Librarian by Day

Bobbi L. Newman

On Remixing and Resharing Online – I Do This for the Money, Prestige, and Power. Said No Librarian Ever.

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About a month ago, well actually June 30th according to the someecards website, I created these two librarian ecards. I  noticed this morning they are making the rounds on Facebook again so I thought I’d post them here.

someecards.com - I do this for the money, prestige, and power. Said no librarian ever.

someecards.com - I do this for the money, prestige, and power. Said no librarian ever.

Neither of the cards is accredited to me or links back to the original on someecards.com and that’s fine I didn’t make them for the power and prestige, I made them for fun.  🙂 But seeing them make the rounds again prompted me to write about something I have been talking about in person for a while now so I thought I’d share them. 🙂

Now for the real stuff!

I’ve been talking about digital literacy lately and one of the issues I bring up when talking about ethics, ownership and the remixing culture is this trend of sharing photos with quotes on Facebook and Pinterest, seems everyone is doing it this days. What I ask the audience to consider is where the photograph came from? Who took it? Who does it belong to? Under what conditions might it be acceptable to use this way? Do you think the person who used it knew that or cared? What about the quote? Do you think the people sharing it on Facebook or Pinterest attempted to validate it before sharing? Did the person pictured actually say it? If they did and they are an actor is it a line from a movie and is the picture of the actor matched with the movie? What about the mashed up photo? Who created it? Is there a link back to the original for attribution? Should there be?

I don’t usually re-pin or re-share images without attempting to find the original source.  There are far too many ad-filed sites out there grabbing the work of others and sharing them without credit.

I spent over half an hour trying to determine the original source for this photo but the taking & reposting of images without any sort of attribution is so prevalent that I finally gave up. But here you go. 🙂

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7 responses to “On Remixing and Resharing Online – I Do This for the Money, Prestige, and Power. Said No Librarian Ever.”

  1. looloolooweez Avatar
    looloolooweez

    How funny! I really like Pinterest, but the resharing is maddening — so many images are totally uncredited, and that’s not OK! I’ve been trying to figure out how the authors/owners of my favorite sites feel. If they have an active Pinterest, or if they respond positively to a private email about the matter, then everything is good to go. But that’s time consuming and a lot of folks just don’t want to bother.

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  2. Robin Cicchetti Avatar
    Robin Cicchetti

    Great post. Would you mind if I incorporate this into my creative commons lessons in my high school classes? This is a great, current example of attribution and acceptable use. With attribution, of course!
    Thanks for your consideration.

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    1. Bobbi Newman Avatar
      Bobbi Newman

      Hi Robin
      Sure feel free to use it! I think it’s a great example!

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  3. Bobbi Newman Avatar
    Bobbi Newman

    Hi Soo
    I usually try to track down a quote and who said it and in what context before I share anything.

    I think the scariest thing about it is how easily and quickly wrong information spreads. Efforts to correct it just can’t keep up. Sometimes it seems like people are more interested in a witty saying or pithy quote than reality. 🙂

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  4. Juli Avatar
    Juli

    This post raises a couple of thoughts… one, I find it funny that you had to claim the someecard. We all want credit for what we create, right? …especially when we see it is something one could consider popular. The other thought is more of a question. Since you are all for giving credit where credit is due, why don’t you post photo credits on the images you post on your blog? I think it proves a point that we (readers, posters, repinners, etc.) are inundated with content and where do we draw the line on defining standards? It’s a burden, for certain.

    By the way, I repinned the someecard on both my library’s Pinterest page and on my personal Facebook page. It’s a great sentiment but those of us in the profession know it’s not completely true. We’re humans and not wanting credit for our work is a given.

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    1. Bobbi Newman Avatar
      Bobbi Newman

      Hi Juli
      Great question about the Flickr pictures.

      Funny thing is my post about how to attribute CC flickr photos is still one of the most popular ones on the blog 🙂 https://librarianbyday.net/2009/09/28/how-to-attribute-a-creative-commons-photo-from-flickr/

      I’ve used several different styles for photo credit over the years. I always use the embed tool for Flickr pictures, which links back to the original picture on Flickr, or link to a source if I’ve found something elsewhere like that Abraham Lincoln picture and of course some of them are photos I took myself. In the case of the Flickr photos I have gone back and forth if more is needed – caption under the photo crediting the photographer or something at the end of the post, all methods I’ve experimented with in the past.

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  5. Lori Avatar
    Lori

    This could be a great illustration to use in instruction classes or even a simple library blog post to make users aware of what they are doing when sharing info online. Social media makes it too easy to share and re-share information without much thought–this might give people (particularly students) pause before they decide to click the “Share” button.

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