My day job, the one with benefits and a pension plan and lunch break (thank you all my union brothers and sisters who went before!) involves finding and ordering out of print (OOP) books. Sometimes they are meant as new additions to our library, sometimes they are replacements for lost, damaged or stolen books from the shelves.
The used book market is irrational, and moving online has made it even less rational. I have a couple of potted speeches on the subject, which I'll spare you this time.
Anyway, one result of the ability to search online is that anyone who has a book for sale, and sees no other copies available, decides that his copy is thus immensely valuable. Books that in the snail-mail market might have been priced at $5 or $20 soar now to $400 or $600. Plus shipping. And this is often for ex-lib or student-owned copies, full of hi-liter and pen marks, which a reputable bookseller probably wouldn't even carry.
So I was mildly amused today when I was asked to discover the real replacement cost for a science text someone had lost (from my own student background I'm inclined to call that 'lost'). The standard replacement cost is something like $50, meant to encourage the student to actually look through the piles of laundry and pizza boxes for the book. What was the real replacement cost of this particular book? Well, if the two copies on offer were real and not megalister vapourware, not less than $500 before shipping.
Want to bet that the lost book will show up soonish?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
recollected in coziness
I'm sitting in the kitchen, with the woodstove huffing and crackling to itself, with peanut butter cookies and cheese scones on the counter and a cup of tea beside me. Outside it's raining gently, but not quite dark enough for me to draw the curtains. I can see the tight little clumps of blossom on the plum tree still, and the leaves coming out on the roses.
The kitchen curtains are newish. The winter was cold enough that I scoured through the thrift shops for something I could stand looking at (though, as Mark said, any curtain becomes invisible after a month anyways), and came up with nice slubby linen with a powdering of fat stars for the wide window, and two long tan corduroy pieces for the tall window. Then I stencilled fleur-de-lys in dark red over the tan, to make it less boring. So now I can shut the outside away if I want.
This week I've been sleeping in until 6 or 7 a.m., and reading, not writing. I'll post some book reviews in the next day or so, but I thought first I'd ramble a bit about revisions, since that's what I've been immersed in when not engaged in salaried labour, for the last couple of months.
So, yeah, revision. Willow Knot completed came out at almost 130k wordcount, and after getting my beta readers' feedback I hacked it down to 105k, which was at the high end for what I understood agents would look at for a first novel (90k is preferable).
What I took out in that pruning was:
introspection. Any time a character thought something over and those thoughts resulted in action or decision, I cut the thoughts and demonstrated them through the action.
incident that contributed to atmosphere rather than plot, or that began a plot thread that was later cut.
description of anything already established, even if the writing was pretty.
Then, after 30 form rejections or silences, I got an agent. Woohoo! (I still don't quite believe this.) Phone call and email and a list of further revisions, with the perk that I could bring the wordcount up to 125k or so.
A note, here. Agents often ask for revision. I understood this, because I tend to binge-research, and I'd researched agents, and the process of querying, and what's involved in being represented by an agent. But I've run into enough beginner writers who are astonished and somewhat distressed by the idea that an agent, while loving one's work, doesn't think it is perfect as it stands, that I feel I should emphasise this point.
So. Agents may ask you to revise your novel. My agent (a little quiver every time I type those words, still) began as an editor, so she knows what she's doing when she suggests revisions.
First lot of revisions: tighten up the time in the woods, and spread the more eventful events more evenly through those years; build up Myl's knowledge of plants and the hardships & hunger of the forest; make Myl's adjustment to the court more gradual and show her finding her way; simplify the political situation within and without the kingdom.
The wordcount went up to about 120k, and I shipped it off.
Thing I was sorry to lose: the establishing of a House of Commons.
Thing I was happy to add: a masque! and more of the bear.
Not unexpectedly, there was more to come. Second lot of revisions: tighten up the time in the woods, this time by wordcount more than events; build up Myl's ear for charms & magic; add brief episodes of Midame's doings in the first half of the story; establish the elves so as to raise the question of whether Errigenie is elf-touched; intensify the tension between the two kingdoms & bring them to the brink of war; tie the conspiracies together; clarify Alard's scepticism and give him more time for character development in the last part of the story.
The wordcount went up to about 122k, and I shipped it off.
