Informationoverlord

One of the more interesting and embarrassing things to come out of the UK government’s programme to implement aspects of its Digital Britain report, came to light this week when the government had to admit that the Video Recordings Act (VRA) 1984, which set down that videos and video games must be classified and age rated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was never legally enacted due to the fact that the Conservative government of the day failed to notify the law to European Commission.

Under the law the supply of unclassified videos- including pornography and so-called video nasties became a criminal offense, as did supplying 15 and 18 certificate videos to under-aged people.

The government said retailers had agreed to keep to the rules on a voluntary basis until the law can be re-introduced, and whilst no new prosecutions will be commenced, previous prosecutions will still stand (although it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone challenge/tested this theory).

This would however seem to mean that until the law is re-introduced that the BBFC does not actually have any legal authority to classify or not classify videos – as the right of the secretary of state to designate a body to do that is contained in the act. This would mean that the BBFC’s decision to ban the release on DVD of Koji Shiraishi’s Gurotesuku (Grotesque) just a day before the government’s announcement – making distribution or sale of it illegal - would not be enforceable.

The film – described by the BBFC as ‘little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism’ was released in its home territory in January, and was to be distributed in the UK by 4Digital Media.

Japan’s fascination with this type of extreme material has also resulted in a request from the United Nations’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women suggesting Japan to ban “the sale of video games or cartoons involving rape and sexual violence against women which normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls.”

Whilst legislation exists in Japan to ban the production and sale of child pornography, the possession of child pornography is still legal. Whilst legislation has been proposed to ban the possession of child pornography – the government is planning to study the proposal and its effects for 3 years. Additionally the legislation does not include the possession of virtual child pornography.

Back with the BBFC, the last film the BBFC banned was Murder Set Pieces, in 2008.

All the talk in the legal information world over the past couple of days has been around an unfortunate marketing email from West (Westlaw to us in the UK) advertising the usefulness of desktop access to their legal research products. The email asked the question:

“ARE YOU ON A FIRST NAME BASIS WITH THE LIBRARIAN?”

I guess that means that they will then go on to say how this is a good thing; as this Librarian or Information Officer will be able help this lawyer get the best out of his or her legal research and help them identify the best products and resources to answer any legal research questions they might have?

No, wait, that’s not it. It goes on.

“If so, chances are, you’re spending too much time in the library.”

Oh … ok. The key to getting the best legal research, at your finger tips, is to make sure you avoid finding out the librarians first name at all costs, and even if you do find out , don’t EVER use it. Just call them, MR, MRS or Ms Librarian – they’ll like that. If you must, you’d probably be safe using their surname, but you know how one thing can lead to another and once you start down that slippery slope, next thing you know you’ll be having an affair and naming your illegitimate offspring Chitty.

Anyway, what should you do if you are spending too much time in the Library?

“What you need is fast, reliable research you can access right in your office. And all it takes is West”

Phew, thank West for that.

Anne Ellis, Senior Director, Librarian Relations at Thomson Reuters (owners of West) responded calling the email ‘unfortunate’. adding “It’s important that you understand that this does not reflect in any way how West feels about and values librarians….I’ve talked to the people behind the e-mail and can assure you that they meant no harm. They now understand that the marketing piece was in poor taste and I have been assured that this will not happen again.”

To be fair to West, this response was a good one, and was also relatively quick. However, it did raise the question as to who at West actually signs off on such marketing emails.
And this is where the problems begin. Most of the big legal information providers, West, Lexis, PLC etc have people working for them that like, understand and value the role and the importance Librarians and information workers play in ensuring that lawyers get the best use of their products. Indeed they regularly reach out to get our feedback and input on new products and services or revamps to current products and services. However, there are a small number who have less understanding of the wider scheme of things and who just want to sell as much ‘product’ as possible.

That’s what sales people do. That’s what you pay them to do and incentivise them to do. The problem can be that sometimes when those selling the products or services just see the sale and don’t see or understand the thing they’re selling. Some might argue that they don’t need to, the bottom line is if they sell it or not.

The current economic climate has meant that most firms have looked to tighten their belts and make cuts in resources – both in headcount and in subscriptions to legal resources. West, Lexis etc know this. This is why products will now often be pitched directly to lawyers and in a way that implies that the cost of whatever product or services will be a saving because it might mean you don’t need, or no longer need a Librarian, a Professional Support Lawyer, a Paralegal, etc.

This email is an example of that. West say it was “in poor taste” and “will not happen again.” Time will tell whether or not actions match the words.

West and others should realise that antagonising and insulting a body of people who are usually the ones that know your services and products best, and who are – in these times – actually the ones who will be fighting to justify continuing subscribing to your products and services when managing partners – who may just see the bottom line cost - are looking for cuts in spending, and looking for reasons why something shouldn’t be cancelled. Yes, it is us that know the value of your services and who can guarantee that lawyers are aware of that value. Ignore or insult us at your peril.

