August 2009

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When is a library not a library?

August 6, 2009 in *OIINEWS, Libraries | No comments

A few months ago Mick Jones (of the Clash) opened up the ‘Rock and Roll Public Library.’ (It has since moved from the gallery space in Chelsea to a new space.)  I heard about this from a friend’s (also a librarian) facebook feed. Several of the comments from other librarians were along the lines of ‘that’s not a library, that’s a museum’ … which got me thinking. When is a library not a library? Does it calling something a library make it so?

The initial commenter said that it wasn’t a library because the you couldn’t borrow the materials in it, but you can’t check out books from the Bodleian and I don’t think anyone would claim that its not a library.

The whole thing does take place in a gallery space, which I suspect makes it feel a bit like an ephemera show, and as Jones himself admits “It’s still by no means properly sorted.” No self-respecting librarian can call an un-sorted collection of rock memorabilia a library, would they?

Well, I am going to go out on a limb and say not only is this a library, this sort of thing is the future of libraries. Here’s why.

Jones says:

“It does raise questions about categorisation. Is it art? I look at it as one artwork, the whole collection – one piece of art, which I’m continually working on and updating.”

But unlike art in your typical gallery show, it’s isn’t for sale. And Jones encourages people to “engage with” the exhibits, take videos down from the shelves, leaf through books, etc. He even allows users to scan things.

This is precisely what libraries should be doing–getting people to think about categorisation (yes, like a museum), but allowing them to engage with the collections (unlike a museum) in all sorts of ways. This, I think, is library (and librarian) at its best. I hope this sort of thing catches on and we can start having more libraries that push the boundaries and get us to think (and argue) about libraries. I don’t think we librarians are doing are jobs properly unless we spark a couple of good fistfights every now and then.  This could be my favourite library since I heard about Berkeley’s Tool Lending Library.

If you have any other examples of great or unusual libraries, please send them my way.

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$675,000 fine for downloading 30 songs

August 1, 2009 in *OIINEWS, Copyright | 3 comments

Yep, that’s $22,500 for each of the 30 songs that Mr. Joel Tenenbaum admitted to downloading and sharing. The jury was kind enough to lower the RIAA’s initial valuation of the damages down from the $150,000 to which they are entitled for willful copyright infringement.

The Boston University student was defended by Professor Charlie Nesson of Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center, who (in classic Charlie Nesson style) turned this into a tremendous opportunity for a group of his students (Yay Charlie!). Tenenbaum was only the second person to take the RIAA to court after receiving one of their thousands of letters. More than 30,000 others have settled their cases for between $3,000 – $12,000.

One of the things that surprises me–although I suppose it shouldn’t–is how often the public library metaphor comes up in these discussions. Mr. Tenenbaum said of downloading music, “it was like this giant library in front of you.” Supporters on his Joel Fights Back site say that calling downloading music illegal is like illegalizing public libraries. And while I in NO WAY want to defend the behaviour of the RIAA, I think this both misses the point and does a disservice to libraries. Libraries have to purchase their materials. They lend them on good faith assuming you will return them, not give them away. Too often the ‘free culture’ movement devolves into a rant about how all culture should be ‘free’ for the consumer. All you have to do is go back to Lessig to be reminded that when we talk about free culture, we don’t mean ‘that kind of free’ (from Free Culture, p. xiv):

…we come from a tradition of “free culture”—not “free”as in “free beer”(to borrow a phrase from the founder of the free-software movement), but “free”as in “free speech,”“free markets,”“free trade,”“free enterprise,”“free will,”and “free elections.”A free culture supports and protects creators and innovators. It does this directly by granting intellectual property rights. But it does so indirectly by limit-ing the reach of those rights, to guarantee that follow-on creators and innovators remain as free as possible from the control of the past. A free culture is not a culture without property, just as a free market is not a market in which everything is free.