[MCN-L] VALA2010 - Would You Like to Help Review Papers? Reply By September 22
Apologies for cross-postings - please feel free to pass on this email ***All replies to this email should be sent to vala at vala.org.au*** Dear Colleague, VALA2010: CONNECTIONS, CONTENT, CONVERSATIONS As you may be aware, papers (except for keynote speakers and invited papers) published in VALA conference proceedings are peer-reviewed in accordance with HERDC guidelines. The VALA2010 Programme Committee is looking for people to take on the role of independent reviewer for the VALA2010 conference papers that are being submitted now. Details of the conference programme are available from www.vala.org.au/vala2010/prog2010.htm, and you will see that, among other keynote speakers, we have Stephanie Orlic, from the Louvre Museum. Reviewers would be asked to read and comment on about two or three papers (the more reviewers we have, the fewer papers each receives), and are provided with guidelines/comment forms to assist them with rating the papers. Papers and guidelines will be distributed by email, and reviewers will be asked to complete the task within two weeks of receiving the papers. If a paper has to be revised (most do), then it will have to be reviewed again after revision, and this will also need to be done in two weeks. Papers are due mid-September, and it is anticipated that most papers will be distributed to reviewers by early to mid-October. Each paper is reviewed by at least 2 reviewers, then the reviews are combined and returned to the authors. Following this, authors are given two weeks for revisions, and on receipt rewritten papers are re-reviewed. This would take the process to mid to late November (all being well). It is, of course, possible that there may be delays with particular papers (illness, etc.), which would result in the process starting and finishing later. Any reviewers whose paper(s) will be delayed will be advised in advance if possible. Please remember that the aim is to be able to distribute abstracts according to areas of skill, but also, as much as possible, to give each reviewer about the same workload. Each abstract will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. If you are interested in being considered for the review panel, we would like you to do the following, please. ? Download the reviewing skills spreadsheet from www.vala.org.au/revw2010.htm and complete it, to help with gathering information about your skills. ? Complete the spreadsheet, as described below. This should take around five minutes to complete and email back to me at vala at vala.org.au, ASAP, please, but no later than Tuesday 22 September. ? In your covering email, please supply us with 50-100 words about yourself, *full* contact information, plus any spread of dates between now and Christmas when you will not be available for reviewing. All emails to vala at vala.org.au ? do *not* use the Reply button in your email program. **Even if you have reviewed for VALA before, we ask that you please complete this task, to simplify the process.** In the spreadsheet, the first column is the list (now in alpha order) of topics we arrived at for the Call for Papers. The second column asks you to insert your name and institution at the top (overwrite what is there), and then the rest of the column shows each cell marked with the default value of O (for OK). Please change the value of O as follows: Y If you are relatively strong in that area (please use Caps Lock) N If you are really not familiar with the area (please use Caps Lock) *Topics remaining as O will be considered as OK for you to review if necessary*. Please complete and return to me at vala at vala.org.au by **Tuesday 22 September**, so that we can compile the list of skills and allocate papers taking into account this information and any known possible conflicts of interest. Many thanks Alyson Kosina Executive Officer VALA - Libraries, Technology and the Future Inc. Reg No A0011933K ABN 75 344 574 577 P.O. Box 509 Mooroolbark VIC 3138 Phone: (03) 9725 2725 Fax: (03) 8625 0079 Email: vala at vala.org.au
[MCN-L] RE: rights question
We assume that providing information -- including basic visual information (a thumbnail or small image) -- on our collections is what we are required to do, as public policy / mission, in an online collections database. The artist who would object to this basic information (this is the work in our collection) hasn't appeared yet, in our experience. Agencies and estates may have a different opinion. But we stand firm on this common-sense policy. When the artist or copyright holder can't be found or doesn't respond, we go ahead. To do the opposite would be counter to common sense: the assumption is that artists, like everyone else, want to know what's in a museum's collection. Especially if it's their own work. .Any other actual use or reproduction of an artist's work beyond this basic image-as-indentifier -- we try to clear But again, if we get no response to a request for permission, we go ahead. The default assumtion is that works of art were meant by the artist to be seen. We've never had one of those worst-case-scenarios in which a copyright holder suddenly appears and objects. If it ever happens, we will deal with it, pay licensing retroactive licensing fees, or whatever is necessary. The risk is relatively small, compared to the idea of adopting a policy of censoring anything we can't get a firm permission for. After all, we're talking about reproduction in a museum context -- not commercial exploitation. I am not a lawyer, but legal academics I've discussed this with are supportive of this kind of policy. Amalyah Keshet Head of Image Resources Copyright Management The Israel Museum, Jerusalem ?: ??mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] ??? Weinstein, William [WWeinstein at philamuseum.org] ??: ? ??? 