I just got the go-ahead to license our online instructional materials -- tutorials, future planned podcast, etc. -- with Creative Commons licenses to encourage other libraries to use and build on them.

I made the inquiry since I'm planning on starting another instructional podcast for students before spring semester is out (knock on wood) and I wanted to CC license that.  I am so impressed: I asked my boss, who asked her boss, who had a thumbs-up from GSU's legal department within a few hours.  At no point in the chain did anyone ask "Creative what?", which I take as a good sign for the Creative Commons project.

So this morning I went through all of my Libguides and added CC licenses.  It was possibly the geekiest thing I've ever been excited about.

Author Cory Doctorow is planning to start a "matchmaking" service between schools and libraries that would like to receive free copies of his new novel Little Brother and individuals who want to give them.  He mentioned in his podcast last week that he often gets e-mail from readers who enjoyed the free e-editions of his books and want to pay him but not receive a physical copy.  This way sales will still support his work via his publisher, and theoretically the book should reach a lot more than two readers per sale.

I'm sure it'll show up on Boing Boing or Craphound as soon as the matchmaker system is up and running.

I've mentioned before that I'm starting a tiny crusade to get some good Creative Commons licensed material cataloged at my library of employment. (I also just asked them to catalog Library Student Journal, which is [w00t] publishing my article "Open Source Software in Museums," about which I'm very excited.)

At the end of every semester, students preparing to travel home over break start asking the reference desk about audiobooks to listen to while they drive or fly. This being an academic research library, we tend not to collect many -- we have like ten on CD in the collection, I think.

I'm going to put together a web guide on free downloadable audiobooks to go up in time for the end of the spring semester. For one thing, I'm poking around to compile a list of library systems in the Atlanta area that have them in their collection (which prompted me to finally get a library card). I also listen to a lot of fiction podcasts, and I'm going to add as many as possible to my web guide.

[Note: I'm looking for more good ideas to add to my list. Please drop a comment or e-mail if you have any suggestions for free downloadable audiobooks, ideally in formats suitable for loading onto portable media players.]

I was listening to an episode of Escape Pod this morning in which the editor talks about his plans to do more to promote the podcast, and I thought, "Hey, why don't we have stuff like this in our catalog? It would certainly make it easier for our users to find audio fiction." So I asked our catalog department to add it -- hopefully they will agree that this is a good idea, and since it's already got a Worldcat entry I can see I'm not the first person to think of it.

[Photo credit: dalydose via Flickr]

What a fantastic idea, and so obvious when someone else does it first:

The Nebraska Library Commission has begun to include Creative Commons licensed editions of books in its catalog -- so you can check out my novels in the Tor editions, or just nab a copy from the library's site.

(says Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing)

I've just asked our catalog department to do the same for Doctorow's and Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons licensed works (since I knew about those off the top of my head).  I'll ask for more as time goes on, of course....