I play WoW and generally don't have problems. While I'm probably not looking for as clean an environment as some parents might be, I tend to be turned off by the ultra-competitive swear-word-laden trash talking that sometimes occurs on WoW, and the slurs are definitely a no-go in my book.
Parent's list of using the profanity filter, the ignore list, leaving general chat, and reporting people who are excessively rude is good advice.
I'd add to that:
1. Choose your server carefully. I tend to have the best luck on general servers. PVP servers tend to bring out the competitive trash talking, and I've had bad luck on RP servers, where for some reason certain people seem to think RP means "watch me try to sexually harass you." (This seems to be my experience only, though. Other friends haven't had this happen, and/ignore fixes it pretty quickly, but it's happened enough that I do associate it with RP servers.)
2. Surround yourself with the people you want to be with. Join a guild you like and that acts the way you want people to act. When you group with people you like, friend them and keep track of them. If you end up in a group where someone acts a way you don't like, note that and don't group with them again. If they're enough of an asshat, politely call them on it, and if it continues, leave the group. Most of all, treat people the way you want to be treated, and you'll generally be treated the same way back. If you aren't, note that, and avoid them.
3. If you're uncomfortable with the way general chat is headed, learn how to redirect it. If you can do this with a sense of humor, people generally take it pretty well. (I'm not saying it always works, and it seldom does in, say, Barrens or Elwynn Forest, but most other places you've got a shot.) I've even occasionally used "OMG! A three-headed monkey! ---->" when nothing else came to mind. That tended to stop conversation for a moment or get a "??" response til I could come up with something better to say... and once you've got them distracted, they're easier to lead. (I never said you had to be _sophisticated_ to redirect general chat...)
4. When someone is baiting you, don't bite. That's what they want. Pat them on the head and/ignore them, or if that bothers you, just don't respond. If they say something horrible, don't tell them, "I reported you!" Just report them. Skip the drama and just quickly and quietly deal with the problem.
5. If someone uses a term that bothers you in front of you, politely explain that the term bothers you and then move on. I find that a lot of people use the terms "fag" and "gay" in ways that I find offensive. They don't necessarily mean them to be and aren't really thinking about how other people might take what they say. I just mention that the terms bug me because I have gay friends who play, and we keep going, and usually people respect that. I don't make a big deal out of it, and usually they watch what they say around me after that but keep hanging out with me, so it works out. Sometimes I go through this all in tells.
In other words, it's a lot like dealing with people in real life. Choose your surroundings and your friends. Don't give the attention seekers the glory they want. And if someone you're working/running with does/says something that bugs you, work it out quietly and respectfully without an audience.
I'm not saying that will clear up everything, but I know that most of the time, I have absolutely no problems on WoW. I'm more likely to be randomly buffed by a stranger than I am to have someone try to steal my adamantite node.
The intent of the law doesn't matter. What matters is that if according to the letter of the law it CAN be used against someone, it will be. That's the way our legal system works. When we find someone doing something we don't like, we charge them with everything we can find and see what sticks. So while the original intent might be to use this against large-scale pirating organizations, it will be used against individual consumers, just as laws passed to protect us from international terrorists somehow manage to be applied to the guy down the street.
That's because you tried to make her play Roger Clemen's MVP Baseball. WTF is that? I hate to tell you this, but most gamers I know find sports games boring after the first week. Get her a nice roleplaying or puzzle game to play. I bet she could get into a Final Fantasy story or Tetris or something. Or maybe just get her to jigzone.com to get her in the mood for computerized entertainment and go from there.
My mother played Space Invaders obsessively for two days on the Atari console my parents had bought for my brother and me until she made the decision that gaming was too addictive and stopped cold turkey. That was the night she kept playing "just one more game" when both of us kids wanted to hit bed. I think we get our gaming genes from her.;) Since then, she's avoided platform gaming or anything but casual computer card games, but she's still one of the fastest, most badass Free Cell and Solitaire players I've ever seen. (Okay, maybe not "badass." That may not be possible with those two games. But if it _were_, I'm sure she'd be. As it is, she's really good and blindingly fast.)
Ahem. Sorry for dissing your choice of game. I just think that if someone had handed me that as my first and only game, I might also have failed to see the appeal, and I'm someone who spends hours per week gaming.
If you really want to get her into gaming, get her a Wii. She can host bowling parties and feel good that she's getting some low impact exercise in there as well as some socializing. Apparently retirement communities and sister houses (i.e. convents) have found Wiis to be a big hit. Er, not that your mom is that old. Just saying that there's something for every age out there.
I can tell you that my reaction is based on Verizon releasing information without a court order or subpoena. The impression cultivated by their privacy policy is that they'll only release it with such. Here are some excerpts from that privacy policy (emphasis mine):
Disclosure of Information Outside Verizon As a rule, Verizon will notify you and give you the opportunity to "opt out" when we disclose telephone customer information outside of Verizon. In fact, we generally keep our records of the services you buy and the calls you make private, and will not ordinarily disclose this information to outside parties without your permission. However, we do release customer information without involving you if disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property. This is further explained below...
Examples where disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property:
When you dial 911, information about your location may be transmitted automatically to a public safety agency. Certain information about your long distance calls is transmitted to your long distance company for billing purposes. Verizon also is required by law to give competitive local exchange carriers access to its customer databases for purposes of serving their customers, to exchange credit information with other carriers, and to provide listings (other than certain non-published and non-listed information) to directory publishers. Verizon must disclose information, as necessary, to comply with court orders or subpoenas. Verizon also will share information to protect its rights or property and to protect users of its services and other carriers from fraudulent, abusive or unlawful use of services.
We may, where permitted by law, provide information to credit bureaus, or provide information and/or sell receivables to collection agencies, to obtain payment for Verizon billed products and services.
Verizon also occasionally uses contractors to do work for the company. These contractors have the same obligations as our regular employees concerning customer information...
Your Telephone Account Information Rights The FCC refers to your telephone account information as Customer Proprietary Network Information or CPNI. Under Federal Law, you have the right to, and we have the duty to protect, the confidentiality of your telecommunications service information. This information includes the type, technical arrangement, quantity, destination, and amount of use of telecommunications services and related billing for these services.
We may use this information, without further authorization by you, to offer you: (i) services of the type you already purchase from us, and (ii) the full range of products and services available from Verizon and other Verizon companies that may be different from the type of services you currently buy from us. In addition to local telephone services, Verizon and other Verizon company services include long distance (where authorized), wireless, and Internet services. A more complete description of our companies and service offerings is available on this Web site. Use of your information will permit us to offer you a package of services tailored to your specific needs. Without further authorization by you, we may also share your information with other Verizon companies with whom you already have an existing service relationship.
Granted, we should all know better than to trust a company that does not specifically state that it WILL NOT release customer information without a warrant or subpeona, but I still find I'm disgusted.
And no matter if they didn't break the letter of their privacy statement, the argument that this was free speech to petition the government is frankly insulting. My personal information, given to y
This kid was correctly removed from the classroom. He should be examined by psychiatrists and a judgment should be made as to his mental health and well-being. If he is not a danger to anyone, he should be allowed back. This decision shouldn't be left to school officials, but to qualified medical professions.
Actually, having now read the supposed directions for the creative writing assignment, an in-class, timed, do-not-correct-or-censor-anything-you-write stream of consciousness type of writing, I didn't find the excerpts nearly as disturbing as I would have for an out-of-class essay. Given the recent VA Tech shootings, gore and violence are things I would expect.
