Library Orientation

Hi! My name is Mackenzie Chandler, I'm a sophomore at Murray Sate University in Kentucky. My major is Japanese/English and my minor is in Creative Writing. I was thinking of changing that to a minor in Library Sciences. This blog is for my Library Orientation class, hence the title and the url name. I plan on doing my posting assignments on here. They are centered around research and articles that we are discussing in class. RAVENPUFF { wear } DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY { wear } ORDER OF THE PHOENIX { wear } SALEM WITCHES INSTITUE { wear } body, a, a:hover {cursor: url(http://cur.cursors-4u.net/games/gam-2/gam182.cur), progress;}

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Eastern Zodiac

HORSE - People born in the year of the horse are very skilful in paying compliments, are very popular among people. They are very cheerful but talk too much. They are wise & talented & are capable of making money. They like threatical entertainment and always go to plays, musical performances and operas. The best marriage for them would be with tiger year, dog year or sheep year people. The good would be with one in the rat year.

SHEEP - People born in the year of the sheep are pleasant, highly accomplished in arts and passionate in nature. They are deeply religious and timid in nature. They are clumsy in speaking and poor salesmen. They are uncertain about themselves and must be guided throughout life. The best marriage for a sheep-year person would be a rabbit, boar, or a horse-year person.

MONKEY - People born in the year of the monkey are the erratic geniuses of the cycle. They are clever, skilful and adroit when making financial deals. They are prized for their talents and flexibility. They are studious and like to know a great deal. The best marriage partner to monkey people would be someone born in the dragon year or the rat year. The good would be with someone in the year.

ROOSTER - People born in the year of the rooster are deep thinkers who are always busy and devoted to their work. They always want to do more than they are able because they are eccentric. They are brave and not shy, seeking to get ahead most of the time. The best marriage for them is with the ox-year, serpent-year or dragon-year.

DOG - People born in the year of the dog have all the fine traits of human nature. They have added sense of duty and loyalty and are extremely honest. They always do their best in their relationship with people and inspire the confidence of people. Yet they are also selfish and stubborn. The best marriage for these people is with either of the horse-year, tiger-year or rabbit-year.

BOAR - People born in the year of the boar are chivalrous and gallant. They possess tremendous fortune and great honesty. They can be made good friends for life. They like to study and to be learned. They are quite short-tempered but hate to quarrel and to argue because they are affectionate and kind to their loved ones. The best spouses for them are those persons born in the year of the rabbit or the sheep.

RAT - People born in the year of the rat are noted for their charm. They are fussy about small matters and have a tendency to pinch pennies and able to save a great deal of money. On the other hand may lose what they have saved by spending it on someone they love who does not love them. A person born in this year would do well to marry someone born in this year would do well to marry someone born in the dragon, the monkey or the ox-year.

OX – People born in the year of the ox are very patient and speak little. They have a gift of inspiring confidence in others and this allows them to achieve great success. Ox-year people are alert and dextrous to the point of genius. They regard affection between men and women as a sort of game they cannot understand. The best marriage for people born in the Ox-year would be with persons born in the serpent, rooster or the rat-year.

TIGER – People born in the year are sensitive, short-tempered and with sympathy for those whom they are fond of. Tiger people cannot make up their minds quickly and are suspicious of other people.

RABBIT – People born in the year of the rabbit are the most fortunate. They are smooth talkers, talented and ambitious. They will succeed in studies, business or in any enterprise as well as in marriage. They are exceptionally clever in business. Rabbit people would do well to marry persons born in the sheep, boar or the dog year.

DRAGON – People born in the year of the dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short tempered and stubborn. But they are honest sensitive, brave and can inspire trust in almost anyone. They are the most eccentric of any in the cycle. They can accomplish success in study, business and almost in any endeavour. But they are not prone to marry early and in some cases not at all, rather to achieve loneliness in they’re old age. People love them. The best marriage for the dragon-year people would be with a person born in the year of the rat serpent, monkey, rooster or tiger.

