HP Night Reflections

How else do you measure success in outreach programming other than attendance? If this is the only measure, or at least the one that matters the most, than our Harry Potter Night utterly failed. If it is how much fun those who did attend had, than it was very successful. Unfortunately, I'm too disappointed with the first to revel in the second.

My estimate is that we had about 25 students. Last year we had about 100 show up, about 70 stayed. I normally attribute low attendance to either a bad program, or bad marketing. I don't think this was either. Two of us librarians even dressed up in costume for the whole day and passed out programs around campus (yeah, I set up for this thing wearing a floor-length, high-collar black dress!), had a musical animation on the library home page, and posted fliers everywhere. No one could say they didn't know about it. I think it was just a bad night. So many students were going home for the weekend, even though this coming weekend is Long Weekend, when people are supposed to go home. We were also competing against the Creative Arts Society's haunted house.

I did get some great pictures. I got many complements on my costumes and the Horcrux Hunt was a lot of fun for the students. If I ever find the responses to the last Horcrux event, I'll have to post them. I'm always amazed by the creativity some people can come up with on the spot. They were asked to pick a bad guy and write what their punishment should be. One involved tickling Belatrix Lastrange for the rest of eternity so she would be forced to laugh, another was forcing Voldemort to listen to "A Cauldron of Hot, Burning Love" while making pink heart cookies for all of eternity, and the final winner (yes, there were three) was to force Malfoy to wear hand-me-down robes and attend bi-weekly muggle-appreciation seminars for the rest of his life.

We had a house activity that involved finding "bowtruckles" (see picture). Whichever house gathered the most was going to win the house cup. Unforunately, one of the four children in attendance decided to practice some unsportsmanlike behavior... ironically stealing from the Slytherins. I'm pretty sure Slytherin would have won, but not sure if I should declare them the winner, or just say it was null & void. I was also going to put up a display on the program, but since there were so few people, I'm not sure if I really want to.

We will do it again next year, but probably confined to the classroom, and maybe not on a Friday night.

It's too close!

I just realized how fast October 24 is coming up. That's our Harry Potter program, I know I've talked about it enough before. My co-worker whose potter-mania exceeds mine exponentially turned an old book cart into the Knight Bus. She just brought it in yesterday afternoon. Isn't it great? Notice the working chandeliers, you can see the one on the top floor in this picture.

We've decided to give up on dry ice. We found a local place and it's surprisingly inexpensive, but it only creates fog for 10-15 minutes before the water becomes too cool. It bubbles for a while longer, but someone would have to be changing out not only the dry ice but the water as well. I don't think anyone has time for that.

I'm scrambling to get my advertisements out on time. This year we have two professors giving scholarly talks the week of. The German professor is going to talk about the modern use of fairy tales, particularly in Book 7. One of the religion professors is going to have us watch the video of J.K. Rowling's talk at the Harvard graduation (she's a Harvard alum), then discuss it in terms of religion.

We're also doing a huge Horcrux Hunt which requires a lot of planning. It will be a cross between an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt. Students will have to do silly little activities to get credit for having found and destroyed each Horcrux... which in the stories is required before they can kill the bad guy.

On top of that, I just got a request for three freshman comp classes next week. I really want to make it game-like, and I really want to do a great job... but my creativity runs a bit short when I'm rushing... and my parents and a friend are coming this weekend. They live 10-14 hours away, so I will be giving them my full attention for 4 days... other than sewing on a few buttons so I can tell myself at least the costumes are complete.

Countdown Begins

I set up a countdown widget for myself to remind myself how much time I have left before Harry Potter Night. It's my big event for the year. This clock goes onto my iGoogle page, which I use as my home page. I may put it on the library's Web site, too, but I'll have to wait until the week of for that...

I need to pick a topic for a panel on Web 2.0 technologies. I'm thinking of talking about widgets, and how they do really cool stuff without needing to know any programming languages or even much about Web sites other than where to place your code.

Harry Potter Decision Explained

I love LISNews for such things as pointing out this wonderful summary of the Harry Potter decision by Chris Meadows. It all came down to the fact that the Lexicon copied or paraphrased too much, including almost all of the two small books that Rowling wrote on Quidditch and magical creatures.

The decision does not prevent another lexicon or any other reference book. It clearly states (according to Meadows, I don't have time right now to read the original) that Rowling cannot ban reference books on the topic of Harry Potter to protect sales of her own future encyclopedia. She can only protect her original works from being overly copied.

