Searching High and Low

While taking the latest beta redesign of the Ebscohost search interface for a spin I noticed they’ve integrated the popular Add This bookmark button right next to the permanent URL in every article citation.

This particular bookmarking tool is used by many sites on the web and I anticipate our students will recognize it.  Whether they choose to add links to this kind of content on places like Facebook or Myspace is another story.  At least the option is available.  Here’s the sharing list that pops up when the button is clicked:

Wade Roush at xconomy reports on an announcement by OLPC’s founder Nicholas Negroponte (of MIT’s Media Lab) describing their next generation ebook laptop:

The book-like design of the device “comes from something we’ve learned over the past couple of years—that the book experience is key,” Negroponte said during his presentation this morning. “Some people have asked me why not just give kids cell phones? And in fact there will be 1.2 billion cell phones manufactured this year, and cell phones are of huge consequence in the developing world—but the cell phone is not a learning device. The next generation laptop should be a book.”

I saw today that Ebsco support has added a Search Box Builder for those interested in creating a search box widget for Ebscohost databases that can be dropped into any webpage. The builder form asks you to enter a variety of parameters and then generates code that you can copy and paste into your site.

To construct your form you will need to:

• select which Ebscohost databases are to be searched
• enter proxy server information (if any)
• choose search limit options (full text, scholarly journals, etc.)
• select a style from the style gallery (three choices)

That’s it. For libraries that maintain a substantial collection of Ebsco databases, I can see this tool being used to create subject-specific search forms that can be placed on “research by subject” pages on a library site.  Here’s a full text search box for two databases at my library, Academic Search Premier and MasterFILE Premier.  [May not work if you're at home or if your institution does not subscribe to these two databases]

In Educational Fair Use Today, Jonathan Band discusses three recent copyright cases and asserts that these “demonstrate strong judicial support for the [fair use] doctrine.” The courts favored the fair use of copyrighted materials in each of the following cases:

• Blanch v. Koons - an artist who used a portion of a copyrighted photograph for art
• Perfect 10 v. Amazon.com - a search engine that generated thumbnails of copyrighted photographs
• Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley - a book publisher who reproduced numerous posters whose copyright was held by another organization

from ZDNet:

Boingboing reports, via Google lawyer William Patry, that some large entertainment companies have launched a “whisper campaign” aimed at killing fair use.

Governments are being told, in effect, that the U.S. Copyright law is incompatible with the Berne Convention, an international treaty on which copyright laws worldwide are based.