Not all books are lengthy works which need to be read in their entirety to make sense.
Search Google Print for a couple ingredients, and I can find recipes from hundreds of cookbooks. Don't need more than a page or two from the work to make use of it, and I certainly don't need to buy the book.
Sales lost from "only a brief snippet"
Red herring (or strawman) re: Librarians
on
An IMDb for Books
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· Score: 1
I wasn't talking about LC or Dewey classification systems -- just cataloging, which is the act of describing works in a uniform matter. This system isn't about classifying books, either. it's just about describing them.
For example, just looking at the titles by A's in this database, I noticed in some titles, all words are proper cased, while others have minor words written in lower case. Why is there only one ISBN number listed for Hitch Hiker's Guide (and why Hitch Hiker's, rather than Hitchhiker's or Hitch-hiker's) when there've been many dozens of editions which it might be worth distinguishing between? [Does this system even differentiate between the GN and the novel?] Those are the kinds of issues that librarians have spent decades working out.
Would you just throw together a database without asking any experts in building databases for advice? Build a bridge without looking at past efforts by architects and construction workers? Then why pooh-pooh the advice of trained librarians?
Without at least consulting experts in the field, and at least listening to their accumulated wisdom at doing what you're trying to, I suspect you're going to get a lot of junk.
[Oh, and off the top of my head, the books I read on Elizabethan history are around DA330s in LC and in the 940s in Dewey, however I think about them more in terms of the physical layout of the libraries I visit most frequently.]
Not only have librarians already done this (OCLC has over 48 million records already), but they've developed standards for how to do this, to ensure uniform formatting of titles and author names and so on.
Do a little research on such terms as authority control and AACR2 and maybe you'll begin to understand why the folks who do this professionally have masters degrees.
As far as I know, most newspapers subscribe to Lexis-Nexis (a pay service). And I have successfully searched Lexis-Nexis for letters to the editor in the past.
It really depends on what a particular newspaper archives.
But, since most newspaper letter columns state that submitted letters become the property of the newspaper, there should be no copyright issues stemming from Tasini vs. NYTimes to prevent the letters from being archived.
In other words, the information is already there; the papers just have to check it!
And yet, if you read the actual rules for the Hugo Awards, it clearly states that "Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy"
The article says 15 years ago; that's about the time of Jedi and can be confirmed in Gerry Jenkins' behind-the-scenes book Empire Building
Lucas and Spielberg were in talks for Steve to direct Jedi, but shortly after Empire, Lucas quit the Directors' Guild (and Writers Guild) and thus by guild rules, nobody belonging to those guilds could work for him.
Spielberg considered quitting as well in order to direct Jedi, but decided that the benefits of being part of the Hollywood establishment outweighed the benefits of directing Jedi.
Incidentally, that's one of the reasons why Jedi, Phantom Menace, Clones, and in fact most of Lucas's movies since Empire (Howard the Duck, anyone??) were so much poorer than the first two movies. Lucas can't use any writer or director that belong to the Guilds, so he ends up finding... if not no-names, then folks of such small stature that they don't have much experience working on big films to belong to the Guilds.
Re:Spidey is why I learned to read
on
Review: Spiderman
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· Score: 1
I agree with all this, although for a funny take from someone who didn't find Spidey cool, read yesterday's Boondocks comic strip at http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/viewbo.cfm?uc_ful l_date=20020502
Sorry, but my husband & I are both avid nethackers. At one point, I checked the logfile at the old college system, and together we were responsible for at least half of the games played.
Besides, Nethack has its romantic undertones... such as the time I was frozen and encountered my husband's ghost. "(spouse's name) touches you. (spouse's name) touches you.";}
[resubmitted, because I accidentally used brackets around 'spouse's name' which was somehow interpreted as html tags]
Sorry, but my husband & I are both avid nethackers. At one point, I checked the logfile at the old college system, and together we were responsible for at least half of the games played.
Besides, Nethack has its romantic undertones... such as the time I was frozen and encountered my husband's ghost. " touches you. touches you.";}
How amusing; my gut response upon seeing the thread was to recommend Tom DeMarco's (notice the spelling) book Slack. You beat me to it; so consider that recommendation to be seconded.
