I’ve been in London for a couple of days, obsessively seeking out free wifi so that I can test out the new L&LR netbook PC, which is one of these.
Observations on the device: 9″ screen fine; mini-keyboard fine and actually easier to use in a confined space (e.g. the 17:03 from King’s Cross to Grantham, coach D, seat 15A) than a normal keyboard; but the tiny, tiny trackpad has been a problem for me (I don’t mind them, normally); I haven’t yet figured out how to turn off the screen resize option which kicks in every time you accidentally brush the pad with your thumb.
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On Monday I accompanied Prof. John Tulloch of the Lincoln School of Journalism to a meeting at Channel 4′s offices. The meeting was about the possibility of Lincoln’s taking on an important archive of journalistic material. I’ll be assisting the LSJ in writing the case for the University’s involvement. Watch this space.
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On Tuesday (today), I was at CILIP headquarters on Ridgemount Street, for a UKeiG seminar:
- ‘Essential Copyright for Information Professionals: What You Need to Know – and Preparing for Change!‘.
The presenter, talking all day with unbelievable stamina, was Laurence Bebbington of the University of Nottingham. He patiently took the delegates through the UK copyright landscape, from basic principles, through the complexities of moral, database, and performance rights, licencing, and the particular concerns attached to copyright in the digital domain; before finishing with a discussion of Gowers Review and the future.
Single, key idea of the day: librarians must engage with national debates around the future of intellectual property law.
After recent conversations at Lincoln, this seminar couldn’t have been more timely. I hope it’ll be really useful in informing my(our) conversations with the faculties, with updating our guide for academic staff, and with arranging our own programme of training.
Some ‘live’ notes and conversations from the day are available on the social-networking site Twitter, tag #copyright.
I think I can claim to be the first person to use the L&LR netbook on a train, in my case the Newark to King’s Cross (and back again) on 6 March. There were several things I couldn’t get to work, though the outlook in box did so I could work on that. The screen resize floored me at first but I later used the zoom and that at least made the text readable again.
Philippa Dyson
18 Mar 09 at 8:12 am