Enterprise Abstraction

The captain is dead

Slashdot reports that Captain Copyright is dead.  Gratz to the Canadian Library Association for their success in curtailing this initiative.  In my mind it goes to prove that library associations and library's do have a role in the protection of our rights and heritage, and do serve a fundamental public good.

In other copyright related news, the Canadian Private Copyright Collective is asking for yet another levy, this time on portable music players as well as on memory cards.  Fine... as long as the levy implies that we can copy content around freely... I'm not entirely against it.  Well, not really... but I'd probably live with it.

If it means that I have to pay a levy and I'm still not supposed to copy music and videos around, then I have a problem.

Are Librarians Totally Obsolete?

An article from iDegreetutor entitled Are Librarians Totally Obsolete caught my eye as it spun past on Digg today.  The article presents 33 reasons why libraries and librarians are still important and relevant today.

The main point I heard was a belief that libraries have, or should have, a fundamental role in the protection of information and heritage.  I also particularly like the idea presented that digital content still requires human intervention for management and support (reason #13).

Another theme I like is that the Internet, web, Google, and libraries all complement each other.  These need not be adversarial relationships, but extensions/expansions of existing ones.

It seems to me that we spend a lot of time worrying about the future of libraries and librarians, but not enough time pondering how we can work to our mutual best advantage to achieve our goals.  Humans are like that I guess.