Lorcan uses concentration and diffusion to define two distinct Web 2.0 practices. I find the distinction very useful. Of course, this is not an either or; a service can be both concentrated (like Flickr) and open to the spectrum of diffuse tools (like RSS at Flickr). Does this mean that WorldCat is a Web 2.0 concentration of librarian effort well ahead of its time?

It’s also nice for my records that he mentions “the National Library of Australia and the Library of Congress when they chose to use Flickr for significant image projects.”

Slate has a somewhat disappointing photo essay about library spaces in the age of Google. The pictures are wonderful and a nice selection of old and new approaches. The essay is slim and does not dig deep at all. Maybe we will get more out of this Library Spaces: Future Needs event on Friday.

I’ve become a fan of YouTube, even following the whole LG15 controversy. Yeah, I know. Still, every once in a while I run across something worth smiling about. Here’s one from Weird Al that you should all watch: a commentary on copyright. Very sweet.

OK, one more note about re-imagines what an online conversation can be. I am stunned at what Tim and his team have accomplished in less than one year, and the kind of creativity behind the new Talk feature is a great example of the dynamic ideas inspired by really thinking about how to serve a community.

Mary has been working on an Open Source Religious Education site idea. I don’t know that conversations had been part of the idea, but if we were to implement them, I think the Talk model could be very exciting.

Yesterday I got a chance to check in on LibraryThing for the first time in a few months. I was impressed with how much progress the site has made, not only in terms of users (over 60,000) and content (almost 5M records), but also in terms of services. There is now a way to collapse editions of titles together (a kind of communal FRBR), to sign up for an organization account (in case you want to catalog your school library with LT), to query LT via web services APIs (like the thingTitle), to join groups (like librarians who use LT). LT started out as a very simple proposition (we’ll keep your list of books and allow you to share that list with other users of LT) focussed on attracting a community. It attracted the community, and continues to. Now it is learning from that community in order to understand what it should become.

I feel that we too often feel we have to specify a service, understand all the functional requirements, survey the community, get it right the first time. This leads to the “if we build it will they come”. The “it” becomes really big, and the “coming” becomes really important. What if we built just enough to get them to start coming? If we fail, “they” don’t show up, we try something else. If “they” come, we wait for them to demand services, to tell us what should come next, to help us understand the functional requirements. We build for the community that grows. More of an “if they come then we build it model,” or as a colleague put it today, a “dream of fields.”

I have no idea if LT really evolved this way, I’d love to know. But it sure feels like it has. I think we need to learn to evolve library systems in similarly iterative ways. I fear we will miss the boat otherwise.

Dharma and Beth have published an article about Documenting Internet2 in RLG DigiNews. I spent quite a bit of effort on this project last year and found web crawling for content much more reasonable an approach than I’d expected. This year we are giving Archive-It (from the Internet Archive and RLG) a go for similar crawling. The article is an effective summary of the project.

I just saw a really neat little demo of U Rochester’s Libraries Staff Web. It turns out they’ve implemented their whole staff web as a Xerox Docushare site. This enables not only sharing completed documents, but also sharing the editorial and creation side of documents (something you can’t really see without logging in). I was particularly struck by the image sharing this system made possible.

Well, it seems to be happening. We are (finally) seeing a divorce between the Integrated Library System (ILS) and the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) we share with our patrons. The introduction of the new catalog at North Carolina State University powered by Endeca put the rest of us to shame. Our own vendor, Ex Libris has been planning a product called Primo since last year. Finally, a library vendor for whom I have a great deal of respect, TLC, has decided to broker both Endeca (they did this two years ago!) and a product called AquaBrowser.

While I’ve been talking about the end of the ILS as we know it, others have been acting! It is impressive to see how far they’ve come, and time for us to do our part to move this market along.

Downhill Battle has taken down its bittorrent links to Eyes on the Prize at the request of Blackside (the producer) lawyers. No surprise there. Still leaves the questions of fair use open.

I’ve been thinking about the Eyes on the Prize distribution some more. I’d called it “stealing” and “clearly illegal” in my prior post and comments (since edited). That was inconsiderate. Let’s consider the case more carefully. The claim made by Downhill Battle is that copying Eyes on the Prize for the purpose of showing it at screenings on 2/8 is fair use. Fair use must be evaluated by four factors, lets look at the four factors with regard to this case. Remember, I am not a lawyer. I am not even an expert in copyright. I’m just doing this exercise to help with my own thinking. Your milage may vary!

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;In this case the copies are being made for showing during Black History Month and to illuminate the tensions between copyright and the transmission of culture. As long as these copies are used only for such non-profit educational purposes, I think there is likely to be a reasonable for fair use on this factor.Note that the use is not “transformational”. While the screenings at which the documentary is presented may create a critical context that changes its role (a conversation about copyright in addition to the lessons of civil rights), this new context does not seem to me to really transform the work. As a result, I would not anticipate a slam-dunk case for fair use on the first factor.

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

Eyes on the Prize is a television miniseries documentary. The courts seem to treat fact-based material more generously w/r/t fair use than fictional material. This is clearly factual material. On the other hand I think visual material, like TV or film, tend to get more protection than some printed works. This may be a wash or it may lean very slightly toward fair use.

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

Well, we are being asked to copy the whole show. In fact, each episode of the show is probably to be considered a complete work. I think this factor clearly tilts against fair use.

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Now this gets interesting. Since the producers and PBS are no longer selling copies of the series, is there a market at all? They claim to be working on re-securing the rights they need to distribute the work, and if they succeed there should be a decent market for the DVD or other distribution. Even so, does the mp4 distribution really take away from that market potential? I think a case could be made that this distribution and the publicity and screenings surrounding it will increase the market for this series, should it ever be distributed officially again. I know I am now interested in buying a copy, when I’d forgotten about the series before all this. In my mind this factor leans toward fair use.Hm. Factors (1) and (4) tilt toward fair use, factor (3) tilts against fair use, factor (2) may be a wash, but slightly toward fair use in my estimation. That adds up, in my view, to fair use! Downhill Battle has a point.Now, this is not a legal ruling in any sense, and you have to do you own analysis of the factors before making your own decision. And document your own decision in case you are ever called to defend it in a court.