Books

Libraries and Copyright

Copyright has a tendency to make library work difficult. This is a growing trend and many of the larger libraries in the world are struggling to come to terms with copyright issues.

Yesterday the EU’s High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries – which includes, inter alia, stakeholders from the British Library, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Federation of European Publishers and Google – presented an advisory report on copyright issues to the European Commission.

The group also discussed how to ensure more open access to scientific research and how to improve public-private cooperation. The work of the High Level Group is part of the European Commission’s efforts to make Europe’s rich cultural and scientific heritage available online. For this purpose, the group advises the Commission on issues regarding digitisation, online accessibility and digital preservation of cultural material.

Read their Report on Digital Preservation, Orphan Works and Out-of-Print Works, Selected Implementation Issues available here and the annex Model agreement for a licence on digitisation of out of print works available here.

(EU Press Release)

Posted on by mklang

Capitalism 3.0

Are you drowning in books to be read? Sometimes I think that I am. Then while I am in the middle of the deep end of the pool, instead of a life buoy, another book comes skimming across the water. This time it was Peter Barnes’ book Capitalism 3.0 which is available both as in a Pdf file (licensed under Creative Commons naturally) and in the more comfortable paper variety.

After scanning through the pdf I ordered the book. Barnes’ argument is based on the idea that capitalism is flawed and needs to take the Commons into consideration. He takes a broad view of the commons which includes headings such as nature, community and culture. Based upon this view he attempts to draw together the diversity of our commons and connect it to the capitalist approach to business.

 

 The book is critical of the accesses of old capitalism (which Barnes calls Capitalism 2.0). But he is also a bit too positive to what capitalism has done well – but a good book must be one that you disagree with in parts. Barnes attempts to show that Capitalism 3.0 has a chance of alleviating some of the access of capitalism 2.0 and he ends his book on a positive note:

Capitalism 2.0 had its moments. It defeated communism, leveled national boundaries to trade, and brought material abundance never seen before. But its triumph was accompanied by huge unpaid bills, debts that are now coming due. Perhaps we ought to think of ourselves as a company in bankruptcy. We canâ??t pay all of our bills, but we can pay some, especially if we stretch the payments out. In some cases, we can compensate debt holders with equity. In any event, we need to reorganize our economy so, in the future, we donâ??t run up the same debts again. Thatâ??s what
Capitalism 3.0 would do.

But Capitalism 3.0 also has a higher purpose: to help both capitalism and the human species achieve their full potential. To do that, our economic machine must stop destroying the commons and start protecting it. At the same time, it must lift the bottom 95 percent of humans at a faster rate than it raises the top 5 percent. This requires more than compassionate rhetoric, or a few bandages around the edges. It requires an upgrade of our operating system.

You can either buy a copy of the book or, if you prefer it, download it from the Capitalism 3.0 website.

Posted on by mklang

Recommendation Mapping

Recommender systems are nothing new. The list of books on the side of this blog is generated by LibraryThing which has a very nice recommender system. It analysis your library and then recommends books contained in other users libraries. Amazon tends to use recommender systems and recommends customers that people who bought a certain book also bought certain other books.

This is nothing new. But when I came across Amaznode I was pleasantly surprised by the graphical representations of their recommendations (which are based on Amazon). The system creates a web of books which others have bought. This is a cute way of representing data.

Posted on by mklang

Rare Book Room

Wow – I have just found the Rare Book Room (via Stingy Scholar). It is an educational website intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.

Over the last ten years, a company called “Octavo” embarked on digitally photographing some of the world â??s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).

This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.

In particular the site contains:

1. Some of the great books in science, including books by Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, Einstein, Darwin and others.

2. Most of the Shakespeare Quartos from the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the University of Edinburgh Library, and the National Library of Scotland. It also contains the First Folio from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

3. A complete set of Poor Richardâ??s Almanac by Benjaman Franklin.

4. Very rare editions: Gutenberg â??s Bible (from the Library of Congress), Harvey’s book on the circulation of blood, Galileo â??s Siderius Nuncius, the first printing of the Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta.

Posted on by mklang

Is it really happening?

Oh my god!!! This is the most recent strip from PhD comics. Slackerney is on his way! This is truly the end of an era.

 

For those of you who are unable to see the significance of this event then either you are hopelessly lost… or you have a wonderful experience ahead of you discovering the work of Jorge Cham. The comic strip is called Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD in case you missed it) and features the troubles of ordinary PhD students struggling with writing, conferences, self doubt, procrastination, insecurity, supervisors, food and sleep deprivation in the futile quest for a title.

The strip began in 1997 and the whole archive is available online. But beware it is not only highly amusing it is addictive and will increase your level of procrastination to new heights. I became hooked in 2002/2003 and since then I have read all the strips, bought the books, bought the t-shirt and included this strip (with permission!) in my own PhD thesis.

