Evidently the ALA has partnered with ebrary to make the contents of American Libraries available electronically. Of course, that’s only true for ALA members….who already get the publication in print anyway.
In reply to Commons-blog and Rick Emrich’s thoughtful response to “Perils of Strong Copyright” I’d like to address just a couple of points.
First: I fully agree with his statement that further research would be helpful in supporting my case. Had I more time to devote fully to the paper, and had I chosen a different research strategy, I could have developed a much stronger case than currently laid out in Perils. I don’t know that I necessarily agree with “research base is insufficient to deal with the range of issues he addresses.” The range of issues is broad, but the central issue is very simple, and very clear.
The ALA seems to be saying one thing, and doing something very different.
I think that the evidence submitted shows this.
I kept asking myself during the planning portion of the paper, and then through the research and into the writeup: “How far should I go in gathering information?” I made a conscious effort to rely on publically available information that the ALA provides, and NOT to contact members of the publishing industry. The statements that the ALA has made in regards to Open Access publications were public statements. Why is giving the copyright information the same level of focus a negative? I would expect there to be some measure of agreement between the information available to authors on the websites noted in Perils and the Open Access statements that the ALA has made. I found little to none of this agreement in the publically available information. That is what interested me initially, and thus what I focused on.
I was very surprised at the speed with which Perils was distributed. I was expecting to show it to a few people, gain some feedback, and revise it into something new. However, I am very proud of the fact that the vast majority of the feedback has been and continues to be positive. I am extraordinarily pleased that people are discussing this topic, and hope to play a role in these discussions.
In a reply on Commons blog, Eli Edwards suggests “a virtual symposium/defense of the paper for people to share opinions and ideas” on the topic. I hope that this happens, and I hope that the discussion continues long after the week or so that this stays on the radar. I would be happy to take part in something of this sort, if anyone out there is interested.
- Total unique hits on blog since posting master’s paper =
880980110013001500+ - Places paper has been mentioned:
This is all in addition to the feedback I’ve gotten from the UK, Canada, and various schools here in the US. To make things REALLY interesting, Eli, of “Confessions of a Mad Librarian” above, gave a copy of the paper to Michael Gorman when he spoke at Stanford San Jose State yesterday. Needless to say, I’m interested to see what that brings.
The last 24 hours have been quite interesting! The feedback has been roaring in…99% positive, with a few corrections and questions sent my way. One gentleman from Canada pointed out my misuse of the term “schizophrenic” on page 8, which I appreciate. I was looking for something more along the lines of “hypocritically” and may have unintentionally misused the term.
I did receive one response from someone associated with the ALA, specifically Knowledge Quest (KQWeb, to be precise). Laura Pearle, the associate editor of KQWeb said:
“I read with interest your comments about Open Access and ALA. As Associate Editor for KQWeb, I am aware of their policies and it appears to me that you have misrepresented the ALA’s position. In your appendix you have copies of the two copyright agreements ALA offers. One does assign to ALA all rights. The other, however, only assigns limited rights (that of first publication) and the rest remain with the author. It is the author’s choice, not ALA’s, which agreement is signed….
…You might want to re-read the agreements and rework your thesis on the basis of that rereading. ”
I must say that I do not believe that I have misrepresented the ALA’s position (indeed, I think I have described that they don’t currently know their position, since they say one thing, and behave differently). As far as Knowledge Quest specifically, perhaps I was confused by the following passage on the “Instructions for Authors” portion of the KQ website
“Copyright
A manuscript published in the journal is subject to copyright by the American Library Association for the American Association of School Librarians. Additional information about copyright policies is available from the ALA Office of Rights and Permission.”
That seemed a reasonably clear statement. If there is the opportunity for authors to retain copyright, perhaps this statement should be altered to reflect that.
For all the talk that the American Library Association does in regards to Open Access and freely available information, here’s the truth of the matter. A chart showing how a few ALA publications compare to Creative Commons licenses. For a full explanation, read the paper. Chapters 4 and 5 and the Conclusion have the real evidence in them. HTML version forthcoming.
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It is done.
Amazingly and beyond all hope, I’m done. It’s been okay’d all the way around, and I’m meeting Paul in the morning to get the final signatures. Final tally is 81 pages, including the Appendix, Bibliography, and everything else.
PDF copy up on the web very soon, as well as an HTML as quickly as I can manage it.
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Unique
After a long and torturous discussion, Bets and I have determined that I am a unique individual because I must be the only human alive who has seen all of the following live in concert:
Yes, I’ll admit: I saw Winger live and in concert. I was young and impressionable, what can I say?
Blog challenge: what concert combinations have YOU seen that make you unique?
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Jason’s Rules of Philosophy
Today, Bets and I undertook a massive task: to go through the accumulated papers of 10 years, and dump what needed to be dumped. We just threw out a 4 drawer filing cabinet, and it was packed with useless papers. One of these papers was the following, from my time at OU as a Master’s student in philosophy. My observed rules of the academic study of philosophy.
- Whenever someone says “I will show” they probably won’t.
- Any ethical argument that relies on a Nazi example is automatically at question.
- The non-philosophical default setting for metaphysics is realism; for ethics is relativism; and for logic is ignorance.
- Even diehard Idealists won’t step in front of a bus
- “Ceteris Paribus” conditions aren’t and won’t
If any of that makes any sense, you paid attention in Intro to Philosophy.
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Keeeeenaaaaadaaaaaa!!!!!
Tetsuo!!!!
Man. Gotta have me one of these. Talk about serious geek.
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Going to bed now.
Another night of the Master’s Paper. Bibliography = check. Abstract = check. Subject headings = check. All formatting = check. All that’s missing is that seal of approval from Paul, which hopefully comes this weekend.
