Year of pleasures #5: A night out down the pub with your mates

I've been out quite a bit recently, at least more than the previous four or five months! This week it was my wonderous no-longer-colleague Holly's leaving do, at the Queen's Head near Kings Cross.

The beer was good (Redemption Hopspur) and served in a proper pint pot, the pub was impressive (there's a real ale festival there next weekend, lots of whiskies if that's how you roll) and there were loads of friends there, some who I see often and some I hadn't seen for years. There was even a swing/jazz pianist.

If it hadn't been that Holly is abandoning me it would have been the perfect sort of pub night out! A random coming-together of people, ideas and slightly drunken rambling. Lovely.

Election fever

Finally, the general election has rolled around. Get out and vote people! Polls open in a matter of hours in one of the closest fought elections in decades. And I'm bloody sick of it!

We've been working on the Guardian candidates widget thingy (formerly known as Aristotle) for nearly a year, and intensely for the past three or four months, gathering candidate info from the main parties, but because the list of nominations isn't finalised until a couple of weeks before the election there was a vast amount of work that couldn't be done until the past fortnight.

I just hope Guardian readers appreciate the mammoth amount of work that we (me, Holly and Lucy, and Lauren before us) put in. And the tech team of course! Thank goodness we can forget all about it after the weekend.

Unless there's a hung parliament, in which case we could be doing it all over again sooner than we think. Um...

Oscars countdown

I've been busy with a few Datablog posts lately - one on teen drug misuse, one on deadly earthquakes - but my favourite one of the moment is tracking all the major winners over the film awards season.

Until the BBC lost the rights to the Oscars, it was one of the highlights of my television year, staying up late (usually til 6 or 7 in the morning) with popcorn and beer to watch it live. I miss the build-up but now that I'm writing about it I feel excited again.

Every year I plan to watch the films that have generated the most Oscar buzz, but never get round to it. This year I'm determined to catch at least some of them at the cinema - films like Up In the Air, The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, all of which have done well in the nominations so far. I don't think I'll be checking out Avatar though (despite the Golden Globe nods) - I'm sure it looks amazing but the story just doesn't seem that original.

The Academy Award nominations are out later this week but I'm prepared to look stupid by casting my predictions early - Jeff Bridges for best actor, Sandra Bullock best actress (white female teacher coaches black student - it's a shoe-in unless Oscar fave Meryl Streep wins the votes), Kathryn Bigelow for director, The Hurt Locker best film, Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz for supporting roles (they've won everything so far so not much of a gamble!). Let's hope they get nominated now!

Resolution number 1

I finally got time to blog a bit, although it's not my big post about resolutions that I will get round to eventually!

One of my main resolutions this year though is to do my chartership with Cilip. Part of this involves documenting every work-related event I attend, so to avoid bombarding you with library-themed posts and to try and compartmentalise my life just a little (and isn't that what librarians are good at?) I've started a new blog over at wordpress.

If you're interested in library-related stuff, check it out at librarianoftomorrow.wordpress.com.

That should be Daniel Pudles, oops

Date night

The Guardian has just opened a new exhibition in its Kings Place lobby, of Daniel Puddles images that have graced the Comment pages over the years. This is my favourite, it's how Mark and I spend most of our evenings these days!

To charge or not to charge

It seems Rupert Murdoch may have some reservations about charging for content after all, while the Guardian will be one of the first to charge for an iPhone news app - are the tables turning?

He might block Google, too - now that would make the news aggregators happy.

Who knew I was so relevant?

The Guardian's digital media page just posted this story about news aggregator NewsNow. Ignore the typos.

SLA Europe: Free v Fee, the Future of News

Attended a really interesting panel discussion on the future of newspaper content hosted by SLA Europe last night. There's a debate going on at the moment as to whether news outlets should charge for online content or continue to provide it for free, now that advertising revenue has dropped so dramatically. The Murdoch clan are all for charging, while Alan Rusbridger prefers to focus on the journalistic changes that need to occur to avoid newspapers becoming obsolete.

Andrew Hughes from the Newspaper Licensing Agency and Jeremy Lawson from Dow Jones represented the traditional news industry, while Larry Rafsky, CEO of Acquire Media, stood up for web aggregators and solicitor Laurence Kaye gave the legal perspective. The evening was ably moderated by Don Roll, of Alacra (thanks for picking my question!).

Although the panel didn't achieve a consensus (and with such opposing views from Larry and Andrew it was unlikely), everyone made some good points. What I took from the discussion is that with web technology developing so fast, newspapers (and copyright law) are playing catch-up. Business models for online content are untested and it's only once papers begin to charge that we will see whether such a model is successful. What is certainly true is that unless newspapers come up with a new approach they will struggle financially in the future market.

