Ace

I was very glad to see an article in the November American Libraries about students coming to the library wanting textbooks. It's not just us!

We occasionally have someone who thinks this is where you buy textbooks (usually parents with helpless freshmen trailing behind them) and we have to send them to the far side of campus (a whole three buildings away) to the real bookstore. Most, however, are just looking to check out a textbook so they don't have to buy one, or maybe they just don't feel like checking under the seat of their car to find the one they already have. I know some schools keep one or two copies of every textbook Just In Case, but we can't afford that. Students get very annoyed that we don't have a freebie for them, even though other people in the class had to shell out for it. (Imler brings up many points on why relying on library copies is A Bad Idea anyway.) It's sad that their first experience with the library is us saying "No" when at any other time we would say "Yes, let me show you the metric ton of stuff we have here and online!" I guess it's part of them learning that not everything is going to be handed to you. Welcome to Grownup World. :D

But hey! Only seven years after getting my degree, AL has finally told me something useful. Woo. I wish the article was online, because it's quite good and I would love to link to it.

Let's see... Thus far, we have three patron computers completely offline and a fourth that won't print. (Our wireless is working - yay! - but has never been able to send to a printer.) The registrar needs to wait a few more days to send us a student list, so everyone gets their expiration dates updated individually, expect for new students who have to give me all their personal information just to get a book. And we have no one to work the late-late shift tomorrow night.

And yet, it's a whole lot better than this time last year. Here's to a not-quite-insane start to things!

Today is the day for government to have Teh Dumb. Not that this is unusual, but these two things were brought to my attention within minutes of each other and... just... oh, stupidity.

NC wants to tax internet sales. Unsurprisingly, Amazon has declared they don't need the hassle (not to mention the precedent) and will no longer allow third-party sales to anyone in the state if this goes through. Way to stimulate the economy, guys. I'm even more glad now that I left.

The Wall Street Journal article on this requires a subscription, but comments are viewable and interesting.

In an equally spectacular lack of understanding of how things work, Bozeman, MT wants your passwords before employing you. Yes, all of them. But hey, you don't have anything to hide, right? That Yahoo or Gmail address isn't linked to, say, your Paypal account, is it? And even so, I'm sure the applications are stored somewhere totally secure. But if you're in Bozeman or considering moving there, remember that their current policy is to only hire the completely clueless.

USA, Canada and the EU attempt to kill treaty to protect blind people's access to written material To sum up:

"The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import and export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in formats that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using special devices that present text as refreshable braille, computer generated text to speech, or large type. These works, which are expensive to make, are typically created under national exceptions to copyright law that are specifically written to benefit persons with disabilities...

The opposition from the United States and other high income countries is due to intense lobbying from a large group of publishers that oppose a 'paradigm shift,' where treaties would protect consumer interests, rather than expand rights for copyright owners."

Because heaven forbid that someone use your content in a clever or helpful way that you didn't think of the first time around. Even worse, blind and dyslexic people might read books and learn things and enjoy good stories! We can't have that sort of thing going on, certainly not. I just said to a colleague (regarding another issue) that these copyright owners act like spoiled two year olds who don't want anyone to play with their toys, even if it is for something good like education or medicine. Or, apparently, people with disabilities being able to enjoy books the same as everyone else.

It's one thing when accessibility is an issue due to omission or simple circumstance, like the very old buildings on our campus. It's another thing entirely when someone deliberately cuts people off because of physical impairments. That is selfish discrimination.

When I first heard about Firefox Portable I thought it was the most brilliant thing ever. Then I saw OpenOffice Portable and thought that was pretty awesome too. Then someone Twittered this article and I knew I had to try Sugar on a Stick. It took a little work to get it going, but it's pretty amazing. I'm going to try to (semi)live blog my working with it.

Wednesday night I ran to Kmart after work for a new flash drive since I didn't know how much mine would need clearing off to make the install work. Lucky me, 2GB sticks were on sale for $8, capless design and backpack clip included. Woohoo! I can put an operating system on my belt loop. It's not putting a man on the moon, but the guys who did that would be (will be, probably are) bowled over by this.

( Downloading and installing )

By this time it was late and I was worn out. I had already been up late two nights this week reading Little Brother and another late one would have been bad. I closed things up, ejected the stick, and tottered off to brush my teeth.

Then came two agonizing days of not doing anything. I kept the USB stick in my bag like it was my blankie, occasionally taking it out to look at it wistfully. I thought about trying it out on my work computer so someone else would have to fix it if I screwed up, but then I would have to explain to the nice CIT person why I screwed up their otherwise perfectly-running box. Then I would owe them many, many cookies. So I waited until last night and pulled out my older laptop, which is still a good, faithful friend but less of a loss than if something happened to Ruby.

