May 2007 Archives
Copyright and fair use explained with the help of Disney characters.
A recent study by the OpenNet Inititaive (ONI) found that the scale, the scope, and the sophistication of state-based Internet filtering have all increased dramatically in recent years.The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering, particularly Internet -based applications like YouTube, Skype, and Google Maps - and not static websites.
As "The Simpsons" - the longest-lasting comedy of any kind in prime-time TV history, surpassing "My Three Sons," "M*A*S*H," "Happy Days" and "Cheers" - airs its 400th episode, Julian Gough argues in the May 2007 Prospect Magazine issue that the modern literary novel should "steal from 'The Simpsons,' not Henry James." The literary novel, according to Gough, has "gone late Roman" not only for its overindulgence in tragedy and not comedy, but also because the literary novel has lost contact with what made it vital - mass audiences.
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy recently released Issue 11.3, focusing on classical rhetoric and digital communication.The issue also marks the debut of two new Wiki-based projects: KairosWiki and PraxisWiki. Participation in both wikis is welcome.
Kairos is a "refereed online journal exploring the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy," publishing webtexts that focus on "large-scale issues related to special topics, individual and collaborative reviews of books and media", in addition to news and announcements.
TU Libraries is currently trialing Oxford Scholarship Online, a cross-searchable library containing the full text of over 1,200 Oxford books in the areas of Economics and Finance, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion.Users can search for texts by keyword searching or by using the sub-discipline index. The titles listed in the Philosophy of Language sub-discipline may be pretty useful for rhetoricians.
BibMe, a new online citation generator developed this Spring by Information Systems students at Carnegie Mellon University, automatically generates citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats and lets users download their bibliographies to their word documents.
While BibMe can generate citations for most common types of sources (books, newspapers, journals, magazines, films, websites, and even interviews), it does not include proper citation information for sources found via (library) subscription databases -- a source medium that students are increasingly using.
The Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers has produced a four-part video on plagiarism that is both informative and entertaining. And the voice of the schoolmarm is just fabulous.
TU Libraries is currently trialing AP Images.AP Images (formerly AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive) is one of the largest collections of historical and contemporary news photographs, containing over 3 million images from the 1840s to the present. A collection of over 50,000 graphics - maps, timelines, logos, and graphs - is also included.
Searching capabilities include the ability to search by keyword, person, date, or event, in addition to browsing feature photograph collections. A reference guide is available. All content from AP Images may be downloaded; however, during the trial period, this feature will not be available.
The trial ends on May 31st and is password-based. Username and password information are listed below.
Username: ap-news@hotmail.com
Password: images
Don DeLillo's new post 9/11 narrative, Falling Man, has received a number of reviews in the past week. Below are a few highlights from select reviews."..."Falling Man" proposes no answers; it holds us, anxious, in the unresolved, the unresolvable — in what might, in fact, be the new world order." Sven Birkerts, Los Angeles Times
"...DeLillo leaves us with two paltry images: one of a performance artist re-enacting the fall of bodies from the burning World Trade Center, and one of a self-absorbed man, who came through the fire and ash of that day and decided to spend his foreseeable future playing stupid card games in the Nevada desert." Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"...DeLillo is seeking to restore our collective awareness of the fragility of life." Steven E. Alford, Houston Chronicle
"...The surprise of "Falling Man" is how acutely DeLillo imagines the terrorist's mind and how feebly he captures the experience of the ordinary citizen." Laura Miller, Salon Books
"...DeLillo's airy, almost ghostlike 9/11 tale, is as on-the-news as he's ever been." Mark Athitakis, Chicago Sun-Times
In his article, Josh Getlin of the Los Angeles Times comments on the seeming shifting balance regarding book reviews published in mainstream press and online literary blogs, noting that as print newspapers begin cutting or resizing their book review sections, literary blogs are keeping the discussion about the book publishing industry alive and churning.
Jeffrey R. Young of The Chronicle of Higher Education recently wrote an article detailing the research of Michael Wesch, who is exploring the (performative) world of video bloggers and how their productions impact the growing online community in Web 2.0.
Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, has gained fame for his own YouTube production, "The Machine is Us/ing Us," viewed over two million times.
Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, has gained fame for his own YouTube production, "The Machine is Us/ing Us," viewed over two million times.
A recent nationwide survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that Wikipedia is far more popular among the well-educated than it is among those with lower levels of education. For instance, 50% of those with at least a college degree consult the site, compared with 22% of those with a high school diploma. In addition to sheer convenience, the report lists Wikipedia's plethora of internal and external links as one of the reasons for the online encyclopedia's success since the numerous links help to raise the site's visibility and ranking when performing Google keyword searches.
A copy of the full report is available online.
Do you blog? If yes, then please consider participating in an online survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science. The study, Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation, is meant to investigate bloggers’ own perceptions on digital preservation in relation to their own blogging activities, as well as the blogosphere in general. More informatio about the study is included in the study's fact sheet.
The web-based survey will be available through May 23, 2007.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Carolyn Hank, the study's Principle Investigator, at hcarolyn@email.unc.edu. Thanks!
In celebration of its 207th birthday this year, the Library of Congress recently launched the Library of Congress blog.The purpose of the blog is to "give readers the opportunity to see more of the institution" and "highlight many of the wonderful things that happen here."
For its first post, on April 24th, the director of communications, Matt Raymond, began with the words of Samuel Morse in 1844: "What hath God wrought?" - the first words ever transmitted electronically via the telegraph.
The Atwater Kent Museum is currently featuring an exhibition entitled, "Wonderful World of Radio" through mid-September.In conjunction with the exhibition, a special program, entitled "Radio Broadcasting in Philadelphia" will be offered on Saturday, May 5, 2:00-3:30pm. Five of the city´s radio legends - Jerry Blavat, Tony Brown, Tom Moran, Karin Phillips, and Dean Tyler - wil be center stage in a conversation about radio broadcasting in Philadelphia.
More information is included below.
Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia
15 South 7th Street (between Market & Chestnut)
Free admission with AKMP admission: adults, $5; seniors and ages 13-17, $3; AKMP members, free.
Galleries open at 1:00pm; refreshments served.
The University of Texas Computer Writing and Research Lab has developed Viz., a portal for teachers and researchers of visual rhetoric. Viz. offers a blog, a bibliography of visual rhetoric sources, and various assignments for instructors.
Check out the new literary-related resources added to the library collection in the past month.
JSTOR, the electronic journal database, has added previously missing issues to the linguistics journal, Language.Recently added issues include:
New content: Vol. 7 (Issue 3), 1931;
Vol. 25 (Issue 4, Bulletin No. 22), 1949;
Vol. 76 (Index), 2000;
Vol. 31 (Issue 3, Part 3: Index), 1955;
Vol. 36 (Issue 2, Part 2; Index), 1960;
Vol. 42 (Issue 4, Index), 1966
Published by the Linguisitic Society of America, the first 77 volumes of the journal (1925-2001) are available in full-text.
A recent study of college students and their use of online video content conducted by the American University's Center for Social Media revealed an "astonishing amount" of confusion by students over how to handle copyright law when creating user-generated content. The study found that while students are generally concerned with staying on the "good side" of copyright law, they tend to create their own rules about how to use intellectual property -- not understanding their own rights as creators of content.
John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable also comments on the study in his article.