Image Use ethics - CC0 and photoscraping sites

Two issues 

1. what is our responsibility for proving right to use images?
2. can Google prevent photo scraping sites from landing higher in search results than original sources?

Should we say where we get an image even if it is in the public domain?

If we find an image via Google's image search with the licence Tool set to filter by Creative Commons licence?

I wanted an image to convey my mid-journey step in which I refined my plan - and I thought of orienteering with map and compass.  Found great lego orienteer images, but could not find who had made them available, (Google-search-filter)-allegedly by CC.  

The one/s I liked appeared (and I list here not really to shame, but to show how far I explored looking for the image creator):

With licence statement but no link or credit at:

• (Copyright Creative Commons CC0) ecoparent  - so I quickly checked on what CC0 means, and learned that if one is not the creator one should not label it as this site did.

with no copyright/licence statement or photo claim/credit at:

• The Glebe Primary School ,
• St Paulinus Catholic Primary School ,
• Puzzle Factory (français), 
• The Rand Athletic Club Orienteers' Strava club page 
• Italian Radio 6 INradio's Fifth Grade Tag list of posts thumbnail (but not in the post itself) 
• And Argentaweb post 
• and (eventually found with a reverse google image search using a screensnip) hundreds of other places including Jordan Tzvetkov's Twitter profile and Power of Ted 

Then I briefly thought I had found the source - where it appeared to have been released into the Public Domain with CC0...

Screensnip of the CC0 claim by scraping site, see it yourself at webarchive

 - and where EXIF data is given as if shared by the creator. But still I wondered - particularly as there is no id for the photographer even though I would have to register to download the image. Is the site (pxhere.com [ph]) legit?

So I googled that! 

 is pxhere legit

and found I was right to be suspicious: 

Photoscraping sites are not hard to detect.

Alan Levine shows how one scraping site had scraped an image from pixabay. A clue that a site is probably a scraper, he mentioned, is the lack of identification of the contributor.  Later in the post Alan discussed how a CC-BY image he had on Flickr had been picked up by [ph] who claimed it as CC0 - an outright lie.

Now I suspect [ph]'s short url indicates they've probably even renumbered photos they scrape so I couldn't just swap out the domain, so I picked a few keywords and searched pixabay. Sure enough, there the image appears to have been created and shared CC0 by Andrew Martin (aitoff) 

Image by Andrew Martin at Pixabay

Aside - I am only 90% happy with the (optional for CC0) attribution phrase pixabay provides - they link fine to the user, but not at all to the image - so I edited the html, and hope they reconsider their default setting. 

Google lets scrapers float up

Although the first image-scrape Alan discussed were images given to the public domain, the problem he describes is that Google lets photoscraper sites float to the top of their search results.  I believe Google ought to find a way to prevent that.  

Regardless, I would prefer to see everyone cite where they obtain the images they use online - particularly organisational sites like schools! Can we consider it a moral responsibility? I do. I also do not believe the difficulty of finding the true creators of public domain images releases anyone of that responsibility.  

Creators: don't join scraping sites like [ph] 

"It is impossible to delete your photos and your account, support simply ignores all requests. As a photographer, I highly do not recommend this service, a lot of photos are used with copyright infringement!" -- Danila Perevoshchikov 3 March 2020 at Facebook

 

I Ravelrise too

*A note on the headline – I like to verbify nouns, but I am not the first to do it for using Ravelry. That distinction, Google answered, might go to Sof Frankenstein .

Other neologisms or niche lingo might pop up herein.  Answers and amusement might be found in Ravelry wiki’s Glossary.

Soon after mum was diagnosed and I started spending my off-work days with her, I picked up knitting. 

A scarf,

a few rectangle—>beanies,

…

and I wanted to try some more appealing and more challenging projects.

A circle scarf with more complex stitch-sets,

reducing for a shaped beanie crown,

its spring so a lacy sunhat….

So naturally, I bet you can guess where I started learning the myriad refinements (once I had exhausted my mum’s knowledge and that on her shelf)?  _______ , _____ and _______ _____ 

Very soon I wanted to blog what I was learning, but it is just not easy enough.  Perhaps if I find a mobile app that could substitute for OpenLiveWriter (Don’t tell me about any apps that use Bloggers’ own html-disrespecting post-editor).

Much of what I learned was either from, or linked in some way to, Ravelry.  So why not give it a go?

Oh my, what a bounty!

