On Friday, June 3, we live-streamed Digital Campus from the first day of THATCamp CHNM, The Humanities and Technology Camp at the Center for History and New Media. About half the live audience of seventy-five or so people said they had heard the podcast before — it was great to see the listeners in person, not to mention one another.

We discussed at some length the trial of the copyright lawsuit brought against Georgia State University by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage Publications, agreeing that if the publishers were to win their suit, teaching faculty would certainly have to become more aware than ever before about the costs of the readings they assign. Also on the table (more briefly) were Google’s cessation of its mass digitization of newspapers, the major search engines’ support for structured data with http://schema.org, the Library of Congress’s plans to transition away from MARC, YouTube’s announcement of Creative Commons licensing, and Amanda’s alternative solution to the Open Researcher and Contributor ID.

Special thanks to Chris Preparato, who managed the audio recording and livestreaming. And, with proof that we’re at least as good-looking as you always imagined, here’s video of the episode 70 of Digital Campus, kindly provided in high definition by George H. Brett (whom you can also hear making a comment about parallels between the GSU case and the early days of Electronic Theses and Dissertations). Thanks so much, George, for capturing this.

Stories or projects mentioned on the podcast:

What’s at Stake in the Georgia State Copyright Case

Google Ditches Newspaper Archive Plan

Google, Bing & Yahoo’s New Schema.org Creates New Standards for Web Content Markup

Open Researcher and Contributor ID

Library of Congress May Begin Transitioning Away from MARC [Machine-Readable Cataloging]

Google Rolls Out YouTube Creative Commons Licenses

Running time: 50:25
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In this episode of Digital Campus, Dan, Amanda, and Mills (Tom was unavailable), were joined by Jennifer Howard from The Chronicle of Higher Education to discuss the latest trends in digital media, higher education, and in particular, libraries. We began by reprising a story from so long ago we could hardly remember it–college professors assigning their students to write or edit Wikipedia entries. Then we moved on to much more important topics, like Robert Darnton’s recent proposal to create a “national digital library.” We also discussed a rising trend among librarians–enthusiasm for “patron driven acquisition,” also know as PDA. Please don’t confuse this PDA with prior uses of that acronym! Amanda then chimed in with her take on Amazon’s plan to offer limited lendability for e-books. Regular listeners won’t be surprised by her take on this proposal. And we wrapped with Dan introducing us all to Omeka.net, CHNM’s newest way of making it easy for web users to create and manage archival and museum collections online.

Other links mentioned in the podcast:
Wikipedia’s Public Policy Initiative
National Digital Library proposal in The Chronicle
National Digital Library proposal in Libraryjournal.com
Patron driven acquisition in The Chronicle
Amazon.com’s ebook lending program

Running time: 52:13
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The podcast regulars Dan, Tom, and Mills are joined this week by irregular Jeff McClurken, who discusses how he used videos of TED talks in his class last fall. We also talk about the impact of the technology lawsuits and patents awarded recently, which put a cloud over many platforms academics and museums use. It also makes us wonder about the sustainability of digital creations, both from a technical standpoint and from a financial one. And no podcast would be complete without a crazy Facebook post.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Jeff’s TED Talks class
As Grants Run Out, Universities Pony Up Cash for OpenCourseWare
East Stroudsburg U. Suspends Professor for Facebook Posts
Apple sues HTC
Facebook Gains News Feed Patent to Secure Its Social Network

Running time: 48:52
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In the feature story of this episode, Tom, Mills, and Dan finally get to vent about the increasing annoyances of legal restrictions and threats that face those trying to do digital work in academia, libraries, and museums. Copyright—both in its traditional form and in modern incarnations like the DMCA—has made it more difficult than ever to figure out how and when to post something online, and for those creating digital tools, the further threat of patent lawsuits awaits. In the news roundup we talk about another threat—that of online predators and a new Virginia law intended to thwart them—and note the launch of offline Google Docs, which now provides a more compelling alternative to Microsoft Office. Links for the week include a museum podcast that’s good for the classroom, a tech blog for students, and a declaration for open access to educational materials and technology.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Virginia Schools Start To Teach Internet Safety
DMCA
Fair Use
Open Access News
NIH’s Public Access Requirement
Restriction: No Text Mining of PubMed
Professor Sues Student Over Lecture Notes
Elsevier Lets MIT Use Copyrighted Materials
Patent Office Rejects Blackboard’s E-Learning Patent in Preliminary Ruling
Google Docs Launches Offline Support
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum @ iTunesU
Hack College blog
Cape Town Open Education Declaration

Running time: 47:24
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