14 ?? 2009 21:29 : Museum Computer Network Listserv ??: [MCN-L] rights question We are evaluating our policy regarding obtaining rights for images of works we publish in our online collection section. The issue of what to do with works where there is an apparent copyright holder that can either not be contacted or does not respond to repeated permission requests. Does anyone have a position of what to do regarding works in this particular state of limbo? Bill Weinstein ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] IP SIG: Creative Commons: Published - Defining Noncommercial
Dear All, Creative Commons is pleased to announce today the publication of a report -- undertaken with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and in collaboration with Netpop Research -- entitled, Defining Noncommercial: A Study of how the Online Population Understands Noncommercial Use, http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial. On behalf of Creative Commons board and staff and Netpop Research, I want to extend our sincerest thanks and appreciation to all of you for giving generously of your time by participating in interviews and in-person or online focus groups. The success and direction of the empirical study depended on the valuable information gathered from all of you during the qualitative research phases (reported in Section 3 of the report). Your opinions shaped invaluably the online (random) survey questionnaires from which the data underlying the research were derived. We are most grateful. You will find the report, together with the appendix, survey questionnaires, links to raw data, press release and blog post at the link above. We look forward to the public discussion that will ensue in the wake of the study and hope the report will serve as intended, as a foundation and catalyst for other important research in the area. Please feel free to share new of the report itself with your friends and colleagues. Additionally, we look forward to receiving feedback from you on the report itself, and have set up a discussion page at the link above where you may do so. Thank you once again! Kind regards, Diane Diane M. Peters, General Counsel Creative Commons 171 Second St, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94105 office: +1 415-369-8480 fax: +1 415-278-9419 cell: +1 503-803-8338 skype: peterspdx email:diane at creativecommons.orgmailto:email%3Adiane at creativecommons.org __ Visit the study home page to access the Press Release, Report, Survey Appendix, and Research Data: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial Read the full Creative Commons blog post: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127
[MCN-L] Experience of using content management systems based on tagging and/or facets
Dear List, does anyone have any direct experience of creating a large site using a content management system that applies tags or other classification faceted system. I am particularly interested in how staff enter terms, and what happens to pages. I would also like to hear from anyone who has moved to this idea from an environment where people place content into a hierarchy or predefined structure, and how it felt. What worked, what didn't etc. regards Andrew Lewis Senior Web Content Manager Online Museum Victoria and Albert Museum South Kensington London SW7 2RL 020 7942 2373 a.lewis at vam.ac.uk www.vam.ac.uk __ Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design Until 18 October 2009 at VA South Kensington Admission Free Wonderland - Fairytales, Myths and Legends from Around the World 26 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 at the VA Museum of Childhood Admission free Keep in touch - visit www.vam.ac.uk and sign up for our regular e-newsletter - --- The information contained in this message is confidential and intended only for the individual named above. If you are not the intended recipient, or responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or disclosure of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us by telephone on 020 7942 2353. This message has been scanned for viruses by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
[MCN-L] VA launches one million objects on line
Dear David, Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you like our new site. I was interested in your comments about the default setting and it has been a matter of some debate here. My original preference would have been best quality records but we have actually ended up with something more subtle than that - but perhaps too subtle if no one realises it! The default is determined by the way you choose to enter the site. If you go in via the browse you get best quality records, if you go in via a heavy duty search you get all records and if you go in via a more lightweight search the you get only records with images. I realise in making this decision we have made all sorts of assumptions about our visitors but they do have the power to change the options for themselves. We have tried to think about the range of our visitors from very serious academic researcher through to naive user and we also have in mind visitors who have no specialist museum vocabulary and people who want to use our collections for their own creative work where serendipitous