Copyright Reflections

After listening to Jackie Pearson on Monday night, it really opened my eyes to copyright infringement. I think the most eye opening realization was just how strict the policies can be, especially for schools. I agree it is imperative to cite everything that is borrowed for school use, but I didn't know the strict guidelines for fair use. My undergrad required use to used multiple sources for every paper and had strict rules on how to cite. This has really prepared me for copyrighted materials. Since I am not a teacher in the classroom, I always thought teachers could use anything they wanted without regard to copyright as long as it stayed in the classroom. What I gathered from the lecture that is mostly true because of the special consideration toward teaching, but not to the extent I had originally thought. I am duel track in my program but I still sometimes think that many of the lectures and speakers are geared toward teachers. I would have loved to hear some information on the copyright issues in a public library. After reading the chapter on legal issues I noticed many of the laws were focused on copying in the public libraries and I wanted to know more about that. I think the whole class was scared to death after hearing all the ways one could infringe on copyrights and made our heads reel from all the information we were given. Unfortunately, I could not hear the part on citations very well and my question was, "As long as it is cited and not used for commercial gain can we use anything we like?" I have hearing loss in my right ear from shooting guns as a child without sound guards. If there is background noise or soft speaking the sounds muffle in my ears. Besides that it tried my best to wrap my head around all that information and it was just so much. I feel that now I have my fair use guidelines in hand I can study them and be more aware of what I am doing. I feel this information is highly important and maybe there needs to be a special class on these laws. It would make us all feel a little better if we had a better understanding of the legal jargon. Ms. Pearson was incredibly knowledgeable and prepared making it highly interesting and an all around excellent presentation. As a final thought on what the copyright presentation did for me was to open my eyes to all the different was to protect ones self by simply asking permission and giving credit where credit is due. Ms. Pearson made the point of copyright infringement being like speeding down the road, it is looked at as not being illegal until you get caught. I can say those words will stick with me until I die and now that I work in a library I am going to try to make more of our patrons aware of the rules. I feel I will be a better librarian now that I have this information. I really hope that maybe ASU will add a grant writing and copyright law class to help better the MLS program and make us that much better at our profession.

Comments on Selection Policy

After thoroughly going over the selection policy for the Catawba County Library System, I was really impressed at how clearly it covered most aspects of selection. Though it did have room for improvement I think it protected itself well from unnecessary challenges of its materials. I think this due to the fact that the library system has many professional librarians on staff. The checklist that was given in class seemed almost the templet they used to arrange the policy. I would have liked to have seen it address more electronic material because with the increase in technology in recent years. I am sure the policy will be updated in coming years and will incorporate these changes. One point made in class was the lack of policy on speakers presenting at the library. What would happen if some challenged a presentation at the library? I had never thought of that and how it could cause problems in the long run. Loopholes are going to happen and as revision takes place they are closed. It may be they have a policy and it was somehow excluded from the PDF on the library's website. They did list on their challenge form an "other" catagory that you could write in what you wanted to challenge. In all I was very impressed by the clarity and presentation of the policy and was glad to see they take such good initiative for selection.

Reflections on the Video

Since I am not a teacher I was really surprised at the policy and procedures that take place when a book is challenged in a school. I am glad to see that it is not left up to just one person to make a decision. I hope one day I will have to go through this process because it seems to be one of the aspects of the job that you can not appreciate until you have been through it yourself. It was good to hear that it is not the end of the world if you lose the challenge and have to remove the material. Challenge procedure are an integral part of librarianship and that is the most important idea I learned from the video.

Exploring Controversy

Thus far trying to find information on the evolution vs creationism controversy in a public library has not yielded much at all. I am surprised there is not more written on this subject. I have been using the finding articles aid in the information gardens but to no avail. Every time I search it only brings up articles on the public schools. I have been using the advanced search features trying to specifically bring up articles based on public libraries. In turn this gets me thinking that maybe there is not a lot of controversy about where creationist literature is kept in a public library setting. Is it kept in the scientific reference collection with evolution literature or in the philosophy and religion section? I don't know and I am going to go to the libraries locally and find out.

Community Analysis Project

I have always been interested in interpreting statistics. I guess its my archaeology background that does it for me, always having to take and record data. Sometimes it can be hard to read some of them, though. I was really shocked by the census stats about Newton, NC from 2000 and I can only hope they have changed a little in ten years. Reading the stats on education level and income levels reminded me that many people are not doing well in this area. The average income was a little over $18,000 per year per person and the median household income was only a little over $35,000 per year! I never realized it was that low. I was surprised to see all the implementations that the library has created to help people who are unemployed and uneducated. In this economy we need everybody pitching in to help and the library is the information outlet. After doing this project I am still reeling from the facts I discovered about the community I just moved away from.