( Booting )

I promise that all of this is so much easier than it sounds. A lot of it is pushing the right button at the right time and saying "Wow, I never knew this stuff was here!" Next post I'll talk about the programs.

I just realized something. The two books I'm reading right now are Little Brother and The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation. This is a complete coincidence, really, but I thought it an interesting one. (I also read Hennessey's almost dismissive summary of copyright just before learning about the Pirate Bay verdict. I'm having a severe lack of entropy this week.)

Just found out that the Fourth Circuit has ruled that turnitin.com's clever but misguided attempt to keep students honest counts as Fair Use. The headline ticked me off, but after reading the cited TechLaw post I have mixed feelings. Two-thirds of this is good news, but the pivotal part seems to hold little logic. Am I brave enough to wade through the actual ruling (pdf) to find the sense in it? Quoting TechLaw's summary...

1) Commercial uses can be fair uses.

Spot on. This is so logical that it doesn't bear commenting on.

2) A use can be transformative "in function or purpose without altering or actually adding to the original work"

OTW is going to love this one and I have to agree. Whether or not the thing is made shinier has nothing to do with the amount of the original work used or if the user is cutting into the market for the original. Vidding is a perfect example. A crappy vid only hurts the people who watch it. A good vid uses the source material to say something new and interesting (and often gets people interested in those sources too).

Now, if all you do is take a fair-use amount of a work and somehow cash in on that by itself, that might get into shaky territory. If I started selling three-minute clips of Batman Begins, you know Warner would be all over me like ants on candy. And yet...

3) The fact that turnitin.com used the entirety of the plaintiff's work did not preclude finding of fair use.

WHY?! In one way, this flows directly from adding the previous two together. And yet it still is extremely odd to say that a company can use a student's work thousands of times a day, in fact relying on it to keep the money rolling in, and the only thing the student gets is not failing their class. I also do not see how this is transformative. The purpose of the service is to compare works as they are. Having your algorithms chew on them for a while first doesn't change that.

In addition, I think fair use is not the only issue here. Students often enter into this contract under duress: you submit your paper to the site as well as to the teacher, or you fail the assignment and probably the class. Our CMS is now attached to turnitin, so potentially anything submitted via our Sakai is also submitted to TII. I presume that students are somehow notified if the professor has opted them in to this, but I don't know. I still think TII is a clever way to monetize other people's work without having to compensate them, without all the pesky work of getting and keeping users that LJ, Facebook and the like have to do. Angry LJ users leave, and advertisers see those eyeballs disappear from the stats. Once a paper is in the TII system, it's there for good.

Just wanted to let all of you (both of you?) know that I'm giving Twitter a try under this same user name. So far, most things I think are worth a tweet I can't because I have actual stuff to do, and things I have time to tweet want more in-depth writing than is allowed. OTOH, it might be a great exercise in concise writing, like a drabble only... freeze-dried? Shrunk by the Wonkavision beam? Disemvoweled? (That's the only way to make some things work in < 140 characters.)

I'm at the Open Source Browsers meeting, not because I need to be told how awesome Firefox is, but so I can fangirl Jessamyn West. I actually previewed the presentation last night which only made me want to hear her more. I looked again at the meeting I "should" be going to and decided that the public librarian speaking would probably make me work to figure out how/if his cool toys would work for me. So now I'm in spitting distance (metaphorically, of course) from one of my favorite bloggers. Yay!

Ironically, I'm writing this in Chrome. I downloaded it yesterday hoping its much-touted speed would be faster than FF because the internet has been obnoxiously slow at points. So far I like it pretty well. More later because Jessamyn is talking and I must focus!

Today's final session is on using blogging software as a website. This is clearly aimed at public libraries due to the content, the examples used, and the fact the speaker was surprised to see people with fewer than 8000 constituents. We have <900 FTE but still need a shiny website hosted on our server. Blogger will not cut it, despite the fact that it is about as easy to use as email, plus there is no way I'm putting something that vital on a server we don't own. I had high hopes for the WordPress part of the presentation but all he really did was say why you should use WP.

We already use the free version for our blog, so we know it's cool; we just need to be able to make it look like a website rather than a blog with neat extras in the sidebar(s). Basically, we need something similar to our current site but with the ability to control it rather than have to pester our Webmage and wait for her to have time to make the changes. It has to be doable - we already have a great wiki at GoogleSites. There must be something out there that is just as easy, has varying levels of permissions, and can be dropped on our server and IT not have to worry about it again because the rest of it is up to me, Bosslady, and J.

