SPARC

Copyright Brown Bag

On May 28th, Office of General Counsel attorneys Craig Blackwell and Lauryn Guttenplan spoke to a full house of SIL staff on the topic of copyright. They offered a general overview of copyright law in the U.S. as well as answered numerous questions from library staff. It's clear that copyright is a complicated issue and the answers are not always black and white!

For more information about libraries and copyright, take a look at the following sites:

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the U.S. (a very handy chart!):
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

The Section 108 Study Group:
http://www.section108.gov/

Lesley Harris' Copyright Questions and Answers blog:
http://www.copyrightanswers.blogspot.com/

The Copyright Advisory Network blog:
http://librarycopyright.net/wordpress/

The University of Maryland University College's Center for Intellectual Property (offers many good resources, including "Ask the IP Specialist"):
http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/cip.shtml#

-Erin Clements Rushing

Copyright and Web 2.0 Brown Bag

Mark your calendars!  Please join guest Lauryn Guttenplan of the Office of General Council to discuss copyright, specifically copyright related to web 2.0 technologies.
This should be a valuable and informative brown bag for any SIL staff involved with image use, online exhibits, or anyone who blogs!

When: Thursday, May 28th
Time: noon until 1ish
Where: SIL Conference Room NHB CEG-15

questions to: Erin Rushing

Spring Garden Preparation Brown Bag

Thanks to everyone who attended the Spring Garden Brown Bag on March 19, 2009.  I thought others might be interested in the list of resources given out at the session.  The books are some of my favorites to use when selecting plants and thinking about design.  Happy Gardening to All--Robin

Photo: USNA Introduction Prunus 'first lady'

Gardening Books

Armitage, Allen.  Armitage’s Native Plant for North American Gardens (2006)

Darke, Rick.  The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses (1993)

Dirr, Michael. Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: their identification, ornamental characteristics, culture, propagation and uses. (1998)

Ottesen, Carole. The Native Plant Primer (1995)

Stell, Elizabeth. Rodale’s Successful Organic Gardening: Landscaping with Perennials (1995)

Tallamy, Douglas.  Bringing Nature Home (2008)

Magazines
The American Gardener: the magazine of the American Horticultural Society (6 times a year)

Tauton’s Fine Gardening (6 times a year)

Horticulture: the art & science of smart gardening (6 times a year)

The Herb Companion (6 times a year)

Washington Post Gardening Columns

Gardening How To's from the Washington Post

Thursday’s Scott Aker’s Digging In

Saturday’s Joel Lerner Green Scene

Next Brown Bag and SPARC sponsored tour

                                                                Hi All,

This month, SPARC is sponsoring a brown bag and a tour in collaboration with Horticulture Services Division staff.  On Friday, March 13th, from 10 - 11 am, join Tom Mirenda, for an in-depth tour of NMNH exhibit, "Orchids through Darwin's Eyes" .  This tour is limited to 15 people, so please RSVP directly to me at everlyr@si.edu. Then on Thursday, March 19th, at noon in the SIL conference room, join Rick Shilling, for an informal session entitled, "Getting your garden ready for spring." He'll answer your early spring gardening questions and any others you might have. I'll bring some gardening books from the Botany-Horticulture Library and my personal collection to consult.  For this brown bag, I'm asking participants "to blog" with their questions in advance by replying to this post, so we can be ready with answers.

                                                                Please join us for one or both events!  Robin

Essential Reading If You Get Headaches or Know Someone Who Does

On 2/19/09, I hosted a SIL Brown Bag lunch session “Living with Migraine: Issues & Coping Strategies.”  Migraine has been is a major component of my life for nearly 30 years.  I tend to get episodic headaches, usually once or more a week, on either side of my head.  The headaches have been sometimes debilitating, lasting nearly 10 hours at a time, but since 2000, I have been able to greatly reduce the severity and frequency of the headaches primarily by avoiding “trigger” foods.   Watching my diet has greatly improved the quality of my life, and as a number of my SIL colleagues know, I can proselytize endlessly about this. 

