Originality and Creativity in Copyright Law

Copyright law can be broadly viewed as a system that seeks an appropriate balance between the rights of authors and publishers with the rights of users and consumers. The case of Feist Publications Inc vs Rural Telephone Service Co is discussed

The role of language in engineering competence

The behaviour of engineered products is becoming less evident from their outward appearance. Thus many current engineered products have unseen properties that become evident only after protracted investigation, analysis or use. Nevertheless marketing staff, potential users, disposal experts, financiers and so on will wish to make informed decisions about products and commonly their choices will be based on more accessible descriptions, explanations, scenarios and accounts of a products use rather than their direct experience. Engineers usually work with others in enterprises that produce things or provide services. The engineer rarely provides the service or makes the goods but, as a professional, the engineer guides the rest of the enterprise and persuades others to take particular courses of action. It is clear that an engineer's central interest is the artefact. Interestingly the artefact may be in the process of design or the subject of a feasibility study and hence will have no material existence, but it will be circumscribed by a wide variety of texts including specifications, technical reports and standards. Using their specialist language and analytical techniques, the individual engineer will gain assurance about his or her view of the artefact through discussions with fellow engineers, but at some point they will have to convey that view to non-technical specialists. Within the enterprise the engineer will become either an advocate or an adversary of the artefact faced by other individuals or groups who because of their professional or cultural background will value things in different way. The role of the engineer is then as a protagonist or opponent of the artefact within, using Bruno Latour’s evocative phrase, a “Parliament of Things”. And competent engineers, as competent advocates of artifacts, need fluent linguistic and rhetorical skills as well as analytical proficiency and the knowledge that will give them the confidence to project their views. The paper examines the implications for engineering education

Heterogeneity versus homogeneity? Transformation of wage relations of the French and the German public telephone operators: The case of directory inquiry services

The paper combines approaches of macro-economic regulation and interactional analysis in order to study the impact of privatisation on wage relations of the French and the German public telephone operator in the field of directory inquiry services. This multi-level (individual, local and company-wide), international comparison provides a concrete case study of the impact of the transformation of socio-economic context on the wage relations of telephone operators in the companies under consideration. The comparison covers several local inquiry centres (5 in France and 5 in Germany), situated in regions supposed to provide a diverse socio-demographic profile of the population (two centres in each country have been chosen to provide evidence for this paper). The paper aims to show that the definition of productivity and service outcome is at the core of the transformation process. It is at the centre of negotiations between managers, employees and users of inquiry services concerning service output (in daily routine interactions as well as with regard to work organisation). The nature of changes differ between the countries. The transformation of wage relations takes place at different levels: in France, it varies from one local inquiry centre to another, whereas in Germany it is more homogeneous and company-wide. This difference is related to the respective ways of implementing the transformation process: while in both countries, ideology is a driving force of (legitimation of) change, in France new technical tools have been more widely used during the phase of change under observation (1995-97) whereas in Germany statutory changes of employees (and outsourcing) have been a key issue. -- Dieser Artikel über den Einfluß der Privatisierung auf die Arbeitsbeziehungen in der französischen und in der deutschen öffentlichen Telekommunikationsgesellschaft kombiniert einen makro-ökonomischen Regulationsansatz mit einer Interaktionsanalyse. Der Mehr-Ebenen umfassende internationale Vergleich (Mikro-, Meso- und Makroebene) erfolgt als eine konkrete Fallstudie über die Auswirkungen der Transformation des sozio-ökonomischen Umfeldes auf die Arbeitsbeziehungen von Telefonisten/innen. Der Vergleich umfaßt mehrere lokale Auskunftstellen (5 in Frankreich und 5 in Deutschland), die in verschiedenen Regionen liegen, welche ein unterschiedliches sozio-demographisches Bevölkerungsprofil aufweisen (in jedem Land wurden zwei Auskunftstellen als empirische Basis für diesen Artikel ausgewählt). Es wird gezeigt, daß die Definition der Produktivität und das Ergebnis der Dienstleistung den Kern des Transformationsprozesses bilden. Sie bilden den Schnittpunkt der Aushandlungen zwischen Managern, Angestellten und Nutzern von Auskunftsstellen (in alltäglichen Interaktionen wie auch mit Bezug auf die Arbeitsorganisation). Die Änderungen unterscheiden sich zwischen den beiden Ländern. Die Transformation der Arbeitsbeziehungen findet auf verschiedenen Ebenen statt. In Frankreich erfolgt sie uneinheitlich bei den verschieden lokalen Auskunftsstellen, während sie in Deutschland homogen und firmenweit umgesetzt wird. Dieser Unterschied hängt mit der andersartigen Implementierung des Transformationsprozesses zusammen. Zwar ist in beiden Ländern der ideologische Diskurs eine treibende Kraft des Wandels (und dessen Legitimierung), in Frankreich spielt die technische Veränderung jedoch eine stärkere Rolle während der untersuchten Transformationsphase (1995-97) als in Deutschland; dort stehen Veränderungen des Status der Beschäftigungsverhältnisse der Arbeitnehmer (und deren Ausgliederung) im Zentrum.

Special Libraries, March 1955

Volume 46, Issue 3https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1955/1002/thumbnail.jp

Suggested approach for establishing a rehabilitation engineering information service for the state of California

An ever expanding body of rehabilitation engineering technology is developing in this country, but it rarely reaches the people for whom it is intended. The increasing concern of state and federal departments of rehabilitation for this technology lag was the stimulus for a series of problem-solving workshops held in California during 1977. As a result of the workshops, the recommendation emerged that the California Department of Rehabilitation take the lead in the development of a coordinated delivery system that would eventually serve the entire state and be a model for similar systems across the nation

Special Libraries, February 1962

Volume 53, Issue 2https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1962/1001/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, January 1944

Volume 35, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1944/1000/thumbnail.jp