Print to digital or just giving up?

After returning to school after the break, I checked my mailbox and of course it was full of the magazines that came over break.  As I began to process them to put them out on the library floor, a couple covers caught my eye.  First, the headline on the Newsweek issue is "#LASTPRINTISSUE".  I thought it might be a publicity stunt to get some to open the issue, but, nope, it really is the last print issue.  
As I read Editor in Chief, Tina Brown's "Perisope" issue introduction titled, "A New Chapter: Sometimes, change isn't just good, it's necessary," it seems that she makes an apologetic "sorry, but we tried" statement.  She talks about how in 2010 Sidney Harmon purchased Newsweek from the Washington Post company to attempt to save the magazine.  Then she goes on a two page summary of the "heroic" efforts of attempting to revive the publication.  Brown concludes with a statement that "this is not a conventional magazine" and they are embracing a digital medium "that our competitors will one day need to embrace with the same fervor."  I'm not buying this "we are innovators" speech.  A note on the side of her editorial notes that digital Newsweek will be found in iTunes, Zinio, Google, Kindle or Nook.  She says that her competitors, who I am assuming are Time and other news magazines, will need to follow up with the same fervor.  I hate to notify Tina Brown, but the other major news magazines have already done this, but have managed to keep a print magazine.  What I think Brown is saying is, we gave it a go as print, now we will try digital to save on printing and postage, but we may just fade away, so farewell.  I would have preferred an honest statement of, we gave it our best shot to bring the integrity back to the Newsweek brand and it just didn't work, so now we are rebranding as a digital publication.  Good luck Newsweek.  
In my introduction, I mentioned that two covers caught my eye.  The second caught my eye, probably, because of the Newsweek cover.  While the Newsweek brand is basically hanging it up after 80 years, National Geographic is celebrating it's 125th anniversary with a Special Issue.  I realize they are two completely different animals, but what an interesting juxtaposition.  

Great Webcast

I have not viewed a webcast in a couple years, but took a chance last week in viewing a live webcast with my sixth grade class.  It was terrific!!!  It was a School Library Journal webcast live with Rick Riordan talking about his new book The Serpent's Shadow.  Riordan was broadcasting (Is that the term that should be used for a live webcast?) from an Egyptian museum in California.  He toured parts of the museum and discussed several of the artifacts and how they appear in his new book.  Then he read a passage from the book that drew my students into the presentation.
I knew the presentation was going well when several of the students moved up closer to the screen to see and hear.  They also enjoyed the supplemental information on the screen, that included the video, a rotating slideshow of drawings of characters in the book, as well as a chat box.  The students asked me to enlarge the pictures next to the video, so they could see the drawings of the characters better.
This was a great, free way to bring a big name author of a top selling book into our library.  During the question and answer session, the kids hung on every question because they were waiting to see if any of the questions we asked would be answered.  We did learn lots of interesting things about the books and Riordan.

Poetry Month

April is poetry month at the IB libraries and we are celebrating.  Students are submitting poems on different topics and some students have created book spine poetry.  Also, this Thursday is a highlight to our poetry month celebration with Poem in Your Pocket Day.  So, anyway, here is a little ditty in celebration:

It is Poetry Month in the library
the doors open and out comes the verse
Thursday is Poem in Your Pocket day
so be ready and rehearse
Bring in your best work to share
be creative and take a risk
the words may seem ordinary
to you
to others they will become works
of art

Thanks to good friends who pass on good stuff.


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Wild Life

With the warm weather and heavy fog the last couple days, it seemed that the wildlife wanted to come out to enjoy.  Not just the gaggle of cats that hang out in front of the auto body shop or the gang of crows picking at a carcass or the birds jockeying for position on the high wires, there was more.  First were the wild turkeys convulsing across Reservoir Road eyeballing everything that moved.  Then standing in a shallow pond along Route 8 was a bald eagle (what a sight!).  Finally, heading south on Hanna City/Glasford Road there was a barn owl standing on the post of a road sign.  He twisted his head around to watch me pass. It was quite a drive in this morning.