From last Monday's Washington Post (January 14, 2002) by James V. Grimaldi:
Thomas C. Willcox is an antitrust lawyer whose one-man office on Indiana
Avenue NW is just down the block from the Manhattan Deli. That's where the
Justice Department antitrust chief, Assistant Attorney General Charles James,
says he has dined from time to time.
That is about the only fact on which Willcox and James agree regarding a
late lunch on Oct. 16 outside the deli. James was with someone else and Willcox
was eavesdropping on their conversation.
According to Willcox, who has memorialized the conversation in a letter
filed as a Tunney Act comment in the Microsoft antitrust case, "I noticed
antitrust chief James in conversation with another gentleman, about 15 feet away
from me. I heard Mr. James express some frustration about the Microsoft case,
although I did not hear his exact words on that topic. Then I heard him say, 'It
is going to take years to undo the damage done by Klein and Pitofsky.'"
"Klein and Pitofsky" would refer to Joel Klein, James's predecessor under
Clinton, and Robert Pitofsky, the Clinton administration chairman of the Federal
Trade Commission.
Willcox promptly relayed the conversation to a reporter at the antitrust
newsletter FTC Watch, which then reported the James statement after he filed his
Tunney Act letter. "I was stunned by this comment," Willcox wrote.
"Antitrust chief James seemed to be saying his plans for the antitrust division
include not just relaxing antitrust enforcement, but subverting accomplishments
such as last summer's ruling by the District of Columbia Circuit Court of
Appeals that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power."
James, in an interview Friday, said: "I've not a clue who this gentleman is.
I have no recollection of ever having saying that." Asked if he thinks Klein and
Pitofsky did damage to antitrust policies, he replied, "I don't believe that to
be the case."
Look, I'm a library science student, and if anyone has an interest in ensuring the most complete archives, it's librarians. Just before oral arguments, the American Library Association issued a supporting brief on the side of the writers.
All this ruling says is that archives must get the freelancers' PERMISSION before putting the work into an archive. Authors and authors' estates don't want their work to be forgotten (and might even like the royalties), so are even now joining groups which will negotiate with the archives on their behalf. [Remember, the plaintiff in this case was National Writers' Union.
The reason for the complaint was not that freelancers didn't want to be in the archive at all. The problem was that freelancers were being hurt trying to resell their work (either in book collections or just to other papers/magazines) because of how quickly the work was available by aggregators which may have their own resale agreements with clients. In other words, someone could obtain rights to an article from the aggregator (say, New York Times) without an extra cent going to the original author.
That was just wrong, and that's what the court ruled against.
That same argument could be used for so many things.
Just replace the child-porn specifics in your statement with fill in the blanks: "The government has the right to prosecute . If makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too."
For example: The government has the right to prosecute copyright violations and piracy. If decryption makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too.
The end result is that legitimate actions and expressions are criminalized to make it easier for the police.
As I said before, how about Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet? Or a film of "Lolita" which is not obscene because it has literary and/or artistic merit. Unless you're willing to state that all pictures & portrayals of sex are obscene, it shouldn't change if you replace the actors with virtual minors...
Keep in mind that Zefferelli's film "Romeo & Juliet" features a bare Romeo leaving Juliet's bed in the morning. Certainly "conveys the impression" that those two minors jad been "engaging in sexually explicit conduct?"
The next time the principal asks "Built any bombs lately?" (a no-win question, even answering no implies that you had in the past) you should respond with "Why? Are you still beating your wife?"
Or at least, create a presentable PDF file of suitable quality that it will be accepted by "responsible" organizations.
Other posters are right; you're preachin' to the choir here.
If this were available as a book, price willing (under $10), I'd buy copies for the local HS, the local public library, and for the grad school I attend (largest library science school in the region, with a focus on school media centers). Plus a copy for myself.
BTW, if you wanted to use any of my comments, you're welcome to 'em. [Don't know why this appeared once as Anonymous Coward; I'm Cheshyre]
Gore is no dunce. He may have had *a* bad semester, but still graduated Cum Laude from Harvard.