Still, I could see the teacher wanting to make sure the kid was okay and having the school require him to be checked out by mental health professionals. I do NOT see charging him with disorderly conduct. That's bullshit and not helpful in any way that I can see.
From the summary: by 2012, 40% of women now working in IT will leave for careers with more flexible hours.
Versus what percentage of the men now working in IT? The article doesn't say. That would be a useful comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a fairly high percentage too.
The older I get, the more men I know in IT have kids and families and do the same thing. For most people there's a point where those hideous hours aren't worth the pay anymore when you don't get to see your spouse and kids, so you look for a different job with more regular hours.
I imagine it's probably more noticeable with women in IT because culturally right now, women are more likely to be single parents and not have the option of relying on a spouse to sometimes watch the children.
I don't really think this is a "man vs. woman" thing. I think it's about people maturing and looking at the health of their families. Some people can afford to keep the long on-call hours up if they have a reliable family network. Others don't have that family safety net for whatever reason--divorce, deaths, relocations, etc., and they find that another job gives them better hours for close enough pay (or worse pay, but more take-home pay since they aren't paying for child care with their better hours.)
I wish I understand what it is that convinces US born women to not become programmers. I don't think it's a harassment issue. That's not something I've especially noticed. Though, since I'm a guy, it's possible it just passed me by.
Actually, it's often a very subtle thing--not harassment, but a definite bias against women in certain fields. Most people don't even realize they're doing it. In high school, I had the best grades in my honors math and science classes and was willing to help classmates with questions. When awards time came at the end of the year, the math and science awards went to the guys I'd helped (and outscored), and I got the English and Social Studies awards. Looking at the years ahead of me and behind me, the same thing was true. The girls might be just as good as the guys, but the perception by the generation in charge was that the guys were better at math and science and the girls at languages and humanities.
If you listen carefully, it comes out in little things people say, and in the toys people buy children. Thank God my parents watched me play with all my brother's cool stuff and bought me building sets and used computer magazines (for the TI 99, baybee!) to help offset the insipid Barbies and tea sets I got almost exclusively from other people. (I mean, I support kids getting dolls and tea sets, too, but not JUST that.)
If you want an enlightening experience, go to a computer show with a woman that you know knows something about computers and see how many of the vendors there address her versus how many address you when speaking, regardless of who asked the question. I once had one vendor answer all my questions to my husband. At the end of the conversation, I pointed out that he'd overlooked me, and that was a poor way to treat a customer. He asked me what gave me that impression, as though I were overreacting. We actually had to explain that he was ending his sentences with "sir," which pretty obviously excluded me from the conversation. (Boy, was he embarrassed.) That's not unusual at computer shows. Heck, when we went car shopping, even car salespeople picked up more quickly that I was the one they wanted to focus on and talk to or they were going to lose the sale.
If you aren't with a woman, or if you aren't with a woman who is trying to ask questions and get an answer, you might never see these things, but added up over a lifetime, it's enough of a subtle deterrent to influence some women who are good at several different fields. Why go for one like comp sci when you can choose another one that is as lucrative and more accepting?
Just something to keep in mind as you go about your day. You might be surprised what you catch yourself thinking (we're all culturally brainwashed to some degree), or your coworker buying for his new daughter without a second thought... And that, of course, is ignoring the people who specifically raise their daughters to be wives and mothers and nothing else.
Generally, school librarians make the decision what reference sources are available based on a school collection development policy, curriculum, and available funds. Not school board members. There's also a difference between making available print and electronic resources, which cost money, and arbitrarily deciding to block access to Internet sites that are considered educational in nature but not to others.
Blocking access to one source of information and not to others is setting a particularly poor example on how to evaluate the source of information. Many Wikipedia articles are very well-written and contain citations that back up the research. I'd like to see some of the news stations do the same.
Usually there's some sort of challenge policy available for books in a school library. I don't see how reviewing a ban on Wikipedia would be any different. If I were a parent in that school district, I'd be over there asking about challenging that decision under the same policy.
Well, yes. It is. It's generally considered rude to ignore people in the same space as you to talk to people who aren't there, especially at a volume that disturbs them. If you're in a conversation with a second person, you're interacting with your environment, and so long as it's at a reasonable level and not inane, it's not considered rude. No one is going to expect you to ignore the person you're traveling with.
I also find if you make one quick call, keep it quiet, and don't blather, no one cares. On the other hand, if I can hear every word in, say, Barnes & Noble from 5 aisles away, you're too damn loud.
Of course, that's true if you're with a friend too. A good many people could use some lessons in voice moderation and courtesy in public anyways. Then again, I also think people shouldn't take their children out in public until they can behave. Apparently that makes me a nasty person, according to a few parents I've known.
Heeee. And the Slashdot bot-avoidance word is "bitches." I can't imagine how that applies to me... >.>.>
I'd also like to suggest that if you aren't sure, you can always check your local public library. I'm the computer librarian (one of two) at mine, and we have most of the books I've seen mentioned here.
So if you don't want to blow $40 on Pro C# 2005 and the.NET 2.0 platform by Andrew Troelsen and then decide that you really wanted was Programming C# by Jesse Liberty, that's always an option, too. At least it is if one of your local libraries has a good computer collection.
*shrug* Then I think you play a pretty narrow game. We do those same instances with what we have, and we get through them. Maybe I just know better players or something.
One of the main rules of my guild is that we never make anyone respec, and we try to take everyone we can on raids and make use of them how they want to be used. (It's a friends and family guild. THE main rule is to play to have fun.) That means if we have pallies who are built to tank, they're our main tanks. For a while last year, we had one priest and he was shadow specced, so we made do with druids and pallies for healing. It might take us an extra time or two to get it down or figure out how to get around something using a less than standard character arrangement, but we do it, and we all end up happier that way.
The only disastrously unsuccessful raids we've done have been joint ones led by other guilds who insisted on only allowing certain specs and classes to do certain things. We tend to avoid those anymore unless we're doing favors for friends.
I have no idea why you would WANT to be in guilds that limit you in that way. Besides, what did you do before? Lie and say you were holy spec and then once you were in and they caught you in shadowform try to smile and charm them through the lie?
Seriously, find a guild that allows you to play the way you want to play. You'll be happier. Besides, the top instances now don't require the huge raiding guilds anymore. You don't need the specially built guilds who only allow certain narrowly constructed types in.
And, as someone who never belonged to one of those but often ran with their players, you're a lot better player if you learn how to make your way through an instance using whatever you have. I can't tell you the number of people who couldn't do freaking Strat Dead without a priest. I've done it at least 30 times with a druid healing.
So if they won't take you cuz your shadow, they aren't the guild for you. Consider yourself lucky you discovered that.
I loved Tunnels of Doom! To this day, I can start singing the song it played while loading a level and my brother will join in. Ah, the hours we spent trying to save the king...
I always considered the Scott Adams games to be early CRPGs, just done completely in text form. Ah, the joys of Pirate Adventure! (Yes, I spent hours loading those on cassette too.)
Anyway, every time it was asked I simply replied, "I would expect that nearly everyone in my generation is able to multitask effectively as we've grown up our entire lives with it."