connections may be appropriate. So the browse may supply some of these needs. I am sure Richard Morgan, who is behind the technical development, will answer the second half of your email. With best wishes Gail Gail Durbin Head of VA Online David Brewer david.brewer at gmail.com 14 September 2009 Congratulations on a very impressive collection search! It's quite snappy, too, considering the amount of data being indexed. I especially like the feature that lets you expand a search result row in-line to get a larger image and description of the record. My only feedback is that depending on your primary audience for the search engine, you might consider defaulting to only records with images or even best quality records. A casual user of the site probably won't be interested in records without images, and an expert user can be expected to change this option if they really do need to search everything. I would be very interested to find out what you are using for your search backend. Is this a home-grown solution, or is it based on top of an open source search backend such as Lucene or Xapian, or is it built on top of a commercial search backend? Once again, great work. Your collection is inspiring. David Brewer Lead Systems Developer Second Story On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Gail Durbin g.durbin at vam.ac.uk wrote: Some of you may have seen this on Twitter but if not this is just to let you know that the VA has launched a Beta version of Search the Collections where we have moved from 55,000 object records on line to over a million. The temporary address is www.vam.ac.uk/cis-online . There is still a way to go but we would welcome comments and ways to improve what we have there now. The technical work for this has been done by Richard Morgan, the VA web technical manager, and his team and he will be able to answer any of the more technical questions. Mark Hook on the content side has worked with the designers, The Other Media, on the user interface. Our Collections records staff under Heather Caven have done a lot of work preparing the records to go live. The project has been about using what we already had so the project draws text from our collections information system and images from the digital asset management system and aims to make the presentation and functionality as user friendly as possible. We have tried to make sure visitors see the best records first. And as information is added to our records so the site will get better. We are working on making the browse function smoother, introducing text mining, making the mapping function work more accurately and adding some less conventional options to the browse. There will be an API and we hope to add an element of crowd sourcing. In the longer term there will be saved searches, lightboxes and more linking, among other things, but some of these items will have to wait until we have completed our more general website redesign in the Autumn of 2010. For now it feels like we have made a major digital leap forward which is good for visitors and provides a foundation for many other web facilities. Gail Durbin Head of VA Online __ Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design Until 18 October 2009 at VA South Kensington Admission Free Wonderland - Fairytales, Myths and Legends from Around the World 26 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 at the VA Museum of Childhood Admission free Keep in touch - visit www.vam.ac.uk and sign up for our regular e-newsletter - --- The information contained in this message is confidential and intended only for the individual named above. If you are not the intended recipient, or responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient you are hereby
[MCN-L] MCN Conference 2009 - Registration is open!
Museum Computer Network Conference 2009 REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN Museum Information, Museum Efficiency: Doing More with Less! Doubletree Hotel ? Lloyd Center Wednesday-Saturday, November 11th-14th, 2009 Conference Schedule This year?s conference begins on Wednesday, November 11th with a broad range of workshops. All workshops are half-day and capacity is limited ? please register early! We hope everyone will plan to join us for the full conference program, Wednesday through Saturday, at the same conference rate as last year. Save now! The Earlybird Registration Deadline is Friday, October 9, 2009. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEES MCN Members Earlybird: $425.00 | Regular: $475.00 Non-Members Earlybird: $500.00 | Regular: $550.00 Emerging Professional/Student Members Earlybird: $200.00 | Regular: $250.00 Daily (members and non-members) Earlybird: $250.00 | Regular: $250.00 Guest Registration Earlybird: $105.00 | Regular: $105.00 Half-Day Workshop Fee: $50.00 Conference Speaker Discount: $50.00 Small Museum Discount: $200.00 Please see website re: ability to combine certain rates and discounts. CONFERENCE HOTEL - DOUBLETREE The conference hotel is just blocks from the Oregon Convention Center, the Rose Garden Arena, and Portland's Memorial Coliseum. In order to keep costs down, we encourage attendees to reserve accommodations at the conference hotel. We have arranged a Special MCN Conference Rate of $139 or $159 per night single or double occupancy valid for Wednesday, November 11th through Sunday, November 15th. This special rate is valid through Tuesday, October 13th. Visit www.mcn.edu/conferences for the full schedule of registration rates and discounts, the conference program, and hotel travel information.
