Response to Week 3 Readings

I would like to start out by commenting on the articles we were asked to read.  I had no idea there was even a feud/debate going on about copyrights and digitizing books.  I found this to be rather interesting.  I have a tendency (as do many people) to focus on how issues will affect me personally.  I am in favor of digitizing books, but with some apprehension.  As a graduate student and a high school history teacher, my time is very limited.  While doing research, I am often annoyed at the idea of having to drive to multiple libraries or wait days for a book to be sent to me.  On top of all of that, I am only a teacher, so I cannot afford to buy all of the materials I need for graduate school and for teaching.  (And forget about asking my school district to buy anything…they barely have enough money to heat the building in the winter!)  Digitizing books would make for easier access and if they were available to be viewed for free, that would be much cheaper.  On the other hand, I do like having an actual book in my hands as I read (or at least a print out.)  I like to be able to highlight and mark up the copy and I also have numerous problems with my eyes that are aggravated by looking at a computer screen for lengthy periods of time.  I guess if books were digitized, I would end up printing out the parts I wanted to read.  As for the copyright issue, I think 14 years is plenty long enough.  Furthermore, why should pulishing companies suddenly care about the books that are “orphaned”?  They only care now b/c it affords them a way to make money, but their greediness is only getting in the way of the publics ability to learn from these works!  I liked Google Books idea of only putting snippets of information online if the books were not open to the public already.  That way we know the books are out there and what they are about and can decide if we want to borrow them from a library or purchase them.  I mean really, what is the harm in that?  It is like cataloging the books online.

As for the introduction and chapter one of Digital History, I found this book to be interesting and much more readable than last weeks book.  I liked how the introduction began with the major pros and cons of the internet.  I found that we touched on most of these topics during last week’s class, so I was not very shocked when reading the introduction.  While reading chapter one, it was kind of humorous to think about how small the internet once was.  I kept finding myself thinking back to when I was in highschool and my first few years of college (mid-late 1990s) and how I really didn’t know anything about the internet.  I was pretty clueless about email and how to search online.  It just wasn’t a part of my life, or many of my friend’s lives.  Oh how times have changed!  Now I become aggravated if my internet isn’t working for even one day.  I was surprised at finding out that Yahoo is becoming “outdated.”  I did not really realize this was happening and I guess I always thought that most search engines are created equal.  I was wrong.  After reading the Google printouts from online, I now understand more about how Google searches and why so many people depend on Google for information.  I also found that as I was reading the first chapter, I kept highlighting websites and online archives that I think will be useful for teaching purposes so I can go back to them in my spare time.