Maybe I can get some ideas at dinner. The group I'll be dining with is supposed to discuss "New Technologies" which is so nebulous that it could be almost anything. If we wind up with no moderator like last year, it should be pretty easy to direct the conversation that way.

ETA: Oh, apparently there is a host-your-own version of Blogger. But it still looks like Blogger.

Have arrived in Arlington in one piece, despite a few people's best efforts. the drive was much more pleasant this time, since the sun did come out after a bit and it wasn't unpleasantly cold. I somehow made it in less time, despite having to make extra stops along the way. (How I do run out of face wash and forget toothpaste on the same day?) I got checked in and important things toted in from the car about ten minutes too late to run over and get my conference registration completed, so I set out in search of food.

Oh boy. My knowledge of the area from last year's mishaps and some good online maps was no help at all because everything here is either closed on Sunday or closes insanely early. Seriously, what Starbucks closes at 4:30? Nicer restaurants were open, of course, but I was in jeans and really wasn't up for a big meal so even places like Chili's weren't really on my list. With no fridge in my room, half of it would have gone to waste. I wound up having Cold Stone Creamery for dinner (cheesecake ice cream with strawberries, blueberries, and graham cracker mix-in) and made some tolerable coffee in the room. And now the balls of my feet are sore from all that walking, and some jogging during a brief rain shower, in clogs, wearing socks made from cheap yarn.* Also found out the nearby bookstore is probably shut down. Bummer.

The last few minutes I've been hearing a whooshing sound that I thought was more rain, but I looked out and it's completely dry. It's a huge wind rushing around the buildings. I wouldn't have thought this was "city" enough to get the wind-canyon effect but I suppose there are just enough tall buildings right here to make it so.

I need to finish a book so I can hand it off to a friend, but I kind of want to just flop. We'll see what wins. I'm meeting a fellow knitter in the lobby at 8:15 tomorrow to walk over to the conference hotel so maybe being awake enough to not walk right past the person brandishing knitting needles would be a good idea. I'm also going to try to blog this conference more (not hard to beat last year's record of one post) so I'll need my brain running all cylinders.

* Don't get cheap sock yarn! You'll think they're fine then when you have to leg it, you feel every purl bump in all its bumpy stabbityness. Ow. Inexpensive yarn, of course, is something else entirely.

It's true after all: The pleasant, sincere, polite students really do make up for the foul-mouthed brats. I have seen marvelous exhibitions of patience today while my own was being sorely tested.

Oh, New York Times. You try so hard, and I admire that. Starting a best-seller list for sequential art titles is a fabulous idea (though I wonder if it was prompted by that crazy Watchmen thing sitting on regular best-seller lists for so long.) The brief article accompanying the inaugural list is succinct and pretty clearly aimed at the people who are new(er) to the format, which is good. But "graphic books"? Numerous commenters to the first list and last week's list have noted that "graphic novels" is the common term, even when the work in question isn't necessarily a "novel" but it seems they are determined to keep their interesting terminology. "Graphic books" still sounds like the sort of thing that is wrapped in plastic and shelved in its own special section away from children.

The biggest problem, however, is with the manga list. It's pretty hard to miss that one title is holding the list hostage with multiple volumes. It's the nature of some types of manga series, like some tv series, to run on as long as logically possible (and sometimes beyond that) when they have any kind of success. It's a massive revenue machine - serialize each chapter in a weekly or monthly magazine, compile them into tankobon with a few "extras" such as short comedy stories and notes from the author, and license an animated version which can also run on for ages. This is why Naruto is at 45 volumes and counting, and Dragonball almost has too many variations to count: whether or not they are (or at least started out as) good stories becomes less relevant than the fact that people are still buying them like mad. It's hard to argue with that tactic, considering the state of publishing and the economy in general. The biggies bring in the money that lets a publisher also put out things that might not sell as well but also have value and an interested readership. I'm not a James Patterson fan, but if the profits from his books give someone the wiggle room to take a chance on the next Audrey Niffenegger or Neil Gaiman, I won't begrudge him the shelf space.

But this is where the usual method of list-making begins to fail. As noted at School Library Journal (both the Roundtable and in comments), there are a number of other high-selling series that are being ignored by the list and its lazy summary-writers. The NYT Manga Best-Sellers may give a picture of the huge, crushing numbers involved when something becomes a runaway hit, but by considering each volume as a separate entity it does a terrible job of giving any information about what titles are currently popular.