Regarding his Divinity School experience, maybe this explains what happened:
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/07/07 /born_again/index3.html
<BLOCKQUOTE>
"But in the midst of his second semester, in 1972, Gore dropped out of the program altogether when he went from working nights to days as a reporter at the Nashville Tennesseean. He got five Fs that semester and still owes Farley -- among others -- a paper." </BLOCKQUOTE>
And more substantiation from http://www.usembassy.ro/Elections/gore.html :
Education: Vanderbilt University School of Religion, 1971-72.
Professional: Newspaper reporter, Nashville Tennesseean, 1973-76.
"...Returning to civilian life, Gore settled in Tennessee and attended
Divinity School while working nights as a newspaper reporter with The
Tennessean in Nashville."
He didn't flunk out, he dropped out of the program, probably after the
add-drop deadline.
"[She] is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian.
They control information. Don't ever piss one off."
- Spider Robinson, "Callahan Touch"
On the bottom back of the envelope containing the CD, 4 point white on black text says:
Opening this software constitutes acceptance of our License terms contained herein. Copies can also be found at www.digitalconvergence.com/ula.html. Hard copies can be mailed to you by cotacting Digital Convergence.:Com in writing at this address:
Attn: Licensee department, 9101 North Central Expressway, Suite 600, Dallas, Texas 75231
Looking at that URL, the license agreement states:
You agree to the terms and conditions of this license by performing ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS: (1) using the:CRQ software; (2) using the:CueCat reader (3) pressing the "agree" button below; OR (4) printing out a copy of the agreement, signing the agreement and returning a copy to Digital:Convergence(TM). If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of this license, do not press the "agree" button or engage in any of the foregoing acts.
So, a pointer to the license is written on the bottom back of the CD envelope, but merely using the reader means you have accepted the license, whether or not you actually saw it. Sounds like Hitchhiker's Guide, where the plans were on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard!' which was in a cellar with no lights or stairs."
The license itself does prohibit decompiling, reverse engineering and disassembling the software or reader. It says the reader is only "on loan" from Digital:Convergence (funny -- Radio Shack never mentioned that!) and anything uncovered by reverse engineering must be shared with DC and becomes confidential information.
Basically, the license says that you (the user) have no rights, but all liabilities.
Amphigory plans to name all his children with the same initials, and then wrote: "I plan to teach ALL of my kids to give only their initials, and to make up a social security number whenever they are asked."
If you actually carry out this plan, you're putting your kids lives at risk. Bad credit or even mistaken felony records may impact one's lifestyle, but if medical records get mixed up, that could be a matter of life and death.
Think about all the news stories out there about people falling ill or dying from incorrect prescriptions, doctors' performing the wrong operation, and so forth. Now, multiply that by the risk that the charts the doctors are looking at might have other peoples' information.
Doctors could easily misinterpret one child's symptoms, because the diagnosis was based on elements from another child's medical history. I've been in QE and see countless ways this could go wrong. Transfusions of the wrong bloodtype, Incorrect prescriptions, unneccessary surgery...
Yes, but sometimes lawsuits are the only way to get the folks in charge to take things seriously. According to the article, the National Federation of the Blind has tried working with AOL for years, and AOL has rebuffed all their friendly offers of assistance.
The ADA has been on the books for years -- these requirements shouldn't come as any surprise to AOL. So why did they make their interface completely inaccessible? It's not that difficult to either add ALT tags or come up with an alternate interface that's more text friendly.
Slashdot Mirror
IFilm now has the first nine minutes available in three other formats: streaming Windows Media, QuickTime and Real Player
Are those more accessible to your OS?
Not all books are lengthy works which need to be read in their entirety to make sense.
Search Google Print for a couple ingredients, and I can find recipes from hundreds of cookbooks. Don't need more than a page or two from the work to make use of it, and I certainly don't need to buy the book.
Sales lost from "only a brief snippet"
I wasn't talking about LC or Dewey classification systems -- just cataloging, which is the act of describing works in a uniform matter.
This system isn't about classifying books, either. it's just about describing them.
For example, just looking at the titles by A's in this database, I noticed in some titles, all words are proper cased, while others have minor words written in lower case.