And most people who believe this don't multitask nearly as effectively as they think they do. Sure, things get done, but the quality of each individual item is much lower than if it had had your full attention for part of the time. I certainly know that my bosses have always considered me to be excellent at multitasking, but I can see obvious differences in the work quality.
If you want to test this sometime, try talking to your parents on the phone with no distractions. Then try talking to them while IMing a friend and watching a movie on TV. Then ask them which phone call they enjoyed more, and why. They'll be able to tell you were only giving them part of your attention for one of the phone calls.
Heck, there are certain people I won't group with in WoW unless I know they've turned their IM off, because otherwise it's a waste of my time. Maybe they can multitask effectively and play WoW and IM their friends, but that's because I'm hauling their butts around, reading the quests and keeping us alive while they focus elsewhere. Not really a fair deal for me. Other people aren't as bad, but there are still noticeable gaps in play when people are focusing elsewhere.
The case could be made that there is no valid reason for someone to be accessing MySpace from a library other than wasting time.
As a public librarian, I strongly disagree. You have no idea why somewhat might need to access MySpace. It could be for a school assignment. It could be that they can't get ahold of a friend or sibling or parent and know if they drop them a line there, they'll get it very soon. (I've actually had kids do this from the library to get a ride home.) It could be to keep in touch and share pictures with their older brother, who's away at college across the country.
While those may not mean anything to YOU, they do to the person doing them. That's not wasting time. It's using the resources with which you're comfortable.
Besides, this isn't just about banning certain people from certain sites. It's also about wasting my time and as a result your time. If you walk into my library and need my help but have to wait for me because I have to check ID on several people who look like they might be under 18 and then set up (or remove) filters on computers for them, that's wasting both my time and yours for something that is 1) overhyped as a danger and 2) the job of their parents.
Besides, this is only for schools and libraries.
So? I generally get very ticked off when people from nowhere the hell around here tell my patrons what information they can and cannot access in their own public library.
Exactly. I don't mind spending 90 minutes on a WoW quest, because in that time, I'm usually exploring, talking to people, working on some skills, and possibly working on another quest or two. I find that much more engaging than watching a movie, because after the movie, I've accomplished nothing. After the quest, I know that I stuck it out, probably snickered at something my brother said to me in tells, got money or rep or a reward, or somehow added to my feeling of accomplishment. I'm not going to say that there aren't quests out there that I felt were not worth the trouble, but a quest is only part of the total gaming experience.
I also can't say I really understand the mentality of "zOMG! GO GO GO! I must have a 70 of DOOOOOOM by tomorrow!". To me, I enjoy making the character and deciding how I want it to go, not competing with others to be the uber player of the server. To that end, I enjoy building the character through level 70, and my goal at level 70 is not always to have the best, shiniest, coolest stuff or attempting to pwn other folks, but to do things that I consider fun--whether that's running endgame instances or taking silly screenshots or planning scavenger hunts or whatever. A game is what you make of it.
So while I guess some people might consider me hosting a scavenger hunt to be wasting time, I consider it great social and family time, and I certainly know where to find a lot of bizarre stuff now without having to check Thottbot.
The DRMed WMA is the dealbreaker for the iPod. (Well, the price is too, but conceivably I could get a grant or find a pot of gold or something if I just HAD to have iPods.) I've heard rumors *cough* of ways around it, but I certainly can't in good conscience break the licensing agreement and suggest to patrons that they start shopping around for ways to break the DRM.:(
We do have one Mac with iTunes on it, and we do allow patrons to (carefully) purchase and download things to their iPods, but that's an individual-patron-paid-for thing, not a library-vendor agreement.
And I'm sorry if I sounded cranky. I did know you were annoyed with the attitude, but I did want to also point out that there were some positives, and under your post was a convenient place to do it.
I know it's frustrating for patrons, and I know that in some libraries, no one really understands the audiobook downloads, so you are going to get the experiences the poor first poster had. That's especially likely to happen in a consortium setting where a group of libraries gets access, but the staff of some of the libraries are smaller and less technologically savvy than others (and probably get brochures in place of training, and those brochures are just as accurate as the first poster commented. I regularly make my own brochures rather than hand out the inaccurate, vague professional pieces.)
But yeah... as soon as someone fixes the universal DRM file solution, we're all set.
p.s. Can I send my mother to you the next time she calls me after installing her printer in Portuguese?
It's pretty hard to generalize the state of ALL public libraries from one. Yours may be screwed. Ours just had our best year of circulation ever (over 1 million physical items). Our in-library computer use statistics have gone up every year, our electronic database statistics (both in-library and remote access) have gone up every year, and our downloadable audiobooks which just started a few months ago are really taking off.
On Sunday afternoons, we open the doors and fling ourselves out of the way to avoid the stampede. By 20 minutes after we open, all our public computers are filled, and they stay that way until we close. Our tables are packed with tutors and people working on group projects, the children's department is a sea of small, moving rugrats and their parents, and the phones ring off the hooks. We have people who come in every day and sit and read the newspapers and magazines in our reading nooks, and our silent study area has days that it's filled to overflowing (5 tables, 8 chairs with attached writing arm, and 8 carrels).
We sometimes accept volunteers in the Computer Center if they want to help out a few hours a week and we think they'll be a good fit to help the public with some of the very basic tasks there, like "How do I get to my next email message?". After four weeks of volunteering, one IT student told me, "I never knew libraries were like this."
It would, of course, help if our funding reflected our increased usage, but since many people seem to think libraries are outdated, it can be difficult to get that funding. Since most library funding is done on the local level, libraries in poor or rural areas are often particularly hard hit, hence why some libraries may be seen to be thriving and others struggling. But for all the talk of Google putting me out of a job, it isn't happening yet. (Hell, last Thursday I helped someone with his Java 2 homework.) It's simply giving me more ways to reach out to my patrons.
Now to wander back to the larger topic at hand... Our patrons would LOVE this service. We have huge waiting lists for the new releases, which we just can't afford to purchase in large quantities. A deal similar to the deals with some of the audiobook vendors we have where unlimited numbers of patrons can download movies would be awesome. It wouldn't be a copyright violation, as the library would be paying the fee to the vendor, which has presumably reached an agreement with the distributor to offer the movie that way. In other words, the movie dudes would have agreed to the setup. I'm pretty sure it would have the same hideous DRM problems we currently have with downloadable audiobook files of proprietary file formats, but if that's the only way to get a service, then I'd take it.
I should note that this would actually be done on a county-wide level. All the libraries in the county kick in for services like that and share the rewards, and each library would continue their own physical purchasing of movies as usual. This would really help out all the libraries in the county, as those who have the equipment to download and watch the movie do it that way, shortening the wait list from maybe 500 people to 350 on its release date.
I can't see our consortium getting this in the next year (we're still fighting with our audiobook downloads, darn those varying requirements!), but I can certainly see how it could be a valuable service. Of course, I can say that since I have absolutely no idea what the cost is. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.;)
Or, instead, you could look at it as a way of INCREASING who the library is serving.
I'm another librarian. I darn well know that many of the audiobooks that you can download through our catalog are DRMed WMA files that do not work on iPods and only work on certain mp3 players. (To add to the confusion, we're part of a library consortium and different people have negotiated different deals with different vendors, so the patrons in our county have access to three different types of audiobooks available for download. All three types have different requirements. Some allow you to burn them to CD. Some do not. It's particularly fun answering questions about these over the phone.)
