The final assignment for this class is to create a series of three web pages in HTML for a library. I decided to use the contents of a webpage from the library where I work, and add 2 pages of my own. With a few exceptions, I succeeded in accomplishing what I set out to do.

            I missed day one of the last weekend class session, which proved to be a bit of an impediment. While I understood the concept of HTML pretty well, I didn’t fully understand the application of tables. Since I wanted my main webpage to have one main column with a background color, and one smaller side column without borders, I made two separate tables. Problem was I only wanted to span 70% of the screen, so the columns didn’t meet up in the middle 70% of the screen. I’m willing to bet there was a simple solution, but I spent the next 2 freakin’ days working on the thing, so I’m pretty sure I missed it. It didn’t help that I had made separate rows for each line of data in the tables. When I finally realized that all I needed was a 2 cell, 1 row table, I was torn between feeling stupid and just not caring anymore.

            I rallied though, and the concept of table application crept in. Along with various web sites, I was getting most of my information from HTML, XHTML & CSS, by Elizabeth Castro, who advocates the use of CSS style sheets for controlling the appearance of the page. I managed to stay away from HTML formatting not widely supported, and was able to create a very brief external style sheet. Still, I don’t fully understand how to define my selectors (although I sound kind of smart using techie terms like that). I applied styles locally when it made sense, but I look forward to learning about constructing selectors in our last class session.

            I really enjoyed designing my web pages, and I can’t wait to slip something into a conversation about “writing code.”

Net neutrality is the principal of free and open internet access without discrimination or interference from providers, and is the reason why my classmates and I can blog on the internet as easily as top-ranked bloggers on Boing Boing or The Huffington Post. Even though there are currently 199,105 links to Boing Boing, and only 2 links to Some Librarian, we’re equally accessible on the internet. We’re equal . . . except for popularity, influence, and – I’m being honest here – highly engaging content. And sure, Boing Boing has full-time hard-working professionals with a lot of technological know-how, and I’m blogging at my kitchen table, but you get the idea. Theoretically, everyone on the internet has a chance at the American Dream. Just look at Digby, an anonymous and highly respected political blogger since 2002, who just revealed herself (but not her name) after accepting, on behalf of progressive bloggers, the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award. Turns out, she’s basically just a very smart person who can really, really, write. This, for instance, is exactly what I wanted to say to Kathleen Parker when I read one of her recent columns, but I didn’t because I’m not a genius like Digby. You go, girl . . . and forgive me for assuming you were a man.

Net neutrality was the original intention of the creators of the internet, but a 2005 ruling by the FCC put net neutrality in jeopardy. Phone and cable companies saw an opening and unleashed swarms of lobbyists into Washington. Congress plans an overhaul of the Telecommunications Act called the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006,” or COPE Act, but the question is whether the new legislation will include protections to net neutrality.

A bill that did not provide protections — and was heavily lobbied by phone and cable companies — failed to pass in 2006. Part of the reason was the overwhelming number of American citizens in support of net neutrality who found a voice with the help of internet-based coalitions like Free Press and SavetheInternet.com.

The Bush administration is not on the same page as the American public. Although one of the five FCC Commissioners has come out in support of net neutrality, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is a supporter of the large media companies, and at least one Bush official is really pissed that he’s even having to discuss the issue. Republican Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, manages to provide a sort of tragic comic relief to the issue. Here is his explanation of the internet:

(Via Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake)

There’s one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn’t going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially….

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

Stevens is the guy, as Christy notes, “in charge of the bills that, among other things, control the internet.” This kind of stuff is bread and butter for The Daily Show. (via John Amato from Crooks and Liars)

It’s going to be a hard fight, but what is clear so far is that progressive, grassroots internet activism groups have had a big impact on congressional attention to net neutrality.

ALA president Michael Gorman’s two-part post on the Britannica blog has incited a host of criticism from library and information professionals. Part one, titled “The Sleep of Reason,” argues the value of print resources over the “often-anarchic world of the Internet.” It’s hard not to miss the irony of Gorman using a blog to put forth his opinions, especially considering this.

Gorman loses me in the first paragraph, where he compares “citizen journalists” to a “citizen surgeon.”

The life of the mind in the age of Web 2.0 suffers, in many ways, from an increase in credulity and an associated flight from expertise. Bloggers are called “citizen journalists”; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular, though we can thank our stars there is no discernable “citizen surgeon” movement; millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy—the belief that every word in the Bible is both true and the literal word of God, something that, among other things, pits faith against carbon dating; and, scientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics.