SERPENT – People born in the year of the serpent speak very little but possess tremendous wisdom. They are fortunate in money matters. They will always be able to obtain the money wherever they need it. They are stingy. But they have a tremendous sympathy for others and will try to help others. They are passionate and are handsome if they are men and beautiful if they are women. In marriage and business it would be good for them to have someone born either in the rat, rabbit, horse sheep or dog year.

(http://www.punjablinks.com/addons/astro/easternastrology.shtml)

I am born under the Sheep, also called a Ram. (1991) Unlike the Western Zodiac the Eastern Zodiac is set in a pattern for each year. The Western Zodiac is determined by months, and the Eastern by years. I think it is very interesting that both zodiacs from very different cultures both have twelve sings in them.

These are also constellations in the sky. There are many different folk stories about the animals. An old tale is that there was supposed to be a thirteenth animal, but he never made it to the banquet with the others and God. This animal was the cat. In China and Japan they used the twelve animals for the hours of the day as well. And that is why the haunting hour of the night, said to be 2 a.m., has the kanji for cow in the name. 

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Western Zodiac

  (http://www.paranormality.com/zodiac.shtml)

The Western Zodiac is comprised of 12 signs. The chart above shows their names, the order by House, and their symbols. I am a Gemini, born on June 17th. 

Every few thousand years the stars will shift and then the Zodiac signs will belong to different dates. This year was one of those shifts. The people born in this year are assigned to the new dates of the Zodiac rather than the ones most people have today. 

Gemini is an Air sign, meaning mutable/flexible. The sign is the twins. They are very adventurous and are the known pranksters in mythology. The ruling planet for this sign is Mercury. This sign correlates to my personality and behavior more than any other. It may seem superstitious, but I believe that most of this is true about myself. 

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Rapunzel and Copyright

Rapunzel, as well as the other works of The Brothers Grimm, is in the public domain. The original copies are, at least. Once translated the stories have become copyrighted by Disney.

I was interested in finding this out because of the drastic changes to the original story by Disney. Tangled and the original story only have one thing in common, the main character is named Rapunzel. They have virtually changed everything else about the storyline.

There are two volumes of their stories, the first volume is stories 1-86, the second volume features 87-200. Then there is a small amount of stories added into the second addition of volume 2, stories 201-210 called "The Children's Legends". (http://worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Grimm_fairy_tales.html)

Their works have no been translated and adapted to fit into modern times. The majority of works are owned by Disney and some are owned by Dream Works.

[lor-101-blog]

Forecasting Our Future

“When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software,” recalls Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home. It’s been amazing to see so much of that dream become a reality and touch so many lives. I never imagined what an incredible and important company would spring from those original ideas.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3357701/Bill-Gatess-dream-A-computer-in-every-home.html)

Nowadays people can't imagine a place without internet and a home without some sort of computer. However many people in this world still don't have access to the internet. "The Global South" are predominately third world countries that don't have proper structures to acquire internet. India is also considered a global south, however they use smart phones to connect to the internet. The structure of the country makes it easier to obtain wireless rather than analog computer systems. 

Our world has become "smaller" due to the internet. Connections can happen across the oceans. This has expanded our knowledge, way of thinking and communicating, as well as creating more global competition. I wonder and am kinda afraid of what will happen when Bill Gates' dream is realized and when everyone has a computer in their house. It will irreversibly change global society forever.

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University Students' Perceptions of Plagiarism

Not many people realize that a professor's version of plagiarism differs from a student's version. Even from professor to professor the concept changes. This is the main reason why, I think, students plagiarize. They usually don't know how far it is, they only know the punishment for it. No professor usually explains what it is or how to avoid it, they only explain the punishments. 

I didn't agree with many points in this article because it was offensive. It accuses students of having "low moral values". If the teachers don't teach students how not to plagiarize properly then it is not completely our fault if we do so without knowing it. More reasons are given to plagiarize than not to plagiarize. 

[lor-101-blog]

Why Citations Are Important

Citations are important to use so you do not get accused of theft. They also show that you acknowledge someone else had the idea beforehand and you're giving the other person their credit.

When writing a paper it is crucial to cite your sources. If someone were to want to look up an article that you quoted then a citation would allow them to gain further knowledge. If Wikipedia was just a bunch of facts on a page that could be changed by anyone without citing anything then I doubt that the website would be considered reliable at all. 

