Go to Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1156&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=fr

One of the fastest growing trends today is combining data and functionality from several sources to create new services that provide a unique user experience. They’re called mash ups. Think Google Maps. Yahoo Pipes. Facebook Plug-Ins. Libraries are doing Web mash ups as well: Meebo Instant Messaging. Library Lookup. Bookburro. And, in a way, they’ve been doing all kinds of mash ups for years. Think story hour, open-shelf access, cafes, book lockers.

As a changing social and economic landscape raised concerns about childhood literacy and children’s recreational reading, Caroline Hewins initiated a read-aloud, storytelling activity at the Hartford Public Library. She mixed children and families and books and stories from the rapidly expanding body of children’s literature. The result was a useful and fun new library program.

As new social and economic trends changed information discovery behaviors, Dave Pattern introduced a way to bring readers from a popular book site to the library. He mixed the library collection with the bookstore experience to reach a growing new audience with a creative new library service. The result was traffic for the library and convenience for the user.

Both of these examples show how libraries adapt and combine services and ideas to meet the needs and preferences of users. They are ‘mash ups,’ fresh concoctions designed to be informative, useful, fun and even transformative. One was programmatic, one was technological, but both were effective. Caroline Hewins’ story time, the first one of its kind, happened in 1882. Dave Pattern’s library look-up on Amazon.com was mashed up in 2006.

Go to Source: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/nextspace/009/1.htm

Go to Source: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july08/weaver/07weaver.html

MANCHESTER, UK - The basic framework of the intellectual property (IP) regime aims to “close down access to knowledge” rather than allowing its dissemination, Professor Joseph Stiglitz said at a 5 July lecture on “Who Owns Science?” Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Professor John Sulston, a 2002 Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine, launched Manchester University’s new Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation.
Both were highly critical of today’s patent system, saying it stifles science and innovation.
IP is often compared to physical property rights but knowledge is fundamentally different, Stiglitz said. It is a public good with two attributes - “non-rivalrous competition” and non-excludability - meaning it is difficult to prevent others from enjoying its benefits. That runs counter to IP regimes, which are worse than exclusion because they create monopoly power over knowledge that is often abused, he said.
Patent monopolies are believed to drive innovation but they actually impede the pace of science and innovation, Stiglitz said. The current “patent thicket,” in which anyone who writes a successful software programme is sued for alleged patent infringement, highlights the current IP system’s failure to encourage innovation, he said.
Another problem is that the social returns from innovation do not accord with the private returns associated with the patent system, Stiglitz said. The marginal benefit from innovation is that an idea may become available sooner than it might have. But the person who secures the patent on it wins a long-term monopoly, creating a gap between private and social returns.
The Human Genome Project identified a gene that predicts breast cancer and that was patented by a US company, Stiglitz said. The actual cost of testing for the gene is minimal but patients’ costs are so high in the US that poor people are unable to obtain the test, he said. That raises questions about the equity and fairness of the patent system, he said.
Stiglitz raised two concerns. Developed countries are separated from developing countries by the disparity in access to knowledge and IP is making it harder to close the gap, he said, which is why developing nations in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) called for (and got) a development agenda. Moreover, IP results in less access to health care, he said. Generic medicines cost a fraction of brand names but the World Trade Organization Uruguay Round agreement on IP and trade signed a death warrant for millions of people by making access to generic drugs more difficult, he said.
Stiglitz proposed that IP regimes be tailored to specific countries and sectors. No one believes that the patent system should be entirely abandoned, but the question is whether other tools, such as prizes or government funding, could be used to promote access to knowledge and spur innovation in areas where there are well-defined objectives such as a cure for malaria, he said. Stiglitz said he is hopeful of reform because many in the US are seeking changes to the IP system.
Sulston said science can be driven by need and curiosity, which requires a substantial degree of openness and trust among players. Increasingly, however, the picture is one of private ownership of science and innovation, a situation welcomed by governments and investors who control the direction of research, he said. But the consequence is to funnel science into profitable areas and steer clear of those that will not make money, he said.
That trend has several consequences, including the neglect of research on diseases of the poor and the production of unnecessary drugs sold through high-pressure marketing, Sulston said. There has been a failure of equitable distribution of the goods of science but the solution is not to have “dull insistence on equality,” he said.
IP is an ideological issue in quarters such as WIPO, Sulston said. Drug companies see any improvements to the system as weakening it, but no one is saying they have to give everything away, he said. The system should be a “good servant” not elevated to a “theistic level,” he said.
Counterfeiting has become a major issue, Sulston said. The trend is to link counterfeiting with IP but they are not connected, he said. If drugs are sold at their cost of production or just above, counterfeiters would have little room in which to play. The IP system is causing the production of bogus products, he said.
Sulston recommended a return to the old practice of splitting research and development from production, saying mixing the two leads to lobbying and advertising in R&D. Splitting them allows equitable delivery of products and can make R&D openly accessible, but only if those who share science also share its benefits, he said.
That separation appears to be happening to some extent as private companies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funnel money into public health, Sulston said, but he warned against a return to the Victorian days when healthcare was supported by philanthropy. He urged that global health issues be coordinated by the World Health Organization, but said it is underfunded and heavily lobbied by governments and commercial interests.
Sulston also wants more coherent thinking about a biomedical treaty being examined by the WHO, and greater input from transnational non-governmental organisations.
Reversing the trend toward privatisation of science is critical, Sulston said. The world should concentrate on the survival and thriving of humanity, and exploration of the universe, he said. The outcome, he added, depends to a great extent on “who owns science.”

Dugie Standeford may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch.

Go to Source: http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/participative-web-and-user-created.html

Go to Source http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheNeedtoFormalizeTrustRe/46608

Go to source: http://www.clir.org/

Go to Source: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/greatexpectations

Go to Source: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpapers-docs/repoadmin-policyv2.pdf

RLG Programs became part of OCLC in the summer of 2006. In November of last year, RLG Programs announced the appointment of a European Director, John MacColl. This article explains the rationale behind the combination of RLG with the OCLC Office of Research, and describes the work programme of the new Programs and Research Group. It argues for co-operation as the necessary response to the challenges presented to research libraries as the Web changes the way researchers work, and it lays out a new programme dedicated to research outputs, which will have significant European Partner involvement.

Go to Source: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/maccoll/

Go to Source:http://education.guardian.co.uk/librariesunleashed

The growing capacity of ICT to contribute to research of all kinds has excited researchers the world over as they invent new ways of conducting research and enjoy the benefits of bigger and more sophisticated computers and communications systems to support measurement, analysis, collaboration and publishing. The expanding rate of ICT development is matched by the numbers of people wanting to join in this funfest, by growth in the amount of data being generated, and by demands for new and improved hardware, software, networks, and data storage. Governments and research funders, too, are keen to exploit the potential for new discoveries which may bring societal benefits and a return on their financial investment.

Go to source: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/henty/

This research bulletin examines what the literature refers to as “new learners” or “critically engaged learners.” It explores the responsibilities our institutions have to create opportunities for these learners to actively engage in creative discovery, problem definition, and appropriate use of information technologies. It is based on a literature review and accompanying conceptualizations that begin to answer important questions about institutional development for a technologically sophisticated age.

Go to source: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ECAR/Learners20ITand21stCentury/46519