I'm currently researching mp3 players to buy for my library to check out to patrons who want to listen to downloaded audiobooks but lack their own portable media player. What I have discovered is that this is a nightmare, as the portable players are generally designed and marketed for music, and audiobooks have different needs, such as loooong track playtimes, bookmarking, and certain time display styles. Really, the whole business is aimed at music.
Anyways, neither the lack of open standards nor the lack of quality players to choose from are the fault of librarians. We're working with the tools we have. Currently, our choices are as follows:
1. No downloadable audiobooks for anyone. 2. Downloadable audiobooks with the DRM and interoperability problems mentioned.
I'd rather offer choice 2, because it's at least giving a good many patrons with Windows PCs at home a chance to listen on their home computer (or burn to CD or whatever it allows), if nothing else, or (once we buy them) on our portable players. And frankly, I can say that a good many do listen. We get the circulation figures for the downloadable audiobooks, and they've gone up every month at a startling rate since we added the downloadable audiobooks to the catalog.
No one in my department thinks the downloadable audiobooks work with everything. Most of us have the urge to smack an audiobook-related person once a day (I vote for OverDrive. We have the fewest of their items, but they bug me the most.). Certainly, we want things to work on all platforms and with all mp3 players. But if your argument is that we shouldn't offer a service unless absolutely everyone can use it, then we wouldn't have any software available for checkout, or we never would have added DVDs when they were new, or we wouldn't pay for access to electronic databases, because people at home without computers can't use them.
So it's an area where we have a lot of demand from the public, but the tools we're given are not designed to work together. Until some sort of standard is agreed upon for DRMed audio files and the major players incorporate it, we're just doing the best we can. Until then, please try not to get too mad when your local librarian gets a slightly crazed look in her eye if you mention eAudio or downloadable audiobooks.
(And I should mention that I do try to educate patrons about copyright. I don't help them photocopy or scan whole books in my library, I have the appropriate copyright notices on the scanners and printers, and I explain to people who ask me that it's against copyright law to borrow CDs and burn copies for yourself. By the same rule, I understand the concept behind DRM, but I think the system is currently flawed. Still, I generally go with educating people about what the law says and letting them worry about whether or not they're searching for programs to convert WMAs to MP3s in their spare time.)
I realize this was a long-winded post, but I wanted to point out that even with its faults, having a system where the public can download audiobooks is adding a service. Of course, libraries and librarians vary greatly from place to place (as do our patrons), so I can't speak for everyone. But for me, I've gotten very positive feedback, despite having my list of things I'd like to change (and it's a mile long).
Actually, I'd say that teachers do things like stop children from fighting and running in the halls and screaming during class because it creates a chaotic atmosphere where it is very difficult to coordinate the actions of 20+ people so that they learn a damn thing and can concentrate. A chaotic atmosphere also makes it more difficult to get everyone to safety in an emergency.
I'm a public librarian. I don't have the moral authority to teach my patrons how to act, but I do still set and enforce standards of behavior in the library so that the majority of the patrons can concentrate on their work and that when emergencies occur (like during a fire alarm), they know to quietly and calmly grab their items and go where I tell them. It's not a matter of my raising them. It's a matter of providing the appropriate atmosphere.
As to applying this to cyberbullying, that's difficult to do if it isn't happening on school grounds or at school functions. While schools may be able to counsel students, I'm not sure they can penalize them (or taht it would be appropriate to do so) for their actions outside of school. They can, however, make the appropriate authorities (parents or police, depending on the situation) aware of what is going on, and any areas where the bullying touches the school should be dealt with.
Seriously, if taxpayer money is used, the public should be able to access the results of studies, etc. To a large extent, I would argue it's already like this. Many academic publications are available online at the local state university.
Except that the library has paid for those, and access is generally limited to students and faculty, and the library does not OWN the results (even if the research was conducted at that university) but rather is paying a vendor for licensed, limited-time access. And it's generally a horrendously high fee.
Also, note that a great deal of the publishing rights for research in the US don't belong to the universities or the scientists who conducted the research. They belong to the companies that own the scientific journals, so they decide on the terms for access. That gives the general public no right to access them, as most university license agreements for scientific database access are limited to those associated with the university as faculty, staff, or students.
So... it isn't free public access. Not the same thing at all. As a librarian currently trying to figure out what databases the public library consortium I'm in can afford, I can promise you that.;)
Apologies for any repitition in this post. I should know better than to try and write something at work.
And I seriously doubt I'd care if DOPA only affected schools or MySpace, but it doesn't. It affects public libraries and a LOT of sites you wouldn't think of immediately. It's a crappy, very broad piece of legislation. Wouldn't it bug you if your kid couldn't use Wikipedia at the public library because it counted as a social networking site?
People are also overlooking the fact that it did not just apply to schools or school libraries, but also to any library that wanted to receive its federal technology funding, and it's so broadly written as to require age checks and parental permission for kids to access things like slashdot or wikipedia or, hell, parts of Yahoo.
So the end result would be your public librarian (that's me) having to age check everyone who looked under the age of 25 and check for parent permission for them to use the Internet. So instead of sitting at the computers, killing innocent cows in Runescape, they can hang out in the parkign lot and pick up smoking (and pick fights with other patrons) while waiting for mom and dad to pick them up 4 hours later. Great.
I love my job, but it's not babysitting kids. It's helping people find the information they want or need.
How bout the kid who is mentioned in another one's blog and gets punished for that? You're assuming that only the blog's owner or its contributors will be punished. I assume they'll punish anyone named, even if they aren't bragging but happen to have dumb friends.
While I understand the concern and wanting to keep kids safe, I don't think it should be the school's role to discipline them for their actions outside of school. That's the role of the parents and the law. If you are asking the school to do it, you're 1) setting them up as opponents of the student AND his/her parents, whose job discipline should be, and 2) you're changing the focus from education to day care.
Anything that counts as harassment or death threats should be handled by the proper authorities--parents and the law. If a student complains about a teacher, that's fine. If he/she posts libelous or harassing content, they should be treated like anyone else who does.
Schools are not day care, and I firmly believe that expecting them to be has done more to ruin education in this country than almost anything else you can name.
I wonder how you handle removing the filters for an adult on a given workstation if you have consortium-wide filtering?
Staff are given an account name and password where they can log in to the filter's database and turn off the filter for a specific website for a specific amount of time on that particular computer. They can then report the block to the filtering company for review. Of course, 80% of the staff can't remember the username or password and end up calling the computer staff to fix it. That's always fun for the patron.
Some staff (like me) are privileged enough to be given the administrator username and password so they can go in and add or remove sites to library-specific allow and deny lists.
To completely remove the filter, staff have to take ID and log that they are removing the filter, then use the general staff password to tell it to stop blocking all websites on that computer for a specified amount of time.
Doesn't have to be an all or nothing choice unless your consortium's administrators choose to make it one.
That could very well be, and it's one of the downsides of being part of a large consortium. You lose local control and leverage. In this case, we essentially were told we had to filter.
Mostly I'm just concerned that people realize the money issue was more forceful than they might realize.:) And thank you, panda, for your insights into how your consortium has handled it. I may go poke some more people in the name of service for patrons.
Slashdot Mirror
I play WoW and generally don't have problems. While I'm probably not looking for as clean an environment as some parents might be, I tend to be turned off by the ultra-competitive swear-word-laden trash talking that sometimes occurs on WoW, and the slurs are definitely a no-go in my book.
