On July 11, SLIS visiting scholar Julian Warner, from the Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland presented a talk "Forms of Mental Labor in the Feist Judgment."
ABSTRACT — Forms of Mental Labor in the Feist Judgment
The Feist judgment by the Supreme Court, which denied copyright to telephone white pages, occurred in 1991 and is regarded as one of the most significant copyright decisions concerning information technology – and "inordinately Delphic even by Supreme Court standards." This presentation attempts to clarify the judgment by distinguishing different forms of mental labor, and their relation to technology, which are implicit or covert in the judgment itself. The presentation is deliberately exploratory and the presenter encourages communal contributions.
On his personal website, Warner describes his research strategy as: "to draw constructively and cumulatively upon an intellectual background in literary studies, librarianship, and information science." He teaches courses in information retrieval, information resources, understanding information (a semiotic approach to information management), information policy, science communication, and communicating electronically (information theory).
He is teaching L565 Computer-Mediated Communication during the Summer II 2006 session.
Posted July 12, 2006