RSS Feed Search Engine

I have just discovered this search engine and wonder if anyone else has used it or is using it.   The AboutUs information says that more than 75 million blog posts and news articles have been indexed and are searchable.   Has anyone tested out the "Deep Search" which RSSMicro uses?

This links back  to the post on Trade Content Curators (TRACCs) as well.  Your comments?  (BTW there is no need to have a Google account before you post to TraLIS anymore)

Richard Stallman and Copyright

Richard Stallman speaking in Belgium.  I chose this picture because he was wearing a similar red t-shirt in Levin - no evidence of the Pepsi though!
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and free software activist, spoke in Levin, on 7th October 2009. He is also a keynote speaker at the LIANZA Conference being held in Christchurch this week.


He spoke for almost two hours and in spite of the seats in the Salvation Army Complex becoming harder and harder, he kept audience attention throughout. He is also an outspoken advocate for copyright reform and his Levin lecture was directed towards copyright and its impacts.

He states his Four Software Freedoms as follows:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour (freedom 2).

• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this

but in this talk they were expressed as

Freedom 0: being able to use a work – to read it

Freedom 1: to study the work and change it

Freedom 2: to being to lend or give away a copy to friends

Freedom 3: to change the work and give away/lend the changed work

Because we use a wide variety of media in trade libraries and information services, the idea of DRM or ‘Digital Restrictions Management’ also expressed as ‘digital handcuffs is very relevant. DRM takes away our freedoms and in our context may prevent us from making copies from e-books, watching some DVDs except on certain types of technology and from giving away material to other people within international trade.

Although he was obviously preaching the movement’s message, he did put forward some ideas as to how copyright laws could be changed – by changing the period from 50 years to 10 years, and distinguishing different kinds of works based on their contribution to society. In particular ‘works that tell what people think’ category would allow non-commercial sharing of exact copies – this would cover our situation in trade libraries.

I came away thinking about the way we use the © symbol to protect works which we produce in our companies – should we encouraging usage and development with statements like: Please feel free to use this material with an acknowledgement to...

Some of his pithier statements:

Analog holes = eyes

Amazon’s Kindle = the Swindle

Home cooks are kitchen pirates and break all the copyright laws

To attack sharing is to attack society

Presidential Proclamation National Information Literacy Awareness Month October 2009

The White House - Press Office - Presidential Proclamation National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Presdient Obama said: "we must also learn the skills necessary to acquire, collate, and evaluate information for any situation. This new type of literacy also requires competency with communication technologies, including computers and mobile devices that can help in our day-to-day decisionmaking."

Are we TraCCs?

Is a Trade Library and Information professional a content curator?
On his blog David Lee King asks the question What’s a Content Curator? http://www.davidleeking.com/ and in answer he quotes at length from Rohit Bhargava’s job description. Here is a piece from it:
‘Someone whose job it is not to create more content, but to make sense of all the content that others are creating. To find the best and most relevant content and bring it forward. The people who choose to take on this role will be known as Content Curators. The future of the social web will be driven by these Content Curators, who take it upon themselves to collect and share the best content online…’
This was originally published on his Influential Marketing Blog http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9wvhv7
I think the information literacy skills involved in such a role are those that an information professional has, and which we use all the time. The challenge for us within the sphere of international trade is to identify which online and social media sources: websites, trade blogs, Facebook, might be useful. Of course once we have done that we need to work out how to organise the information, make it available and then store it for future use.
Trade Content Curators (TraCCs) having the skills of an information professional will of course have a client or potential user in mind i.e. their export section, the company chief executive. This activity would always be done within that context and David Lee King admits that ‘special librarians in corporations’ may be doing that already.
I have posted a reply to David on his blog and expressed the thought that the use of the word ‘curator’ conjured up thoughts of museums and art galleries and the idea of custodianship and preservation. By chance yesterday I heard a curator from Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery speaking on the radio about curating, in which he used the expression ‘making sense of’. I could go along with that!
Do any readers of this blog feel that they are already TraCCs and are making use of online and social media information in this way? It would be great to hear from you.

There is also a post by Anne Gentle on 'How do you curate content?' http://justwriteclick.com/2009/08/06/how-do-you-curate-content/ which uses this image from Flickr- it is by L.Marie from Flickr.com available under Creative Commons licence. I thought it was a great image for this topic although this particular post takes a slightly different angle.

