Author: griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

Categories
The Living Dead

Zombies!

madison zombies

Madison is the next city to face the shambling undead hordes.

At 2pm on Saturday, October 22, zombie fans will assemble in full costume to kick off Zombie Lurch 2005. Join us! We’ll meet on the Capitol steps (Carroll/Mifflin side), shamble down State Street with stops for tasty brains and beverages, and end at the Union Terrace for even more beverages.

To add a particularly Madisonian touch, it’s not just a Zombie Walk but a Zombie Protest. Fight for zombie rights by bringing a protest sign, sandwich board, or customized t-shirt. With slogans like Let Zombies Walk!, The undead are people too! Open your heart and mind to zombies, or even an eloquent ARGH, we’ll raise public consciousness for the plight of our cannibalistic brothers and sisters. What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want it? BRAINS!

I’ve got a couple of friends in the area (hey Chris and Heidi!)…you guys should totally take pics of this, or join in.

EDIT: Speaking of pics: page 1, page 2, page 3.

Categories
Library Issues

JMLA

Really great article examining the trade-offs for Open Access by T. Scott Plutchak, the editor of the JMLA. The opening paragraph is a great illustration of the sorts of surprising audiences you get when you open up your content.

Between June of 2004 and May of 2005, the number of unique users accessing the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) and its predecessor, the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (BMLA), on the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central (PMC) system averaged just over 20,000 per month. When I first saw these numbers on the PMC administration site, I was astonished. The members of the Medical Library Association (MLA) itself (who we might presume are the main audience of the JMLA) number only about 4,500, and the print run of the journal is generally in the neighborhood of 5,000 copies. It seemed likely to me that the number of unique readers in any given month would be just some fraction of that core audience.

I find the article really refreshing, especially since I somewhat unfairly critiqued the JMLA in my Master’s Paper for not going Open Access. While I know my little diatribe didn’t have an effect on it, it’s refreshing to see Mr. Plutchak singing the praises of OA anyway. We had a bit of a discussion after the publication of my Master’s Paper, and he was very kind in pointing out areas where I had possibly mis-represented the JMLA and its stances. I was grateful at the time, and remain so.

Very nice article…I’d love to see more and more of this cost/benefit analysis going on. I’ve been saying for years now that the benefits of OA far outweigh the doom-and-gloom that publishers sometimes espouse.

Categories
Digital Culture

Testing Flock

So I just got an invitation to try out Flock, the new Firefox based browser that promises a ton of neat features. One of which I’m abusing right now…a blog interface, where you can create/edit blog posts from a special interface that includes a Flickr panel for dragging/dropping pics, as well as a blog panel for dragging/dropping mp3s or other files that need to go with the post.

Flickr Photo

So far, the browsing itself is smooth…I ran it thought a bunch of pages, and it seems to handle most of my daily browsing with ease. I’ll play with the more advanced features over the course of the week, and see what I think.

If anyone wants to try it out, give me a yell, and I’ll see if I can hook you up with a download.

Categories
Digital Culture Library Issues

MP3’s, audiobooks, and libraries

So I got an email yesterday from Shel, asking me my thoughts on ripping audiobooks from a library:

..I was wondering the other day though – I checked out a Jimmy Buffet audio CD from the library and ripped it to listen to my iPod. I then, honestly, felt guilty. Like I was somehow cheating the library or something – or more accurately, using the library inappropriately when the library had always been my friend. Have the Powers That Be just not thought about all the media sitting on library shelves, there for the taking/ripping/copying? Have libraries somehow slipped through the cracks? Just curious on your take on the situation.

She also pointed towards a BoingBoing post, originally from Neil Gaiman’s blog where a reader asks for Neil’s take on the copying of audiobooks from a library to an iPod or other MP3 player. His response:

What a wonderful ethical question. I feel almost rabbinical pondering it. No, I don’t believe you’ve broken any law. If you’d checked out the MP3 CD from your library you’d be expected to put it onto your iPod, after all. There’s a weird sort of ethical fogginess, in that I suspect that part of the idea of libraries is that when you’re done with something you return it, and of course once you have your MP3 on your computer and iPod you can keep it forever. But I think this is just one of those places where changes in technology move faster than the rules.