Kind of funny things: the suggestion that I add scenes from Midame's pov, and the suggestion that Nomency and Lusantia be downgraded from kingdoms to duchies or counties. Both of these were things that I had considered in the first writing, but had held back on.
It was suggested that I cut the black thing. This is where I balked, and instead have tried to tie the black thing more closely to Midame and to the marsh events. I may still have to cut it, but I feel it has a job to do, particularly in being what breaks Myl's hope in the forest and inclines her to accept Alard's offer of return.
General thoughts about revision.
Writing is like painting. Add more words, cover up mistakes, fill in layer after layer to create an illusion of 3-dimensionality. Really it's all paint and flat, but add light and shadow and you will deceive the eye.
Revising is like carving. Take away what obscures the form. Start with chisels and mallets, finish with sandpaper. It can't be done in one go, the way the writing can. I have to go back the next day, and back again, each time finding more (though less at a time) of what obscures the form, and removing that piece, that layer, that corner.
Another metaphor altogether: what my agent showed me, and what I found for myself once I started looking, is that I have all the pieces for a strong scene, all the lego blocks for the pirate ship or space shuttle, but I haven't put them together. For example, Alard is carrying his unconscious friend through the forest, evading the conspirators who want to kill him and, unknowingly, the bear (more bear!). Did his injured friend rouse and rave? Did the conspirators pass nearby? Did the bear? Here's where I scuff my feet and look at the ground. Um, no. No, it didn't occur to me to do anything with those pieces, like snap them together into a more intriguing shape. Not until this most recent revision.
Naturally, I can look at someone else's writing and see where they missed an opportunity to build suspense or excitement. That's easy. It is to be hoped that I can now look at my own and do the same. At least in the second draft.
Closing with a brief arthritis report. The right elbow is annoying, and the left foot (the ball thereof). Both thumbs are a bit twingey if I stretch them out, but that may be due to using the belt sander to rough out the puppet heads last week (in case you wondered where that carving metaphor came from). Overall pretty good.
The kitchen curtains are newish. The winter was cold enough that I scoured through the thrift shops for something I could stand looking at (though, as Mark said, any curtain becomes invisible after a month anyways), and came up with nice slubby linen with a powdering of fat stars for the wide window, and two long tan corduroy pieces for the tall window. Then I stencilled fleur-de-lys in dark red over the tan, to make it less boring. So now I can shut the outside away if I want.
This week I've been sleeping in until 6 or 7 a.m., and reading, not writing. I'll post some book reviews in the next day or so, but I thought first I'd ramble a bit about revisions, since that's what I've been immersed in when not engaged in salaried labour, for the last couple of months.
So, yeah, revision. Willow Knot completed came out at almost 130k wordcount, and after getting my beta readers' feedback I hacked it down to 105k, which was at the high end for what I understood agents would look at for a first novel (90k is preferable).
What I took out in that pruning was:
introspection. Any time a character thought something over and those thoughts resulted in action or decision, I cut the thoughts and demonstrated them through the action.
incident that contributed to atmosphere rather than plot, or that began a plot thread that was later cut.
description of anything already established, even if the writing was pretty.
Then, after 30 form rejections or silences, I got an agent. Woohoo! (I still don't quite believe this.) Phone call and email and a list of further revisions, with the perk that I could bring the wordcount up to 125k or so.
A note, here. Agents often ask for revision. I understood this, because I tend to binge-research, and I'd researched agents, and the process of querying, and what's involved in being represented by an agent. But I've run into enough beginner writers who are astonished and somewhat distressed by the idea that an agent, while loving one's work, doesn't think it is perfect as it stands, that I feel I should emphasise this point.
So. Agents may ask you to revise your novel. My agent (a little quiver every time I type those words, still) began as an editor, so she knows what she's doing when she suggests revisions.
First lot of revisions: tighten up the time in the woods, and spread the more eventful events more evenly through those years; build up Myl's knowledge of plants and the hardships & hunger of the forest; make Myl's adjustment to the court more gradual and show her finding her way; simplify the political situation within and without the kingdom.
The wordcount went up to about 120k, and I shipped it off.
Thing I was sorry to lose: the establishing of a House of Commons.
Thing I was happy to add: a masque! and more of the bear.
