Date archives "May 2012"

Millions of Harvard Library Catalog Records Publicly Available

The Harvard Library announced it is making more than 12 million catalog records from Harvard’s 73 libraries publicly available. The records contain bibliographic information about books, videos, audio recordings, images, manuscripts, maps, and more. The Harvard Library is making these records available in accordance with its Open Metadata Policy and under a Creative Commons 0… Continue reading

Debating the Iron Law of Bureaucracy and the Power Law: Knowing Networks as an alternative to scale-free networks

Repost from: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/debating-the-iron-law-of-bureaucracy-and-the-power-law-knowing-networks-as-an-alternative-to-scale-free-networks/2011/02/18 These are further elements to the debate (between Zeynep Tufekci and others) as to whether and how the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which affects initially egalitarian distributed networks, can be countered. 1. Clay Shirky: inequality is not always unfair Classic discusion of how the power law operates in blogs, and why it… Continue reading

Consumers International Publishes 2012 IP Watchlist

Consumers International has published its annual “IP Watchlist,” a report that examines the copyright laws and policies of 30 countries, determining which are strongest (and weakest) at promoting access to knowledge.  The list ranks each country according to 49 criteria, which fall in to four general categories: “scope and duration of rights; freedom to access… Continue reading

Book of the Day: The Digital Public Domain

The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture. Melanie Dulong and Juan Carlos De Martin. OpenBookPublishers. 2012 Abstract: “Digital technology has made culture more accessible than ever before. Texts, audio, pictures and video can easily be produced, disseminated, used and remixed using devices that are increasingly user-friendly and affordable. However, along with this technological… Continue reading