Some other comments from the Blogs:
http://www.librarystuff.net/2009/08/24/what%E2%80%99s-wrong-with-lexis-thomson-reuterswest-desperation/
http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2009/08/thomson-west-epic-pr-fail.html
http://jennielaw.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-insult-your-users.html
http://listproc.ucdavis.edu/archives/law-lib/law-lib.log0908/0199.html
http://theliskid.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/apparently-the-library-wastes-time/

So, after my questioning how Mr Murdoch could be giving his physical papers away cheap or for free on the one hand and want to charge for that content online on the other, comes the news that  News International is pulling the plug on its afternoon freesheet, the London Paper. The London Paper recorded a pre-tax loss of £12.9m in the year to 29 June 2008 on a turnover of £14.1m. In the previous 10 months it had lost £16.8m. It’s move from the market will leave Associated Newspapers’ London Lite all alone in the freesheet market. The market never needed two afternoon freesheets, especially as the actual layout and content of both was virtually identical, and its questionable whether it needs a free afternoon freesheet at all. The question will then be whether London Lite follows suit and quits the market.  It should.

Was thinking I’ve been meme-less for a while, so whilst Iwas sitting waiting for a help desk to sort out something for me I thought how about 3×3 or 333: Three Books, Albums, and Films you’d recommend from 2009, thus far. Things you think were good enough to deserve wider attention. Here are my 3×3.

Books

Anne Tyler – ‘Noah’s Compass’. The best writer in the world. Period. Subtle, unshowy, but once again displaying her sharp observation of the mundane and her understanding of human condition.

Seb Hunter – ‘How to be a Better Person’. A wonderfully funny tale of the author’s attempts to improve himself through doing as much volunteer work as possible over a two year period. I also recommend this as an excuse to also mention his other books: ‘Hell Bent for Leather’ (a tale of growing up liking Heavy Metal), and ‘Rock me Amadeus’ (a tale of trying to learn to like Classical music). Both hugely funny and entertaining.

Richard Price – ‘Lush Life’ . He wrote on The Wire, but was already a good novelist – Clockers and Blood Brothers are great – but this gritty piece of Wire-like police procedural is quite possibly his best book yet.

Albums

Phoenix – ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ French indie-pop. No, really. If you bought into the whole MGMT ’sound’ last year, this will be right up your street.

Arctic Monkeys – ‘Humbug’. Have always found the AM interesting rather than compelling musically. On this album, their third, it all just seems to come together for me. Now worthy of all that initial hype.

The Low Anthem - ‘Oh My God, Charlie Darwin’. A bit Fleet Foxy at times, but with a bit wider musical variety. One of the discoveries of 2009. http://www.myspace.com/lowanthem

Films

500 Days of Summer. A summer film actually worth seeing! A smart engaging story of love and relationships that doesn’t insult its viewers’ intelligence. Warm, witty, and packed with great performances.

The Beaches of Agnes. A fun and quirky autobiographical documentary about the life of French film-maker, and artist Agnes Varda.

O’Horten .  Odd Horten drives trains in Norway. It’s his last day at work. Well, that’ the plot sorted.  I found myself enjoying this little film that had: no gratuitous violence, sex, or swearing, and was, instead, just a nice little film about learning to live.

I was thinking about iPhone apps that I use this morning, and decided to note which 10 have I used the most in the last month. [Liks to sites, not the apps]

Tweetie: - My Twitter app of choice. Twittrena, TweetDeck and Twitterfon are all fine and each have good points, but Tweetie still just pips them for me (for now).

iXpenseIt: I really love this app for keeping track of your expenses/what you’re spending. Nice little report options. Also can export the data in cvs or HTML.

Evernote: My main note taking app online, on my desktop and now on the iPhone. You can clip websites (parts of sites), take and add photos and voice messages/notes, as well as writing text.

Byline:  The only iPhone rss reader that I have found that is actually nice to use. Works with Google Reader and also will download latest items to allow browsing and reading when you don’t have an internet connection.

Facebook: You know what it is. This does the job ok as an app, but lack of wall-to-wall and other things makes it not as useful as it could be.

IM+ Lite: I’m not a big IM person, but I have been playing around with this free IM app that lets you add MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber accounts etc to a simple and easy to use interface.

Drop7: Described as Tetris meets Sudoku, this is a game where you drop numbered discs into a grid. When the number of the disc matches the amount of discs in the column and/or row it disappears. Sounds simple, but if you want big scores you need to use your head and calculate where best to put things to create chaine events. Addictive.

Flight Control: And speaking of addictive. This game where you have to drag plans onto a runway is a lot harder than it sounds.

