Noteworthy and newsworthy

Citation

Fitzsimons, E. (2006), "Noteworthy and newsworthy", The Bottom Line, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2006.17019cab.001

Noteworthy and newsworthy

Noteworthy and newsworthy

Katrina still with us

Architect David Moore, designer of the main building of the new Greenville County Library, South Carolina, announced some startling statistics at the 2006 Public Library Association Conference:

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  Local construction cost in 2000: $125/square foot.

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  Local construction cost in 2006: $225/square foot.

Why the staggering increase? Moore cited “the Katrina effect,” which has inflated the cost of materials, the “explosive growth” of China, and the fuel surcharges on products and transportation. All of which are likely to be with us for the near future (Library Journal, 2006).

Google to sell e-books

On March 10 Google – having received such flack for its Google Print for Libraries, which was to make whole books available online, free of charge based on a deal with several libraries (Google, 2004) – announced Goggle Book Search, its new partnership with publishers in the USA and Britain to sell online access to full copies of the publishers’ books. Google Print users find books with a search engine and, according to the Google web site, “preview a limited number of pages to determine whether they’ve found what they’re looking for.” Publishers will be allowed to set their own prices for their books, which would not be downloadable and could only be viewed with a web browser (American Libraries Online, 2006a). This was no doubt in response to the threats of lawsuits from publishers and authors, which ended with Google’s agreeing to stop scanning books until an agreement could be reached (Stone, 2006).

“We are collaborating with publishers – in response to demand from them,” Google spokeswoman Megan Lamb said in the March 13 San Jose Mercury News, “to develop a suite of online tools that will enable publishers to experiment with new and innovative ways to generate more book revenue” (American Libraries Online, 2006a).

Showtime at the Smithsonian

Another agreement between a public institution and a commercial organization now has everyone hot under the collar. On March 9, 2006, Showtime and the Smithsonian announced the creation of Smithsonian Networks, which is a joint venture to develop television programming. Under this agreement, any commercial documentaries that rely heavily on Smithsonian collections or staff would first have to be offered to Smithsonian on Demand, the cable channel that is expected to be the venture’s first programming service. Smithsonian on Demand will have the right of first refusal for all documentaries that fit into this category.

Not surprisingly, it is the documentary filmmakers who are up in arms. For example, “I find this deal terrifying,” was the response of Ken Burns, perhaps best known for his documentaries The Civil War and Baseball. Had this agreement been in place, Burns doubts seriously that he would have been able to make some of his recent films that are available to public television, such as Jazz, because the Smithsonian collections and curators were major sources of information. Or had he made them, they would have been Showtime on Demand programs. “It feels like the Smithsonian has essentially optioned America’s attic to one company, and to have access to that attic, we would have to be signed off with, and perhaps co-opted by, that entity.”

Another gifted documentary filmmaker, Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, said that a Smithsonian staff member told her that her most recent film, Tupperware! (which won a Peabody Award in 2004 and was broadcast on American Experience, produced by WGBH, the Boston public television station), would have been subject to the terms of the agreement because so much of the history of Tupperware is housed at the Smithsonian. However, one cannot say with absolute certainty whether Kahn-Leavitt’s or Burns’ films would fall under the arrangement because the terms have been left vague to allow the Smithsonian to decide case-by-case if a film is in competition with their venture – and the details of the contract are confidential. Since the Smithsonian is a public institution, this does not sit well. “This is a public archive,” Kahn-Leavitt said. “This should not be offered on an exclusive basis to anyone, and it’s not good enough that they can decide on a case-by-case basis what they will and won’t approve.”

Jeanny Kim, a vice president for media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures, who is managing the institution’s content and production assistance for the venture, admitted that the new agreement would limit commercial filmmakers in their ability to sell some projects to other than Smithsonian on Demand, but she thought that it would only affect a small number of the works that draw on the museum’s resources. In any case, it is all a question of the Smithsonian’s needing to raise money, for example, to pay for necessary repairs to the buildings.

“It’s not our obligation to help independent filmmakers sell their wares to commercial broadcast and cable networks,” said Kim. “What it boiled down to is that we do not have the financial resources, the expertise or the production capabilities to continue to provide extensive access to materials but not to reap any financial benefit from the result” The issue of airing documentaries based on Smithsonian resources on public television does not seem to be addressed. A Showtime executive, Tom Hayden, said the deal was not intended to be exclusionary but was intended to provide filmmakers with an attractive platform for their work.

Another well-known filmmaker, Margaret Drain, a vice president for national programs at WGBH, expressed her concern about the effect on public television programs like Nova or the American Experience. “These are programs that regularly rely on the collections of the Smithsonian Institution,” she said. “If access is restricted, we are really going to be in trouble.” She went on to say, “I’m outraged that a public institution would do a semiexclusive deal with a commercial broadcaster” (Wyatt, 2006).

Among other complaints, the Smithsonian is accused of having made the deal in secret. Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence M. Small defended the agreement, saying the agreement was not reached in secret and reiterated the statement that restrictions in the contract would affect only a very small number of filmmakers. On the other hand, the Smithsonian will not release the contract; nor will they say how long the contract runs.

Members of Congress and others have urged the Smithsonian to make the contract public, but Small said the deal has a confidentiality clause that prevents him and the board of regents from making the terms public. However, like Showtime’s Hayden, he presents this as a step forward for everyone. “This whole approach stems from the desire to get the Smithsonian involved in a very fast-growing segment of the world of video on demand and, frankly, reach many more families than the Smithsonian gets as visitors” (Trescott, 2006).

It will be interesting to see what the final effect is on filmmakers, public television, and the Smithsonian itself. Of equal interest will be what further arrangements are made – or attempted – between commercial ventures and libraries and museums as money gets tighter and technology offers more opportunities to one party or the other.

In the meantime, the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies cut the Smithsonian Institution’s funding by $5 million and added language to its appropriation aimed at derailing the Showtime agreement. A week later, May 10, the House Appropriations Committee cut the Smithsonian budget by an additional $15 million and demanded more information on the agreement with Showtime. In a May 9 letter to the House subcommittee, the Smithsonian Board of Regents had insisted that the deal would not restrict access to the collections. They promised that the museum would consult Congress on any future proposals involving access to the collections, but rejected the subcommittee’s suggestion that it have public hearings on business ventures that affect access to its collections. Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC), chairman of the subcommittee stated, “The Smithsonian was wrong to enter this contract,” and pointed out that the secrecy is unacceptable from an agency that receives 70 percent of its budget from taxpayers (American Libraries Online, 2006b).

Edited by Eileen FitzsimonsFitzsimons Editorial Consultants, Chicago, Illinois, USA