[MCN-L] VA launches one million objects on line
That seems like a good way to deal with the issue to me. I didn't realize that there were different types of entry points to the search engine. Thanks and have a good day, David Brewer Lead Systems Developer Second Story On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Gail Durbin g.durbin at vam.ac.uk wrote: Dear David, Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you like our new site. I was interested in your comments about the default setting and it has been a matter of some debate here. My original preference would have been best quality records but we have actually ended up with something more subtle than that - but perhaps too subtle if no one realises it! The default is determined by the way you choose to enter the site. If you go in via the browse you get best quality records, if you go in via a heavy duty search you get all records and if you go in via a more lightweight search the you get only records with images. I realise in making this decision we have made all sorts of assumptions about our visitors but they do have the power to change the options for themselves. We have tried to think about the range of our visitors from very serious academic researcher through to naive user and we also have in mind visitors who have no specialist museum vocabulary and people who want to use our collections for their own creative work where serendipitous connections ?may be appropriate. So the browse may supply some of these needs. I am sure Richard Morgan, who is behind the technical development, will answer the second half of your email. With best wishes Gail Gail Durbin Head of VA Online David Brewer david.brewer at gmail.com 14 September 2009 Congratulations on a very impressive collection search! ?It's quite snappy, too, considering the amount of data being indexed. ?I especially like the feature that lets you expand a search result row in-line to get a larger image and description of the record. My only feedback is that depending on your primary audience for the search engine, you might consider defaulting to only records with images or even best quality records. ?A casual user of the site probably won't be interested in records without images, and an expert user can be expected to change this option if they really do need to search everything. I would be very interested to find out what you are using for your search backend. ?Is this a home-grown solution, or is it based on top of an open source search backend such as Lucene or Xapian, or is it built on top of a commercial search backend? Once again, great work. ?Your collection is inspiring. David Brewer Lead Systems Developer Second Story On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Gail Durbin g.durbin at vam.ac.uk wrote: Some of you may have seen this on Twitter but if not this is just to let you know that the VA has launched a Beta version of Search the Collections where we have moved from 55,000 object records on line to over a million. The temporary address is www.vam.ac.uk/cis-online . There is still a way to go but we would welcome comments and ways to improve what we have there now. The technical work for this has been done by Richard Morgan, the VA web technical manager, and his team and he will be able to answer any of the more technical questions. Mark Hook on the content side has worked with the designers, The Other Media, on the user interface. Our Collections records staff under Heather Caven have done a lot of work preparing the records to go live. The project has been about using what we already had so the project draws text from our collections information system and images from the digital asset management system and aims to make the presentation and functionality as user friendly as possible. We have tried to make sure visitors see the best records first. And as information is added to our records so the site will get better. We are working on making the browse function smoother, introducing text mining, making the mapping function work more accurately and adding some less conventional options to the browse. There will be an API and we hope to add an element of crowd sourcing. In the longer term there will be saved searches, lightboxes and more linking, among other things, but some of these items will have to wait until we have completed our more general website redesign in the Autumn of 2010. For now it feels like we have made a major digital leap forward which is good for visitors and provides a foundation for many other web facilities. Gail Durbin Head of VA Online __ Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design Until 18 October 2009 at VA South Kensington Admission Free Wonderland - Fairytales, Myths and Legends from Around the World 26 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 at the VA Museum of Childhood Admission free Keep in touch - visit
[MCN-L] VA launches one million objects on line