At the brown bag, we watched a short documentary, “Life and Migraine,” with a number of affecting testimonials from people who suffer and struggle with migraine (if you’re interesting in borrowing the film, please let me know).  We also viewed a short TV clip with a Johns Hopkins neurologist I saw briefly as a patient, who is a big proponent of the “dietary trigger” method of controlling migraines (and is somewhat controversial).   

Below are a few tidbits from the talk that I hope are useful.  I should mention that am not medically trained – I can only speak from my personal experience.  If you regularly suffer from headaches, I highly recommend getting a thorough check-up from a neurologist or group practice that specializes in headaches.  

Upcoming brown bags

We have not one--but two--upcoming brown bags!

Living with Migraine: Issues and Coping Strategies
A SIL Brown Bag Lunch Discussion with MSC Librarian, Gil Taylor
Thursday, February 19th
12:00 noon
SIL Conference Room

SIL Blog
An informal brown bag on SIL's blog: how to post, brainstorming ideas, technical questions, existential philosophy--if you bring a question, we will try and get to it!
Wednesday, February 25th
12:00 noon
SIL Conference Room

SPARC will bring some treats.  You bring yourselves!

Brown Bag: Jennifer O'Neal, Head of NMAI-CRC Archives

Please join SPARC as we host a brown bag from someone outside of the Libraries!

Wednesday, December 3 at Noon in the SIL Conference Room, Jennifer O'Neal will be presenting a brown bag about the National Museum of the American Indian / Cultural Resources Center Archives. 

Jennifer O'Neal is the Head of Archives there, and will be presenting on the purpose of the archives, the collections within the archives, major projects the archives is working on, and basic information regarding the protocols for Native American Archival Materials.  She will also be showcasing various portions of the collection, so it should be a visual treat as well as an educational experience!

The Blog

Please join me for a brown bag discussion of our Blog(s)!
Tips n' tricks for tidy posting will be given, as well as more philosophical what's and why's.
If you already write for either the SPARC or the main blog, or you're interested in writing for either, PLEASE attend.

Thursday, September 25th
SIL Conference Room
12-1

YouTube and LibraryThing: Cyber Brown Bag

Smithsonian Libraries’ staff attended a two-for-one Brown Bag lunch presentation by Conrad Ziyad, Kirsten van der Veen, and Martin Kalfatovic on YouTube and LibraryThing on July 11, 2008.

Conrad gave a quick overview of the use of YouTube in a variety of libraries and then walked us through uploading a video to YouTube. He also highlighted the selected videos on the Smithsonian Libraries YouTube Channel (see below).

Kirsten and Martin gave a brief overview of LibraryThing and offered some thoughts on how it could be used personally (for cataloging your own personal library collections) as well as in the library setting. They noted that the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS) is now a source of data for LibraryThing.

Kirsten walked the group through the James Smithson Library on LibraryThing and discussed the process that she used to create the Heralds of Science Library (a collection from the Smithsonian Libraries’ Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.

• Smithsonian Libraries’ YouTube Channel
• James Smithson Library Catalog on LibraryThing
• Heralds of Science Collection on LibraryThing

Presentations:

• “LibraryThing: It’s Your Thing!” by Martin Kalfatovic
• “YouTube in the Library” by Conrad Ziyad

Brown Bag on Flickr and del.icio.us

flickr and del.icio.us
in the library
Please join us for the first in a series of brown bags related to the SIL strategic planning environmental scans.  Kathryn Phillips and Erin Rushing from the "discovery tools" scan group will be talking about how libraries are using flickr (photo sharing site) and del.icio.us (social bookmarking site).
Bring your lunch, cookies and drinks provided by SPARC.

When:Thursday, June 26th
Time: noon until 1ish
Where: the SIL Conference room (NHB CEG-15)