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e\L-lovely-eng\comm3-1.pmd IInd 16-9-11 IIIrd 27-12-11 IVth 4-1-12

Information and Communication Technology Applications

Tomas Lipinski and Roy Tennant rounded out the Docster programs. Lipinski gave the audience a
Notes legal overview by explaining secondary and vicarious copyright infringing. He explained that
Napster itself does not infringe on copyrights, rather they are liable for leading people to material
that infringes on copyrights. He suggested that libraries should also avoid referring people to online
sites with infringing materials.
Tennant finished the program by talking about Gnutella and peer-to-peer networking. Gnutella
has no nexus of control. Instead people share access to files over the web’s HTTP protocols. Roughly
40,000 computers use Gnutella every day. The only way to stop them would be to destroy the web.
He explained that he found everything he searched for on Gnutella, including a full text copy of the
Harry Potter novels. Tennant believes that Gnutella will end copyright as we know it. He also
believes that copy protection software cannot work. For example, hackers recently broke the copy
protection programs embedded in DVD films. (For more about DVD copyright protection see the
Copyleft organization’s website (http://www.copyleft.net/index.phtml).
Tennant sees libraries playing a key role in a world without effective copyright rules. Much of the
information online is inaccurate or could be falsified. Free online books could be fakes. On the other
hand, libraries only provide authorized copies of books. In the world of peer-to-peer sharing libraries
will remain the comprehensive source of authority.

3.3.5 The Real Dirt about the Conference

This review only covered some of the highlights of the conference. There were several other topics
discussed, including cataloging electronic resources, knowledge management, online training, and
web design. Several practical tips such as the fact that standard library jargon like “ILL” and “open
stacks” confuse most people. It also discovered that the best way to overcome that problem is to
define these terms with mouse rollovers. These are Javascript programs that change the display
when the mouse passes over a section of a webpage.
As a whole, Computers in Libraries 2001 provided a valuable overview of library innovations. Like
any conference, some of the programs were dull. Many of the speakers had viewpoints very different
from mine. However, as a whole it was very informative. The conference highlighted those who are
experimenting with cutting edge ideas. It provided me with an opportunity to see what non-law
libraries are doing with technology. By the end of the conference I felt that I had learned about new
technologies and applications.

3.3.6 Computer and Library

In computer science, a library is a collection of resources used to develop software. These may
include pre-written code and subroutines, classes, values or type specifications.
Libraries contain code and data that provide services to independent programs. This encourages
the sharing and changing of code and data in a modular fashion, and eases the distribution of the
code and data. Some executables are both standalone programs and libraries, but most libraries are
not executable. Executables and libraries make references known as links to each other through the
process known as linking, which is typically done by a linker.

Most compiled languages have a standard library although programmers can also create their own
custom libraries. Most modern software systems of 2009 provide libraries that implement the majority
of system services. Such libraries have commoditized the services which a modern application
requires. As such, most code used by modern applications is provided in these system libraries.
The GPL linking exception allows programs which do not license themselves under GPL to link to
libraries licensed under the exception without thereby becoming subject to GPL requirements.

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