Dear Gail: My merry band of costume historians use the VA's website regularly, and they were very excited by this release. I haven't had a chance to browse through, but I noticed that one of the limitations that was present on the old site is still present in this iteration (or appears to be). Basically, we tend to do large search groups within a narrow era. For example, when looking for costumes from the late-18th century, it's easy to specify the date range, but we often have to search separately dress, gown, textile, shoes, pet-en-lair, chemise, grande habit, caracao, etc. when really a broader category search within that date range would be helpful. Does your database backend have an option for field groups, subject, or category searches, so that a range of items can be retrieved in one swoop? Really, really looking forward to fishing through your collections again. Best, ~Perian Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Gail Durbin Sent: Monday, September 14, 2009 10:41 AM To: mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: [MCN-L] VA launches one million objects on line Some of you may have seen this on Twitter but if not this is just to let you know that the VA has launched a Beta version of Search the Collections where we have moved from 55,000 object records on line to over a million. The temporary address is www.vam.ac.uk/cis-online . There is still a way to go but we would welcome comments and ways to improve what we have there now. The technical work for this has been done by Richard Morgan, the VA web technical manager, and his team and he will be able to answer any of the more technical questions. Mark Hook on the content side has worked with the designers, The Other Media, on the user interface. Our Collections records staff under Heather Caven have done a lot of work preparing the records to go live. The project has been about using what we already had so the project draws text from our collections information system and images from the digital asset management system and aims to make the presentation and functionality as user friendly as possible. We have tried to make sure visitors see the best records first. And as information is added to our records so the site will get better. We are working on making the browse function smoother, introducing text mining, making the mapping function work more accurately and adding some less conventional options to the browse. There will be an API and we hope to add an element of crowd sourcing. In the longer term there will be saved searches, lightboxes and more linking, among other things, but some of these items will have to wait until we have completed our more general website redesign in the Autumn of 2010. For now it feels like we have made a major digital leap forward which is good for visitors and provides a foundation for many other web facilities. Gail Durbin Head of VA Online __ Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design Until 18 October 2009 at VA South Kensington Admission Free Wonderland - Fairytales, Myths and Legends from Around the World 26 September 2009 - 10 January 2010 at the VA Museum of Childhood Admission free Keep in touch - visit www.vam.ac.uk and sign up for our regular e-newsletter - --- The information contained in this message is confidential and intended only for the individual named above. If you are not the intended recipient, or responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or disclosure of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us by telephone on 020 7942 2353. This message has been scanned for viruses by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.97/2370 - Release Date: 09/14/09 11:36:00
[MCN-L] rights question
Just a reminder that permissions are not required for any use of work that is fair under U.S. law, or similar law of other jurisdictions. The question of use of orphan works -- if that is what is being raised -- *may* be different, but only if the use is NOT fair. All fair uses are OK whether a work is orphaned or whether a known copyright holder objects -- including in situations where one may actually have already requested permission and been denied. However, it is true that currently there is no provision in U.S. copyright law that offers any safe harbor for use of orphan works that is not fair. That's a pity where such a use might increase distribution of the work to the larger public benefit. Let's hope we get some good legislation to cover those situations. Best regards, Virginia --- On Mon, 9/14/09, Lesley Ellen Harris lesleyeharris at comcast.net wrote: From: Lesley Ellen Harris lesleyehar...@comcast.net Subject: Re: [MCN-L] rights question To: Museum Computer Network Listserv mcn-l at mcn.edu Date: Monday, September 14, 2009, 1:06 PM Bill, legally if you do not have permission, you may not use the work. There is no mechanism in US copyright law to help you.? However, if? you are based in Canada, there is an unlocatable copyright owner? provision which can help you just in that circumstance.? And it is possible that you can use it if using a? Canadian work (though I would have to double check to see who is? eligible if you are not in Canada.) Lesley Lesley Ellen Harris lesley at copyrightlaws.com www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com On Sep 14, 2009, at 2:29 PM, Weinstein, William wrote: We are evaluating our policy regarding obtaining rights for images of works we publish in our online collection section.???The issue of what to do with works where there is an apparent copyright holder that can either not be contacted or does not respond to repeated permission requests.? Does anyone have a position of what to do regarding works in this particular state of limbo? Bill Weinstein ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum? Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] VA launches one million objects on line