Not unexpectedly, there was more to come. Second lot of revisions: tighten up the time in the woods, this time by wordcount more than events; build up Myl's ear for charms & magic; add brief episodes of Midame's doings in the first half of the story; establish the elves so as to raise the question of whether Errigenie is elf-touched; intensify the tension between the two kingdoms & bring them to the brink of war; tie the conspiracies together; clarify Alard's scepticism and give him more time for character development in the last part of the story.
The wordcount went up to about 122k, and I shipped it off.
Kind of funny things: the suggestion that I add scenes from Midame's pov, and the suggestion that Nomency and Lusantia be downgraded from kingdoms to duchies or counties. Both of these were things that I had considered in the first writing, but had held back on.
It was suggested that I cut the black thing. This is where I balked, and instead have tried to tie the black thing more closely to Midame and to the marsh events. I may still have to cut it, but I feel it has a job to do, particularly in being what breaks Myl's hope in the forest and inclines her to accept Alard's offer of return.
General thoughts about revision.
Writing is like painting. Add more words, cover up mistakes, fill in layer after layer to create an illusion of 3-dimensionality. Really it's all paint and flat, but add light and shadow and you will deceive the eye.
Revising is like carving. Take away what obscures the form. Start with chisels and mallets, finish with sandpaper. It can't be done in one go, the way the writing can. I have to go back the next day, and back again, each time finding more (though less at a time) of what obscures the form, and removing that piece, that layer, that corner.
Another metaphor altogether: what my agent showed me, and what I found for myself once I started looking, is that I have all the pieces for a strong scene, all the lego blocks for the pirate ship or space shuttle, but I haven't put them together. For example, Alard is carrying his unconscious friend through the forest, evading the conspirators who want to kill him and, unknowingly, the bear (more bear!). Did his injured friend rouse and rave? Did the conspirators pass nearby? Did the bear? Here's where I scuff my feet and look at the ground. Um, no. No, it didn't occur to me to do anything with those pieces, like snap them together into a more intriguing shape. Not until this most recent revision.
Naturally, I can look at someone else's writing and see where they missed an opportunity to build suspense or excitement. That's easy. It is to be hoped that I can now look at my own and do the same. At least in the second draft.
Closing with a brief arthritis report. The right elbow is annoying, and the left foot (the ball thereof). Both thumbs are a bit twingey if I stretch them out, but that may be due to using the belt sander to rough out the puppet heads last week (in case you wondered where that carving metaphor came from). Overall pretty good.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
more puppet pics
Because puppets are cool. Also I thought I should show you what the booth design is based on, though the puppets obviously are from the other bas-de-page illustration.
My puppets have heads of linden, hands of pine, cloth bodies, and are dressed in linen and wool. They are painted with ochres and whiting in size tempera, with a little ceruse for the eyes and vermilion for the lips tempered with yolk.
The booth is made of pine and oak, glued with cheese & quicklime glue, nailed, and painted with ochres in size. I handsawed the whole damn thing, because our tablesaw is under the beltsander and thus inaccessible.
The play was Le Cuvier, a French farce of about 1400, trimmed down and with one character removed. I used the French text, rather than my rough translation, so as not to lose the rhymes and bounciness.
In writing news, I've had my first real review, over on the Internet Review of Science Fiction, in its last issue, alas, alas. The review is for "On the Transmontane Run with the Aerial Mail Express", in the December issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and is brief enough that I think I can quote it here:
Rookie Willow, with her chimpanzee crew, has to prove herself as a blimp pilot on her first solo run. Adventures await her, pirates and treachery. Inventive stuff in this adventure story with a plucky heroine who is also pretty clever. But then, we expected that.
In reading news, I'm going to spend a week depleting my TBR piles before I jump back into The Cost of Silver. I have a fear of becoming one of those writers who says 'oh, I can't tell you which writers I enjoy, I just don't have time to read in my field anymore'.
I was a reader before I was a writer. I'm a writer because I'm a reader. The idea of having to sacrifice reading for writing makes me shudder. I'll try to post some reviews and thoughts of what I've been reading, and what I get on to reading in the next little while.
My puppets have heads of linden, hands of pine, cloth bodies, and are dressed in linen and wool. They are painted with ochres and whiting in size tempera, with a little ceruse for the eyes and vermilion for the lips tempered with yolk.
The booth is made of pine and oak, glued with cheese & quicklime glue, nailed, and painted with ochres in size. I handsawed the whole damn thing, because our tablesaw is under the beltsander and thus inaccessible.