Real Life Plagiarism

If you missed it, last week (Jan. 26, 2012) in the Peoria Journal Star, a letter to the editor had plagiarized material.  Bruce Eades of East Peoria wrote to the Journal Star regarding the story of Marines "misconduct." Unfortunately, Mr. Eades used a part of U.S. Representative Allen West's comments on the incident.  Then, on  Friday, January 27, the very next day, another letter to the editor appeared from Dana Arnold busting Mr. Eades for his plagiarized commentary.  The Journal Star included an editor's note confirming the plagiarism.

Plagiarism is normally seen as an academic or professional infraction that leads to penalties on grades or demotions or firings at work.  Here is an incident, whether intended or not, that is in the public forum outside of a professional realm of work or academia.  So, with no official consequence, most would at least put this incident in nothing less than the realm of embarrassing and it would seem Mr. Eades loses a significant amount of credibility in general.

Lesson to students: Plagiarism is just plain wrong no matter where it happens.  Be sure to always cite your souces and take ownership of your own ideas.

Wild Wild West or www.regulation

WWW.   Is that World Wide Web or Wild Wild West?  Is it time for the www to come to an end?  Last week,  Wikipedia and its friends went black to protest the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) legislation.  Lots has been said about these topics and anytime something like this hits Washington it gets a dozen different spins.  This post is not designed to rehash the pros and cons of these two acts specifically, but rather to address the topics of legislation in this basically free and "Wild West" virtual world of the Internet.  
The government has basically kept their hands out of the law-making business in regards to the Internet beyond the attempted laws to protect children and citizens from viewing or becoming victims to inappropriate behaviors/crimes.  We may have noticed an increase of legislation as state governments attempt to protect local businesses by taxing online sales.  But this is first, very public, attempt of the federal government to directly hold companies and individuals accountable for use of information (most copy written and owned by others) that is posted online for some kind of profit and ownership or covert reason.  Is it time for this kind of legislation? Are corporations, organizations, governments able to "police" enough to protect intellectual properties with or without a federal law?  
In the schools and education it is common for students and the schools to use information found on the Internet for educational purposes and most uses are protected under fair use copyright clauses.  But what happens when those students who have, for years, used others ideas, images, audio files, for presentations in education and learning now move into the corporate world where now corporate profit, salaries, and promotions are at stake?  Fair use and educational purposes are not vaild when someone is making money or receiving promotions for creating "original" documents and sales presentations from others' ideas.  This is where legislation and laws come into play.  Is it time to address these issues beyond basic copyright laws?  Should the individual be responsible for their actions or should companies like Google, Wikipedia or others be held responsible for allowing postings of copyright materials?  
Most would agree that more legislation is not the answer, but is some legislation needed to draw a line?  The question becomes where is the line and who is going to be in charge of that line?  When it comes to the Internet, those questions are gray and fuzzy.  The concepts and ideas are intangible and when posted online, can even be difficult to attribute to an individual.  
It seems that last weeks protest got the attention of people; I know in our school students and staff noticed that Wikipedia was not accessible.  Will discussion continue outside of Washington now that the "protest" is over?  Will lots of money and interest groups control what happens to the Internet as it does with many other aspects of our legislation?  Discussion between the intellectual properties of education and corporation, and the Internet holders of those intellectual properties of Google and Wikipedia, and government officials need to continue this discussion.  What makes this whole discussion difficult as a general citizen is who is representing whom?  Ideally, the government should represent the people, but that is put into question constantly.  We need to remember who the Internet properties represent because they have positioned themselves to say that they represent the individual.  We need to be careful of that.  We need to follow this and make our voices heard.  The Internet is ingrained in our lives whether we like it or not and this is too important to put in the hands of stake holders who do not have us, the people, in mind.  We are more important than the dollar, hopefully.  
Knee-jerk legislation cannot pass because we all know, once legislation is in play, it is almost impossible to rescind, and it ends up constantly getting morphed with "improvements."  Hopefully, discussion and collaboration can result in laws that do what they are intended to do: Protect those that use the Internet and ideas that are shared.