I am a poll worker in Virginia and work at the absentee precinct, where we receive all the absentee ballots for the county. We process the paper ballots and run them through an optical scanner. Self-printed ballots (typically received from military overseas), ones with tears, and ones unreadable by the scanner are put aside for handcounting. This is typically less than 20% of the ballots.
For small elections, the hand counting process can take 1-2 hours, depending on the number of races. In 2008, that process took over 7 hours because of the number of ballots involved (thousands).
While we can process and feed the ballots all day, we're not allowed to start tallying until after the poll closing time (7pm). I cannot imagine how long this process would take if all ballots were paper and hand tallied. Easily days. If you thought the 2000 presidential election stretched on too long, imagine not knowing who won for a week.
And this is not including the in-person absentee ballots received the month prior to election day using computer polling stations (we just print out the totals from each station).
A lot of libraries use Meebo chat embedded in their website to provide reference services-particularly because it was free and thus fit their budget. It required nothing extra on the users' end. Now what will they use?
If the journal is in one of the bundles that your institution subscribes to, then it is 'free' to the end user. If it isn't, then you pay $30 or so, and this comes out of your grant, which means filling in extra paperwork.
Don't forget that it was the library's budget that allows you access to the online materials. Those publishers are just going to give away their products.
And only truly "antique" books are going to be converted into electronic format, as anything newer is still under copyright. And that isn't going to change any time soon.
This argument implies that the only thing a librarian (particularly a college librarian) can help with is finding books. There is a great deal more that libraries offer (free!), including articles from journals, magazines and newspapers, many of which are not freely available online. Too many students don't take advantage of what their tuition has paid for, because they rely too much on only what Google offers and remain ignorant of the wealth of other sources the library has paid for.
Now if only their instructors could figure that out too.
Who are these academic publishers? Springer, Wiley, etc. Try doing a scholarly search in Google. You'll find many PDF entries show a few words from the article, but no [cache]. When you click, you seen none of the article, but are taken to a "Pay Up!" page run by Springer, Wiley, etc. I wish Google wouldn't even waste my time listing these.
If you are using Google Scholar, and you are affiliated with an academic institution, and you've set your preferences accordingly, these links will take you to a library-paid-for PDF. Perhaps from the publisher's site, or from another vendor that your library uses.
While not everyone has access to this service, many of those who are publishing in these journals are affiliated with an institution which gives you free access one way or another.
Your local library probably offers free online access to Consumer Reports (along with many other magazines). Just log in to your library website with your library card number.
I usually send a nastygram back to all the email addresses I can find, their funders & investors, board members, customers, employees, etc. all in the TO: field:
I tried this with a company that put me on their listserv without my consent. After complaining for months to their ISP, attempting to use their unsubscribe page with no results and bouncing their emails back, I visited their website and wrote an email to the dozens of "partner" companies listed there. I said that I would no longer purchase any products from companies that "partner" with a spammer.
The original company then threatened to sue me for causing them to lose "$200,000" in advertising revenue from all the partners who cancelled their contracts.
Of course, after their lawyer acknowledged they had found all the times I attempted to unsubscribe in their weblogs and couldn't explain why that didn't work, I never heard from them again.
Re:Would be good for small libraries worldwide
on
Internet Book Database?
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· Score: 2, Informative
There is already a company that provides just such a service: Online Computer Library Center from which libraries can buy bibliographic records to load into their online catalogs (or print for their card catalog). OCLC recently purchased NetLibrary, a provider of e-books. NetLibrary was having financial difficulties, and OCLC jumped in to make sure all those libraries who "purchased" these e-books would still have access.
Another source of Books in Print is through Gale Group. Many local libraries are purchasing access to the Gale Group databases (Books in Print, InfoTrac, etc) for their users. For instance, Virginia residents can type in the bar code number from their library card to get access to these databases from home.
Actually, they're TIFF files, stuck on the page with an embed tag (presumably to make it difficult to save and print). I imagine there are other browser plugins that can handle this format.
Slashdot Mirror
Our last local election had 11 different races and constitutional measures. I can't imagine what it would cost to print all those ballots.
I am a poll worker in Virginia and work at the absentee precinct, where we receive all the absentee ballots for the county. We process the paper ballots and run them through an optical scanner. Self-printed ballots (typically received from military overseas), ones with tears, and ones unreadable by the scanner are put aside for handcounting. This is typically less than 20% of the ballots.
For small elections, the hand counting process can take 1-2 hours, depending on the number of races. In 2008, that process took over 7 hours because of the number of ballots involved (thousands).
While we can process and feed the ballots all day, we're not allowed to start tallying until after the poll closing time (7pm). I cannot imagine how long this process would take if all ballots were paper and hand tallied. Easily days. If you thought the 2000 presidential election stretched on too long, imagine not knowing who won for a week.
And this is not including the in-person absentee ballots received the month prior to election day using computer polling stations (we just print out the totals from each station).
A lot of libraries use Meebo chat embedded in their website to provide reference services-particularly because it was free and thus fit their budget. It required nothing extra on the users' end. Now what will they use?
Does your institution not have interlibrary loan?
Copyright?
Nicholson Baker's erroneous argument that libraries are gleefully destroying newspapers and other older documents has been refuted again and again.
If rights are granted by "God" why don't people in other countries have these same rights?
Don't forget that it was the library's budget that allows you access to the online materials. Those publishers are just going to give away their products.
And only truly "antique" books are going to be converted into electronic format, as anything newer is still under copyright. And that isn't going to change any time soon.
Now if only their instructors could figure that out too.
If you are using Google Scholar, and you are affiliated with an academic institution, and you've set your preferences accordingly, these links will take you to a library-paid-for PDF. Perhaps from the publisher's site, or from another vendor that your library uses.
While not everyone has access to this service, many of those who are publishing in these journals are affiliated with an institution which gives you free access one way or another.
Use the interlibrary loan service offered by almost every library?
Your local library probably offers free online access to Consumer Reports (along with many other magazines). Just log in to your library website with your library card number.
I tried this with a company that put me on their listserv without my consent. After complaining for months to their ISP, attempting to use their unsubscribe page with no results and bouncing their emails back, I visited their website and wrote an email to the dozens of "partner" companies listed there. I said that I would no longer purchase any products from companies that "partner" with a spammer.
The original company then threatened to sue me for causing them to lose "$200,000" in advertising revenue from all the partners who cancelled their contracts.
Of course, after their lawyer acknowledged they had found all the times I attempted to unsubscribe in their weblogs and couldn't explain why that didn't work, I never heard from them again.
Another source of Books in Print is through Gale Group. Many local libraries are purchasing access to the Gale Group databases (Books in Print, InfoTrac, etc) for their users. For instance, Virginia residents can type in the bar code number from their library card to get access to these databases from home.
I work in a library, but I'm not a librarian.
Actually, they're TIFF files, stuck on the page with an embed tag (presumably to make it difficult to save and print). I imagine there are other browser plugins that can handle this format.
example: embed src="/.DImg?Docid=US006368227&PageNum=1&IDKey=2C3F 4DB7B53E&ImgFormat=tif" width="570" height="840" type=image/tiff