[WEB4LIB] Re: Audio books being shared

[Andrew Mutch]

"I've recently been encouraging publishers, librarians, and others to
actually try out Napster (Macster's very impressive as well), to see what
the fuss is about, and and to learn why they have to completely rethink
their reasons for existence."

Where's the challenge?  Yes, Napster is impressive because it moves the
whole concept of the information sharing power of the Internet to a whole
new level.  However, it also recreates all of the "information overload"
problems at a whole new scale as well.  Even searches for obscure songs can
bring back dozens of potential downloads -- but there is absolutely no
classification scheme to it all.  Essentially, it's a crap-shoot that the
file you are selecting is going to be something worth the time to download.
To me, it looks like another huge opportunity for librarians to make use of
those skills that they have acquired to make sense of this new deluge of
information.

Now, who's going to take on the task of categorizing and distributing all of
this information that potentially would be available through the
post-Napster Internet?  The kid downloading MP3s in his/her college dorm
room?  The latest dot-com enterprise?  Libraries - definitely!

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI

Eric Hellman wrote:

> Jerry,
>
> I'll bet you a dime that you haven't tried napster either.
>
> Many academic libraries routinely distribute ENTIRE copyrighted
> articles from their collections to other libraries around the world,
> either by permission or through well established fair-use. The
> electronic equivalents of this practice are a subject of contention
> between publishers and libraries.
>
> I've recently been encouraging publishers, librarians, and others to
> actually try out Napster (Macster's very impressive as well), to see
> what the fuss is about, and and to learn why they have to completely
> rethink their reasons for existence. Not doing so is burying ones
> head in the sand.
>
> If you're still a Metallica fan, you can claim a hardship exemption.
>
> Eric
>
> At 11:14 AM -0700 6/23/00, Jerry Kuntz wrote:
> >Eric,
> >     I don't recall the last time one of our ILL staff reproduced a
> >copyrighted item from our collection in its entirety and distributed it
> >worldwide. Can I get this ILL service from your library?
> >Jerry Kuntz
> >jkuntz at rcls.org
>
> Eric Hellman
> Openly Informatics, Inc.
> http://www.openly.com/           21st Century Information Infrastructure
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