Thanks, David, for your positive reaction! We are using Sphinx (http://www.sphinxsearch.com) to manage the searching and clustering, closely coupled to a Django / MySQL backend. The Django application provides an API which returns JSON and uses Sphinx to deal with the searching. Then the frontend application is PHP Symfony and it makes API calls to the Django application. The nice thing is that we can then open up access to the Django app to provide the same API for everyone. best wishes, Richard Morgan David Brewer david.brewer at gmail.com 15/09/09 3:42 PM That seems like a good way to deal with the issue to me. I didn't realize that there were different types of entry points to the search engine. Thanks and have a good day, David Brewer Lead Systems Developer Second Story On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Gail Durbin g.durbin at vam.ac.uk wrote: Dear David, Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you like our new site. I was interested in your comments about the default setting and it has been a matter of some debate here. My original preference would have been best quality records but we have actually ended up with something more subtle than that - but perhaps too subtle if no one realises it! The default is determined by the way you choose to enter the site. If you go in via the browse you get best quality records, if you go in via a heavy duty search you get all records and if you go in via a more lightweight search the you get only records with images. I realise in making this decision we have made all sorts of assumptions about our visitors but they do have the power to change the options for themselves. We have tried to think about the range of our visitors from very serious academic researcher through to naive user and we also have in mind visitors who have no specialist museum vocabulary and people who want to use our collections for their own creative work where serendipitous connections may be appropriate. So the browse may supply some of these needs. I am sure Richard Morgan, who is behind the technical development, will answer the second half of your email. With best wishes Gail Gail Durbin Head of VA Online David Brewer david.brewer at gmail.com 14 September 2009 Congratulations on a very impressive collection search! It's quite snappy, too, considering the amount of data being indexed. I especially like the feature that lets you expand a search result row in-line to get a larger image and description of the record. My only feedback is that depending on your primary audience for the search engine, you might consider defaulting to only records with images or even best quality records. A casual user of the site probably won't be interested in records without images, and an expert user can be expected to change this option if they really do need to search everything. I would be very interested to find out what you are using for your search backend. Is this a home-grown solution, or is it based on top of an open source search backend such as Lucene or Xapian, or is it built on top of a commercial search backend? Once again, great work. Your collection is inspiring. David Brewer Lead Systems Developer Second Story On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Gail Durbin g.durbin at vam.ac.uk wrote: Some of you may have seen this on Twitter but if not this is just to let you know that the VA has launched a Beta version of Search the Collections where we have moved from 55,000 object records on line to over a million. The temporary address is www.vam.ac.uk/cis-online . There is still a way to go but we would welcome comments and ways to improve what we have there now. The technical work for this has been done by Richard Morgan, the VA web technical manager, and his team and he will be able to answer any of the more technical questions. Mark Hook on the content side has worked with the designers, The Other Media, on the user interface. Our Collections records staff under Heather Caven have done a lot of work preparing the records to go live. The project has been about using what we already had so the project draws text from our collections information system and images from the digital asset management system and aims to make the presentation and functionality as user friendly as possible. We have tried to make sure visitors see the best records first. And as information is added to our records so the site will get better. We are working on making the browse function smoother, introducing text mining, making the mapping function work more accurately and adding some less conventional options to the browse. There will be an API and we hope to add an element of crowd sourcing. In the longer term there will be saved searches, lightboxes and more linking, among other things, but some of these items will have to wait until we have completed our more general website redesign in