The NPR story can be found here, but I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

Finally, a satisfying explaination.

J. K. Rowling wins court case

So I was wrong... or she has better lawyers than the publisher does. I'm sure there are some longer stories out there, I'll link to them when I find them. I really hope there's a lot more to this case than there seems to be from the newspaper stories, because it seems to set a bad precedent for reference books.

Here is the article from the New York Times, which is more descriptive. Perhaps more interesting than the article itself is the 82 comments (as of 8:25 a.m.). The exerpt of the judge's decision gives a different reason for the final decision. Whereas the above article says the publisher's lawyers didn't make a sufficient case for "fair use," the NYT article states the judge decided he copied too much of the content. Perhaps the difference is when something is outright copied and when something is paraphrased. I'm not sure if a lexicon has to be entirely copied. But I am familiar with the online version and don't feel it's unreasonable. Just as he piggy-backed on J. K. Rowling, she piggy-backed on his online work to complete her later novels... But this opinion is based on the assumption that the print was identical to the online version, and I am not sure this is true. Here is another NYT article on the same topic.

I hope now the author will go back to mending the online version, which has fallen into disrepair in the past year. Many updates from book 7 haven't been entered, and half of the links are dead. This is an incredibly useful resource... and maybe I'll just send him $25 to show my appreciation.

On a side note, a very loud thunderstorm rolled through Williamsport at 6 a.m. When it was clear I couldn't sleep through it, I got up early. I was sure our library's basement would have water spouting through the walls, yet when I got here at 7:15, it was bone dry. Absolutely amazing. If it rains anywhere in the surrounding states, the carpet at least gets damp.

Harry Potter Costumes

Here is a picture of the Gilderoy Lockhart coat, though I still need to put some bright yellow star buttons down the front. Here is also another picture that's a clearer picture of the Harry Potter Where's Waldo poster I drew.

Technical Problems and Harry Potter Poster

I spent almost an hour and a half wondering why I couldn't get a web form to work, and it turns out IT was having e-mail problems and it had nothing to do with my lack of competence with Java Script. I thought I knew plenty to cut, paste, and manipulate, but was getting worried.

Here is a picture of the "Where's Waldo" picture I drew for Harry Potter Night. There's an object hidden in it the students will have to find. I had a lot of fun coming up with every obscure reference I could fit into a single sheet of posterboard. We're expecting this to be the most difficult challenge.

Let the costumes begin

I have settled into the new house enough that I could justify spending some time last night cutting out this year's batch of Harry Potter costumes. I'm currently working on Gilderoy Lockhart. I can't wait to see how this turns out, and it will give me the change to dive back into the world of audio books.

And the great HPN08 begins!

By October, I think "Harry Potter" will probably be my most popular tag. I began brainstorming about our annual Harry Potter Night, which is on the calendar for October 24. We held a small one in March 07, then a large one in October that we plan to repeat annually. You can see some of our photos here (I need to tag more of them).

This afternoon I have been brainstorming how to make a Horcrux scavenger hunt. The idea is starting to become clearer in my brain now, and resembles a cross between an obstacle course and a scavenger hunt. Anyone interested in playing will put their name on a slip of paper, which will go into a goblet (like the Goblet of Fire). We will draw out 2 or 3 at a time, which will make a team. That team will head upstairs to the second floor and get started. At each of the six stations, they will have to go through some type of obstacle like drinking a large up of sour green juice, finding a large ring in a big box of popcorn, playing red-light-green-light with Umbridge...

It's coming together, and what's cooler than getting paid to play with Harry Potter???

Differences

I'm catching up on LISNews, which seems to have changed a little, so my RSS feed wasn't being updated. I stumbled on their version of the library worker who lost her job after refusing to work at a Harry Potter event. I've discussed the case before and can't find any new info online. But the comments are fascinating... The comments on LISNews are clearly against her, while comments from non-library-land are overwhelmingly for her.

Some comments refer to Harry Potter as a religion, which seriously bothers me, but that's another issue.

I need to look this up after work today, but I really don't think freedom of religion goes so far as some of these people claim, that a person could demand every Tuesday off, because their devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster called Tuesdays the holy day of the week. Can you imagine how much abuse that would get? Colleges usually have a list of days a student can get out of class for religious reasons, and if it's not on that list, it must be approved. I assume, until I learn otherwise, that reasonable accommodations must be made. Whether or not this woman was offered a reasonable accommodation makes all the difference in the world.