If you have any statistics within a document that you didn't calculate on your own it is important to site where you got them from so others can check to make sure they are correct. Someone could just make up statistics and have others believe them, but if they were forced to cite it people could see through the false information.

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The End of Software Ownership - and Why to Smile

This article starts out talking about Vernor v. Autodesk. Timothy Vernor purchased copies of a program that had originally bought the software from Autodesk and resold the copies below the listed price on eBay. Autodesk tried to get the listings canceled. The appeal court reversed the lower court decision and said that Vernor violated the copyright license by re-selling his copies. 

This verdict changes the future of software ownership law drastically. People who buy software products now are more like renters rather than owners. "On this view, vendors are intent on gaining full control over access, use, and resale of information products and services. Once secured, they can charge whatever they feel like, change terms at will, and withdraw access when doing so is to their benefit. Treating information transactions as licenses gives them the legal cover, it is argued, to do that and more." (pg. 3) I think this is terrible for them to have this much protection with the law and power over something that they have already sold. 

Renting may help access around the world and cut costs for the manufacturer, but I don't believe that renting is better than owning in the majority of cases.

[lor-101-blog]

LOR-101 Requirements

This class had a decent amount of work put into it. Sadly I have procrastinated and am doing over half of my blog posts at the last minute for this half of the semester. I find that the assigned topic posts are easier to do than the free thinking ones. Probably because I spend so much time trying to decide what to write about.

The final paper wasn't hard to do. And the readings were easy and most were interesting. I think highlighting parts in each article helped me write the blog entries later on. having one article to read before the next class period is good and reasonable. I think that I should have tried to focus more on the doing three per week thing. I get into the habit of doing all of the assigned ones first and then the freebies all together. 

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Information Seeking Behavior

Prior to this class I generally just looked in books and searched for articles online for information, but not I also use the materials that the online library provides.

I used to stick mainly to a handful of news sites, though with varying opinions. Now I'm trying to extend my knowledge search to other news outlets. I still don't deal much with scholarly journals, yet. This course as a whole has helped me search for information and evaluate it better.

I still have certain biases against certain websites, but for good reasons. They don't have much reliability and the sources they use are kinda sketchy. I also can explain to others better now with proper terms for what they need when researching.

[lor-101-blog]

Copyright and Ethics

Is it ethical to give someone a CD that you have already ripped to your computer? You paid for the original disc, yet you made a copy of it to keep for yourself while giving the other to another person. The creator of the music still gets paid, but is he losing money because you gave that CD away as a gift?

I don't think that making a copy for yourself is a big deal since you have already bought the CD. You've just saved your friend some money and made them happy by giving them a gift. I don't see a real difference in a similar situation where you own a book and allow a friend to borrow it to read. They may not have copied the book pages, but someone is still able to enjoy the material without paying. 

Copyright and ethics is a large grey area in many ways. I believe the creator should get compensated for his or her work, but the person who in someway "stole" from them should not receive too severe a punishment.

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Copyright

 "Copyright" from The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig was a very interesting read.

Everything nowadays is copyrighted to insure that the creator receives credit and is not stolen from. But how far should copyright laws extend? They used to only last so long without having to get it renewed, but now it lasts seventy years without the owner having to do anything. 

Everything created and protected under copyright has its own set of rules. What would apply to a book may not apply to a movie or a song. A book may be referenced and sighted and have that not be considered plagiarism, but a song that is "sampled" from it considered theft. 

With more power to the original owner there are fewer chances of someone being able to build on top of previous work and create something even better. Most software companies don't allow copies of their work to be saved. If a company were to go out of business then we would lose their software and still not be able to obtain the old work. This would slow the process of building better software. The UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Act) is trying to make on-line contracting easier. However, many people working in the large industries oppose this because they don't want to be plagiarized. 

I am for limiting some of the copyright laws. I think the time should be limited and the owner have to renew it if they want to keep a hold on whatever they created. I feel without forcing them to do this the original owner will have a monopoly. 