The easy solution would be to rank by the cumulative weekly sales of each title, but that would quickly short-change newer series, shorter series, and single-volume titles. Yes, even Naruto will have to end some day (though I'm sure that has been said about Batman, X-Men, and many others) and most consumers will move on to a new favorite, but there needs to be some way to give a more accurate picture of the range of manga that is currently popular. Too many people still consider manga (and comics in general) a genre rather than a format, and NYT is in danger of confirming to them that it's all about magic-wielding ninjas and action sequences.

Disclaimer: I have tried to read Naruto twice and not gotten past page 6 because I wanted to throttle the child. In the interest of fairness in future writing, I will make another attempt, but after that I'm done. Life is too short to read bad books, especially when another Fullmetal Alchemist is due out in May.

Once again, I fail to comprehend Facebook. Or maybe this time it's that WorldCat hasn't made their toys as Facebook-friendly as they'd like to think, and has thus dragged me into the less convenient corners of FB trying to make it work the way I want. Their great Facebook app just isn't that great. We were hoping to be able to use WorldCat to create a list of new books, then use the app to feed that to our beloved lit'l uns. But it's so Byzantine for each person to get it set up to do that (add app, paste WorldCat list URL into correct tab of app, be bothered to remember to check that tab - which is not the default - then click on an unexciting-looking link that produces an equally unexciting-looking list) that I won't use it, much less students who are used to FB laying everything out for them with pretty images included. Argh! There has to be an easier way. The point is to enable the user to work less to get information.

Oh, it's a good day! First, I see that Audrey Niffenegger has a second novel on the way. Glee! The same article informs me that the movie of The Time Traveler's Wife is due out in February. I still disagree with the choice of Eric Bana as Henry, but I can cope.

And now they're letting us go at noon because it's spring break, darn it, and we shouldn't be inside, even if it is cloudy and a bit threatening. I have nothing drastically exciting to do, but it's nice to be freed. I may have to read some of the newly-discovered apartmentgarden and then find some things to plant.

Crazy, random patrons are severely annoying, but in the long run they cannot upset my good mood. Why? Because as of July, all my business cards are officially wrong. I need new ones that say "Associate Professor". :D

( Millennium Snow by Bisco Hatori )

Good if you like: vampires, teen romance, angsty heroes.

Avoid if you don't like: vampires, angsty heroes, excessively convenient random plot developments, series left hanging indefinitely.

Per eegatland:

Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Turn to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your LiveJournal. Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

The closest is actually my schedule book, which has neither coherent sentences nor anything of interest to you good people. (Though if you really care, page 56 is February 2-4.) The next closest, being a comic, unhelpfully does not number each page, though the contents page does list page numbers of each chapter. Go figure. I'm pretty sure I counted right, though.

"But why would L approach me directly?"
-- Death Note Vol. 3 by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata

Hmm, why indeed? Makes me a bit annoyed that I have things to do this weekend other than read. I must keep telling myself I'll enjoy it all the more when I've worked out and have a clean flat to come home to.

Zatch Bell! Vol. 1 by Makoto Raiku

( No more spoilers than the cover blurb )

This manga is a good light read, mostly aimed at junior high ages. Very action oriented, it reads quickly and the plots are fairly simple until the end, which sets up the plot arc for the series. While light on character overall, the few character moments we do get are good. If you read the fine print on the title page verso, it states "Some scenes of nudity and violence have been edited from the original Japanese edition." I don't know how often this happens, but here it is probably minor changes to bring the art in line with what is expected in the US for the target age group. (It is rated Teen 13+, but there isn't really anything that someone a bit younger couldn't handle.)

Our public library is slowly getting a little bit of manga. I picked this up because, while most of these aren't titles I would have otherwise sought out, it hardly matters anyway because they are never checked in and this was my one chance to grab something. I suspect that it was pure dumb luck that this one was on the shelf. However, it is the only one of this series they own, so I'm on my own if I want more. Of course, it would start to get really interesting right at the end. I'm trying not to abuse my free ILL privileges at work, and it's not like I don't have anything else to read, but I would at least like to try another volume or two.

\o/ The semester is over! Yes, I still have to work this week, but my grades are turned in, I have received my teaching evaluation for School Newspaper, and anyone needing paper help at this point is (I hope!) taking an incomplete so they have a bit of time. Now it's just collecting fines and checking in mounds of books. This has been a difficult semester - from getting enough student workers to keep the doors open to turning the newspaper into something people actually want to read - but we survived it. I'm going to treat myself to some peppermint coffee (which I do every year anyway) and some yummy yarn to make something pretty for myself.

And a student just offered to lend me the entire run of Death Note. I've heard that it's good but takes itself a bit too seriously, but there are a number of people like that as well, and they aren't all bad, so I'll give it a try. I'm in no position to snub free manga.