It's Academic

First off, complements to Plagiarism Today which reminded everyone to renew the DMCA registration which expired end of December. (https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/12/21/reminder-reregister-dmca-agents-december-31st/?utm_source=newsletter-31&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+Email+Newsletter).  They also had an annual summary of notable activities which I am taking a liberty to summarize and comment by Jonathan Bailey.

1. 2017 was a constant stream of plagiarism stories, mostly accusations of plagiarism against prominent figures. They included Neil Gorsuch, David Clarke, Marine Le Pen, Rev. Bill Shillady and the Trump administration. What they all had in common is they were allegations from political opponents attempting to discredit their foes. Some of the allegations had weight, most did not.
2. PETA attempting (and failing) to convince a court a monkey can hold a copyright. Despite some great litigation taking place, copyright litigation news was, on the whole, cringe-worthy in 2017.
3. Despite the cries of “alt facts” and “fake news” most mainstream publications, large and small, strive every day to report accurately and fairly. The New York Times (and many other publications) eliminated the public editor position due to financial pressure. Once the representative for the public in the newsroom and the defender of ethics, the position is waning at a time where journalism’s credibility is under attack.
4. Piracy has never been a static thing and 2017 highlighted streaming services have been slowly taking the spotlight. Shift in piracy means methods for fighting infringement have to change as well.
5. Essay mills, sites creating school assignments for pay, were in the forefront. The essay mills have also worked hard to make themselves known, turning to Twitter bot armies to peddle their wares and the war between school and essay mill has ramped up. However, studies show the majority of students who pay for a written paper don’t do so through a website, but through a friend or classmate.

So, while 2018 promises to be another wild ride, there are a few things that we can probably expect to happen.

1. AI has been a tech buzzword, finally starting to see the fruits. Bots already control much of what you see and do online and, soon, they may control much of how you create and how you plagiarize. This came into the spotlight some in 2017 due to a paper published on automated paraphrasing and an article about students using Wolfram Alpha to “cheat” in math class.
2. Plagiarism hunters to be aggressively looking at nearly every candidate in hopes of finding something to make a story.

3.Ad Blocking has never really left the spotlight. 2017 was the year of the ad blocking DMCA debacle which saw an anti-ad blocking firm file a DMCA takedown notice against an ad blocking list. With visitors feeling further encroached and creators feeling their backs are to a wall, the stage is set for another round in this fight.

4.Legislative Uncertainty: Despite an early push to pass a bill allowing the President to appoint the Register of Copyrights, the bill has since stalled in the Senate. With 2018 being an election year and Congresspersons taking time away to campaign, we’re unlikely to see significant forward momentum on copyright issues. This is despite the fact there are key issues to consider, such as modernization of the copyright office and streamlining music licensing.

5.DMCA The U.S. Copyright Office is slated to take up two separate DMCA-related issues in 2018. The first being a much-anticipated report on the effectiveness of the DMCA safe harbor provisions and the second it’s triennial rulemaking on exemptions to the DMCA provisions against circumventing technological measures to control access to copyrighted works (DRM). Both are likely to spur heated debates about the DMCA. No matter what comes out of these processes they will be controversial and they will be deeply contested so expect a lot of discussion about the DMCA in 2018.

6. Fair Trade – NAFTA, TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP and others include copyright provisions in their dealings. As long as Congress is as deadlocked as it is, it’s unlikely that anything legislative will come from those conversations.

Do you have experience negotiating vendor contracts for your library or district? Do you want to share your experience with other librarians? In a joint sponsored program, the College and Research Division and the Public Library Division are looking for a few savvy negotiators to discuss their experiences working with vendors for their institution.

We are planning a virtual panel session for the end of March that will give some insight to librarians that would like to learn more about the process. We would like to have representatives from a variety of different types of libraries – academic, public, school, or special, as well as a district level negotiator. The panel will include a vendor representative that will give some perspective from the other side of the table. Some questions for discussion:

• How do you prepare for the negotiation?
• What do you consider standard practice?
• What parts of an agreement are vendors most willing to negotiate beyond price (duration, support, payment options, etc.)?
• How do you close the gap between what you want and what is offered?
• What pitfalls have you come across in the process?
• With ever shrinking budgets, do you see vendors being more flexible?
• Do vendors try to impose non-disclosure agreements?
• What advice would you give a first time negotiator?

If you are interested in being a panelist, please send a letter of interest to CRDPALA@gmail.com by February 16th, 2018 and attach your CV. If you have any questions please contact, Betsy Reichart at betsy.reichart@pennfoster.edu.