The play was Le Cuvier, a French farce of about 1400, trimmed down and with one character removed. I used the French text, rather than my rough translation, so as not to lose the rhymes and bounciness.
In writing news, I've had my first real review, over on the Internet Review of Science Fiction, in its last issue, alas, alas. The review is for "On the Transmontane Run with the Aerial Mail Express", in the December issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and is brief enough that I think I can quote it here:
Rookie Willow, with her chimpanzee crew, has to prove herself as a blimp pilot on her first solo run. Adventures await her, pirates and treachery. Inventive stuff in this adventure story with a plucky heroine who is also pretty clever. But then, we expected that.
In reading news, I'm going to spend a week depleting my TBR piles before I jump back into The Cost of Silver. I have a fear of becoming one of those writers who says 'oh, I can't tell you which writers I enjoy, I just don't have time to read in my field anymore'.
I was a reader before I was a writer. I'm a writer because I'm a reader. The idea of having to sacrifice reading for writing makes me shudder. I'll try to post some reviews and thoughts of what I've been reading, and what I get on to reading in the next little while.
Monday, March 8, 2010
I must like deadlines
Because I've spent the last two months surrounding myself with them. Most important was the revisions deadline for Willow Knot, that being a real-world commitment. I got the second lot of agent-requested-revisions done and emailed only one day over deadline, and snail-mailed a printout that week. Whoof!
Then it was the last push for my entries for the An Tir Arts & Sciences Championship. I was entering hand-puppets and booth based on the bas-de-page miniatures from Bodleian ms.264 Romance of Alexander, a play with said puppets, a folding almanac on parchment, and a recitation & translation of a Hans Sachs poem (one of the short ones).
On Feb 20 I took some time away from the race to attend Dragon's Laire's Candlemas, where I visited with my wonderful apprentice Eileen, caught up with Deirdre about stained glass, and picked up more info and inspiration for the puppets and the almanac, as well as an insight on hunting that pointed the way into Alard's character for revisions of his pursuit in the marsh. So yayness! I came home full of excitement and energy.
And fell over with the cold Mark brought me back from Estrella. Cue two weeks of hacking up yuck and of a head full of mucus. Which slough I am only now crawling out of.
As a result, although I got the revised ms out the door, my A&S entries went to heck. I clung to the illusion that I could pull it all together in the last few days, and indeed, I had the puppets and booth ready to go, the play handwritten and the poem translated and rehearsed. The almanac was mostly blank pieces of parchment cut to shape, and my documentation was pretty rough, but still! I ignored Mark swanking around with his two entries all finished and ready to go, and struggled on.
Friday we packed up the van as I frantically edited documentation. Off we go! Customs searched the van, but in a less accusatory way than previously. Then, disaster of sorts: the puppet booth was made partially of raw branches - willow and alder that I scrounged from recent prunings around the neighbourhood. And untreated/unheated hardwood is not to cross the border. So the supports for the booth have to stay behind.
Which I don't at all argue with - it never occurred to me to check into that, although I've lived most of my life in areas where forestry was a major industry. Dumb me. And my most complete entry is now not very complete. The part made from milled lumber is okay, and the puppets are okay, but it will be something of a challenge to present the play--and my voice having mostly disappeared is not helpful.
Well, it wasn't as if I were trying to win (what I was trying to do is a long and ranty story, to be saved for some other time). So here are my puppets on the improvised supports, and beside is the model from the manuscript. My bent-willow arch with the scrim to hide my face is missing, (due to Customs) so the resemblance isn't all it could be, even above the missing supports.
Anyway, the Championship was a good event. I got to share my most recent enthusiasms with other enthusiastic people, got pretty stoked for trying the same stuff (only finished) next year, and best of all, my former apprentice Alicia took the Championship, with her student Constance being one of the finalists.
Then it was the last push for my entries for the An Tir Arts & Sciences Championship. I was entering hand-puppets and booth based on the bas-de-page miniatures from Bodleian ms.264 Romance of Alexander, a play with said puppets, a folding almanac on parchment, and a recitation & translation of a Hans Sachs poem (one of the short ones).
On Feb 20 I took some time away from the race to attend Dragon's Laire's Candlemas, where I visited with my wonderful apprentice Eileen, caught up with Deirdre about stained glass, and picked up more info and inspiration for the puppets and the almanac, as well as an insight on hunting that pointed the way into Alard's character for revisions of his pursuit in the marsh. So yayness! I came home full of excitement and energy.