Doesn’t this country have a long and valued history of “citizen journalists?” Michael Gorman is not even attempting (and I’m being charitable here) a reasonable argument to support his thesis that Web 2.0 lacks credibility and expertise. It would be so easy to give some good examples. Gorman seems to equate everything on the internet by the same simplistic standards, that if we have people doing journalism on their own, then the next thing you know they’ll be removing their own gall bladders or spanking their wives.

And that’s just the first paragraph. I know that Gorman is criticizing Web 2.0 mostly on the basis of its value to academic and scholarly discourse, but I can’t help comparing his “sleep of reason” postings to Al Gore’s new book, “The Assault on Reason.” Gore contends that popular civic dialogue for Americans is greatly enhanced by the internet. He has faith in us, where Gorman, it appears, does not.

A well-connected citizenry is made up of men and women who discuss and debate ideas and issues among themselves and who constantly test the validity of the information and impressions they receive from one another—as well as the ones they receive from their government. No citizenry can be well informed without a constant flow of honest information about contemporary events and without a full opportunity to participate in a discussion of the choices that the society must make.

Sorry, Gorman, but you’re the one who brought up the whole “citizen journalist” thing. By your own standards, I wouldn’t consider you a credible source.

Hello to all my fellow classmates who are toiling away at Grayslake this weekend. I hope to be at class on Sunday, but I will miss Saturday’s class. My grandmother passed away this week and I am in Kentucky for her funeral. She was 93 years old and greatly loved by her family and friends. As a tribute to her, I am posting this digital story about my family that I made in media services class.

The Smithsonian Images website is built on a repository of 6,288 images from Smithsonian events, exhibits and historical collections. An incredibly rich and valuable resource, the majority of these images are old enough to be in the public domain. In fact, all of the images — no matter their age — are fair use, since works of the United States government are in the public domain and have no copyright protection whatsoever.

The Smithsonian doesn’t see it that way. Not only do they impose copyright restrictions on each and every image, the Smithsonian charges a hefty fee for high resolution images. Visitors can browse categories of photos and download low resolution watermarked images for personal and educational use. High resolution images without the watermark can be downloaded for a fee — as much as $200 for a 600 dpi 8 x 10. Restrictions even extend beyond copyright. According to the Smithsonian, images may be protected by copyright and by “other restrictions as well.” In the case of some images, the Smithsonian notes that, “even in the absence of copyright, Smithsonian still reserves all rights to image use.”

In order to circumvent the lack of copyright protection for US government works, the Smithsonian distinguishes between federal employees and trust employees. Beyond the legal issue of whether or not the Smithsonian can copyright and restrict images that are already in the public domain or have been produced by public employees, the question also is whether this practice is within the mission of a tax-supported public institution. Shouldn’t the American public have free and unrestricted access to American historical images produced within the scope of a taxpayer supported institution?

One nonprofit group is challenging the Smithsonian on this practice. Public.Resource.Org has downloaded all 6,288 images onto Flickr, and has purchased several high-resolution images to make them available for use without copyright restrictions. Some legal experts sympathize but don’t necessarily agree that the restrictions imposed by the Smithsonian are illegal. Personally, I applaud the challenge by Public.Resource.Org and hope the Smithsonian agrees to full and unfettered public access to our nation’s historic images.

The upcoming presidential elections have been a good indicator of how much the internet now influences our day-to-day lives. The candidates are much more adept at using the internet than in the 2004 elections. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama launched their presidential campaigns on their web sites, and many candidates have a My Space account. For the first time, two presidential debates will be conducted online. Yahoo, online news site Slate, and The Huffington Post political blog will host the debates, which will be moderated by PBS’s Charlie Rose.

The Commission on Presidential Debates sponsors all presidential debates. Their website has debate transcripts from 1960 to the 2004, and every page of their website has this at the bottom:

© 2004 Commission on Presidential Debates. All rights reserved.

Kind of a buzz-killer, huh? A lot can happen, though, in four years, and the copyright issue has come to the forefront for the 2008 election. NPR and Iowa Public Radio are hosting two presidential debates and have announced they will post them on-line, freely accessible to anyone. CNN will do the same with their debates. Barack Obama sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee asking that all videos of Democratic Presidential debates be licensed under creative commons:

I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age. But there is no reason that this particular class of content needs the protection. We have incentive enough to debate. The networks have incentive enough to broadcast those debates. Rather than restricting the product of those debates, we should instead make sure that our democracy and citizens have the chance to benefit from them in all the ways that technology makes possible.

Let’s hope that the Commission on Presidential Debates and the other debate hosts jump on this bandwagon.

I’ll be blogging for my LIS 753 class, Internet Fundamentals & Design.  Stay tuned…