/ignore fixes it pretty quickly, but it's happened enough that I do associate it with RP servers.)
/ignore them, or if that bothers you, just don't respond. If they say something horrible, don't tell them, "I reported you!" Just report them. Skip the drama and just quickly and quietly deal with the problem.
Parent's list of using the profanity filter, the ignore list, leaving general chat, and reporting people who are excessively rude is good advice.
I'd add to that:
1. Choose your server carefully. I tend to have the best luck on general servers. PVP servers tend to bring out the competitive trash talking, and I've had bad luck on RP servers, where for some reason certain people seem to think RP means "watch me try to sexually harass you." (This seems to be my experience only, though. Other friends haven't had this happen, and
2. Surround yourself with the people you want to be with. Join a guild you like and that acts the way you want people to act. When you group with people you like, friend them and keep track of them. If you end up in a group where someone acts a way you don't like, note that and don't group with them again. If they're enough of an asshat, politely call them on it, and if it continues, leave the group. Most of all, treat people the way you want to be treated, and you'll generally be treated the same way back. If you aren't, note that, and avoid them.
3. If you're uncomfortable with the way general chat is headed, learn how to redirect it. If you can do this with a sense of humor, people generally take it pretty well. (I'm not saying it always works, and it seldom does in, say, Barrens or Elwynn Forest, but most other places you've got a shot.) I've even occasionally used "OMG! A three-headed monkey! ---->" when nothing else came to mind. That tended to stop conversation for a moment or get a "??" response til I could come up with something better to say... and once you've got them distracted, they're easier to lead. (I never said you had to be _sophisticated_ to redirect general chat...)
4. When someone is baiting you, don't bite. That's what they want. Pat them on the head and
5. If someone uses a term that bothers you in front of you, politely explain that the term bothers you and then move on. I find that a lot of people use the terms "fag" and "gay" in ways that I find offensive. They don't necessarily mean them to be and aren't really thinking about how other people might take what they say. I just mention that the terms bug me because I have gay friends who play, and we keep going, and usually people respect that. I don't make a big deal out of it, and usually they watch what they say around me after that but keep hanging out with me, so it works out. Sometimes I go through this all in tells.
In other words, it's a lot like dealing with people in real life. Choose your surroundings and your friends. Don't give the attention seekers the glory they want. And if someone you're working/running with does/says something that bugs you, work it out quietly and respectfully without an audience.
I'm not saying that will clear up everything, but I know that most of the time, I have absolutely no problems on WoW. I'm more likely to be randomly buffed by a stranger than I am to have someone try to steal my adamantite node.
The intent of the law doesn't matter. What matters is that if according to the letter of the law it CAN be used against someone, it will be. That's the way our legal system works. When we find someone doing something we don't like, we charge them with everything we can find and see what sticks. So while the original intent might be to use this against large-scale pirating organizations, it will be used against individual consumers, just as laws passed to protect us from international terrorists somehow manage to be applied to the guy down the street.
That's because you tried to make her play Roger Clemen's MVP Baseball. WTF is that? I hate to tell you this, but most gamers I know find sports games boring after the first week. Get her a nice roleplaying or puzzle game to play. I bet she could get into a Final Fantasy story or Tetris or something. Or maybe just get her to jigzone.com to get her in the mood for computerized entertainment and go from there.
;) Since then, she's avoided platform gaming or anything but casual computer card games, but she's still one of the fastest, most badass Free Cell and Solitaire players I've ever seen. (Okay, maybe not "badass." That may not be possible with those two games. But if it _were_, I'm sure she'd be. As it is, she's really good and blindingly fast.)
My mother played Space Invaders obsessively for two days on the Atari console my parents had bought for my brother and me until she made the decision that gaming was too addictive and stopped cold turkey. That was the night she kept playing "just one more game" when both of us kids wanted to hit bed. I think we get our gaming genes from her.
Ahem. Sorry for dissing your choice of game. I just think that if someone had handed me that as my first and only game, I might also have failed to see the appeal, and I'm someone who spends hours per week gaming.
If you really want to get her into gaming, get her a Wii. She can host bowling parties and feel good that she's getting some low impact exercise in there as well as some socializing. Apparently retirement communities and sister houses (i.e. convents) have found Wiis to be a big hit. Er, not that your mom is that old. Just saying that there's something for every age out there.
Anyways... Happy Mother's Day!
I can tell you that my reaction is based on Verizon releasing information without a court order or subpoena. The impression cultivated by their privacy policy is that they'll only release it with such. Here are some excerpts from that privacy policy (emphasis mine):
Disclosure of Information Outside Verizon
As a rule, Verizon will notify you and give you the opportunity to "opt out" when we disclose telephone customer information outside of Verizon. In fact, we generally keep our records of the services you buy and the calls you make private, and will not ordinarily disclose this information to outside parties without your permission. However, we do release customer information without involving you if disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property. This is further explained below...
Examples where disclosure is required by law or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property:
When you dial 911, information about your location may be transmitted automatically to a public
safety agency. Certain information about your long distance calls is transmitted to your long distance
company for billing purposes. Verizon also is required by law to give competitive local exchange
carriers access to its customer databases for purposes of serving their customers, to exchange
credit information with other carriers, and to provide listings (other than certain non-published and
non-listed information) to directory publishers.
Verizon must disclose information, as necessary, to comply with court orders or subpoenas. Verizon
also will share information to protect its rights or property and to protect users of its services and
other carriers from fraudulent, abusive or unlawful use of services.
We may, where permitted by law, provide information to credit bureaus, or provide information and/or
sell receivables to collection agencies, to obtain payment for Verizon billed products and services.
Verizon also occasionally uses contractors to do work for the company. These contractors have the
same obligations as our regular employees concerning customer information...
Your Telephone Account Information Rights
The FCC refers to your telephone account information as Customer Proprietary Network Information or CPNI. Under Federal Law, you have the right to, and we have the duty to protect, the confidentiality of your telecommunications service information. This information includes the type, technical arrangement, quantity, destination, and amount of use of telecommunications services and related billing for these services.
We may use this information, without further authorization by you, to offer you: (i) services of the type you already purchase from us, and (ii) the full range of products and services available from Verizon and other Verizon companies that may be different from the type of services you currently buy from us. In addition to local telephone services, Verizon and other Verizon company services include long distance (where authorized), wireless, and Internet services. A more complete description of our companies and service offerings is available on this Web site. Use of your information will permit us to offer you a package of services tailored to your specific needs. Without further authorization by you, we may also share your information with other Verizon companies with whom you already have an existing service relationship.
Granted, we should all know better than to trust a company that does not specifically state that it WILL NOT release customer information without a warrant or subpeona, but I still find I'm disgusted.
And no matter if they didn't break the letter of their privacy statement, the argument that this was free speech to petition the government is frankly insulting. My personal information, given to y
This kid was correctly removed from the classroom. He should be examined by psychiatrists and a judgment should be made as to his mental health and well-being. If he is not a danger to anyone, he should be allowed back. This decision shouldn't be left to school officials, but to qualified medical professions.
Actually, having now read the supposed directions for the creative writing assignment, an in-class, timed, do-not-correct-or-censor-anything-you-write stream of consciousness type of writing, I didn't find the excerpts nearly as disturbing as I would have for an out-of-class essay. Given the recent VA Tech shootings, gore and violence are things I would expect.
