---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 17:02:06 -0500
>From: Peter Keane <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] free movie cover images?
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 05:29:38PM -0400, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>> But I would agree that it is our duty as libraries to be pushing the
>> boundaries of these grey areas in a world where much of copyright _is_
>> currently a gray area, not automatically taking the most expansive
>> perspective with regard to copyright holders rights, out of fear.  Not
>> just "society", but I think we have a special duty as libraries whose
>> mission involves expanding access to information. [That is, all public
>> and most academic libraries; a private or corprate library may not share
>> this mission and this duty.].
>>
>
>I would say it's something of a moral obligation (in the academic/public
>side) to go ahead and use the thumbnails ('cause it's the right
>thing to do AND models good information practices), in the face of
>fear/uncertainty/doubt.
>

I've argued similar, but I think thumbnails is low ambition.  If we're going to do this, I don't want to just grab other people few scattered images and either squirrel them away.

I want to see us digitizing our own stuff, using the full-text to index ourselves and generating images of covers, title pages, indexes for our workflow.  Then storing the rest as appropriate.  (I'll reserve judgement on how free we should share it).  Certainly we should be analysing the heck out of the full text to try to extract every nugget of data and also looking for relation between books.  (Heck with just saying how they are related, what if we also tried to find similar writing styles etc).  All of this is derivable from the full text.

>I wonder what the effect of this very thread will be on folks wondering
>it they should or shouldn't use thumbnails? Honestly, folks, this is our
>profession. (Where's Larry Lessig when you need him... ;-).

Most likely, absolute none.  Sorry to be depressing, but I don't know how many people on this list really disagree with you but sadly many of us lack means and resources to do this.  However, I remain somewhat optimistic we might soon start getting some images through better and less entangled sources than Amazon from the efforts of the OCA.

It's late.  Perhaps I'll be nostalgistic and reread a favorite Sandman story about enough cats dreaming will allow them to rule the world.  Think the same happens with visionaries?

Jon Gorman