[MCN-L] Expanded MacArthur Digital Learning site
I thought to bring to your attention the newly expanded *Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning* http://spotlight.macfound.org/ web site and blog supported by the MacArthur Foundation. As they describe it: How is digital media affecting the way young people think, play, act, and learn?and what does this mean for society? These are the questions researchers are exploring through the MacArthur Foundation?s Digital Media and Learning initiative. Spotlight reports on findings, trends, and innovations emerging from this research for those who serve, study, and interact with youth. It would seem the programs and research they highlight should be of interest to the museum community. Len Steinbach
[MCN-L] rights question
On Sep 14, 2009, at 2:29 PM, Weinstein, William wrote: We are evaluating our policy regarding obtaining rights for images of works we publish in our online collection section. The issue of what to do with works where there is an apparent copyright holder that can either not be contacted or does not respond to repeated permission requests. Does anyone have a position of what to do regarding works in this particular state of limbo? Bill Weinstein Bill, legally if you do not have permission, you may not use the work. There is no mechanism in US copyright law to help you. However, if you are based in Canada, there is an unlocatable copyright owner provision which can help you just in that circumstance. And it is possible that you can use it if using a Canadian work (though I would have to double check to see who is eligible if you are not in Canada.) Lesley Lesley Ellen Harris lesley at copyrightlaws.com www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com I think this is an incomplete answer. I'm not a lawyer, so I can only speak to how many publishers and museums are addressing this question in practical terms, on the ground. If I've gotten any of the legal aspects wrong, please correct me. There are two kinds of in limbo works: 1) Those known still to be in copyright or probably in copyright (because they are not very old), for whom no rights holder can be found; and 2) those whose rights holder ignores repeated efforts to obtain permission. The first group are Orphan Works (OWs)--works still in copyright for whom no known rights holder can be found. Congress has been working on legislation to deal with OWs for several years. Last year the Senate passed an OW bill, but the House version died. It's uncertain whether the bill will be revived any time soon or not. Absent an OW law, users must consider whether they may assert fair use. (At museums, a common type of OWs are archive photos of objects, where the object is out of copyright but the photo is not, the photographer's name is missing, and the museum has no document to indicate that the photo was made as a work for hire.) The second group includes works where the copyright holder has been found and is not responding, or works where it's not absolutely clear who the rights holder really is (e.g., two different nephews of a dead artist both claim to own the rights, or a work by an artist may have been made while he was on staff somewhere and therefore be a work for hire). For the second group, as for the first, fair use may be an option. One also has to evaluate whether the use one wants to make of the work is protected under fair use (or in the UK, under fair dealing). The Stanford Fair Use Project has a very good, clear rundown of fair use and how it works: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.h tml Fair use depends on the context of the use, so institutions should develop guidelines on fair use in consultation with legal counsel--both for using works in their own collections and for when others use works whose copyrights you control. In the last couple of years there have been some important court decisions strengthening the assertion of fair use for visual images. Thus, it's not always the case that one must not publish a work because the rights have not been cleared. Especially in the case of those OWs where it's pretty clear that there is no living rights holder, publication may be very low-risk. Fair use and fair dealing are US- and UK-specific, and some institutions are concerned that in the internationalized realm of the Internet such laws may not fully protect uses. A practical approach to the problem that some websites and publishers adopt is to make every effort to obtain all permissions, and document the efforts, and then to publish the works with a notice that states: The museum has made all reasonable efforts to ascertain the rights status of all works reproduced on this website. Any corrections should be sent to the attention of [name/digital rights administrator]. Or: All reasonable efforts have been made to identify and contact copyright holders but in some cases these could not be traced. If you hold or administer rights to works posted here, please contact us. Any errors or omissions will be corrected. Such disclaimers are becoming more common and at a minimum are useful in demonstrating the publisher's good faith. If a rights holder should come forward and object to the use, prompt removal of the image may be sufficient remedy. In other words, in crafting a policy for the use of works where it's not possible to obtain permission, an institution, in consultation with counsel, should to consider several things: ~Develop guidelines for doing a proper fair-use assessment in individual cases and develop a protocol so that all staff who are responsible for rights clearance know how to make a good assessment (and when to consult counsel); ~Develop guidelines for