At the time I had not a thought for its potential contribution to my professional development as a librarian. But of course now that I start a post about “my knitting” in this blog, and think about the blogs usual themes, the connections pour out.

• It is a niche social network (tag:web 2.0 tools) and I expect to spend some time evaluating its features and usability.
• Some of our library’s Yak&Yarners are already Ravelry members, if not avid users, and I’m wondering whether there might be Ravelers in the area who might enjoy meetups at the library.
• Learning journeys through thrills and spills
• Transferability of problem recognition, analysis and recovery, (aargh that can’t be right, why?, what if?, tinking)
• I’m even using Googlesheets to chart & calculate patterns
• …

Tell me about your hobby-learning?

There and back again: returning to Blogger from self-hosted WordPress?

Who cares?

I hope anyone else who lands here after pondering whether to switch from Wordpress.org to Blogger comments below – so we can compare thoughts. Were you wondering how, or why? Are there as few articles about that journey now as there were when I searched--let alone any promise of ease in such a transition?

During my search for tips back in July 2017 I found that my experiences and rationale almost totally matched Jenn’s Wordpress—>Blogger transition story, even to the fact that Google assumed I really meant to ask about switching the other way. (Did hers happen in 2014, or was the post re-dated when she shifted it with her blog, Hello Brio over to Squarespace?)  Like Jenn, I want to tell you why ; and in case she decides to ditch that post, I will reflect on her suggestions.

Why I decided that the experiment with self-hosted Wordpress was over

--posting infrequency + not finding the right handle for a static portfolio = insufficient value for $$$
--under my name = wanting it to be perfect
--struggle to get it "just right" too time consuming
--needing to spend less time at the computer

Why I am switching [back] to Blogger from Wordpress (despite the p tag issue).

1. Nostalgia.  I loved learning to blog here, and have fond memories of when some of my posts made a difference to people.
2. I still have a hefty collection of posts here, which people are still reading.
3. It is free.
4. I think Blogger can do more now than it did then, but I do not need most of the extra functionality self-hosted Wordpress could do.
5. moonflowerdragon.blogspot looks better on mobile than micameerbach.com

As Jenn suggested, I reconsidered my goals:

• Return to one FREE online spot
  # no particular deadline, although the sooner it is done the sooner I can stop paying for the other domain, yet let’s give enough time to be sure it will work comfortably.
• See whether I return to posting more frequently under the pseudonym
• It was always about skills/professional development, and it still is, with a few new questions:
• What would it take for a blogspot site to be a professional advantage rather than the opposite?
• How much of that which I did at micameerbach will remain relevant if republished?
• Are any of those posts that stayed so long in draft worth actually posting?
  

How I plan to switch from Wordpress back to Blogger = Slowly

Tracy Thomason over at 15 Minute Monday posted about exporting one’s files to move from Wordpress to Blogger.

However, I figured that as I would need to check each post for peculiarities anyway, I might as well consider each of the 111 posts (61 published, 49 drafts, 1 private) manually.

Those peculiarities?

• both Jenn and Tracy mentioned that image URLs don’t transfer
• inbound links would be broken
• internal links would be broken
• comments would have to be exported or mapped over

First: I made sure that the Internet Archive WaybackMachine is capturing micameerbach occasionally – some busy posting months were not captured at first, but the Internet Archive WaybackMachine lets us add.

Second: This post here, and a (semi)final post there

Third: Up to 111 iterations of:

1. Pick a post, either the next highest viewed, or any post,
2. Check whether its URL is cited anywhere else online.
3. Read it,
4. Consider: does it offer or demonstrate anything useful?

If it is worth transferring,

1. in html view, copy and paste everything across to a new post here, but in Open Live Writer (unless Google decide to support p tags in their Blogger editor),
2. append note about where I had originally posted it, perhaps hyperlink to archive version?
3. reupload photos and basically re-link everything.
4. retag & add tag Republished_from_micameerbach
5. Do not try to anticipate whether formerly internal links will also be transferred, just relink to their WaybackMachineversion, and note them in a Google Doc for later checking
6. At old post append note about and linking to republication
7. At old post tag with Republished_at_Moonflowerdragon – let’s me track which ones I’ve done.
8. If the URL was cited anywhere, contact citers to inform them of new post/archive to avoid broken link.

If it is not worth transferring,

1. Check whether it is at WaybackMachine
2. If similar topics/posts here, append at top – link to tag/post]
3. Tag as Not_republishing
4. If the URL was cited anywhere, contact citers to inform them of archive version.