International Trade Library no.6 Better By Design Media Library

Photo from Better By Design website.

Well it may be stretching things a bit to call this an international trade library! However it does hold and make available resources which a TraLIS should know about. Better By Design is a New Zealand organisation set up to assist the design needs of businesses including exporting companies. Brett Hewlett (pictured) from Comvita a company which focuses on bee-derived health products and which exports to China, Hong Kong and Australia, is featured in one of the videos which can be watched at: http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/news-and-resources/media-library

Bing Harris & Co - trade history

Sir Jack Harris Bt died on August 29, 2009 aged 103. Sir Jack made a huge impact as a pioneering manufacturer and civic leader in New Zealand, and was chief executive of importing/exporting company Bing Harris and Co.
In 2007 he wrote Memoirs of a century, in which he remembered events and people across his life. There is no pretence that this is a scholarly work and Sir Jack is the source of all that is included. It is indexed and this does help the reader to refind references to companies and places.
Bing Harris and Co. was established in Dunedin in the mid-1850s and Wolf Harris, Sir Jack’s grandfather began by importing goods from Melbourne. The discovery of gold in Central Otago meant that Dunedin developed quickly and that there was a market that needed the goods, largely clothing, that Bing Harris offered.
Before WW II it became clear to Sir Jack that the company should become a manufacturer of clothing and this proved to be a profitable move in the wartime period. After the war New Zealand economic policy focused on self-sufficiency – everything should be produced in NZ. To do this raw materials had to be imported. Of course the United Kingdom continued to be an important source, but it is suggested that Bing Harris were one of the first postwar importers from Japan, with contacts also being made in North America, India and Hong Kong.
Bing Harris had factories in Wanganui, New Plymouth, Christchurch, Auckland, Levin and Palmerston North. It also diversified into motor accessories .
Shortly after the war Sir Jack went to Japan to establish business contacts and his deputy George Milne followed. Arising out of that visit the trade in forest logs was opened up and Bing Harris obtained the agency for the logs from the Nissho company.
There is much anecdotal writing included which is to be expected in a volume of memoirs: comments on political figures both here and in the UK, the Harris’s house Te Rama at Waikanae and a piece written by Sir Jack’s wife, Patricia.
For the trade historian, Memoirs is a taster, and a full biography of Sir Jack, or a company history of Bing Harris will I am sure fill in many gaps.
Sir Jack Harris Bt: memoirs of a century. Steele Roberts, 2007. ISBN 978-1-877448-04-1

The Trade Librarian and Trade History

Photo: Chinese garden - Dunedin 27 August 2009 / Graeme Siddle.

Last month I was on holiday and visited Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand. We visited the new Chinese Garden which was opened in 2008 located near the Early Settlers' Museum and Railway Station. As can be seen from the photo it looks new, the rocks and structures have not developed any coverings such as moss or lichens and the plantings are all young. This photo shows new growth on the willows.

There is a wall near the entrance listing supporters and benefactors - one of these has been the Sew Hoy Family - well-known in Dunedin's business circles. The Sew Hoys were a long established Dunedin Chinese family, and Hugh Sew Hoy formed a company Sew Hoy and Sons in 1958 for the manuafacture of clothing. Between then and its closure in 1989 the company esstablished five factories in the Otago region and one in Christchurch. The company employed up to 600 staff and won an export award in 1971 and formed substantial overseas holdings chiefly in clothing.

Because the company relied heavily on New Zealand's protective tariffs, when these were reduced from 1988 this impacted badly on the company and Sew Hoy and Sons in New Zealand was placed in receivership in December 1989.

For 30 years the Sew Hoy company had been a major employer in Otago. Hugh Sew Hoy did not want to shift the company's Head Office and manufacturing elsewhere. He also had great pride in the accomplishments of his grandafather Choie Sew Hoy.

Information source:

http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=5S10 retrieved August 18^th 2009.

Unlike the Sew Hoy story, there is a great deal of unwritten trade history in New Zealand and maybe in other countries as well. Is it the role of the trade library and information professional to collect and preserve it? What are we doing about this in our own companies and organisations?