posted by
minervacat at 10:04am on 25/04/2005 under meta:library
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GOOD MORNING, MINIONS, WHAT'S GOIN' ON?
febrile's birthday party was this weekend, and though i was not there for very long (i feel like i did nothing but sleep this weekend, and yet i'm still falling-asleep-on-my-keyboard tired this morning, wtf?), it was a fantastic gathering of people i went to college with and people who used to date people i went to college with, plus a whole bunch of other fantastic folk, none of whom i would have met if not for livejournal.
about two years ago, give or take a couple of weeks, some guy named
febrile was drunkenly surfing lj and added me to his friends list. being that he was in chicago, and i was in chicago, we met up a couple of times in the spring of 2003, hit it off, and so he was adopted into the circle of my college friends, was declared an honorary graduate of carleton college, and became a completely irreplaceable part of my life. livejournal's good for stuff like that, you know.
and the whole point of this tangent was just to let you know that
febrile likes all the coolest stuff in the world, but he likes it for all the wrong reasons. buffy s6? frank pembleton? the old 97's too far to care? BAH! everyone knows it's all about buffy s5, kay howard and tim bayliss, and satellite rides. for such a cool guy, rocket's got it all wrong, baby. *grin*
jeff pomerantz, on whom i have an enormous intellectual crush, posted about a new question-answering service online this weekend. (the entry's gone from his blog, but still stuck in the lj syndication, so we're going to talk about it anyway. is that bad netiquette? i don't know.)
what jeff is talking about is intellectual property rights, which if you have been following my journal long enough, you know that intellectual property rights are something about which my too-smart-for-their-own-good friends like to argue when they're drunk. but it's a good question - who owns an answer? and subsequently, when these services claim that once a question is asked and an answer is given, they own that information.
i suppose i understand them covering their own asses, but seriously - are there really people out there who believe that information can be claimed like that? i'm not sure i see the point to these disclaimers.
for example: i am the designated question-answerer in my office. i think it's partly because they all know i'm going to library school, and the whole "reference librarian" thing kicks in, and i think it's partly because i frequently have answers when answers are required, usually without looking them up, because i am nothing if not a repository of all kinds of stupid trivia. but i would never think to say, "hey, coworker!l, thanks for asking me what the capital of the state of georgia is! I NOW OWN THAT QUESTION AND THAT ANSWER, BITCH!"
i just don't get it, i suppose. the two questions i keep coming back to are why do these services think that they need to qualify their services with such a disclaimer, and why do they think they can actually claim this information? what's the point of it? i don't have any answers for this, unfortunately - *grin* - i just have a lot of questions.
on the other hand, i think that question-answering services like that are good, because sometimes i just want google's general search to answer a question for me, and no number of smart search strings will find me the information i need - sometimes i don't want to think, i just want someone else to tell me what police precinct u.s. cellular field is in.
i don't know. the digital reference librarian is something in which i'm terribly interested, but i don't think these question answering services are necessarily the answer for digital ref. they have a place in the online world, sure, but they're not quite what i'm looking for, or looking to be, either. i'm where i am today because librarians taught me how to research, not did my research for me. sure, sometimes i want easy answers (i ended up calling the cpd to answer my question above), but i think you're going to be better off teaching people to use google productively than you are going to be trying to make these question-answering services work.
but that's just my two cents. i'd rather work than have my work done for me, most of the time.
trying to stretch my brain back into the realm of academia is proving harder than i thought it would be. ow.
have i sounded off on the new pope yet? i can't remember and i'm too lazy to look. regardless: i think that ratzinger isn't the best choice by far, but i don't think he was the worst, either, and according to a coworker, i don't get to have an opinion on the pope, anyway, since i'm not catholic, so there you go.
anyway.
a while back, i saw someone on lj - not someone on my flist, just someone i saw while i was idly surfing - do this thing, wherein their flist told them a song they liked, and the original poster replied with another song that aforementioned original poster thought the commenter would like.
so. in that spirit, post here telling me a song you really like, and i'll reply with another song (yousendit link included!) that i think you'll like. for the sake of my sanity, let's say first 20 responders - and then i'll take more later if this works, if you guys are interested.
eta: i cannot respond to the song thing until i get home tonight! but i will then, promise. so you should all tell me things you like, okay?
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
about two years ago, give or take a couple of weeks, some guy named
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
and the whole point of this tangent was just to let you know that
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeff pomerantz, on whom i have an enormous intellectual crush, posted about a new question-answering service online this weekend. (the entry's gone from his blog, but still stuck in the lj syndication, so we're going to talk about it anyway. is that bad netiquette? i don't know.)
what jeff is talking about is intellectual property rights, which if you have been following my journal long enough, you know that intellectual property rights are something about which my too-smart-for-their-own-good friends like to argue when they're drunk. but it's a good question - who owns an answer? and subsequently, when these services claim that once a question is asked and an answer is given, they own that information.
i suppose i understand them covering their own asses, but seriously - are there really people out there who believe that information can be claimed like that? i'm not sure i see the point to these disclaimers.
for example: i am the designated question-answerer in my office. i think it's partly because they all know i'm going to library school, and the whole "reference librarian" thing kicks in, and i think it's partly because i frequently have answers when answers are required, usually without looking them up, because i am nothing if not a repository of all kinds of stupid trivia. but i would never think to say, "hey, coworker!l, thanks for asking me what the capital of the state of georgia is! I NOW OWN THAT QUESTION AND THAT ANSWER, BITCH!"
