As is well known, Asia has lax enforcement in global copyright laws. This can be seen by going into shopping centers and finding kiosk upon kiosk of bootleg DVDs on the same floor as upscale clothing vendors. It’s out in the open and not even a blackmarket type of thing around these parts. This includes books. Now, where I work just received a couple hundred books for learning and teaching English. The questions from everyone who visits is: Can I make copies of the books? I’m in a bit of bind because a) I know that the average teacher here would have to shell out half their monthly salary for some of these books and b) the culture here seems to covet books and, yes, they may end up using parts of the book, there is no way that any one book is 100% usable in any classroom. Some of the people who ask genuinely want to use the materials we have for supplements to their classroom, but copying an entire book is not the way to do this (in my humble opinion). So, when Mr X asks to copy a book because he doesn’t want to walk two minutes across campus or because it is a status symbol to have a full book in his office I want to just crawl into bed and sleep until June.
It is beginning to look as if this idea of a resource center is slowly degrading. Mr Y, a department head at the uni, asked my office to ‘give’ him a library like the one I’m working on. It doesn’t matter that the one I’m working on and that he’ll have 100% access to a few minutes walk from his office directly benefits his department. He wants these books, status symbols, to be under his watch, in his office. This is the same thing I’m trying to get past with Mr X. Yes, teachers, come to the center, find what you need and adapt that material to your classroom context. I just have the feeling that as soon as I leave, the whole library will be a free-for-all as far as making copies. Back to the drawing board to see if a solution can be found.
3 Comments
It’s refreshing to read your ‘grumbling’ over everything around where you are working. I do enjoy reading it and hoped to obtain any ‘enlightment’ about what is ideally academic in nature. Plese keep writing and writing. Next time I would love to share with you what I feel for the same matter in a bit longer. Forgive me for my ‘bad’ English. Bye for now Anthony..or might be ‘Tony’
I can identify. As you remember, there are books EVERYWHERE around my house and 1/3 of them have never been read. But I like to have them around and they make me feel good, whether I’ve read them all or not. It’s nice to have them so that when I’m in the mood to read, I have plenty of material to pick from without having to go to the library or bookstore. It must be MUCH worse to have that lust for books, learning & knowledge (IMHO they are usually intertwined) and have NO money for it–especially when they are often times considered a status symbol.
Just my 2 cents
I’m a little conflicted about the comment from Oka above. I’m not sure if he/she is taking the piss out of me or not. In lieu of more ‘grumbling,’ I’m going to make my next post ‘grumbling’ free.
Jen, I do suppose I could even go as far to say that, in my mind, it’s also an issue of conserving paper. Why make all these copies if they’re not going to be used? Stealing my own word from above, I’m conflicted on a daily basis. It would be better if the publishers here gave reduced rates on books as they sometimes do in India.