Still, I could see the teacher wanting to make sure the kid was okay and having the school require him to be checked out by mental health professionals. I do NOT see charging him with disorderly conduct. That's bullshit and not helpful in any way that I can see.
From the summary: by 2012, 40% of women now working in IT will leave for careers with more flexible hours.
Versus what percentage of the men now working in IT? The article doesn't say. That would be a useful comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a fairly high percentage too.
The older I get, the more men I know in IT have kids and families and do the same thing. For most people there's a point where those hideous hours aren't worth the pay anymore when you don't get to see your spouse and kids, so you look for a different job with more regular hours.
I imagine it's probably more noticeable with women in IT because culturally right now, women are more likely to be single parents and not have the option of relying on a spouse to sometimes watch the children.
I don't really think this is a "man vs. woman" thing. I think it's about people maturing and looking at the health of their families. Some people can afford to keep the long on-call hours up if they have a reliable family network. Others don't have that family safety net for whatever reason--divorce, deaths, relocations, etc., and they find that another job gives them better hours for close enough pay (or worse pay, but more take-home pay since they aren't paying for child care with their better hours.)
I wish I understand what it is that convinces US born women to not become programmers. I don't think it's a harassment issue. That's not something I've especially noticed. Though, since I'm a guy, it's possible it just passed me by.
Actually, it's often a very subtle thing--not harassment, but a definite bias against women in certain fields. Most people don't even realize they're doing it. In high school, I had the best grades in my honors math and science classes and was willing to help classmates with questions. When awards time came at the end of the year, the math and science awards went to the guys I'd helped (and outscored), and I got the English and Social Studies awards. Looking at the years ahead of me and behind me, the same thing was true. The girls might be just as good as the guys, but the perception by the generation in charge was that the guys were better at math and science and the girls at languages and humanities.
If you listen carefully, it comes out in little things people say, and in the toys people buy children. Thank God my parents watched me play with all my brother's cool stuff and bought me building sets and used computer magazines (for the TI 99, baybee!) to help offset the insipid Barbies and tea sets I got almost exclusively from other people. (I mean, I support kids getting dolls and tea sets, too, but not JUST that.)
If you want an enlightening experience, go to a computer show with a woman that you know knows something about computers and see how many of the vendors there address her versus how many address you when speaking, regardless of who asked the question. I once had one vendor answer all my questions to my husband. At the end of the conversation, I pointed out that he'd overlooked me, and that was a poor way to treat a customer. He asked me what gave me that impression, as though I were overreacting. We actually had to explain that he was ending his sentences with "sir," which pretty obviously excluded me from the conversation. (Boy, was he embarrassed.) That's not unusual at computer shows. Heck, when we went car shopping, even car salespeople picked up more quickly that I was the one they wanted to focus on and talk to or they were going to lose the sale.
If you aren't with a woman, or if you aren't with a woman who is trying to ask questions and get an answer, you might never see these things, but added up over a lifetime, it's enough of a subtle deterrent to influence some women who are good at several different fields. Why go for one like comp sci when you can choose another one that is as lucrative and more accepting?
Just something to keep in mind as you go about your day. You might be surprised what you catch yourself thinking (we're all culturally brainwashed to some degree), or your coworker buying for his new daughter without a second thought... And that, of course, is ignoring the people who specifically raise their daughters to be wives and mothers and nothing else.
Generally, school librarians make the decision what reference sources are available based on a school collection development policy, curriculum, and available funds. Not school board members. There's also a difference between making available print and electronic resources, which cost money, and arbitrarily deciding to block access to Internet sites that are considered educational in nature but not to others.
Blocking access to one source of information and not to others is setting a particularly poor example on how to evaluate the source of information. Many Wikipedia articles are very well-written and contain citations that back up the research. I'd like to see some of the news stations do the same.
Usually there's some sort of challenge policy available for books in a school library. I don't see how reviewing a ban on Wikipedia would be any different. If I were a parent in that school district, I'd be over there asking about challenging that decision under the same policy.
Well, yes. It is. It's generally considered rude to ignore people in the same space as you to talk to people who aren't there, especially at a volume that disturbs them. If you're in a conversation with a second person, you're interacting with your environment, and so long as it's at a reasonable level and not inane, it's not considered rude. No one is going to expect you to ignore the person you're traveling with.
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I also find if you make one quick call, keep it quiet, and don't blather, no one cares. On the other hand, if I can hear every word in, say, Barnes & Noble from 5 aisles away, you're too damn loud.
Of course, that's true if you're with a friend too. A good many people could use some lessons in voice moderation and courtesy in public anyways. Then again, I also think people shouldn't take their children out in public until they can behave. Apparently that makes me a nasty person, according to a few parents I've known.
Heeee. And the Slashdot bot-avoidance word is "bitches." I can't imagine how that applies to me... >.>
I'd also like to suggest that if you aren't sure, you can always check your local public library. I'm the computer librarian (one of two) at mine, and we have most of the books I've seen mentioned here.
.NET 2.0 platform by Andrew Troelsen and then decide that you really wanted was Programming C# by Jesse Liberty, that's always an option, too. At least it is if one of your local libraries has a good computer collection.
So if you don't want to blow $40 on Pro C# 2005 and the
*shrug* Then I think you play a pretty narrow game. We do those same instances with what we have, and we get through them. Maybe I just know better players or something.
One of the main rules of my guild is that we never make anyone respec, and we try to take everyone we can on raids and make use of them how they want to be used. (It's a friends and family guild. THE main rule is to play to have fun.) That means if we have pallies who are built to tank, they're our main tanks. For a while last year, we had one priest and he was shadow specced, so we made do with druids and pallies for healing. It might take us an extra time or two to get it down or figure out how to get around something using a less than standard character arrangement, but we do it, and we all end up happier that way.
The only disastrously unsuccessful raids we've done have been joint ones led by other guilds who insisted on only allowing certain specs and classes to do certain things. We tend to avoid those anymore unless we're doing favors for friends.
I have no idea why you would WANT to be in guilds that limit you in that way. Besides, what did you do before? Lie and say you were holy spec and then once you were in and they caught you in shadowform try to smile and charm them through the lie?
Seriously, find a guild that allows you to play the way you want to play. You'll be happier. Besides, the top instances now don't require the huge raiding guilds anymore. You don't need the specially built guilds who only allow certain narrowly constructed types in.
And, as someone who never belonged to one of those but often ran with their players, you're a lot better player if you learn how to make your way through an instance using whatever you have. I can't tell you the number of people who couldn't do freaking Strat Dead without a priest. I've done it at least 30 times with a druid healing.
So if they won't take you cuz your shadow, they aren't the guild for you. Consider yourself lucky you discovered that.
I loved Tunnels of Doom! To this day, I can start singing the song it played while loading a level and my brother will join in. Ah, the hours we spent trying to save the king...
I always considered the Scott Adams games to be early CRPGs, just done completely in text form. Ah, the joys of Pirate Adventure! (Yes, I spent hours loading those on cassette too.)
Anyway, every time it was asked I simply replied, "I would expect that nearly everyone in my generation is able to multitask effectively as we've grown up our entire lives with it."
And most people who believe this don't multitask nearly as effectively as they think they do. Sure, things get done, but the quality of each individual item is much lower than if it had had your full attention for part of the time. I certainly know that my bosses have always considered me to be excellent at multitasking, but I can see obvious differences in the work quality.