For drafts, I could just copy & publish, but that would not help answer the learning questions above, so I could

1. if publishing: tag it something like drafted@mm / published@MFD
2. if not publishing, don’t delete but tag it notpublishing@MFD

Finally: Unless I give up earlier, when all 111 iterations are complete:

1. Count the tags & maybe talk about what if anything I got out of the process
2. Wind up that account
3. Celebrate

Image Credit: The beautiful watercolour above is “Bilbo: Back again…” by Kinko-White who kindly gave me permission (via shuzzy) to use it here to symbolise my return home here after an adventure.

Will I like my Xoom?

I do hope so... it cost enough - and will cost more over my two year data plan! It was time to bite the bullet: the only way I could properly explore the mobile/handheld experience would be to try it. Too many options and none of them, by reviews, perfect for all that I wanted one to do.

I want *one* mobile device - not 3 or 4.

New functions desired

• let me read and annotate digital papers and books in bed
• capture voice notes
• easily sync the above and much of the following with my PC for those functions (extended typing) for which a PC is more comfortable.
• capture and interpret QR codes
• do all the wonderful things librarians anticipate people will do with mobile devices (which are?)

To replace my phone it would, ideally:

• ? let me send text to someone else's mobile device
• ? let me make a call -- I'm told this may be possible through Google Talk or Skype?
• :-( let me receive text messages (even if to gmail) -- apparently it can't
• :-( let me receive phone call -- apparently it can't
• ? provide easy to set, loud remindering

To replace my camera it would, ideally:

• take good photographs
• upload easily to the places I use photos: Flickr, Blogger

So now I have a Xoom, although I'm still miffed it doesn't have mobile phone service after all, only mobile data. After worrying about the security-risks of tying it in to my email address; and an excess of legalistic Terms of Service (what are tricks are being pulled in all that legalese?)... I wonder what to try first?

Okay, *after* taking photos with front and back cameras, getting frustrated at how long it took me to discover how to remove a widget from the desktop, wondering what image to place as background, adjusting the time settings, trying the built-in alarm sounds, unsuccessfully looking for my cotton gloves and using my cotton poncho instead to prevent finger prints...

What do I do next?

Update: Have downloaded Dropbox and Evernote apps.

Do I need THIS device?

Ceccy once explained the "plot device" to me.  I didn't imagine anything like this. (Discovered via Storm Bear, and his comment "Kids these days and their digital gear…")

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Community Virtual Library in Second Life

Facing off the library pigeon by moonflowerdragon, on Flickr


Since my last assignment for the year was submitted, I've had more time for Second Life. Over the years I've regularly checked LIS literature and the biblioblogosphere to keep up with LIS and educational activity in Second Life, and observed broader opinions expressed through twitter. While I have not tallied or coded the variety of articles (and only recently began collecting some with Zotero), my general impression was that many, while positively justifying their experiments, appeared to conclude that technical barriers and initial learning curve limited its overall usefulness for ongoing purposes. However some reports within the last couple of years claimed to be continuing and abundant higher education sims still exist so I intend to discover, if possible, what kinds of programs continue.

Naturally I checked out the changes at Community Virtual Library. It was looking strong and healthy, but I was curious how librarians were thinking about the future of CVL and coincidentally a meeting was planned to discuss where CVL would go from here. Abbey Zenith's prelude to the meeting, published in the aforelinked Rez Libris, included comments that have me curious:

"Perhaps we have not yet realized the potential we envisioned" I can't remember how the original vision was framed.

Abbey reports that reference, exhibits, collections, programs all continue to be successful as services to Second Life residents - so I was curious about statistics, how it is determined who is using CVL and what counts as successful. Abbey's concern was for a loss of "momentum we had in providing professional development opportunities to librarians, library staff, and students". What does Second Life, let alone CVL, offer librarians, library staff and students? Has it changed since Kathryn Greenhill's (2007) 10 reasons? Have librarians moved to other virtual worlds or is the role of information professionals in virtual worlds not so much of the 'librari'ness? Are libraries in virtual worlds role play sims? If so, I don't mind the RP.

Unfortunately the meeting was on at 4am Eastern Daylight Time, and it was one of my late nights so when my alarm rang I was asleep again a few minutes later. Thankfully the meeting was logged so I could catch up the next day.