Four Track: Is a nifty four-track recorder from Sonoma Wire, makers of the wonderful Riffworks. The ultimate record on the go tool. Essential for the budding muso.

Last.fm: I tend to use this when I’m out shopping, or when I don’t have my full-fat iPod out with me. Can be a bit flakey, but this due more to the loss of wi-fi or 3G conection on the phone. Functionality good.

@DessieCooke728 - my place is available or we can do yours.
@Sutton424 - I have been hurt so many times. I need a guy to love me. Kisses xoxo Jessie.

@IRENED5Xpq - Good to here. Partying all weekend and GD was awesome

@Lueckhi - you can find yourself here

Yes, it’s those wonderful people who decide to follow you on Twitter but who only have one post, and that points at a dating site or porn site usually.  As I have said before, if you’re a porn person that’s fine to follow me and may even follow back if you actually post other stuff.

I was just reading the results of an interesting survey of library services in UK professional bodies by Cathy Linacre, Head of Library and Information Services at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

According to Cathy, most of the research that has been done to date on the effects of the move to online delivery of content and information within the library sector has tended to focus on how this has affected public, academic and corporate libraries. I’d agree.

She decide to visited 15 library services at professional bodies such as: British Medical Association , Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the Law Society and interviewed their head of service or service manager, and find out what the services are like now – and how they are resourced – and where they either expect to be, or see their services in 5 years time.

The survey looked at:

1) The Place of library service within the institutional structure.
2) Library as physical space.
3) Resourcing – people, budgets.
4) Software.
5) Catalogues.
6) Services – loans, photocopies, Inquiries, current awareness.
7) Stock – hardcopy and electronic.
8 ) Marketing.
9) Vision.
10) Internal and External Pressures .
11) The future.

This is a nice piece of research, that contains some interesting figures and insight that I would say would be of interest to most in the library/information field – as many of the constraints and challenges are the same. It is also useful as a benchmark piece, especially on things such as physical visits, budgets – averaging around £5 per head of membership in the survey sample -, use of web2.0 tools, use of electronic resources (and problems with licencing/copyright) I particularly liked the ‘what is a typical library like’ bit at the start, which is a good way – for those not in this sector – to get a grasp of what one of these library’s would ‘look like’.

Interestingly, one professional body - not included in the survey - didn’t feel the report/survey was positive enough, which, for me, says more about the body in question than the quality of the research to be found in the report, which is presented without spin.

If you would like to read the report, Cathy would be more than glad to hear from you and can be reached at: clinacre(at)rics.org

It’s funny when Twitter goes down how much you realise you use it for things. Apparently they’re fighting a denial of service attack today. This did give me an opportunity to revisit Identica. Problem was couldn’t remember my password, and every time I requested help, I get told that ‘Instructions for recovering your password have been sent to the email address registered to your account’. I find the email, click on the link and get nothing but a blank webpage. If I try and click again or referesh i get  BAD REQUEST -  No such recovery code. Got bored after three tries and getting the email out to me, so sorry Identica but I’ve decided to give up on you. So endeth today’s randomness.

In a week where the Guardian Media Group was reported to be considering closing down its (and the UK’s first) Sunday newspaper, the Observer, as part of a strategic company review, Rupert Murdoch announced that News International was going ahead with plans to charge for content on all their newspaper websites.

According to Murdoch “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting.” Ex journalist and creator of the Wire David Simon agrees. He told the Independent that last 10 years of giving away the content for free has been “destroying an elemental civic good in the name of technology, rather than hinging the technology to an elemental civic good. There’s nothing free about sending reporters to Fallujah or to cover the congress in Washington.”

Of course, many people would laugh at talk of quality journalism from the publisher of the Sun and the News of the World.

Why would people not just move to sites – whether other newspapers or sites such as the BBC - where the news was still free? Murdoch said News Corp would simply make its content “better and differentiate it from other people”.

Better and Different

The problem of course is that ‘news’ is just that, news. Am I going to pay for the Times’ report on an event that happened that is being reported by everyone else – including the BBC, ITN etc – and that is available freely on those sites? Probably not, why would I – unless it is adding something new. If the question is paying for comment, good investigative journalism, or something I can’t get anywhere else, then I might think about it, but there isn’t much of that about.

You need to already have content that people put a value on.

The FT has succeeded in its charging because it is a niche product, and one valued in big organisations – such as the one I work for – as well as by the man in the street [by the way, I never have found that man or that street, and I have looked]. Likewise, the Wall Street Journal has a similar brand and audience, which again has made its charging model also seem to work. But for more mainstream press?

I’m going to be interested how The Times, The Sun and The News of the World are now going to start to contain better content that differentiates their content from what is on everyone else’s sites/publications. At the moment, I just don’t see it.