If you’re listening to it, and you’ve got an iPod or suchlike MP3 player, you’re almost definitely going to listen to it on your iPod. That’s how things are, and it’s a good thing (it’s why I got Harper Collins to release American Gods and Anansi Boys on MP3 CD, after all).

Probably wisest not to pull it off your iPod and give it to other people, though. Let them at least take it out of the library themselves.

I’m so happy to see an author who at least understands the perception of his readers…of course we’ll copy the files to our portable devices. My take on it? Well…it’s not to hard to figure out that I’m a copyright liberal. I feel like the consolidation of the media companies and their lobbying power in Congress has created a copyright situation that is completely out of control. And I do think that copying audiobooks that you have checked out of a library to a portable media device (MP3 player, mini disc, etc) counts as fair use. It’s format shifting. I can’t currently get a lot of audiobooks in a purely digital format (ie..downloadable), and I certainly can’t check them out of a library that way! There have been some experiments with digital audio books in libraries, but I don’t think they are widespread, nor do I think they are going to crop up across the country.

Categories
Digital Culture

Writely

Neat new tool on the block:

Writely

An online word processor, it allows uploading of word files, exporting created files as Word, and they claim to be working towards its use as a blog tool. Neat on-the-road word processor, and the basic features are free. I’ve tested a few files, and they’ve worked out well.

Categories
Personal

Back

After a truly trying week, I’m back at work and trying to pick up various pieces of things that fell through cracks while gone for 9 days.

Hopefully, all will return to normal soon, and I’ll be blogging regularly. For now, I’m beat. Pithy comments and neat technology will be heading your way soon.

Categories
Personal

Thanks

I’d like to thank those that sent condolences, and for the few random readers who might not know, and might care…my mother-in-law, Beverly Sandlin, passed away this past weekend. Betsy and I have spent this week with her family, and while it’s been a terrible time, the support of friends and family have gotten us through this initial grieving.

Thanks to everyone, and I hope to be back online soon and back into a routine.

Categories
Digital Culture Music

iFill

Griffin has gone off the deep end if they think that they can get away with this one:

iFill

iFill streams mp3 files from thousands of free radio stations directly to your iPod. You can choose several stations at once and select from many different genres. And since iFill goes directly to your iPod, it won’t clutter up your hard drive with extra files.

iFill is a great fit for your active lifestyle. With iFill, you can go to bed while charging your iPod, and wake up to an iPod full of new music, ready to go jogging with you, and without having to search through your record collection, browse the iTunes Store, or rip any CDs

Ok…looking over the page, I’m not completely following their logic here. It looks as if they are saying that it doesn’t actually put anything on your hard drive…that it throws the FM directly onto the iPod. That would mean that it could ONLY “record” radio while the iPod is attached, and defeat a large portion of the purpose of time-shifting. For instance, if I want to listen to a specific talk radio show that’s only on from 3pm-4pm, I’ll have my iPod with me, and not connected to my computer.

I’m going to give the week trial a shot, and see how this thing actually works. More after the testing.

Categories
Digital Culture Personal

New stuff

So…I’ve decided to try out Google AdWords. You can see them in the left hand column, and I hope that they are not particularly intrusive. This is literally just an experiment, to see if people actually click them, especially on a blog with as low traffic as mine. If they become an issue…off they go!

Plus, if you just want to throw some support my way…click away! 🙂

EDIT: Justin left a comment, but I’m interested in hearing from anyone…what do you think about adwords on blogs? Is advertising the devil? Are there different levels of hell depending on how it’s done? I’m curious what people think/feel about ads on a private (that is, non-directly-commercial) site.

Categories
Digital Culture

Bunny Thespians

Want to waste a few minutes, and see 14 good movies?

You need Angry Alien Productions, and their bunnies.

No, really. Bunnies.

Here’s my favorite: Highlander in 30 seconds. With bunnies.