It appears that aside from the normal imperative to look forward and continuously evaluate, part of the reason to ponder the future is that in 15 (or now 14.5) months the tier fee payments will see a dramatic increase because the initial non-profit arrangement no longer exists. Ah, fundraising discussions :-) that brings back memories from my days in the Australian Breastfeeding Association. So I need to keep my eyes and ears open for: grants, donations, visitor-attraction (no-one mentioned Hunts - they don't *all* focus on shops - I've been on two that didn't - and I'm not a shopper) and the visitor attraction thread raised some interesting ideas - sounds like fun ahead.

It is really hard to glean the key points of meetings from a conversation log - I wonder whether anyone has used an interactive web screen at such a meeting to track brainstorming and keep agenda/minutes?

The University-feel when studying online

Information Commons - The University of Sheffield via kwout

Online study lacks the community-feeling one might experience in tutorials or group study sessions. Efforts to replicate that through discussion forums and group assignments are unlikely to completely succeed until technologies get a whole lot smoother for more people. Even when they do (get smoother) the asynchronous advantage of online study can still lack the belonging feeling of synchronous interaction.

So, today while I learned from something Sheila Webber was sharing, I clicked over to a view of Sheffield University's Information Commons. The images sent me on a tangent of wondering whether a background image of a University space or group scene would enhance feelings of belonging and participation when in a forum screen?

Perhaps a warmer image from Wake Forest University:

new study space | by Lauren Pressley @ Flickr via kwout

Or to emphasise the study feel too perhaps a lecture theatre?

That Huge Lecture Theatre! | teddy rised @ Flickr via kwout

Hm, I'd like to lay a forum screen over such images to give an idea of what I'm thinking, but it would take too much time to desensitise personal details when I should be studying. If someone else gets what I mean and has the time to sketch something up, could you link it in comments?

In some software (Interact?) there is a separate issue of dissociation presented by separation of study discussion forum from the LMS unit module, but that is enough complaining for now.

Projected, recorded, uploaded, embedded

Enjoy the music with me? thanks to Alex Ross and others (see below)?



"The first part of Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" Overture, as played by the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, at the New World Center on Jan. 28, 2011. The image is being projected on a seven-thousand-square-foot wall; the sound is heard over a network of 167 speakers." [Youtube video description]

Or wonder at technology with me?

• Miami's New World Centre's Wallcast projects concert hall performances outside. (Frank Gehry designed the center, who can we thank for the sound and simulcast tech?)
• [?unidentified device] captures the cast in excellent quality.
• YouTube lets Alex Ross upload the recording and me embed it here.
• Blogging programs like WordPress helps people share stuff online
• Extra-blogging stuff like tracking back builds conversation
• Repository software like dSpace helps institutions collect and preserve scholarly writing.
• Online courses with course managment software... hm, can't really promote the one used for current course as I'm not fond, tend to prefer Moodle.

Or delight in social factors?

• What explains the expensive projection of performances outside the hall, to the public for free? I can guess why people would use the Soundscape - I want to go!
• Alex was so impressed (?) he recorded, uploaded, blogged and wrote. AH! to "invite people in" - Alex answers my first question.
• The beauty of connections: dkl, a scholar interested in "combination of sight and sound in musical experience, and the use of technology to alter their combination", gets caught by Alex's article and later blogs about it. (And dkl "gets" linking in his first post!)
• Everyone is sharing all this stuff online.

So maybe it is just one factor in different dimensions: People love to share what makes them zing.

Or my story:

In which Charles Sturt University School of Information Studies offer a course by distance (that (if I finish) would qualify me to be a reference librarian), in which John Kennedy, Bob Pymm and Sue Terry authored the Collections subject asking students to explore repository software designer DSpace, who share use case examples including George Mason University's MARS, who preserve blog posts of at least one of their associate professors, Dan Cohen who (among many wonderful contributions to online scholarship) writes and talks inspiringly about the value of the blogging genre for scholarly communication (see why I listened for an hour!?). Dan uses WordPress and his team designed Zotero and and where was I? ... oh yes, Dan's blog captures trackbacks so I noticed dkl's first post at Spooky and the Metronome, where he grabs my attention: music+image, a mix of styles in one post, his personal story, scholarly meditations, and darn him for linking instead of embedding the above video himself.  Because on seeing Alex Ross' uploaded video of the projected performance - musing at the capacity to see and hear without being there or then, I needed to see it all shifted that extra step in time and virtual space, and now I've added the dimension of posting from Australia.

Do I really need or want a start page? Do you?