[MCN-L] New Book _Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data_
Colleagues/ A Must Buy / Read / Use Unique New Book / Now Available ! /Gerry _Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data_ / Edited by Nicole C. Engard / Foreword by Jenny Levine 2009 / 352 pp /softbound / ISBN 978-1-57387-372-7 / Regular Price $39.50 As web users become more savvy and demanding, libraries are looking for new ways to allow patron participation and keep their websites dynamically and collaboratively up-to-date. Mashups?web applications that combine freely available data from various sources to create something new?can be one very powerful way to meet patrons? expectations and provide exemplary web-based service. In Library Mashups, Nicole C. Engard and 25 contributors from all over the world walk readers through definitions, summaries, and practical uses of mashups in libraries. Examples range from ways to allow those without programming skills to make simple website updates, to modifying the library OPAC, to using popular sites like Flickr, Yahoo!, LibraryThing, Google Maps, and Delicious to share and combine digital content. This essential guide is required reading for all libraries and librarians seeking a dynamic, interactive web presence. Table Of Contents Foreword ?- Jenny Levine Introduction ? Nicole C. Engard I: What Are Mashups 1. What is a Mashup? / Darlene Fichter, Data Library Coordinator at the University of Saskatchewan Library and IT advisor for the Indigenous Studies Portal 2. Behind the Scenes: Some Technical Details / Librarian at Universit? degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Bonaria Biancu 3. Content Sources Mashing Them Up / Ross Singer, Interoperability and Open Standards Champion at Talis 4. Mashing up w/ Librarian Knowledge / Thomas Brevik, library at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy and former president of the Norwegian Library Association Special Interest Group for Information and Communication Technology (SIKT) II: Mashing up Library Websites 5. Information in Context / Brian Herzog, reference librarian at the Chelmsford Public Library 6. Mashing up the Library Website / Lichen Rancourt is the Head of Technology at Manchester City Library and contributor to Scriblio 7. Piping out Library Data / Nicole C. Engard, book editor 8. Mashups @Librarians Interact / Corey Wallis from the THALI group in Australia III: Mashing up Catalog Data 9. Library Catalog Mashup: Using Blacklight to Expose Collections / Bess Sadler, Metadata Specialist for User Projects for the University of Virginia Library; Joseph Gilbert, Head of the Scholars? Lab at the University of Virginia Library; and Matt Mitchell 10. Breaking into the OPAC / Tim Spalding, founder of LibraryThing 11. Mashups with ?biblios.net Web Services /Joshua Ferraro, CEO at LibLime 12. SOPAC 2.0: The Thrashable, Mashable Catalog / John Blyberg, Assistant Director for Innovation and User Experience at Darien Library 13. Creating Mashups with the WorldCat API and Other WorldCat Affiliate Tools / Karen Coombs, Head of Web Services at the University of Houston Libraries IV. Maps, Pictures Video ? Oh My! 14. Flickr and Digital Image Collections / Jeremy McWilliams and Mark Dahl from the Lewis Clark College Library 15. Blip.tv and Digital Video Collections in the Library / Jason Clark, Digital Initiatives Librarian at Montana State University Library 16. ?Where?s the nearest computer lab??: Mapping Up Campus / Derik Badman, Digital Services Librarian at Temple University 17. Repository Map Mashup / Stuart Lewis, Team Leader Project Manager at Aberystwyth University V. Adding Value to your Services 18. The LibraryThing API and Libraries / Robin Hastings, Information Technology Manager for the Missouri River Regional Library in Jefferson City, MO 19. ZACK Bookmaps / Wolfram Schneider 20. Federated Database Search Mashup / Stephen Hedges, Karl Jendretzky and Laura Solomon 21. Electronic Dissertation Mashups Using SRU / Michael C. Witt from Purdue University Access to the Full Table Of Contents, Associated Chapter Links (Examples), Glossary, and Associated Past And Future Presentations Related To Book Contents Available At [ http://tinyurl.com/ldf7la ] Regards, /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 gerrymck at iastate.edu There Are No Answers, Only Solutions / Olde Irish Saying The Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed Attributed To William Gibson, SciFi Author / Coined 'Cyberspace