And fell over with the cold Mark brought me back from Estrella. Cue two weeks of hacking up yuck and of a head full of mucus. Which slough I am only now crawling out of.
As a result, although I got the revised ms out the door, my A&S entries went to heck. I clung to the illusion that I could pull it all together in the last few days, and indeed, I had the puppets and booth ready to go, the play handwritten and the poem translated and rehearsed. The almanac was mostly blank pieces of parchment cut to shape, and my documentation was pretty rough, but still! I ignored Mark swanking around with his two entries all finished and ready to go, and struggled on.
Friday we packed up the van as I frantically edited documentation. Off we go! Customs searched the van, but in a less accusatory way than previously. Then, disaster of sorts: the puppet booth was made partially of raw branches - willow and alder that I scrounged from recent prunings around the neighbourhood. And untreated/unheated hardwood is not to cross the border. So the supports for the booth have to stay behind.
Which I don't at all argue with - it never occurred to me to check into that, although I've lived most of my life in areas where forestry was a major industry. Dumb me. And my most complete entry is now not very complete. The part made from milled lumber is okay, and the puppets are okay, but it will be something of a challenge to present the play--and my voice having mostly disappeared is not helpful.
Well, it wasn't as if I were trying to win (what I was trying to do is a long and ranty story, to be saved for some other time). So here are my puppets on the improvised supports, and beside is the model from the manuscript. My bent-willow arch with the scrim to hide my face is missing, (due to Customs) so the resemblance isn't all it could be, even above the missing supports.
Anyway, the Championship was a good event. I got to share my most recent enthusiasms with other enthusiastic people, got pretty stoked for trying the same stuff (only finished) next year, and best of all, my former apprentice Alicia took the Championship, with her student Constance being one of the finalists.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Two-time runner-up in obscure contest!
In which I trumpet my achievements to the world. Well, the dozen therein who read my blog.
You will recall, faithful reader, that over the Labour Day weekend I participated in the International 3-Day Novel Contest, to the tune of not-quite 20k words.
The results are posted here. I'm one of 15 honourable mentions, and I am no end pleased about it. Here's the full list:
You will recall, faithful reader, that over the Labour Day weekend I participated in the International 3-Day Novel Contest, to the tune of not-quite 20k words.
Hi Barbara,
Congratulations on making the shortlist once again! The
judges were very impressed with your submission. If you
haven't seen them yet, the results are up at
www.3daynovel.com. In a few days, I'll mail out your
Honourable Mention certificate and token, and a copy of
the winner release.
Until then, have a great week! I hope 2010 has been
treating you well so far.
Melissa for 3-Day
The results are posted here. I'm one of 15 honourable mentions, and I am no end pleased about it. Here's the full list:
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Snowmen by Mark Sedore of Toronto, Ontario
The winning entry to the latest 3-Day Novel Contest is the story of a man who struggles to complete a record-setting trip across the Arctic Circle while his unstable and resentful brother plays a deadly game of sabotage. Snowmen will be released by 3-Day Books in August 2010.
2nd PLACE WINNER
McKinley M. Hellenes of Mission, British Columbia, for Everything Will Be OK
Winning $500
3rd PLACE WINNER
Victoria Dunn of Ottawa, Ontario, for Alice’s Adventures with Welsh Zombies
Winning $100
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Miguel Burr (Vancouver, BC) for Flourescence
Keith Chittleborough (Glen Waverley, Australia) for Sheepless in Puckapunyal
Karen Cressman (Brampton, ON) for Breaking the Girl
Kimberly Davidson (Vancouver, BC) for Jabula
Alice Egoyan and Devon Motola (Fresno, CA) for 77
David Gibson (Hamilton, ON) for Cold Heaven Blonde
Barbara Gordon (Victoria, BC) for Culture Heroes
Meredith Kennedy (Palo Alto, CA) for Strange Alchemy
Edward Lineberry (Dallas, TX) for Forged Prophet
J.C. Locke (Carrboro, NC) for Big Crunch
Gavin McLachlan (Toronto, ON) for Give Up Your Self
Greg Morrison (Woodstock, VA) for The Goetist
Erica Naone (Allston MA) for Needle and Fang
Marion Stein (New York, NY) for Hungry Ghosts
T.R. White (Brampton, ON) for Billy Blue Bear
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Google street view
Makes my bum look big.