I first experimented with start pages because I use a variety of computers and I was hoping there would be a way for me to access my most regular sites just as quickly from another computer as I would from home. Not a realistic hope I guessed, because any such service I would have to still have to sign in to at any computer I cannot customise for myself, and surely it would be quicker just to use the browser’s search box. Still, what is life without experiment?

I tried igoogle: mmf, (yes I love you google, but you don’t need that much space on my start page. I won’t forget you. Yes rooly truly I begin and usually end any search with you… you’re my default – and at computers not my own I even check and switch the engine in the browser’s search box to google). I tried protopage – great but then came ads. I tried delicious (not suited as a startpage). I tried pageflakes – and for some reason the location of ads in pageflakes didn’t bug me the way the top banner ad did in protopage.

Each time I set one up with my quick links I also spent time exploring a few of the other things that the “start page” could do – because I wondered whether such tools might prove useful to my volunteer organisation or workplace or study group or homeschool. However none of my other hats really needed what start pages offer, and while I did use my quick links regularly I would rarely touch a game unless I was procrastinating.

But for the past week pageflakes has refused to load. So now I’m looking back and beyond – do I gather up my frequent links and set up another start page? If I do, will I try iGoogle again, or netvibes, start.io or something else? Don’t bother suggesting zenstart: it doesn’t have the links I need.

Perhaps in the meantime I might just start using the browser’s Bookmarks again.

I am still curious and love to hear how such tools are used by libraries (like when Eddie Byrne wrote how Dublin City Public Libraries use Netvibes) OR volunteer groups, homeschoolers and when I find examples I tag them (although how did I tag those others – did I?)

Creating a Reading List with Zotero

Working in a library I tend to discover way more books I'd like to read than time allows.

So I have a few challenges:

• How do I track titles of books I'd like to read when I get the chance?
• Considering I may never get back to anything on that list, how do I choose what to borrow Right Now?
• What is the most efficient and effective way for me to track the ideas I discover while reading?

My lunch is cooking right now, giving me a deadline for completing a post, which some of you may have discovered is another one of my challenges.

SO: today I'm only going to touch on the first one - because I've recently found an idea for that purpose.

I've been using Zotero to capture works I use for study - and now I've created a folder called: Reading List :D how clever is that?

Okay, for you to appreciate how it is that Zotero is so helpful in this respect, you need to understand what Zotero can do. It grabs and keeps citation data from library and other catalogues, or websites that provide such data, allowing us to make notes, tag, sort etcetera, and Share too I think.

Last night at work I found a few books on the shelf I really want to read, but too many books at home unfinished, so I found the titles in the catalogue, and had Zotero grab the information.

In a way, I used to prefer to be able to create my reading list more directly in conjunction with the library catalogue, much as it now allows me to keep a Reading History (which should probably more accurately be called a Borrowing History). Of course the catalogue allows me to mark records and email myself a list, and I guess I could then maintain a folder for such emails over time.

But maybe using Zotero for my Reading List is even better because the data is then in the same place that when I have read it, I can make notes, and later access the citation data if I use it. And when I work out to use the collaboration feature, I could share my Reading List... which is an intriguing thought for if/when I get into teaching.

Are any teachers in library science using Zotero this way?

I've used a toread tag with delicious for collecting online matertial to read later; however today I discovered the firefox extension Read It Later which would allow me to download pages for offline reading - particularly useful when I'm using a laptop I think.

Backup

Argh I'll keep this post from Unshelved pinned as a reminder to ensure I keep up with my backup methods. Any photos that are important to me to keep saved I upload to Flickr. Any documents I think I need to keep I email to myself or upload to googledocs. Which reminds me, I've been working on a big assignment for a while... hang on a sec...right, where was I?

Not yet in the need for anything like FolderShare, Time Machine or SuperDuper.

Hm, but my budget tracking spreadsheet is too big for googlespreadsheet so, where's my memory stick? Good.

As to the boys' saved games, they've been advised to consider whether there are any they would feel devastated to lose and a friend will show them how to back those up.

Thanks for the reminder Bill (& Bloglines for pinning & Bill again for the regular comic so every time I read the comic I can catch the pinned post about backing up).

Sensible RSS diet management

Martin Belam offers some excellent suggestions for managing RSS feeds to minimise the risk of information overload, atRSS Feeds: Managing the Mechanism.

I like the suggestion to use an audition folder - putting new feeds on trial - see whether they really give value for my reading time.