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Evaluating Information Found Online

This is most likely the hardest task to do while surfing the net.

The first thing I try to do is see what website the article is from, and who wrote the article with what sources. 

Even the most trusted sources can be wrong. New York Associated Press reported a meteor falling to earth because of a person impersonating an Astronomy Professor. http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-23.php

The news that spread had to later retract their statement upon finding out the source was not accurate. They posted the information online and many readers believed them because the news source was usually accurate. 

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Information Cocoons and Wikis

When I read this article I liked the concept that Nicholas Negroponte used, "the Daily Me." The internet is a place where you can choose whatever is important to you, like a personal newspaper. If you don't like an article you find, you just skip over it. You can even do a word search on the website to find key words instead of having to sort through things.

Wikipedia is a famous site to where you can find information about anything, but you have to make sure the source is reliable. On the second page of the article wikis are related as a "Daily Us" because it is communal. Only reading information on a wiki instead of contributing or questioning it can be harmful. Irving Janis coined the term "groupthink". It is where people in a group start to think the same way to have efficiency and become uniform. In psychology we recently learned about this term and how without questioning an idea more things go wrong.

On page 18 of the article it talks about how many people approve of blogs because it is a good way to spread more information. However, some information may have little to no quality. A few blogs that I have visited on tumblr have helped me in some ways, mainly with cooking. But others I have seen are just created to spread rumors.

[lor-101-blog]

Information Online

People can find anything they need to know online, from how to paint a fence to building a home made bomb. In class we discusses the variety of needs that the internet can solve.

For an example I decided to look up information about Murray, Kentucky. The city has its own website, http://www.murrayky.gov/

On wikipedia I was able to find how many people lived in the city, how large it is, how many schools are in it, time zone and more things that I never even knew about it. They even have a chart up with monthly weather temperatures.

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"A World Wide Web of Change"

This article was very interesting to me, especially the way sentences were worded. The internet has changed our way of thinking and researching. With every new advance in technology we redefine our view of knowledge.This article also discuses how people view machinery and the internet itself.

On the first page he makes an amusing comment looking back on past technologies; "Floppy disks were actually floppy, 'hard drives' were on flimsy cassette tape, and tapping out commands on the clikety-clickety keyboards provided an audible reassurance in common with the typewriters of yestertear." I was young when people used floppy disks and cassette tapes, but I still have them. However I can no longer use them because no new technology is compatible with them.

"The Web isn't powered by fairy dust and wishes. It's powered by people - people who write code, create art and design, make videos and music, share stories, knowledge and information." People sometimes treat the internet like a holy grail that is founded on nothing and runs without anything powering it but imagination, but the internet needs real power and people to understand how to use it properly.

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Databases vs Interfaces

A database is a search engine with collections of data. An interface can be broad or narrow. The main interfaces that Murray State University uses are hosted by EBSCO, so when you search for a term it will also search in the other interfaces that are connected via EBSCO. 

When searching through an interface it is easier to find what you need through controlled vocabulary, not natural language. Typing in "and" and "the" only hinder the search. You have to use a truncation symbol to have variations of a root word. On each interface there is a different symbol used. When typing "and" it has to be in capital letters for the search engine to understand that you want both terms, along with OR for having either one of them. 

The quality of what you type into a search engine is what is important, because you will receive the same quality of information from it.

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"In Authors' Suit Against Libraries, an Attempt to Wrest Back Some Control Over Digitized Works"

This article had me torn on which side I should take from the opening line. I believe in giving authors what they deserve for their intellectual property, but I also believe in public domain. Certain people may not be able to afford the books they need or want to buy, so having it easily accessible allows more information to be given to everyone.

Mr. Aiken win the article posed a good point in saying, "I hope that the librarians would understand that, in the online world as in the print world, there has to be a way to protect authors' rights and their works." Authors depend on libraries, so it is crucial to have a good relationship with one another.

Below the article there are some interesting comments, one made me quite upset because of the truth. rwforce: "Given that half the books in academic libraries have never been used by anyone, having them floating around the internet won't improve their odds much." Though putting works online, I think, will indeed improve theirs odds of being read.