Why is there only one ISBN number listed for Hitch Hiker's Guide (and why Hitch Hiker's, rather than Hitchhiker's or Hitch-hiker's) when there've been many dozens of editions which it might be worth distinguishing between? [Does this system even differentiate between the GN and the novel?]
Those are the kinds of issues that librarians have spent decades working out.
Would you just throw together a database without asking any experts in building databases for advice? Build a bridge without looking at past efforts by architects and construction workers?
Then why pooh-pooh the advice of trained librarians?
Without at least consulting experts in the field, and at least listening to their accumulated wisdom at doing what you're trying to, I suspect you're going to get a lot of junk.
[Oh, and off the top of my head, the books I read on Elizabethan history are around DA330s in LC and in the 940s in Dewey, however I think about them more in terms of the physical layout of the libraries I visit most frequently.]
Not only have librarians already done this (OCLC has over 48 million records already), but they've developed standards for how to do this, to ensure uniform formatting of titles and author names and so on.
Do a little research on such terms as authority control and AACR2 and maybe you'll begin to understand why the folks who do this professionally have masters degrees.
As far as I know, most newspapers subscribe to Lexis-Nexis (a pay service). And I have successfully searched Lexis-Nexis for letters to the editor in the past.
It really depends on what a particular newspaper archives.
But, since most newspaper letter columns state that submitted letters become the property of the newspaper, there should be no copyright issues stemming from Tasini vs. NYTimes to prevent the letters from being archived.
In other words, the information is already there; the papers just have to check it!
A year ago, in post http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9q8np4$7t7@ne taxs.com , someone asked
"Meanwhile, does anyone think that Survivor could be improved by combining it with Junkyard Wars?"
And yet, if you read the actual rules for the Hugo Awards, it clearly states that "Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy"
The article says 15 years ago; that's about the time of Jedi and can be confirmed in Gerry Jenkins' behind-the-scenes book Empire Building
Lucas and Spielberg were in talks for Steve to direct Jedi, but shortly after Empire, Lucas quit the Directors' Guild (and Writers Guild) and thus by guild rules, nobody belonging to those guilds could work for him.
Spielberg considered quitting as well in order to direct Jedi, but decided that the benefits of being part of the Hollywood establishment outweighed the benefits of directing Jedi.
Incidentally, that's one of the reasons why Jedi, Phantom Menace, Clones, and in fact most of Lucas's movies since Empire (Howard the Duck, anyone??) were so much poorer than the first two movies. Lucas can't use any writer or director that belong to the Guilds, so he ends up finding... if not no-names, then folks of such small stature that they don't have much experience working on big films to belong to the Guilds.
I agree with all this, although for a funny take from someone who didn't find Spidey cool, read yesterday's Boondocks comic strip at http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/viewbo.cfm?uc_ful l_date=20020502
Sorry, but my husband & I are both avid nethackers. At one point, I checked the logfile at the old college system, and together we were responsible for at least half of the games played.
;}
Besides, Nethack has its romantic undertones... such as the time I was frozen and encountered my husband's ghost. "(spouse's name) touches you. (spouse's name) touches you."
[resubmitted, because I accidentally used brackets around 'spouse's name' which was somehow interpreted as html tags]
Sorry, but my husband & I are both avid nethackers. At one point, I checked the logfile at the old college system, and together we were responsible for at least half of the games played.
;}
Besides, Nethack has its romantic undertones... such as the time I was frozen and encountered my husband's ghost. " touches you. touches you."
How amusing; my gut response upon seeing the thread was to recommend Tom DeMarco's (notice the spelling) book Slack. You beat me to it; so consider that recommendation to be seconded.
Look, I'm a library science student, and if anyone has an interest in ensuring the most complete archives, it's librarians. Just before oral arguments, the American Library Association issued a supporting brief on the side of the writers.
All this ruling says is that archives must get the freelancers' PERMISSION before putting the work into an archive. Authors and authors' estates don't want their work to be forgotten (and might even like the royalties), so are even now joining groups which will negotiate with the archives on their behalf. [Remember, the plaintiff in this case was National Writers' Union .
