Thing #23 Creative Commons

Creative Commons opened a whole new dimension of copyrighting. Until the late 1980s the law said everything had "automatic copyrighting", but a group of people felt the need to be more creative because copyright was stifling. They felt creators of works sometimes wanted to let others reuse, remix, or just share their works, but how would they get the word out to tell everyone. This is where Creative Commons entered the picture, and now you can go to the Creative Commons site, answer a few questions, and CC your sites, photos, music, etc. Isn't it reassuring to know there are people who are true problem-solvers out there. I had not heard of CC, but you bet I'll be looking for it now. As I was searching for CC licensing information I even found Obama has requested a CC license for the debates.

An example of how a program has been modified from its original is our very own "Learning 2.0 Through Play" which Mary has created by sharing, reusing, or remixing. At the bottom of each page you will see, credits. The original was created by Helene Blowers and has been borrowed and duplicated with permission under Creative Commons License. If you click on the license, it tells what is allowed. You can go back and look at the Victorian Public Libraries 2.0, and even further back to PLCMC Learning 2.0 Program. I'm sure there are other variations too.

How would a school librarian use a Creative Commons License? Anything I create that I would like to share with other librarians could be given this license. (Of course, it would have to be well done, or I wouldn't publish or share it.) Here are a few ideas:

• Library orientation procedures and ideas
• Webquests I've created
• Library games
• Specialized lesson plans
• Ideas for sharing award-winning books
• How-to ideas on collaboration with teachers/administrators