Below are my notes from the evening; Neil Infield at the British Library has blogged his notes here, and you can join the discussion on LiveWire.

Andrew Hughes, NLA

• NLA is working towards a licensing agreement for B2B paid-for web content
• web content is often unique - NLA study found 31.5% of online content hadn't appeared in print, and 38% of print content never makes it to the web

Laurie Kaye

• "It takes time to change the law, business models, cultures..."
• media is global so may eventually have a global legal framework, but have to begin by working within existing national copyright laws
• "copyright provides the framework for a creator to decide how their content is made available" - whether free, fee or a hybrid model
• B2B copyright is much more clearcut than personal
• need an "effects-based" approach to copyright - look at the commercial effect of republishing in the real world, and base law on that
• different tyes of intermediary require different approaches - individuals providing links between the user and the content vs people taking the content and republishing it
• "fair use" - there are about 30 exceptions for research, private study, reporting etc. Google argues fair use because they only reprint snippets of articles but it's for commercial gain so may not be
  
• there's a lack of infrastructure to police online content at the moment

Larry Rafsky, Acquire Media

• "there's no going back once you taste freedom...this toothpaste is not going back in the tube" - newspaper content is already free online, can't reverse it
• different definitions of free - difference between content that is written professionally and provided free but where the writer will be paid (what aggregators are interested in), free content written by non-professionals (user-generated, personal blogs etc) and professional content that is "gifted" (given away with no interest in payment)
  
• bad definitions - content that is free to some but not others, and content that shouldn't be free but is made so illegally
• Acquire always links to the publisher and gives sparse summaries so users have to follow the link to read the article (Google provides enough info that the reader has no need to click through)
• there is no difference between a user accessing content directly and getting it through a proxy, as long as the content provider gets the same emolument
• the web is run by links - RSS feeds, librarian recommendations, email links to friends - so "site cite" (what a web aggregator does) is not protectable

Jeremy Lawson, Dow Jones

• Dow Jones are supporting publishers and their right to decide how content is used and what the rights covering it are

Did papers start to dig their own grave when they suggested they might charge for content?

Larry Rafsky - whether papers charge depends on their existing market and where they can make money (need to analyse all models), so there's no right answer
Andrew Hughes - papers started digging their own grave when they gave content away - "free is a four-letter word"
Jeremy Lawson - papers who will have to change their business model from free to fee have an awful lot of work to do to make it viable

Do web aggregators really pose a serious threat to revenue when some argue they are increasing traffic to sites by posting links?

Laurie Kaye - linking is part of the way the web operates, but there is some potential commercial bad effects from aggregators
Andrew Hughes - "Russian doll" situation - yes, aggregators increase traffic but that doesn't necessarily lead to an increase in revenue; the NLA isn't asking to license links to friends, only those who charge and benefit financially from linking; newspapers need to assert their rights over the investment they are putting into editorial content; less than a tenth of 1% of newspaper web traffic comes from aggregators, most comes from Google
Larry Rafsky - as 85% of news traffic comes from Google, why not charge Google if you want to charge aggregators?

Is Kindle the future of newspapers?

Larry Rafsky - papers will be web-only in the future, and paper will become a novelty item like candles now, special editions and gift items; advances in flexiscreens by Microsoft will mean the death of newsprint by 2030
Andrew Hughes - no, the future lies in providing streamlined content to individual users (Liverpool fans just want sports news about Liverpool), not in recreating replicas of the print edition online

With web advances, do you foresee the death of newsprint?

Andrew Hughes - no but there will be trouble sustaining the pagination
Jeremy Lawson - print medium will become a much smaller fish in a much bigger pond but won't become irrelevant

What can the industry do to help users distinguish what is fair use and free to access and what isn't?

Laurie Kaye - we're still working through what is commercial or non-commercial but the law will reach that point
Andrew Hughes - we need to make it easier for users and businesses to know what they can and can't do
Larry Rafsky - you need to add value to content, beyond what Google provides, to make B2B paid-for content viable

Booker club

I wrote a piece for the Datablog last week on Booker prize winners and whether it boosts sales. In the process I came across a Guardian blog, the Booker club, in which Sam Jordison reads and reviews a different Booker winner each month.

Whenever a new 'top 100 books ever' type list comes out I promise myself I will read all of them, but never quite get beyond the first few. So the Booker winners list, standing at only 43 books so far, is much more achievable.

I've only read three or four of them in the past, which is shameful considering the list includes classics like Midnight's Children, The Remains of the Day, The God of Small Things and Possession.

I'm not sure how easy it will be to get hold of some of the early winners (The Elected Member, anyone?) but let's see how far I get this time! The Man Booker archive even stores the shortlists, too, which should keep me going a few years.

Check me out on the Datablog!