If you want to test this sometime, try talking to your parents on the phone with no distractions. Then try talking to them while IMing a friend and watching a movie on TV. Then ask them which phone call they enjoyed more, and why. They'll be able to tell you were only giving them part of your attention for one of the phone calls.
Heck, there are certain people I won't group with in WoW unless I know they've turned their IM off, because otherwise it's a waste of my time. Maybe they can multitask effectively and play WoW and IM their friends, but that's because I'm hauling their butts around, reading the quests and keeping us alive while they focus elsewhere. Not really a fair deal for me. Other people aren't as bad, but there are still noticeable gaps in play when people are focusing elsewhere.
The case could be made that there is no valid reason for someone to be accessing MySpace from a library other than wasting time.
As a public librarian, I strongly disagree. You have no idea why somewhat might need to access MySpace. It could be for a school assignment. It could be that they can't get ahold of a friend or sibling or parent and know if they drop them a line there, they'll get it very soon. (I've actually had kids do this from the library to get a ride home.) It could be to keep in touch and share pictures with their older brother, who's away at college across the country.
While those may not mean anything to YOU, they do to the person doing them. That's not wasting time. It's using the resources with which you're comfortable.
Besides, this isn't just about banning certain people from certain sites. It's also about wasting my time and as a result your time. If you walk into my library and need my help but have to wait for me because I have to check ID on several people who look like they might be under 18 and then set up (or remove) filters on computers for them, that's wasting both my time and yours for something that is 1) overhyped as a danger and 2) the job of their parents.
Besides, this is only for schools and libraries.
So? I generally get very ticked off when people from nowhere the hell around here tell my patrons what information they can and cannot access in their own public library.
Exactly. I don't mind spending 90 minutes on a WoW quest, because in that time, I'm usually exploring, talking to people, working on some skills, and possibly working on another quest or two. I find that much more engaging than watching a movie, because after the movie, I've accomplished nothing. After the quest, I know that I stuck it out, probably snickered at something my brother said to me in tells, got money or rep or a reward, or somehow added to my feeling of accomplishment. I'm not going to say that there aren't quests out there that I felt were not worth the trouble, but a quest is only part of the total gaming experience.
I also can't say I really understand the mentality of "zOMG! GO GO GO! I must have a 70 of DOOOOOOM by tomorrow!". To me, I enjoy making the character and deciding how I want it to go, not competing with others to be the uber player of the server. To that end, I enjoy building the character through level 70, and my goal at level 70 is not always to have the best, shiniest, coolest stuff or attempting to pwn other folks, but to do things that I consider fun--whether that's running endgame instances or taking silly screenshots or planning scavenger hunts or whatever. A game is what you make of it.
So while I guess some people might consider me hosting a scavenger hunt to be wasting time, I consider it great social and family time, and I certainly know where to find a lot of bizarre stuff now without having to check Thottbot.
The DRMed WMA is the dealbreaker for the iPod. (Well, the price is too, but conceivably I could get a grant or find a pot of gold or something if I just HAD to have iPods.) I've heard rumors *cough* of ways around it, but I certainly can't in good conscience break the licensing agreement and suggest to patrons that they start shopping around for ways to break the DRM. :(
We do have one Mac with iTunes on it, and we do allow patrons to (carefully) purchase and download things to their iPods, but that's an individual-patron-paid-for thing, not a library-vendor agreement.
And I'm sorry if I sounded cranky. I did know you were annoyed with the attitude, but I did want to also point out that there were some positives, and under your post was a convenient place to do it.
I know it's frustrating for patrons, and I know that in some libraries, no one really understands the audiobook downloads, so you are going to get the experiences the poor first poster had. That's especially likely to happen in a consortium setting where a group of libraries gets access, but the staff of some of the libraries are smaller and less technologically savvy than others (and probably get brochures in place of training, and those brochures are just as accurate as the first poster commented. I regularly make my own brochures rather than hand out the inaccurate, vague professional pieces.)
But yeah... as soon as someone fixes the universal DRM file solution, we're all set.
p.s. Can I send my mother to you the next time she calls me after installing her printer in Portuguese?
It's pretty hard to generalize the state of ALL public libraries from one. Yours may be screwed. Ours just had our best year of circulation ever (over 1 million physical items). Our in-library computer use statistics have gone up every year, our electronic database statistics (both in-library and remote access) have gone up every year, and our downloadable audiobooks which just started a few months ago are really taking off.
;)
On Sunday afternoons, we open the doors and fling ourselves out of the way to avoid the stampede. By 20 minutes after we open, all our public computers are filled, and they stay that way until we close. Our tables are packed with tutors and people working on group projects, the children's department is a sea of small, moving rugrats and their parents, and the phones ring off the hooks. We have people who come in every day and sit and read the newspapers and magazines in our reading nooks, and our silent study area has days that it's filled to overflowing (5 tables, 8 chairs with attached writing arm, and 8 carrels).
We sometimes accept volunteers in the Computer Center if they want to help out a few hours a week and we think they'll be a good fit to help the public with some of the very basic tasks there, like "How do I get to my next email message?". After four weeks of volunteering, one IT student told me, "I never knew libraries were like this."
It would, of course, help if our funding reflected our increased usage, but since many people seem to think libraries are outdated, it can be difficult to get that funding. Since most library funding is done on the local level, libraries in poor or rural areas are often particularly hard hit, hence why some libraries may be seen to be thriving and others struggling. But for all the talk of Google putting me out of a job, it isn't happening yet. (Hell, last Thursday I helped someone with his Java 2 homework.) It's simply giving me more ways to reach out to my patrons.
Now to wander back to the larger topic at hand... Our patrons would LOVE this service. We have huge waiting lists for the new releases, which we just can't afford to purchase in large quantities. A deal similar to the deals with some of the audiobook vendors we have where unlimited numbers of patrons can download movies would be awesome. It wouldn't be a copyright violation, as the library would be paying the fee to the vendor, which has presumably reached an agreement with the distributor to offer the movie that way. In other words, the movie dudes would have agreed to the setup. I'm pretty sure it would have the same hideous DRM problems we currently have with downloadable audiobook files of proprietary file formats, but if that's the only way to get a service, then I'd take it.
I should note that this would actually be done on a county-wide level. All the libraries in the county kick in for services like that and share the rewards, and each library would continue their own physical purchasing of movies as usual. This would really help out all the libraries in the county, as those who have the equipment to download and watch the movie do it that way, shortening the wait list from maybe 500 people to 350 on its release date.
I can't see our consortium getting this in the next year (we're still fighting with our audiobook downloads, darn those varying requirements!), but I can certainly see how it could be a valuable service. Of course, I can say that since I have absolutely no idea what the cost is. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Or, instead, you could look at it as a way of INCREASING who the library is serving.
I'm another librarian. I darn well know that many of the audiobooks that you can download through our catalog are DRMed WMA files that do not work on iPods and only work on certain mp3 players. (To add to the confusion, we're part of a library consortium and different people have negotiated different deals with different vendors, so the patrons in our county have access to three different types of audiobooks available for download. All three types have different requirements. Some allow you to burn them to CD. Some do not. It's particularly fun answering questions about these over the phone.)