i just don't get it, i suppose. the two questions i keep coming back to are why do these services think that they need to qualify their services with such a disclaimer, and why do they think they can actually claim this information? what's the point of it? i don't have any answers for this, unfortunately - *grin* - i just have a lot of questions.
on the other hand, i think that question-answering services like that are good, because sometimes i just want google's general search to answer a question for me, and no number of smart search strings will find me the information i need - sometimes i don't want to think, i just want someone else to tell me what police precinct u.s. cellular field is in.
i don't know. the digital reference librarian is something in which i'm terribly interested, but i don't think these question answering services are necessarily the answer for digital ref. they have a place in the online world, sure, but they're not quite what i'm looking for, or looking to be, either. i'm where i am today because librarians taught me how to research, not did my research for me. sure, sometimes i want easy answers (i ended up calling the cpd to answer my question above), but i think you're going to be better off teaching people to use google productively than you are going to be trying to make these question-answering services work.
but that's just my two cents. i'd rather work than have my work done for me, most of the time.
trying to stretch my brain back into the realm of academia is proving harder than i thought it would be. ow.
have i sounded off on the new pope yet? i can't remember and i'm too lazy to look. regardless: i think that ratzinger isn't the best choice by far, but i don't think he was the worst, either, and according to a coworker, i don't get to have an opinion on the pope, anyway, since i'm not catholic, so there you go.
anyway.
a while back, i saw someone on lj - not someone on my flist, just someone i saw while i was idly surfing - do this thing, wherein their flist told them a song they liked, and the original poster replied with another song that aforementioned original poster thought the commenter would like.
so. in that spirit, post here telling me a song you really like, and i'll reply with another song (yousendit link included!) that i think you'll like. for the sake of my sanity, let's say first 20 responders - and then i'll take more later if this works, if you guys are interested.
eta: i cannot respond to the song thing until i get home tonight! but i will then, promise. so you should all tell me things you like, okay?
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HEART!
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WEEEEE! *bounces randomly*
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Click on music, and then select the cassette tape labeled "Soviet Kitsch" - 'Us' is the fifth song, I think.
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Of course, I could totally be wrong, since IP is not my strong suit. I could ask the resident IP/copyright expert in my house if you'd like a more detailed analysis.
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i might start claiming my answers to questions in the office as my property, though, and charging the coworkers who repeat them to clients. *grin*
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I need friends with whom to drunkenly debate intellectual property rights. My drunken friend-debates generally have to do with archaeology and NAGPRA and wasn't that Schliemann guy a stupid bastard?, but yours sound much more interesting. *g*
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No idea why that was the first song to pop into my head. It wouldn't make my top 20 or anything, but it's certainly a song I really like.
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I might be able to clarify the IP issues for you, but right now I have to meet someone for lunch, so if I *don't* answer this today? Poke me and remind me, because it is completely possible that I will forget. :)
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First of all, it's important to note that you ("you" = "people in general") can only claim copyright if what you're claiming is something that can actually *be* copyrighted, AND if it's something YOU have the right to copyright. In the US, copyright subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. There's also a doctrine called the idea/expression dichotomy, the basic gist of which is that ideas cannot be copyrighted, but the expression of those ideas can.
So, okay, how does that apply here? If your coworker e-mails you and asks "who won the 2004 World Series?" and you say "the Boston Red Sox," it's not copyrightable because you're not really creating anything "original" in your answer -- the answer is simply a recitation of fact.
However, if the e-mail is something like, "What happened in the final game of the 2004 World Series?," your answer *would* implicate copyright, because although you're using objective facts, you're making choices about what words to use and what order to discuss things and what elements to play up and what you're going to gloss over, etc.
In order for your work to meet the "originality" requirement, there has to be independent creation plus a modicum of creativity. In the production of a factual work, copyright protection extends only to its original selection or arragnement. (Therefore an alphabetical listing of telephone subscribers and their numbers is not copyrightable, but a list of local golf courses rated by level of difficulty is.)
Presumably, Wondir is attempting to head off any enterprising soul out there who would take all of their answers, compile them into a book, and sell it. (Which wouldn't fly anyway, but having it spelled out in the legal notices makes their case easier.)
Heh. I said I'd keep this short, didn't I? Sorry. :)
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anyway, i think you would like to listen to mirah's "la familia" and "gone sugaring" and really all of you think it's like this... for such choice lines as "if we sleep together/would it make it any better?/if we sleep together/would you be my friend forever?"
but basically, why is it raining and why isn't it summer and why am i not in chicago yet, you know? <3
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i woke up in a good mood, but now my head hurts and i want to go and sleep in my bed while listening to kasey singing "water in the fuel" over and over and over again.
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It is all about Kay. ;)
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(yeah. that's right.)
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I love this meme. I may have to do it later when I have access to, y'know, mp3s and stuff.
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you get two, lacy! <3
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Of course you like John Cougar Mellencamp, but not that song so much. Because, you know, you're just wrong.
:)
And on the LIS tip, you should check out my old Norman buddy
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i owe you a couple of mixed discs, so i'm going to save my recommedations for those, okay? i'll have 'em done before the 97s show. <3
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