Images and belonging

I was fascinated to read in this morning’s Boston Globe that a new and compelling image of Phineas Gage has recently been uncovered.  Gage is the famous 19th century Vermonter who was shot through the head with a piece of iron in an industrial accident, and survived–but with his personality completely changed. He became the subject of one of the most famous medical cases in history, illustrating the functions of different parts of the human brain. The photo was identified because the owner scanned it and posted it on Flickr.  What a great example of how content on the open web takes on a life of its own, and becomes something entirely different from what we thought, something that no longer belongs to us alone. In this case, the owner of the photo (it’s actually a daguerreotype) originally thought it depicted a 19th century sailor with a harpoon.  But a Flickr viewer recognized it as something else.  High resolution scanning and zooming confirmed that the man is indeed Gage   Now the daguerreotype is no longer just a curio belonging to a collector, but an cultural artifact that belongs all of us. I wonder what our viewers will uncover from the images published in the NU library’s Archives and Special Collections.  Are there Phineas Gages in our digital collections, waiting for you to discover them?

On this evening’s Google Books Settlement Discussion at the Boston Public Library

“The future is here, but it doesn’t come to everyone at the same rate.”– Hal Abelson, MIT

In a nutshell: there seemed to be three major issues of concern (or queasiness as they echoed to each other) that the panelists (and the moderator) had, sans the Face of Google guy, Daniel Clancy.  Monopolization of the books market, access to library users and concerns of cost to libraries, commercialization of orphan works and the transformation of written culture.  Regarding the monopolization issue, John Palfrey of Harvard Law School, said “game over” if the settlement is ruled favorably.  He claimed that no one else will have the incentive to compete against Google in the digital books market.  Palfrey is also concerned regarding orphan works (works whose copyright owner cannot be found after an effort) and what will happen to orphan works legislation as a result of the Google Books settlement decision.  Palfrey and Anne Wolpert of MIT, also expressed ‘queasiness’ over the commercialization of orphan works.  Wolpert talked about the pricing model of Google Books.  She explained that individuals could subscribe, that libraries could have one dedicated terminal with access to the Google Books project, or libraries could subscribe to the entire corpus.  She took issue with the undefined pricing, which Dan Clancy said would adjust to the market.  Wolpert’s key point was that libraries have been burned in the past by publishers who had a monopoly on literature in specific fields.  She also made the point that libraries have paid some of the costs in the development of the corpus that is Google Books, as well as taxpayers supporting public libraries.

Personally, I agree with the points made.  Regarding orphan works, it is my understanding that identifying, digitizing and making acccessible more orphan works is to the greater good of society (and will ultimately help to identify previously unknown copyright holders).  However, the difference between a project like the Open Library Project through the Open Content Alliance and Google Books is that the latter seeks a profit.  My lingering question is to those libraries that signed up with Google Book Project.  Did they think about the greater long term ramifications to society of one business potentially controlling 40 million volumes of our nation’s great libraries, before making a deal with a company whose philosophy Hal Abelson claims, is “Manifest Destiny”?

Interested in listening to music?

While the Library has a number of different academic resources, some can be enjoyed for non-academic reasons too.  I think the Naxos Music Library is a good example of this.  Even out side of music, history and art classes, you can take pleasure in listening to over 85,000 tracks while studying.  As a bonus, it is a resource also available to our alumni users.  You can search by genres such as Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock, World, and even Relaxation Music.  I think one of my favorites is Ravel’s Bolero.  Try searching and see what you find!

Google Book settlement forum, July 21, 2009 at the Boston Public Library

 

A panel about what the Google Books settlement agreement means for the academic, library, and business communities.

Speakers:

  • Daniel Clancy, Engineering Director, Google Books
  • John Palfrey, Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources, Harvard Law School
  • Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moderated by Maura Marx, Executive Director, Open Knowledge Commons.

Google Book Search is an ambitious project to digitize the world’s books. Six years, many million works, and two U.S. lawsuits later, the project is now set to change dramatically. Google has reached a settlement agreement with authors and publishers that, if approved by the court, will have sweeping implications for writers, readers, scholars, librarians, and the public at large.

The panel of speakers will explain and discuss the settlement. The panel will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
http://bpl.org/news/calendar.htm?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D84588833

Associated Press (AP) Images is a great source of photos

If you are looking for current photos to use in educational presentations, slide shows or projects, AP Images is a great source.  If you would like to use these images in commercial publications or works, you will need to get permission from AP Images, prior to doing so. Woodstock Stamp