Breaking the Wall of Inaccessible Knowledge. How Digitization Can Democratize Culture

Source:

Breaking the wall of inaccessible knowledge. Dir. Robert Darnton. Perf. Robert Darnton. Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2012. Streaming Video.

Link:

http://falling-walls.com/videos/Robert-Darnton-1125

Breaking the Wall of Inaccessible Knowledge. How Digitization Can Democratize Culture is a short film recording a lecture presented by Robert Darnton at the 2011 Falling Walls Conference. Included at this site is the transcript for the lecture along with the streaming video.

Darton’s credentials are extensive - founder of Gutenberg-e project, a trustee of the New York Public Library, and a professor & university librarian at Harvard. In this lecture, he describes the imposed restrictions to the Google Book Project and the launch of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), another attempt at making all the books in the world easily accessible.

He addresses two key issues:

1)     The cost of academic journals.

2)     A digital library.

Fairy Use (Short Film) by David Cooper Moore and Jeremy Levine

Source:

Moore, David, and Jeremy Levine. "Fairy Use." YouTube. YouTube, 8 May 2006. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

Link for online viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf05MDTsPHU

I selected this short film created by David Cooper Moore and Jeremy Levine for my class presentation. Using snippets of Disney characters to verbalize in a cartoon fairy tale style, they illustrate the definition of fair use.  The narrative is derived from the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. These guidelines were developed as a response to a growing problem faced by documentary filmmakers.  It is a common belief that far too often filmmakers are reluctant to use all of the material available because they are hesitant to take advantage of the fair use doctrine

Unfortunately much of the opposition to the Google Book Project shares many of the same restrictive ideas. While courts have determined that scanning websites to create data for the search engines, Google has met opposition to the book scanning project.

Additional Links Discussed:

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS' STATEMENT OF BEST PRACTICES IN FAIR USE

Source: http://www.cmsimpact.org/fair-use/best-practices/documentary/documentary-filmmakers-statement-best-practices-fair-use

Discussion Questions

1.)   Did the filmmakers follow these recommendations? How?

2.)   Why is it significant that they selected Disney clips?

3.)   Why is the question of copyright & Fair Use relevant to students?

4.)   How do you see this impacting the work that you produce now and in the future?

5.)   Search engines support their web trolling and indexing with Fair Use. Is this applicable?

6.)    How does this relate to the Google Book Project?

Handout provided in class.

Google and the World Brain

Google and the world brain. Dir. Ben Lewis. Polar Star Films, 2013. Film.

http://www.worldbrainthefilm.com/

Google and the World Brain is a documentary about the Google Book Project. As a dyslexic student, I am very interested in books using alternative formats so the topic of this film interested me. Accessibility of information has always been important to me. Last year, I wrote a paper about Aaron Schartz, an Internet activist accused of breaking into MIT systems who committed suicide at the age of 26 on the eve of his trial.

I grew up watching Ken Burns documentary films so I clearly thought this would present all sides of the story. Instead what I found was a very one-sided film that at times strays off track in efforts to condemn Google. Actually, it was a good thing that I saw this at the theater and paid for a ticket because if I had been watching on TV, I would have grabbed the remote and flipped back and forth. While I respect their opinion, ninety minutes of one side was too much. Rather than provoke shock, I found myself alternating between boredom and anger.

This was clearly one case where I should have studied the trailer a little better before attending the showing. The clues were there but I didn’t realize how much work the viewing experience would become with so many subtitles. In an effort to lend an international tone to the film, they jump the globe for interviews in multiple languages.

In the end, I was happy about the questions that the film raises. They did a great job introducing the idea of artificial intelligence and information banks. I hope most viewers will consider the value of the project along with the flaws.

7 Secret Masterpieces That Are Now Yours To Download

Rao, Mallika. "7 Secret Masterpieces That Are Now Yours To Download." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/online-museum-content_n_4118055.html

I wanted to compare the art world with the literary world. How do museums differ from libraries in their attitudes about digitizing their holdings? Most museums do not display all of their holdings. Should all their holdings all be digitized to increase access? What quality of digitized images should be available?

While the Google Book Project has been very guarded about their actual scanning process, it appears that the Getty research institute is willing to share information about their digitizing process. This article mentions the use of cameras in addition to scanning equipment and the importance of creating good metadata for search engines.

Predicting the impact of digitized images, does future study of art history demand museums make these changes? Like libraries, are museums struggling to reinvent themselves?

Robots Retrieve Books in University of Chicago’s New, Futuristic Library

Watercutter, Angela. "Robots Retrieve Books in University of Chicago’s New, Futuristic Library." wired.com. Wire Magazine, 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Link to article with video

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/05/robot-powered-mansueto-library/

More info:

http://mansueto.lib.uchicago.edu/

What will libraries of the future look like? This article discusses a new library on the campus of the University of Chicago, the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. Viewing the dome from the street, no one would have any idea that this library has the capacity to hold 3.5 million volumes in its underground storage facility. This article gives a nice overview of the library while addressing many of the issues libraries of the future face, such as quick and easy access to the physical books, researcher needs, e-books, bar codes, retrieval systems, and even the Google Book Library Project.

Library of Babel

Borges, Jorge. "The Library of Babel : Jorge Luis Borges : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive." Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Source:

http://archive.org/details/TheLibraryOfBabel

This short story titled The Library of Babel, by Jorge Luis Borges was first published in Spanish in 1941 and later translated to English. The science fiction story uses a library as a metaphor for the universe. Like Wells’ World Brain, this story is interesting from the perspective of it being written long before any conception of the Internet or digital libraries. Using first person narrative style, Borges places himself in a story about a universe, describing the universe using familiar physical library attributes, such as books, shelves and hexagon rooms. Using Mathematical terms, symbols, and alphabet characters through out the story, he describes this world with detail. As the plot develops and the problems of all the books of the world together in one place start to emerge, the concept of a special book that holds the key to all the others is introduced.

Wait did we just describe the Internet and Google’s mission to be master of knowledge?