I'm currently researching mp3 players to buy for my library to check out to patrons who want to listen to downloaded audiobooks but lack their own portable media player. What I have discovered is that this is a nightmare, as the portable players are generally designed and marketed for music, and audiobooks have different needs, such as loooong track playtimes, bookmarking, and certain time display styles. Really, the whole business is aimed at music.
Anyways, neither the lack of open standards nor the lack of quality players to choose from are the fault of librarians. We're working with the tools we have. Currently, our choices are as follows:
1. No downloadable audiobooks for anyone.
2. Downloadable audiobooks with the DRM and interoperability problems mentioned.
I'd rather offer choice 2, because it's at least giving a good many patrons with Windows PCs at home a chance to listen on their home computer (or burn to CD or whatever it allows), if nothing else, or (once we buy them) on our portable players. And frankly, I can say that a good many do listen. We get the circulation figures for the downloadable audiobooks, and they've gone up every month at a startling rate since we added the downloadable audiobooks to the catalog.
No one in my department thinks the downloadable audiobooks work with everything. Most of us have the urge to smack an audiobook-related person once a day (I vote for OverDrive. We have the fewest of their items, but they bug me the most.). Certainly, we want things to work on all platforms and with all mp3 players. But if your argument is that we shouldn't offer a service unless absolutely everyone can use it, then we wouldn't have any software available for checkout, or we never would have added DVDs when they were new, or we wouldn't pay for access to electronic databases, because people at home without computers can't use them.
So it's an area where we have a lot of demand from the public, but the tools we're given are not designed to work together. Until some sort of standard is agreed upon for DRMed audio files and the major players incorporate it, we're just doing the best we can. Until then, please try not to get too mad when your local librarian gets a slightly crazed look in her eye if you mention eAudio or downloadable audiobooks.
(And I should mention that I do try to educate patrons about copyright. I don't help them photocopy or scan whole books in my library, I have the appropriate copyright notices on the scanners and printers, and I explain to people who ask me that it's against copyright law to borrow CDs and burn copies for yourself. By the same rule, I understand the concept behind DRM, but I think the system is currently flawed. Still, I generally go with educating people about what the law says and letting them worry about whether or not they're searching for programs to convert WMAs to MP3s in their spare time.)
I realize this was a long-winded post, but I wanted to point out that even with its faults, having a system where the public can download audiobooks is adding a service. Of course, libraries and librarians vary greatly from place to place (as do our patrons), so I can't speak for everyone. But for me, I've gotten very positive feedback, despite having my list of things I'd like to change (and it's a mile long).
Actually, I'd say that teachers do things like stop children from fighting and running in the halls and screaming during class because it creates a chaotic atmosphere where it is very difficult to coordinate the actions of 20+ people so that they learn a damn thing and can concentrate. A chaotic atmosphere also makes it more difficult to get everyone to safety in an emergency.
I'm a public librarian. I don't have the moral authority to teach my patrons how to act, but I do still set and enforce standards of behavior in the library so that the majority of the patrons can concentrate on their work and that when emergencies occur (like during a fire alarm), they know to quietly and calmly grab their items and go where I tell them. It's not a matter of my raising them. It's a matter of providing the appropriate atmosphere.
As to applying this to cyberbullying, that's difficult to do if it isn't happening on school grounds or at school functions. While schools may be able to counsel students, I'm not sure they can penalize them (or taht it would be appropriate to do so) for their actions outside of school. They can, however, make the appropriate authorities (parents or police, depending on the situation) aware of what is going on, and any areas where the bullying touches the school should be dealt with.
Seriously, if taxpayer money is used, the public should be able to access the results of studies, etc. To a large extent, I would argue it's already like this. Many academic publications are available online at the local state university.
;)
Except that the library has paid for those, and access is generally limited to students and faculty, and the library does not OWN the results (even if the research was conducted at that university) but rather is paying a vendor for licensed, limited-time access. And it's generally a horrendously high fee.
Also, note that a great deal of the publishing rights for research in the US don't belong to the universities or the scientists who conducted the research. They belong to the companies that own the scientific journals, so they decide on the terms for access. That gives the general public no right to access them, as most university license agreements for scientific database access are limited to those associated with the university as faculty, staff, or students.
And good luck once your library can't afford the academic journal subscriptions anymore. Cornell cancelled its Reed Elsevier academic journal package in 2003 and libraries of all types are having trouble purchasing the licenses for you to access the information.
So... it isn't free public access. Not the same thing at all. As a librarian currently trying to figure out what databases the public library consortium I'm in can afford, I can promise you that.
Apologies for any repitition in this post. I should know better than to try and write something at work.
And I seriously doubt I'd care if DOPA only affected schools or MySpace, but it doesn't. It affects public libraries and a LOT of sites you wouldn't think of immediately. It's a crappy, very broad piece of legislation. Wouldn't it bug you if your kid couldn't use Wikipedia at the public library because it counted as a social networking site?
People are also overlooking the fact that it did not just apply to schools or school libraries, but also to any library that wanted to receive its federal technology funding, and it's so broadly written as to require age checks and parental permission for kids to access things like slashdot or wikipedia or, hell, parts of Yahoo.
So the end result would be your public librarian (that's me) having to age check everyone who looked under the age of 25 and check for parent permission for them to use the Internet. So instead of sitting at the computers, killing innocent cows in Runescape, they can hang out in the parkign lot and pick up smoking (and pick fights with other patrons) while waiting for mom and dad to pick them up 4 hours later. Great.
I love my job, but it's not babysitting kids. It's helping people find the information they want or need.
How bout the kid who is mentioned in another one's blog and gets punished for that? You're assuming that only the blog's owner or its contributors will be punished. I assume they'll punish anyone named, even if they aren't bragging but happen to have dumb friends.
While I understand the concern and wanting to keep kids safe, I don't think it should be the school's role to discipline them for their actions outside of school. That's the role of the parents and the law. If you are asking the school to do it, you're 1) setting them up as opponents of the student AND his/her parents, whose job discipline should be, and 2) you're changing the focus from education to day care.
Anything that counts as harassment or death threats should be handled by the proper authorities--parents and the law. If a student complains about a teacher, that's fine. If he/she posts libelous or harassing content, they should be treated like anyone else who does.
Schools are not day care, and I firmly believe that expecting them to be has done more to ruin education in this country than almost anything else you can name.
I wonder how you handle removing the filters for an adult on a given workstation if you have consortium-wide filtering?
:) And thank you, panda, for your insights into how your consortium has handled it. I may go poke some more people in the name of service for patrons.
Staff are given an account name and password where they can log in to the filter's database and turn off the filter for a specific website for a specific amount of time on that particular computer. They can then report the block to the filtering company for review. Of course, 80% of the staff can't remember the username or password and end up calling the computer staff to fix it. That's always fun for the patron.
Some staff (like me) are privileged enough to be given the administrator username and password so they can go in and add or remove sites to library-specific allow and deny lists.
To completely remove the filter, staff have to take ID and log that they are removing the filter, then use the general staff password to tell it to stop blocking all websites on that computer for a specified amount of time.
FYI, my consortium chose Netsweeper.
Doesn't have to be an all or nothing choice unless your consortium's administrators choose to make it one.
That could very well be, and it's one of the downsides of being part of a large consortium. You lose local control and leverage. In this case, we essentially were told we had to filter.
Mostly I'm just concerned that people realize the money issue was more forceful than they might realize.