I had a really busy day at work yesterday, most of it spent putting together a few blogposts for the Guardian's Datablog. It's quite exciting writing something directly to the web which you know people are actually going to read.

The first was a list of Patrick Swayze films and the money they made at the box office - hardly cutting edge news I know but interesting anyway. And the second was a post about crop circles, inspired by Google's crop circle doodle. Much more interesting and useful, and the data can definitely be manipulated to create some interesting mapping or diagrams (and not, as one commenter thinks, to run rampant over some poor farmer's field).

The crop circles even makes it to the top of the list on Google's news site, if you search for "crop circles" (well, almost to the top, but I can't begrudge a fellow Guardian post).

I did some work on the department spending post too, so I'm feeling pretty smug workwise.

Logan popped in to see me at work today

That slightly smug looking woman in the canteen beaming as her child did Something Adorable? Today that was me. Sorry.

Library Show, Birmingham

Excuse the bad quality picture, shamefully it's the only one I managed to snap at the show today - it's a fine balance showing enough interest in a product to get the best freebies without getting trapped in a pointless conversation, and taking photos of stands would definitely have strayed over the line.

Anyway, more later on Dame Lynne Brindley of the British Library and the digital future, digitising papers and the excellent freebies, now I'm heading home to the tube strike... Definitely taking a taxi, can't walk home after spending the day in heels!

Iconography

Came across this interesting article by Jonathan Meades on the overuse of the word icon. Something rather relevant at the moment with the publication of the Guardian World Factfiles this week. Not that we used it inappropriately or anything. Oh no.

Plus, when else do you see pics of Jesus and Marmite nestled together so nicely?

Vote for cake!

India holds general elections next month, so the paper is preparing a graphic to show party support. It's not that interesting a topic to research, but I did come across a random fact for your delectation - in India, political parties must be represented by a symbol (I guess the equivalent of the party logos over here).

Not that fascinating maybe - the recognised parties have fairly standard bicycles, elephants and leaves - but check out the list of symbols that are still unclaimed (at the bottom of the PDF). Anyone fancy voting for a political party that uses an electric pole to represent itself, or a ceiling fan? How about a sewing machine? Can't see many voters turning out for the walking stick party (what does that say about your approach to politics?), or the battery torch one. I would definitely vote for the cake party though!

Everyone should read the Bible

Guardian Education is running an interview today with the poet Andrew Motion, in which he argues for Bible stories to be more central to education. I did a bit of background for it (it is almost impossible to summarise Bible stories in less than 200 words, btw - unless you do it in Lego).

I think Motion's point is a valid one; being an atheist should not mean denying the educational value of morality tales like those in the 'good book', or the writing quality. I keep meaning to read the Bible properly; the Old Testament in particular is packed with juicy stories.

The article quotes the director of the National Secular Society: "Children already get 45 minutes of religious education a week for 10 years. Isn't that enough?" But RE looks at religions as a whole, not at the historical or literary impact of religious storytelling.

Diana Athill addresses that very point in her biography Somewhere Towards the End, which coincidentally is my current read. She too was a committed atheist, but was raised on Bible stories by her grandmother. She says enjoying familiar Bible chapters "does not mean that I kneel down and worship God [but] they still trail a whiff of that old special importance...it did certainly influence the way I was to see life; yet it failed to convince me of its central teaching."

It is possible to separate the doctrine from the story, and appreciate the intrinsic value of the writing without believing in the religion. It would be a shame, as we become increasingly atheist, if the beauty and creativity of so many of the Bible stories was lost.

Snow day!

This is what happens when Mark works from home...

Muswell Hill is snowed in - I'm sure when there was a blizzard at home when I was younger the buses didn't grind to a halt (even if the school boiler broke with alarming regularity). That's what I get for deserting the north east for the bright lights of the big city.

Snow pics to follow later for those of you on another continent.

Mrs Stoddard arrives

I finally got my first married byline today, a lovely little box on the financial crisis in Iceland. Fascinating, I'm sure you'll agree.

I still haven't got round to changing my name on anything official other than my passport, I have to sweet-talk the postie whenever I collect parcels. I'm never sure which signature to use, either. One of these days I'm bound to get arrested for identity fraud. Ho hum.

Open government (for now)

Following the trend of mentioning Obama in every blog this month, it's nice to see the White House plans to be more open than the previous administration; for the moment they've opened up the vast majority of the whitehouse.gov site to search engines (Bush's blocking software ran to 2,377 lines, Obama's runs to 2 so far).

Wonder how long that'll last?

Library blog of the month

Free Range Librarian is written by Karen G Schneider, a prolific writer who deals with the technical side of librarianship and has long been involved with the American Library Association.

She's currently blogging her sister's inauguration day experiences (I will get away from Obama at some point this month, I promise!) but she's also written on the need for caution when jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, and how to run a good tech-based discussion panel.