The street view cars went through Victoria this past summer, and I saw them while biking home. The other night I got around to looking for myself (the views went up in December), by slowly panning along Henderson.
There's a front view, with face blurred, and a back view, which sadly needs some bum-blurring technology.
Every now and then I try to educate myself about the Google book settlement, but it never works. Today's article in the Times Colonist (yes, the Victoria newspaper really is called The Colonist) once again rebuffed me. I was sent reeling off, muttering "Agh, bad bad metaphors, agh, you are writers dammit, an analogy is not an argument, agh...."
I wasn't able to read past the second column, where making a book available digitally is likened to stealing a book from a bookshop.
Except not.
There's a difference, okay, between the content of a book (text) and the physical object of a book (paper & glue), which makes this even more complicated. A book-object, unlike jewelry or old coins, has no intrinsic value.
It can have heaps and heaps of extrinsic / assigned value. I see this on the Booksleuth forum, where someone desperately wants the edition of something that they read as a child, as close as possible to that copy they handled, with their jammy thumb-prints on it, ideally. Other readers just want the text, and would be happy to read it on Project Gutenberg.
My for-real job that pays the bills is finding and ordering out-of-print books online. Out of print means that they're often used books, and in no case is the author getting a penny for that sale. Booksellers get something, and that's good, because bookselling is good just as libraries are good, and more people having access to more books is good...
Which seems to lead me to Google books being good. Although it is clearly vastly more complex than that. Possibly more complex than I can understand. Though at least I've heard of the used book market and of interlibrary loan, which puts me ahead of Sergey Brin, who doesn't know about ILLO, as noted by the Avocado back in October.
Brin's on-record cluelessness about real-world availability of OOP books doesn't make me trust that Google knows what it's doing, and the argument-by-bad-metaphor and similar ignoring of the used book market by writers doesn't make me trust that they have a better grasp of what the realistic problems may be.
A writer 'and former lawyer' is quoted at the end of the TC article with what I in my ignorance would call a classic slippery-slope argument:
Okay, I'm sorry, that was unfair of me, but the suggestion that corporations haven't been getting away with abuses until now (ie, when they touch on that speaker's rights) kinda reeks of privilege.
Maybe I'll try again to understand the issues, in six months or so. I can make it a regular checkup. But I'm doubting that there will be any real coming to terms. It's sort of like the fanfiction issue, only with the possibility of someone making money.
The street view cars went through Victoria this past summer, and I saw them while biking home. The other night I got around to looking for myself (the views went up in December), by slowly panning along Henderson.
There's a front view, with face blurred, and a back view, which sadly needs some bum-blurring technology.
Every now and then I try to educate myself about the Google book settlement, but it never works. Today's article in the Times Colonist (yes, the Victoria newspaper really is called The Colonist) once again rebuffed me. I was sent reeling off, muttering "Agh, bad bad metaphors, agh, you are writers dammit, an analogy is not an argument, agh...."
I wasn't able to read past the second column, where making a book available digitally is likened to stealing a book from a bookshop.
Except not.
There's a difference, okay, between the content of a book (text) and the physical object of a book (paper & glue), which makes this even more complicated. A book-object, unlike jewelry or old coins, has no intrinsic value.
It can have heaps and heaps of extrinsic / assigned value. I see this on the Booksleuth forum, where someone desperately wants the edition of something that they read as a child, as close as possible to that copy they handled, with their jammy thumb-prints on it, ideally. Other readers just want the text, and would be happy to read it on Project Gutenberg.
My for-real job that pays the bills is finding and ordering out-of-print books online. Out of print means that they're often used books, and in no case is the author getting a penny for that sale. Booksellers get something, and that's good, because bookselling is good just as libraries are good, and more people having access to more books is good...
Which seems to lead me to Google books being good. Although it is clearly vastly more complex than that. Possibly more complex than I can understand. Though at least I've heard of the used book market and of interlibrary loan, which puts me ahead of Sergey Brin, who doesn't know about ILLO, as noted by the Avocado back in October.
Brin's on-record cluelessness about real-world availability of OOP books doesn't make me trust that Google knows what it's doing, and the argument-by-bad-metaphor and similar ignoring of the used book market by writers doesn't make me trust that they have a better grasp of what the realistic problems may be.
A writer 'and former lawyer' is quoted at the end of the TC article with what I in my ignorance would call a classic slippery-slope argument:
If they're allowed to get away with this, what else is any huge multinational corporation going to be allowed to get away with?From Bhopal to books online, what will corporations descend to next?< / sarcasm >
Okay, I'm sorry, that was unfair of me, but the suggestion that corporations haven't been getting away with abuses until now (ie, when they touch on that speaker's rights) kinda reeks of privilege.
Maybe I'll try again to understand the issues, in six months or so. I can make it a regular checkup. But I'm doubting that there will be any real coming to terms. It's sort of like the fanfiction issue, only with the possibility of someone making money.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A new year full of outrage, already
Tell me again why I should support the Olympics?
Besides the city of Whistler being made over into a venue rather than a community, it appears that Whistler's one public library will be closed to the public for the duration of the Games.
Why?
So that politicians, bureaucrats and Olympic committee members (and hey, maybe even a few elite athletes?) can have a private bar.
I keep trying to comment on that, and there's just nothing sarcastic enough to match the bare facts.
What else? Oh, Whistler library staff won't be out of work--they'll be seconded to VANOC and given vital Olympic duties like greeting tourist busses.
Reportedly the Olympic committee tried this in Vancouver--some of us see a library and think of reading, but VANOC members think of drinking behind locked doors--but was told no.
I wonder who told them no? I can bet it wasn't Jean Kavanagh, Vancouver Public Library's manager of marketing and communications.
She's such an enthusiastic booster (or do I mean enforcer?) of the Olympics that in October she sent a memo around warning staff that only the logos of official Olympic sponsors may be seen during public events. If a branch's AV equipment isn't made by sponsor Panasonic, then, well,
"I would get some tape and put it over the 'Sony,'" Kavanagh said. "Just a little piece of tape."
This doesn't just extend to inanimate objects, but to people:
“If you have a speaker/guest who happens to work for Telus, ensure he/she is not wearing their Telus jacket, as Bell is the official sponsor.”
No word on whether this will be extended to patrons who happen to be wearing brand-name shirts or hats.
I am somewhat comforted by the union stance (yay CUPE! my union!) as quoted on Quill & Quire:
"Our job as library staff is to not ever censor any information.”
To be fair, VANOC didn't ask Kavanagh to establish this policy. She did it on her own go, perhaps taking her cue from previous VANOC excesses like demanding that the Olympia restaurant (named after the mountain range) change its name before the Games.
Besides the city of Whistler being made over into a venue rather than a community, it appears that Whistler's one public library will be closed to the public for the duration of the Games.
Why?
So that politicians, bureaucrats and Olympic committee members (and hey, maybe even a few elite athletes?) can have a private bar.
I keep trying to comment on that, and there's just nothing sarcastic enough to match the bare facts.
What else? Oh, Whistler library staff won't be out of work--they'll be seconded to VANOC and given vital Olympic duties like greeting tourist busses.
Reportedly the Olympic committee tried this in Vancouver--some of us see a library and think of reading, but VANOC members think of drinking behind locked doors--but was told no.
I wonder who told them no? I can bet it wasn't Jean Kavanagh, Vancouver Public Library's manager of marketing and communications.
She's such an enthusiastic booster (or do I mean enforcer?) of the Olympics that in October she sent a memo around warning staff that only the logos of official Olympic sponsors may be seen during public events. If a branch's AV equipment isn't made by sponsor Panasonic, then, well,
"I would get some tape and put it over the 'Sony,'" Kavanagh said. "Just a little piece of tape."
This doesn't just extend to inanimate objects, but to people:
“If you have a speaker/guest who happens to work for Telus, ensure he/she is not wearing their Telus jacket, as Bell is the official sponsor.”
No word on whether this will be extended to patrons who happen to be wearing brand-name shirts or hats.
I am somewhat comforted by the union stance (yay CUPE! my union!) as quoted on Quill & Quire:
"Our job as library staff is to not ever censor any information.”
To be fair, VANOC didn't ask Kavanagh to establish this policy. She did it on her own go, perhaps taking her cue from previous VANOC excesses like demanding that the Olympia restaurant (named after the mountain range) change its name before the Games.
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