I'm really itching to get outraged at this story, but there's just not enough information available!

Interesting Story

Here is an interesting story involving Harry Potter and libraries. A part-time librarian was forced out of her job after objecting to dress up like a witch for an after-hours Harry Potter party. I personally feel that people who are against Harry Potter are usually ignorant, I still respect people's right to free speech. However, there are a lot of questions I'd like to have answered. Was she given the option of not dressing up but still working? I don't think it would go over well if I told them I wasn't coming in during one of our big events. I'm sure this was an event where all hands were needed on deck, and that some reasonable accomidation could have been made.

If I can find out more about what her options were, I'll post it here.

Plot Thickens

The case between Steven Vander Ark and J.K. Rowling is taking an interesting twist. He broke down on the stand yesterday and said he was concerned all along that he was infringing on her copyright. He said he was talked into it by the publisher.

I have been assuming (something I am often too quick to do) that the print encyclopedia will be the same as the online one. Perhaps it is not.

I think this case will have huge implications for other authors. The outcome is much bigger than even J.K. Rowling herself. I still think her claims are ridiculous, but perhaps the publishers have changed the lexicon to be something us bloggers are yet unfamiliar with.

An author from the Times of London wrote a brilliant brief editorial on how Rowling's words belong to the people now, the same way so many other words we use have come from past authors. At first I thought the copyright symbols scattered throughout the two paragraphs were a mistake since they didn't make any sense, but realized towards the end that the author was giving credit to so many words that were coined by others and now are general use. These words include besotted, zany, cyberspace, pig-headed, chortle, quark, and many others from a variety of famous and niche-famous authors of the past. Just like these other words, Harry Potter, muggle, horcruxes, and other words from the Harry Potter empire now belong to the people. This author feels J.K. Rowling is incredibly foolish to try to stop that.

An interesting new angle on this topic, and cleverly demonstrated!

J.K. Rowling Testified Yesterday

There's a New York Times article on J.K. Rowling testifying against Steven Vander Ark's publication of the Harry Potter Lexicon yesterday. I've been following this story pretty closely. My parents are lawyers and I'm always facinated by how the system works. In this article, it sounds like her testimony revolves heavily around the quality of the book rather than whether or not it violates her copyright. This seems very immature to me.

Harry Potter fans may eventually buy the Harry Potter Lexicon, but will line up at bookstores breathlessly awaiting midnight when her encyclopedia comes out.

Oops, am I allowed to say the phrase "Harry Potter" on my blog, or am I going to get sued for copyright violations as well?

1st Edition Harry Potter Book

There is a story on Bloomberg.com about a first-edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that sold at Christies International (a very high-end auction house) for 4,000 pounds (almost $8,000), only to realize there was a library sticker and bar code inside the book and no one ever checked to make sure the book wasn't stolen from that library. After the sale, someone checked and it turned out it had been discarded.

If that's not an argument against weeding, I don't know what is.

Battle of the Harry Potter Encyclopedias

Who could have ever thought encyclopedias could be so controversial? I keep following this story, though nothing new is happening yet. The man behind the Harry Potter Lexicon is trying to turn his Web site (which had the blessing of J.K. Rowing and was used by Warner Brothers) into a print encyclopedia that will be in paperback and cost about $25 from what I have read. WB and J.K. Rowling are suing the publisher for copyright infringement, and because she would feel "exploited." Furthermore, she plans to write the definitive HP encyclopedia I have used this Web site a number of times to prepare our Harry Potter Night. It contains nothing but references to the books. I personally do not understand how so many other books about Harry Potter, such as the Gospel According to Harry Potter, and The Magical World of Harry Potter can be alright if this encyclopedia is not? He had her blessing when it was a free Web site, but not for a print book that he would profit on... I believe he has already quit his job and lives on donations from the Web site. Again, what is the difference?

I suspect J.K. Rowling will lose this battle, and I think she should. I have read two or three editorials and each one is against her for different reasons. If he was trying to create a new story based on her characters, I could understand. I hear this is a rampant problem in China, so why doesn't she focus on them? As a big Harry Potter fan, I would probably buy the HP Lexicon encyclopedia, or get our library to buy it. But I am also holding my breath for J.K. Rowling's "definitive" encyclopedia... which I'm even more likely to buy for myself. They're not the same thing.