually "26 check-out limit material") in a separate catalog is a nice gesture, and helps libraries not buy such material ever-so-slightly I guess. It's an act of neutrality, and probably not quite worth the rather positive comments it seems to have generated. I admit I don't know quite enough about them and their owning interests to expect or not expect them to do anything but appease as many parties as possible.
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