Aaron

Attack of the Clones” and Librarianship

I went to see the 12:01 AM showing of \”Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones\”
(or if you are in China, \”Copy People Attack\”) and I was surprised just how much of it
is about Librarianship. Well, okay, it isn\’t about Librarianship, but it really
does raise some interesting issues about customer service and the integrity of archives. If I were a LIS prof, I\’d use
a scene in the film (perhaps risking litigation from Mr. Lucas) to demonstrate how not
to treat patrons.

No spoliers, really, but you\’ll have to click below if you want to read
about it.

P.S. There are things that kind of resemble books in the Jedi Library. They glowed blue, which makes them seem like eBooks, but there were stacks full of them, so I\’m not really sure what to make of it.

I went to see the 12:01 AM showing of \”Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones\”
(or if you are in China, \”Copy People Attack\”) and I was surprised just how much of it
is about Librarianship. Well, okay, it isn\’t about Librarianship, but it really
does raise some interesting issues about customer service and the integrity of archives. If I were a LIS prof, I\’d use
a scene in the film (perhaps risking litigation from Mr. Lucas) to demonstrate how not
to treat patrons.

No spoliers, really, but you\’ll have to click below if you want to read
about it.

P.S. There are things that kind of resemble books in the Jedi Library. They glowed blue, which makes them seem like eBooks, but there were stacks full of them, so I\’m not really sure what to make of it. You may have heard about Jedi Librarian, Jocasta Nu. In \”Attack of the Clones\” she \”helps\” Obi-Wan as a patron.

Having to find the location of a distant planet, he searches the Jedi Archives for its location. However, he doesn\’t find anything on the maps in the vicinity of where the planet should be. Jocasta aproaches him, and conducts a short reference interview. Kanobi explains what info he needs and what attempts he has made to find an answer. At this point Jocasta acts in a highly unprofessioal manner. A bit bratty, she claims that if the archive doesn\’t list it, it doesn\’t exist. Obi-Won proves himself to be an adequate searcher; Jocasta does no more searching then him. Instead, she, in essence, gives up. Obviously they didn\’t have a librarian as a consultant to help write this character. Any librarian worth his weight in Imperial credits wouldn\’t give up so easily. Her total faith in the Jedi Archives is not warrented, evidently, because the planet does exist. It isn\’t in the archives becasue someone has erased the information. Obi-Won leaves an unsatisfied patron.

If *I* were the Jedi Librarian (um, no, I\’ve never thought about this before at all), after being stumped I would have sent a hologram to some expert on geography I knew, or at least consulted another source. Perhaps the total of Jedi knowledge is contained in a single archive. Bad idea. We see what occurs when libraries don\’t have a diverse collection of materials!

May 16, 2002 by EBooks Librarians Libraries

End of the Nixon Library/Sister Saga? Fhew!

Has a presidential library ever received so much attention? CNN.com features this story from Time, and maybe it will be the end of having to read about this all of the time.

The sister\’s hashed everything out evidently, and compromises were made. I just like this quote quote from the story:

Although the Nixon library holds 200 seminars and ceremonies a year, Tricia\’s lawyer says it has become a \”theme park,\” with its peddling of Nixon-and-Elvis T shirts and its use for proms, bar mitzvahs and weddings. \”Impress your guests,\” one ad says, \”by serving a state dinner prepared by a chef to five Presidents.\”

May 16, 2002 by Legal Issues Librarians Libraries

Book News

Harry Potter… fans, prepare to shed a tear. JK is still writing the lastest installment. #5 isn\’t due out for a while, June 2003 perhaps.

The Wind Done Gone lawsuit has been settled. Houghton Mifflin will contribute an unspecified amount to Morehouse College in Georgia, and Mitchell\’s estate will leave them alone. So I guess we\’re allowed to parody.

Finally, I\’m sad to report that the Osbournes will be paid three million dollars for two books. Simon and Schuster will be giving them this money.

The full Harry story[cnn]

The full Wind story[SF Gate]

The full Osbournes story[yahoo]

May 9, 2002 by Books Harry Potter Legal Issues Yahoo

Finnish Proud of their Libraries

An article from the Finnish paper Helsinki Sanomat titled Helsinki spring – they are marching again details the daily demonstrations in Finland\’s capital city.
One of the issues which was being addressed was the closing of some Helsinki branch libraries. Allegedly, funds that could have gone to libraries were going to be used to build a roof over their Olympic Stadium. The article is quite inspirational. It details the coming together of politicians, professors, students and children to save a library. When questioned about the demonstrations he attends, one Finn said,

\”For peace, for animal rights, and against nuclear power. And of course for the libraries, since the public library system and our health care net are two things of which this country can be proud.\”

May 7, 2002 by Libraries

A Library as Big as the World

You\’ve most likely heard of Brewster Kahle\’s Internet Archive. In the case that you have not, this note on the homepage should tantalize you

The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

Well, an interesting article from Business Week tells of the development of Kahle\’s project, his plans for the future (which include better searching capablilites and digital copies of TV and radio programs) and the *huge* obstacle that is COPYRIGHT! In the article, Lawrence Lessig calls Kahle his \”hero.\” Wow! The strange thing about the article is that it seems to be sympathetic to Kahle and Lessig, rather than business.

April 23, 2002 by Internet Legal Issues Librarians Libraries

The Biggest Database OF ALL TIME!

Experts at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) at Stanford University believe they may have the biggest database in the world. While they only stated collecting data in 1999, they have reached the 500TB mark. Let\’s put this in persepctive. A Terabye is one trillion bytes, or 1000GB. The info in the database could fill 1 billion books, 60 times the books found in the Library of Congress.

The database is called BaBar and has adopted the children\’s book character as its mascot. The name was derived from a type of subatomic particle the scientists are studying, the B-Bar.

They record every \”interesting\” particle collision, which takes about 30K. Much of the data is redundant. They have been fastidious about backing up their data.

Read the full story.

April 18, 2002 by Libraries

Love and Passion in the Reading Room

The National Post today has a great article about the history of the Reading Room in the Brisith Library.

It has spawned more revolutions, incited more passion and created more art than just about any other place in the modern world. And it is a library. No, it is the library. For the past 150 years, the way to access that library was through the Reading Room at the British Museum.

The article lists important historical figures who have used the Room, and gives lusty descriptions of the Room:

The Reading Room closed, but it was not abandoned. It was restored to its 1857 glory, using 25 km of 23.25-carat gold leaf and a couple of tons of paint. It sits in the centre of the British Museum complex, now more an exhibit itself than a place to spawn sedition or love.

The desks are still there and you can use them to consult the 12,000 or so reference books relating to the museum\’s collections. There are also 50 computers that let you access the COMPASS system (which you can also get online), describing the origins and the meaning of thousands of the museum\’s objects. There is even — gasp — a children\’s section.

Read the full story.

April 16, 2002 by Internet Libraries

Authors’ Guild Feuds With Amazon.com Over Used Books

If you buy books on Amazon.com you\’ve surely noticed the opportunity to purchase used books. Well, the Authors\’ Guild does not like this, claiming it harms authors. It recently encouraged its memebers to delink Amazon on their websites.

The used book industry… is a different beast on the internet – this has the potential to undermine publishing economics,\” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the guild.

Wait, this is a bad thing?

Read the full story. The Authors\’ Guild won\’t be coming after libraries according to this statement on their site.

April 16, 2002 by Amazon Authors Books Internet Libraries

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