As a recent graduate with my MLS from Clarion University, I have been eager to jump-start my career as a professional librarian. Initially, I had desired to secure a position within a higher education setting, as my previous employment included a nearly nine-year stint with a bustling, renowned community college. During my time there, I was a textbook specialist and buyer at the college’s campus store. (We used to call them bookstores, but as you know, the radical advances in technology and the rising costs of textbooks have forced vendors to offer cost-saving alternatives, including bundled packages with e-books and online access codes to complete assignments. Hence, campus bookstores have undergone a radical transformation since I first started working full-time at one in 2006.) My last two years at the community college, I worked as a secretary to the Center for International Education, assisting the Director with organizing study abroad trips and working alongside with Admissions to welcome the steady flow of international students registering for classes. It was a very stressful and demanding, yet rewarding, job. During that time, I made the decision to finally pursue my Master in Library Science, something I had been mulling over and putting off for well over a decade. The reason for my hesitation was the delusion that libraries were becoming a thing of the past, immortalized by card catalogs and images of white-haired women with glasses, pressing their fingers to their lips. I was skeptical that I would find employment once I had my Master degree. Additionally, aside from volunteering at a public library when I was in sixth grade for community service hours, I had no experience whatsoever with this magical profession. (To give you an ideal of how long ago that was, imagine a time when Madonna stirred controversy by burning crucifixes in her “Like a Prayer” music video and the Internet had yet to overtake our everyday lives!)

The more I did my research, however, the more I realized that libraries were not going away anytime soon. When others balked at my decision to become a librarian, often accompanied with the (very, very untrue) accusation that no one actually reads physical books anymore, I gently reminded them that a library’s presence within a community is to harness, categorize, and disseminate information. That never changes. However, the format in which information comes to us does change, and will continue to change; therefore, it is the responsibility of us librarians to keep abreast of these changing paradigms. That usually worked and was a satisfactory defense on my part.

Once I started my online classes in Library Science and saw how many of my fellow classmates were introducing themselves with “Hi, my name is… and I work at XYZ Library,” I realized quickly that I was going to need an enormous amount of experience in the library field in order to have a leg to stand on once it came to the job hunt. The best I could come back with is, “Hi, my name is Michele. I work at a community college and I like cats.” I knew I had to change my course. Leaving behind my well-to-do job as a secretary, I secured an internship with the prestigious Lehigh University’s Linderman Library for a summer, and was thrilled beyond words to be a part of such an excellent team. It was there that I assisted in the preservation of older journal series through JSTOR. I volunteered at the Moravian Archives, which specializes in collecting materials associated with the Moravian Church and the early founding of my hometown, Bethlehem. Not wanting to lose my touch with a college setting, I also worked at Lehigh University’s campus store.

Below: The beautiful Linderman Library at Lehigh University is one of two libraries on campus.

I continued building my foundation to become an academic librarian by doing a second internship at the library of my alma mater, DeSales University, during my final semester of graduate school. It was an exciting time to be an intern, as the library was undergoing a migration of databases, moving from Millennium to OCLC WorldCat® Discovery. Despite wanting to eventually start a career as an academic librarian, I dipped my toe into the world of public libraries by taking on a part-time job as a reference and technology services librarian. Since the two libraries were literally right down the street from one another, I was able to do my internship at the university, grab a quick dinner in the campus cafeteria, and then head in for an evening shift at the public library. I loved being a part of both worlds because I am passionate about libraries, whether academic or public.

Now I work as a part-time circulation desk lead at another public library. It is a wonderful, inspiring atmosphere and I enjoy interacting with the various patrons and highlighting main attractions, such as a train display for the month of January. I am hoping that I am still getting enough experience in a public library to help me move forward with becoming an academic librarian. While there are many differences between the two, at the heart of being a librarian, it is all about service. Without the patrons and the students, we would not be needed. Whether helping a patron retrieve tax forms or assisting a college student with an interlibrary loan, it is all about acknowledging that someone needs assistance. It is about being comfortable with technology in all its ever-changing glory and disseminating those changes with the public. Databases and platforms, whether Hoopla, GreenFile, OverDrive, or the Gale Virtual Reference Library, need someone who is at ease navigating them and can reveal to patrons and students just how resourceful libraries can be for any community. Researching the library’s catalog to find that one particular item that will thrill a patron or greatly aid a student with a major project? This is the satisfaction I derive from being a librarian and what makes me passionate about my career.