Category: LIBR562

Posts related to LIBR562 – International Issues course.

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Back to the Future! or I needed a break.

So, this will be my first post since I completed my Social Media class this summer. It has been a while. In fact it has been a month. I needed the break. Now I return, fresh, interested, enthused, and enrolled in new classes. Of course new classes also encourage reflections on past courses so before I move forward, how about a quick look back.

I spent a large portion of time during my six weeks of two online classes griping about how horrible condensed, online classes are. Case in point is my “How do they do it” post. I even wrote Vista a breakup letter on facebook after officially finishing my last bit of my last online course. (Unfortunately, every course in my program is supposed to make some use of the online learning portal, but it’s more like still having to see the ex occasionally because you still share the same friends.)

But now that I have some distance I would like to mention a few things I found I liked about online classes, and what works well in online classes.

Things I liked:

  • Allowed me to make my own schedule.
  • Forced me to make a regular daily work schedule and stick to it. I am now much better at doing work a bit every day, whether I have to or not.
  • Gave me some flexibility as to where I could do my work, as long as I had wifi, decent workstation, and limited sun glare.
  • Used many types of media including journal articles, news articles, websites, videos, recorded interviews, recorded presentations.
  • Made me use and understand many different online tools.
Things that worked well:
Here are a few things my professors have implemented in online classes that I found effective.
  • Study buddies: Sounds funny, I know, but having a study partner throughout the entire course was really helpful. We could split up the work and pool resources to make the weekly work more manageable. We could get together to complain and sympathize about the course (sometimes just knowing some else is in the same boat makes a huge difference). We knew someone was there and this really went far to combat the isolating nature of online classes.
  • Assigned discussion posts: One of my instructors assigned a small group of students to each discussion topic every week. This meant that instead of having to post to every discussion, I only had to post to the few I was assigned and just read the rest. This took the pressure off discussions somewhat. It is more realistic as well. In a class of 40 students, does everyone pipe up and talk on every topic? Nope.
  • Clear, detailed course schedule: Students want to know what they have to do when. Beyond our anxiety prone natures, we are balancing more than one class and have to plan and schedule accordingly. This applies to in-person and online classes.
  • Making use of all the functionality of an online portal: Slide shows, recorded presentations, links to resources (if possible), quick feedback, and more! There is a wealth of information and a myriad of ways it is presented. All this selection can accommodate way more learning styles and aid retention.
  • Making a space for students to communicate outside teacher supervision: Teachers talk about students in staff meetings and the staff room. Students need somewhere to talk about teachers and the courses outside of instructors’ hearing. For an online course, this means some sort of online space. Trust me, if anything, this will make happier students, not a mutiny.
These are some of the positives of online classes. The only plus of online condensed classes: it’s a short stint in hell, you only have to survive six weeks. I will not take another online condensed class unless I have no other option and it will have to be a pretty interesting course for me to take a regular online one. Despite the positive aspects, I think I’ve done my time.
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Public Lending Rights or If it’s not about the money, why is it about the money?

PLR or Public Lending Rights. I first discovered these on monday in my International Issues class and got all upset about them but so many countries have a PLR system I figured I must be missing something so I sought out more information. As of last night I had a better grasp on the systems and the reasons for them but I still didn’t like them and I was going to write a passionate blog post but it was going on ten thirty after a very long day of school work and I just wanted to go to bed. This morning, er, afternoon now, my passion is missing. I guess this will be my sober second thought rather than my passionate musings.

PLR or Public Lending Rights is a system that gives money to authors whose books are loaned out at public libraries. Many countries have a PLR system including the UK, Germany, Australia, and yes Canada. My initial discovery of PLR was the UK system and that is the one I read the most about, but each PLR system is similar.

Why have a PLR? The argument is that authors suffer a loss of revenue from book sales because libraries are purchasing one book then lending it out to many people for free. Because authors are a nation’s public and cultural asset the government must subsidize it’s authors.

Okay, I’ll grant you that yes, many individuals get to read a single library copy that has only been paid for once, but I question the claim of loss of revenue. The assumption is that if a person cannot get a copy of a certain book at the library they will go out and buy it. But then again, maybe they just won’t bother reading it. What about the awareness and free advertising a library gives an author and his/ her works?

Who pays? Each country with a PLR system has set up an annual fund for the administration and disbursement of PLR. ONce the administration costs are taken out, whatever is left is spread among the registered authors based on whatever formula their system is using. In the UK it is based on how many times a book is loaned out in a sample of libraries, in Canada it’s based on how many copies are in a sample of library catalogues. The big thing for me is that it’s not the libraries that pay, at least not directly. There are also caps on how much an author can receive so that a few bestselling authors don’t hog the entire fund. (Along with this is the idea that if your book is so popular, you probably don’t need the subsidy.) In 2010, the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada’s disbursements totalled 9.9 million dollars but individual payments average $583 with the cap at $3486. Obviously, this is not enough for someone to make a living on. But proponents of the system argue it’s not about the money, it’s about the justice of it, the recognition of the author’s rights and how they are suffering from the free public lending of their books.

What get’s my goat: The accusation or insinuation that libraries are somehow stealing from authors. Marian Engel, one of the founders of PLR in Canada openly accused “Canada’s librarians of “ripping off Canada’s writers” by lending out their books for free, thereby undermining their book sales.” (Andreas Schroeder, Canada’s PLR Program: The Untold Story) As a soon to be librarian, and a lifelong user of libraries it’s hard to imagine libraries ripping anyone off. Libraries already do so much with so little, couldn’t they have picked on someone who was actually out there to make a buck rather than an institution that gives everything they take, back to the community.

If it’s about justice, where’s the justice? If it’s about money, go after someone who has some.

Good, if dated, article about the PLR program in the UK: Dworkin, G. (1988) Public Lending Right – The UK Experience. Columbia-VLA Journal of Law & Arts 13(1).

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