I believe the only way you can charge for access to ‘news’ is to have something that already has perceived value to the wider public – as shown with the FT. For example ,the Guardian could probably get away with charging for access to Media Guardian content, because that part of the paper already has value to a great number of people, built up over a number of years, so much so that people who might not buy the Guardian on other days of the week will buy it on a Monday or register on the website to access that content online.

Counting the cost

So how’s it going to work?

There doesn’t seem to be any information of the approach Murdoch’s papers will take. Will there be an annual or monthly subscription model? A micropayment model to buy one off access to certain items? A mixture of both perhaps? Also at what level will these costs be at ?? Get this wrong and it doesn’t matter how good your content is.

Hard copy newspapers already sell at low cost (The cover prices of The Sun is 20p and The Times 90p) and these themselves have been cannibalised – especially in the main cities of the UK – by freebie newspapers – Metro and City Am in the morning and London Lite and The London Paper – published, of course, by one News International – in the afternoon/evening. It does seem odd that a man who is so keen to give his content away for free in London in hardcopy print is suddenly in a hurry to charge people for that content online.

So if we take The Sun, if you bought The Sun in hard copy every day you’d be spending 20p a day Monday – Friday (and, I think slightly more around 65p ? on a Saturday). The exact numbers don’t really matter, but in this case a dedicated Sun reader would be paying out £85.80 a year to read the print copy of the paper. Will News International be looking for a similar outlay to access their online content? Will its fans think £7.15 a month is a good deal?

Another consideration for cost must be the potential for losing more ad revenue using a pay model. If less people are going to be seeing content then surely advertisers will be less inclined to advertise – unless they see value in a certain audience. Again with the FT you have a pretty good chance of having an easily identifiable demographic – but for other papers? It has to be more fragmented.

So, will the numbers add up? Will the revenues generated from online subscribers offset loses elsewhere ?? Will it succeed and herald the dawning of a new age or will it be a spectacular failure?

The mobile game

For publishers looking at how to present their data in a mobile payworld, they should look no further than the FT’s iPhone app. This is a thing of beauty. This is especially true if you compare it, for example, to the Independent’s iPhone app, which whilst perfectly serviceable just feels – and acts - like an rss reader, and is lacking an Identity: once the app is loaded you could really be reading anyone’s content. By contrast the FT app replicates the key aspects of the FT.com site and you are never in any doubt about where you are or where the content is coming from.

Casual Observer

Back with the Observer story. The loss of the Observer would be a very sad day for the newspaper industry, although it has for a long time now been a paper that loses money. Apart from killing if off entirely there are also option of continuing to publish it but in a slimmed-down format (whatever that might be) or turn it into a weekly news magazine – a daft idea.
One problem for the Observer and indeed the Sunday broadsheets as a whole is that now Saturday’s papers are so big, that people often just make do with Saturday’s Guardian or Telegraph and don’t see the need for a Sunday paper. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone, and I’m someone that still buys a newspaper every day mon-sat. When I do venture out on a Sunday it is the Observer that I buy. And if I need to start buying it every week again to help it survive , then I guess I’m just going to have to start doing my bit the preserve the old thing. You should to.

It’s been a while since an Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling made me laugh, but their decision against Alcohol in Emergency Ltd for a circular, for their alcohol delivery service (in the Southampton area) did raise a smile. Not due to the ruling, I might add, but due to the wonderfully believable response to the claims made by the complainant.

The Circular stated: “A in E” Southampton’s premier drink delivery service Your quick link to drink www.ALCOHOLINEMERGENCY.CO.UK.”, and, it would seen, also included a picture of a flashing light on the top of the van.

The complainant thought the play on words “A&E” was offensive in light of the number of alcohol related deaths and that the general tone encouraged an irresponsible attitude to drinking alcohol by portraying alcohol as indispensible.

Not so, replied Alcohol in Emergency (AinE). Alcohol in Emergency” was not a play on the phrase “Accident and Emergency.”, and “AinE” was just used for ‘brevity’ and again was not to comparable to “A&E”. And that flashing light? Merely intended to communicate to readers that they offered a night-time delivery service.

Ok, hands up if you believe any of that? Hmm, not seeing any hands …

No hands went up at the ASA either who found the phrase “Alcohol in Emergency” and its shortened “A in E” combined with the overall presentation of the ad was likely to be seen as encouraging and condoning irresponsible consumption of alcohol, and suggesting that someone might urgently need alcohol in a comparable way to requiring medical attention. They told Alcohol in Emergency it could not use either the name “Alcohol in Emergency” or its abbreviated form “AinE” in future marketing material.

I should say that I have no problem with the idea behind the service, but surely someone there should have realised that advertising alcohol with a name playing on A&E is not very clever.