Week 9, Thing 23: Copyright

I have mixed feelings about this entry. On the one hand, I'm really sad to see this experience end. I enjoyed learning new things and having a sounding board to discuss my findings. It was frustrating feeling like I was writing for no one but just the fact that I could express my thoughts on technology without having to look at my husband's blank face or try and waylay our always-on-the-go CFF coach gave me confidence and an outlet for my successes and frustrations. On the other hand, I'm finally done and it feels like I've been doing it forever! I started this while visiting my sister, relieved to be in her air conditioning, I'm ending it with a heating pad on my freezing feat. Now I can work on my iWeb page and cope with the holidays.

Copyright and Creative Commons was a very interesting "thing". I went into this assignment convinced that copyright always belongs to the author otherwise the publishers will take advantage of the situation and feather their nests at the expense of the poor, creative geniuses. Lawrence Lessig's article "Against Perpetual Copyright" presented a very different point of view and I felt differently afterward. As librarians, we are supposed to be the closest thing to experts on copyright in our schools but even though I'm very familiar to the "dos and don'ts", the theories behind it aren't thought of very often.

I appreciated learning about Creative Commons. So much of librarianship is about collaboration and CC is exactly that. It's good to know we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel.