winkingstar, posts by tag: grrr - LiveJournal

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So, the idea: I want to organize a Creative Commons Art Remix Contest.

It would be broadly open to anyone, and artists could use any CC-licensed images, but since the contest would be sponsored by my Digital Library, we'd stipulate that at least one image has to be from our collection. Submissions would have to be in digital form, but could be in any type of graphic media. The winner and runners-up would be displayed in an online exhibit.

I had an insanely busy week so I haven't had the time to start researching/planning/thinking about this in depth yet. Do any of you know of any similar contests? Or any fanart remix contests that I could adapt rules from?

Also, what would be a good prize? For other library contests, we usually throw some sort of Apple device at people (iPad, iPod Touch), but I feel like we need something more relevant to the openness of Creative Commons and what we'd be trying to promote. Much as I love my Apple products, they're not really fans of openness.

Thoughts? Ideas? Especially from my artistically-inclined friends. ♥

This entry was originally posted at http://winkingstar.dreamwidth.org/….

Seriously, it's taken me the better part of 36 hours to be able to write coherently because I am that pissed off.

Jon Stewart on archives and archivists: "A master's degree in archives management? What does that even mean? Oh, I've got a master's degree! I can archive things alphabetically or numerically. What, alpha-numerically? Slow down, I don't have a doctorate." [video link @ the Daily Show (2:58)]

Thank you, Jon Stewart, for perpetuating to a massive audience the idea that a master's degree for archivists is a joke and that all we do is arrange things in alphabetical or numerical order. I kind of hate you right now.

Librarians and archivists are already fighting to keep their jobs because people who think like that are in charge of the money and they don't believe a master's degree is necessary since anyone can arrange things in order. For the record, the people who arrange things in alpha-numeric order on the shelves are not usually the ones with the master's degrees (but they are still a valuable part of any library/archive).

Libraries and archives are quite different, but they do share some similarities and librarians and archivists are both in the same (under-appreciated and rather leaky) boat.

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We do all of this so that you can access your information in a snap. If we're doing our jobs well, it means you don't see the amount of work we put into it. But that does not make us slackers.

Please don't reduce our skill set to knowledge of ABCs and 123s. We deal with people who think like that every day. That's the reason my boss can't get money to give me a full-time job and the reason her own job is at risk.

It may be cheesy to rephrase a quote from The Mummy, but it's true: We may not be doctors or lawyers or TV show hosts, but we are proud of what we are.

Scholastic is withholding a book featuring a character with two moms from distribution at their book fairs (a huge outlet for children's books in the U.S. because they bring the books to schools). The book in question is Lauren Myracle's Luv Ya Bunches and apparently Scholastic also sent a letter to her editor "asking the author to omit certain words such as 'geez,' 'crap,' 'sucks,' and 'God' (as in, 'oh my God') and to alter its plotline to include a heterosexual couple" so Scholastic have major issues besides just banning a book from their fairs.

You can sign a petition telling Scholastic how messed up that is [HERE]. (I think it's for U.S. folks only.)

Further reading at [School Library Journal], [Mombian], [examiner.com], and [care2].

I still hate you. A lot.

What the frak do you mean there's no shuttle service on weekends? Why don't you tell people up front that summer school is only for people with cars?

Supremely annoyed,
~Laura

Today, there was not one but two train malfunctions on the Red Line before 8:30am. Fun times!

So I was standing around on the platform, surreptitiously reading the paper over someone's shoulder, as you do, and the article I caught made me spitting mad.

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Another thematically-appropriate poem:

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This post is dedicated to all the girls who are "out of fashion, / Lacking in glamour". Because we can be beautiful, too, in our own ways.

Following [yesterday], more linkage:

So: Amazon cries "glitch". [Publishers Weekly], [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Blog]

Twitterers: [#glitchmyass]

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I'll keep adding, for a while at least. Because regardless of whether or not this is a glitch or a policy problem or a hack, Amazon is completely failing the PR. This is the kind of thing that needs to be acknowledged on their site, and I can't see anything on either the main page or the books section. I'll give them a few more days for formal acknowledgment, but seriously. How hard would it be to put one small paragraph stating that they apologize for the accidental deletion of sales rankings on a certain subset of books? It does not matter who's to blame (okay, well, it does, of course); the important part of winning back trust is owning up to the problem beyond just saying it was a "glitch" or an "error".

So, once again, see [yesterday]'s post for other bookstores and a reading list.

.eta: Okay, so Amazon have offered a statement citing a coding error that sounds plausible though stupid. This [blog article] at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer offers spokesman Drew Herdener's comments unfiltered, as well as an insightful Q&A with former Amazon employee Mike Daisey, who says, among other things, "I doubt anything will happen. While embarrassing to the public, it will fade quickly as the changes get reverted. Amazon is no longer the company it once was: it's just an online Wal-Mart. Like any behemoth, there's little accountability inside the bubble." (Indie bookstores ftw!)

The new Twitter trend is [#sorryamazon], in which users are still not entirely appeased by Amazon's admission.

I am still not appeased because there is still no acknowledgment on their site and nothing at all by way of "sorry" or "regret" or other apologetic words.

So. I'm a librarian. My big issue as a librarian is censorship, and in particular as that relates to LGBT books. I've written papers on censorship and LGBT issues. I follow the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom on Twitter (@oif). And [Banned Books Week] is my favourite time of the year, but I like to celebrate it every day because censorship happens every day.

Case in point: [Amazon de-ranks so-called adult books, including National Book Award winner]

Which is to say, as many of you already know, Amazon has implemented a new "policy" through which they are excluding a number of LGBT-friendly books from their sales rank system, on the basis that they contain "adult" content. In actuality, some of the de-ranked books contain adult content, some don't, and Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds still has a ranking. No matter how creatively you do the math, it just doesn't add up to anything but censorship. (Yes, I still count it as censorship, even though the books are still for sale at Amazon. I wrote a paper on same-sex parent families in picture books last term, and the amount of time and effort it took me to round up just twelve picture books on the topic was infuriating and heartbreaking. It's not just whether or not the books are there; it's whether or not you can find them.)

It's kind of pointless for me to link to [Amazon Rank] since my journal's not searchable, but there you go. [Pass it on.]

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Please feel free to link to this post. It's here for spreading the word!

.eta (4/13): I'm still adding bookstores here, but I've got another link page going over [here].

... and I'm already behind. *headdesk*

See, for my Communities of Practice class, we're doing a lot of stuff on a social networking site, so the professor sent out the link for us to sign up for that on Monday. I registered, but it won't let me get past the sign in page. When I enter my username and password, it just clears the form, like I mistyped the password or something, which I didn't and it doesn't give me any error messages at all so I have no clue what's going on. I did everything I could think of, including clearing my cookies, manually adding the site to my "accept cookies from" list, switching from the wireless connection to the landline, and renewing my IP address. My antivirus is up-to-date and just did a full scan on Monday, and I updated and ran my anti-adware program. But nothing works. And the bloody thing won't give me any error messages. I sent an email to the support team and haven't heard back. We were supposed to read a couple articles for class today if we had time, which I couldn't do because they were posted on the site. So I stopped in a computer lab on my way to class this afternoon to check if I'd got a reply from the support team yet (still no) and then try logging in again to see if it had magically fixed itself. And— it worked! I didn't have time to do anything, though, as I had to dash off to the actual class. So I tried logging in again as soon as I got home and the bloody thing still doesn't work. ARGH. And lab computer has the exact same version of Firefox as I have. Apparently it just hates my computer. I am utterly baffled, supremely annoyed, and altogether very GRRR. I've sent another email to the support team to add that it only hates my computer and an email to the professor to obtain next week's readings via attachment.

On the bright side, the class seems awesome and I only slipped on the treacherous seas of ice once today (without serious bodily harm, even).

But dude, I was already panicking about term papers last weekend (before classes even started), and I'm also starting to panic about graduation (in December, if all goes to plan), and now this course site hates me, so apparently this is just going to be a super-fun semester. *kicks things*

*sulks*

Today at work, we had a coffee reception thing at a recently-acquired 1.7 million dollar townhouse. (Unlike the last coffee reception thing, there was also tea available. \o/ )

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How is Pocky so delicious? It is just a skinny little biscuit stick dipped in chocolate, and yet so tasty. *nibbles*

I registered for classes and got both the classes I wanted! Advanced Seminar in Children's Literature and Communities of Practice! Spring term will be awesome!

Wait, you say, didn't you already say this?

Why, yes, yes I did. But stupid school had a stupid registration glitch wherein stupid people registered before their appointment time because the stupid system let them. So they erased everyone's registrations and we had to do it all over again today.

I was going to be super-cranky and indignant if I didn't get my classes back, since I noticed that I could have registered before my time but didn't because I am a good person and did not want to risk being kicked out for having registered thirty seconds early.

But it all worked out (again). And thus, back to work!