The reason for the complaint was not that freelancers didn't want to be in the archive at all. The problem was that freelancers were being hurt trying to resell their work (either in book collections or just to other papers/magazines) because of how quickly the work was available by aggregators which may have their own resale agreements with clients. In other words, someone could obtain rights to an article from the aggregator (say, New York Times) without an extra cent going to the original author.
That was just wrong, and that's what the court ruled against.
That same argument could be used for so many things. Just replace the child-porn specifics in your statement with fill in the blanks: "The government has the right to prosecute . If makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too." For example: The government has the right to prosecute copyright violations and piracy. If decryption makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too. The end result is that legitimate actions and expressions are criminalized to make it easier for the police.
As I said before, how about Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet? Or a film of "Lolita" which is not obscene because it has literary and/or artistic merit. Unless you're willing to state that all pictures & portrayals of sex are obscene, it shouldn't change if you replace the actors with virtual minors...
Keep in mind that Zefferelli's film "Romeo & Juliet" features a bare Romeo leaving Juliet's bed in the morning. Certainly "conveys the impression" that those two minors jad been "engaging in sexually explicit conduct?"
The next time the principal asks "Built any bombs lately?" (a no-win question, even answering no implies that you had in the past) you should respond with "Why? Are you still beating your wife?"
Or at least, create a presentable PDF file of suitable quality that it will be accepted by "responsible" organizations.
Other posters are right; you're preachin' to the choir here.
If this were available as a book, price willing (under $10), I'd buy copies for the local HS, the local public library, and for the grad school I attend (largest library science school in the region, with a focus on school media centers). Plus a copy for myself.
BTW, if you wanted to use any of my comments, you're welcome to 'em. [Don't know why this appeared once as Anonymous Coward; I'm Cheshyre]
Gore is no dunce. He may have had *a* bad semester, but still graduated Cum Laude from Harvard.
7 /born_again/index3.html
Regarding his Divinity School experience, maybe this explains what happened:
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/07/0
<BLOCKQUOTE>
"But in the midst of his second semester, in 1972, Gore dropped out of the program altogether when he went from working nights to days as a reporter at the Nashville Tennesseean. He got five Fs that semester and still owes Farley -- among others -- a paper." </BLOCKQUOTE>
And more substantiation from http://www.usembassy.ro/Elections/gore.html :
Education: Vanderbilt University School of Religion, 1971-72.
Professional: Newspaper reporter, Nashville Tennesseean, 1973-76.
"...Returning to civilian life, Gore settled in Tennessee and attended
Divinity School while working nights as a newspaper reporter with The
Tennessean in Nashville."
He didn't flunk out, he dropped out of the program, probably after the
add-drop deadline.
"[She] is one of the secret masters of the world: a librarian.
They control information. Don't ever piss one off."
- Spider Robinson, "Callahan Touch"
The Slashdot home page mentions that Martin Garbus "has been before the Supreme Court /19/ times"
How many of those cases have you won?
Amphigory plans to name all his children with the same initials, and then wrote: "I plan to teach ALL of my kids to give only their initials, and to make up a social security number whenever they are asked."
If you actually carry out this plan, you're putting your kids lives at risk. Bad credit or even mistaken felony records may impact one's lifestyle, but if medical records get mixed up, that could be a matter of life and death.
Think about all the news stories out there about people falling ill or dying from incorrect prescriptions, doctors' performing the wrong operation, and so forth. Now, multiply that by the risk that the charts the doctors are looking at might have other peoples' information.
Doctors could easily misinterpret one child's symptoms, because the diagnosis was based on elements from another child's medical history. I've been in QE and see countless ways this could go wrong. Transfusions of the wrong bloodtype, Incorrect prescriptions, unneccessary surgery...
Do you REALLY want to do this to your kids?
Yes, but sometimes lawsuits are the only way to get the folks in charge to take things seriously.
According to the article, the National Federation of the Blind has tried working with AOL for years, and AOL has rebuffed all their friendly offers of assistance.
The ADA has been on the books for years -- these requirements shouldn't come as any surprise to AOL. So why did they make their interface completely inaccessible? It's not that difficult to either add ALT tags or come up with an alternate interface that's more text friendly.