Britannica becoming Wikipedia

Not surprisingly, the Encyclopedia Britannica is trying to become Wikipedia by allowing users to edit Britannica entries.  There’s a catch though.  Unlike Wikipedia which will allow anonymous edits to entries, Britannica will require people to be registered users whose real names and addresses will be used (to verify their authenticity, I suppose).  Another difference between the two encyclopedias is that edits to an entry will not go live until someone on the Britannica end of things vetts the information as being correct. Supposedly, there will be a 20 minute turn around between when you edit something and when it gets put live on the site.  That seems like an awfully quick turn around to me and considering that edits can take place all over the world, I am surprised that they would be suggesting that they could verify that information in such a short amount of time.

While I think that Britannica is slow to the game, it’s probably a good idea that they’re doing this.  If you can’t beat them, join them.  And, I think it’s good that these user edits may end up appearing in the printed version of the encyclopedia.  As I think I’ve probably said before, giving people a sense of ownership is a good thing.  That’s what Nicholas Carr described in his review of a book about Wikipedia and how he got sucked in to the idea of ownership of an article.  Heck, maybe people will go back to buying more copies of the print version if they feel their edits are going to be part of the encyclopedia.

Some people might criticize Britannica for “dumbing down” their encyclopedia and going the way of Wikipedia.  It might be nice, for example, to know that there is an authoritative source of information out there that hasn’t been “polluted” by the general public with their own personal research or information but rather to have one with experts who write the article.  Others might suggest that it’s a smart business move.  I don’t know which it really is.  The thing that I can’t help but think about is that unless people and/or businesses change with the times, they’re going to eventually be overtaken by some upstart company and Britannica has felt that pressure.  After all, what happened to the search engines Webcrawler, Lycos, Altavista, etc.  Does anyone use them anymore?  I’d guess that most people use Google.  Now, I know that this comparison isn’t necessarily a comparison of the same things (apples to apples, you know), but I would say that it is reflective of the idea that change is a natural part of life and that everyone needs to accept it or slowly fade away into obscurity.

What do  you think?  Is this a sign of the times?  Is it a smart business move?  What does it mean for libraries and librarians who use this encyclopedia over Wikipedia?

Plagiarism in music

Earlier this month there was news that Joe Satriani was suing Coldplay for plagiarising one of Satch’s songs. Not surprisingly this was very interesting to me since plagiarism is a big deal for librarians.  And this is what I’ll say about the case.  Just like the possibility of plagiarism in a school setting Coldplay should take this accusation very seriously.  At the end of this post are some videos for you to watch to see what people on YouTube have uploaded regardint this situation.

I also realize and others have said it before me that it is very difficult, I can imagine, to write a song and not have some part of it be done before by someone before you.  I know that when I hear songs, and I listen to a lot of music, there are certian things in different pieces that remind me of someone else’s music.  In some respects, it’s kind of like what happens when writing a paper.  Unless you’re doing original research, someone before you has already probably said it.  And whether or not you remembered to write down that you found out X piece of information on page whatever of Y book, you can get yourself in trouble.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning what looks to me like plagiarism on Coldplay’s part nor am I condoning it if a student plagiarizes.  I think the thing that I’m getting at is that nobody is perfect.  We all make mistakes, intentionally or not.  I know that one of the things that I tell students is that to make sure that they cite information as they found it.  In my opinion it’s better to over cite than under cite.  But, just because you forgot to cite something properly or you unintentionally borrowed a few lines from someone’s song and incorporated it into your own, it’s still a problem.  That’s why plagiarism is such a tricky thing to teach, let alone understand – for students, musicians, or people in general.  I certainly don’t!

So, the question I’d ask you is whether you think Coldplay ripped off Satch.  Watch these videos from a guitar expert in Canada or listen to a call in radio station recording (sorry, I don’t know what radio station so I can’t verify the authenticity).  And, for those of you out there that are librarians, what do you do to teach plagiarism?  I’d be interested to find out how you deal with this issue.

Cory Doctorow – Copyfighting

This fantastic piece by Cory Doctorow describes copyright and the problems he sees with it.  Here are a few passages worth sharing:

There’s a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture.

Culture’s old. It’s older than copyright.

The existence of culture is why copyright is valuable. The fact that we have a bottomless appetite for songs to sing together, for stories to share, for art to see and add to our visual vocabulary is the reason that people will pay money for these things.

Finally, he says “If culture loses the copyright wars, the reason for copyright dies with it.”  I think Doctorow has an interesting perspective on this topic since he’s a content creator and thus has a vested interest in keeping copyright to his own works.  But he walks the walk and actually releases his own content online for free as well as allows people to buy hard copies of his books and other works.

A lot of what he has to say reminds me of Lawrence Lessig and his idea that copyright is strangling creativity.  Creativity breeds culture and that’s why I’m with these two guys in how they want to deal with copyright.

Librarian = Keeper of Books

I thought this job ad was funny because the title is “Head of Science and Medical Library Services & Keeper of Scientific Books.”  No, I’m not looking for a new job, I just get them in my RSS feed.  In some ways we librarians are keepers of books, but it just sounds weird to an American such as myself to think of that as part of our title.  This job is across the pond in the UK so maybe their definition of what a librarian does or how they define it is different.  They call the trunk of a car the boot and the hood a bonnet, so why can’t a librarian be the keeper of books?

Facebook Friends & Invitations

This piece from the New York Times was worth sharing because it’s kind of what I’ve always suspstected – that people have an inordinate number of “friends” on facebook.  In reality, these friends are not really friends, they’re just acquaintances.  It’s kind of sad really because I feel for the guy in the story who decided to send an invitation to a party to his 700 friends only to find that one person showed up.  Maybe I’m just cynical, but I think I’m realistic.  That’s why I’m not afraid to say that the other day…well more like a few weeks ago, I got rid of 30 or so “friends.”  They weren’t my friends, I didn’t really know these people and they didn’t know me.  Adding people to Facebook is easy and having more friends makes people think they’re better (I think).  I like to keep mine down.  I want my friends to actually be my friends.  What do you think?  How many “friends” can you really have?  Am I a mean person for getting rid of people I don’t really know?  Don’t get me wrong.  Everyone whom I know from my days growing up as a kid I’m not getting rid of.  Heck, I went to school with some of these people 12+ years.  It’s the people you meet randomly in class or know of because he/she is a friend of a friend that it just doesn’t make sense.  I’m sure they’re all nice people, but it’s just a status thing.  Again, all my opinions, but I think it’s true.  And, I think that this piece backs up what I’m saying.