The significance of the strip above is that Mike Slackerney is about to pass his PhD. He has been a student since before anyone else can remember – his supervisor is embarrassed to remember the date. So this event must be seen as an evolutionary leap forward.

Personally I think it is great since I took way too long to finish writing my thesis – but remember Newtons First Law of Graduation: A grad student in procrastination tends to stay in procrastination unless an external force is applied to it. (PhD comics 3 March 2001)

Posted on by mklang

Back in Sweden

Just returned from the London trip which went very well. I gave two lectures and a seminar at the London School of Economics. The first and second (same lecture on two different days) was on Internet Civil Disobedience. The focus was on the use of Internet technology in acts of civil disobedience with a focus on  denial of service attacks. The seminar was on the Democratic Effects of Attempts to Regulate Internet Technology – this is basically my thesis work and the discussion is on the negative effects that attempts to regulate the Internet have on democratic participation via the Internet. Both lectures and the seminar went very well.

The rest of the time was spent both in meetings and in a well deserved relaxation. As usual London offered the opportunity for lots of interesting new additions to my reading list. Besides the two mentioned earlier (Peter Singerâ??s One World: The ethics of globalization and a book edited by Roth, Worden and Bernstein called Torture: Does it make us safer? Is it ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective). I came across John Pilger Freedom Next Time (a fantastic book I have already read half of it – it is a wake up call for anyone who wants to see the way in which mainstream media stifles important stories relevant to human rights.

Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power (by Kevin Danaher and Jason Mark), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (Benjamin Shepard and Ronald Hayduk Eds) and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (James C. Scott) are three books which are highly relevant to my resistance work.

The list is nicely rounded up by Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies (Andy Oram editor) and Computer Ethics and Professional Responsibility (edited by Terrell Ward Bynum and Simon Rogerson).

To me this is a very exciting list of books the only problem is to find the time they deserve to be able to read the properly. To me book shopping in London is not really about the large and wonderful bookstores that contain everything. I tend to get lost among so many books, become indecisive and leave empty handed. I much prefer the eclectic mix to be found in good second hand or remainder bookstores.  These also have the additional benefit of being really cheap. The most expensive among this list was Pilger’s book which cost only 8 pounds for a new hardback.

Posted on by mklang

Something about London

There is something about London, the energy, the masses of people and sheer scale of experiences makes it a wonderful place to be. Yesterday was spent in tourism mode. Walking around familiar streets taking in the sights, sounds and feel of the city. Naturally I managed to squeeze in a couple of bookstores even though I was very modest in my shopping. Only two books! Peter Singerâ??s One World: The ethics of globalization and a book edited by Roth, Worden and Bernstein called Torture: Does it make us safer? Is it ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective. I had seen both of these books before but was pleasantly surprised to find them both in a remainder bookstore.

Posted on by mklang

Two Year Shelf Life

This is scary stuff almost on the same level as book-burning – ok so not really that bad but something feels wrong about this. Via the Swedish blog Biblioteksrelaterat I arrived at an article in the Washington Post Hello, Grisham — So Long, Hemingway? The article was about a library in Fairfax which was absolutely ruthless in getting rid of books which were not being read. Books that had not been checked out in 24 months are now removed from the library.

Naturally the library cannot save all books but 24 months? This is the shelf-life of knowledge and literature? The books in my home are not re-read every 24 months but this does not mean that they need to be replaced by the flavor of the day.

Posted on by mklang

Defence and Environment

What do the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Environmnet have in common – besides politics? Well today I recieved a letter from the Minister of Defence thanking me for sending my PhD to him three months ago. The Minister of the Environment thanked me in January. Therefore they both have good manners. All the other ministers (including the Prime Minister) either have no manners, no staff or both – since they have not said thank you.

Actually since they were all part of a new cabinett selected close after the election and my thesis defence I sent all the newbies copies of my thesis  Disruptive Technology: Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy. I didn’t expect a reply from any of them but it’s nice to see that at least two ministers are polite.

Posted on by mklang

More free books

Books that are free (as in beer) are simply irresistible and these two seem particularly relevant to my interests thats a big additional bonus! They are available online for free download or the old fashioned dead-tree version. Actually I shouldn’t be like that – I prefer the dead tree versions…

A collection of essays (edited by Joseph Feller and others) called: Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software some of it is familiar but it is nice to have it all collected in one place. It can be downloaded all at once here or chapter by chapter here.

The second one is John Logieâ??s book Peers, Pirates and Persuasion which is about the rhetoric of the peer-to-peer debates. A good analysis of the rhetorics of file sharing has been missing so I am really looking forward to reading this book. Download if here.

(Via Lex Ferenda)

Posted on by mklang