Tuesday, December 31, 2002

Leaving for a 3 week trip to Australia I don't usually work on my blog this late, but I've been very busy tying up various loose ends before I leave on New Year's Day for a 3 week trip back to my home in Tasmania. This is my first trip home since May 2000 - and it feels long overdue. I'm particularly looking forward to escaping January in Minnesota and doing a lot of bushwalking and other summery activities. I can guarantee that the exploded library will not be updated during this time, but look for me on January 23. Happy new year! 1:59:46 AM     Wondering about the DMCRA Recently I was reminded (not in the blogosphere, but by a library trade group publication) of the existence of the DMCRA [links to a pdf version of the Bill]. This is a most modest Bill which seeks to curb the two most outrageous excesses of the DMCRA's evil twin, the DMCA. It promises to tone down the anti-circumvention provision by allowing circumvention of protected devices which don't result in copyright infringement - i.e. for fair use purposes. Secondly, it requires copy-protected CDs to have labelling stating that the product mightn't play in all devices which play ordinary CDs, that it may not recordable. There are a few other stipulations such as displaying system requirements for the usage of the product and return policies. It will interesting to see if anything becomes of this in 2003. Of course this Bill goes nowhere near as far as a radical law librarian like me would want - I use "radical" in the descriptive sense, meaning that I want a fundamental overhaul of copyright law (which will never happen in Washington D.C. or Brussels). But this Bill is certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. The paranoid side of me wonders if this is just a bone that information consumers are being thrown. Copyright owners converted ten acres of the old analog commons to gated digital intellectual property, then Congress realizes things have gone too far, so they give back one acre to the commons. And so justice is restored! Don't get me wrong, this law will ameloriate the nasty razor-wire cutting edge of copyright that would adversely affect many people. Congressmen Boucher & Doolittle are to applauded (& supported) for their work. 1:48:09 AM     "Databases" and other problematic library terms Uhm.... Here's an interesting webiste for library usability experts: Library Terms that users understand. The purpose of this site is to help library web developers decide how to label key resources and services in such a way that most users can understand them well enough to make productive choices. It serves as a clearinghouse of usability test data evaluating terminology used on library web sites, listing terms that tests show are effective or ineffective labels. It presents alternatives by documenting terms that are actually used by libraries. It also suggests "best practices" for reducing cognitive barriers caused by terminology. One of the surveys published on this site shows that in Arizona the following terms were not understood by library users: Catalog Index Resources Databases Reference Uhmm... I think I see the problem. I just hope they understand the term "library". [via etcetera] [The Aardvark Speaks] I've been experiencing this issue personally while redesigning my library's web site. Apparently some of our students have "no idea" what a database means in the library context. This is concerning that section of a library's web site which links to resources like Lexis, Westlaw, Hein-On-Line, BNA, CCH, RIA etc. A part of me would like to think, well, they're here to learn, they should learn what a database is! But then I wonder if that's the right attitude, and that if libraries don't make themselves as accesssible and inviting as possible to their users/patrons, they will begin to lose users to inferior fee-based services which do a better job of marketing (like Google Answers). 12:44:57 AM     everquest, evercrack and designing games to be addictive I found this discussion on Slashdot to be very interesting. What really caught my eye was the link to this site about how games like EverQuest are designed to be addictive. As a Mac person, I haven't been able to try EverCrack - although I hear they'll be porting it to the Mac next year. I'm not interested as I already play Lineage - also addictive, but it doesn't seem quite as perversely designed as EverQuest. Lineage is the game which has the dubious distinction of erupting into real-life violence in Korea. I don't think MMORPGs (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games) are going away any time soon. 12:20:23 AM

© Copyright 2003 Morgan Wilson. Last update: 5/14/03; 12:13:29 AM.