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Law bytes

D. Murali

COMPUTER law is that branch of law which regulates the technological aspects of information. Thus, for example, aspects of defamation which arise uniquely from information processing activities will fall under computer law. The IT transformati on in society has given rise to qualitatively different types of legal issue.

``Traditionally, the law divided the subject matter of commerce into goods and services,'' explains Computer Law, edited by Chris Reed and John Angel. And the law dealt with information either as an aspect of human behaviour (example, negligent advice) o r through intellectual property rights. While manufacturing industry processed physical entities into other physical entities, which were distributed under a well-defined legal framework, services, such as advice or labour, were essentially ephemeral mat ters which had no permanent existence and could thus be regulated mainly as a question of whether the provider of the service did so with proper care and in the proper manner.

The difference now is that IT has enabled information, formerly an ephemeral phenomenon, to be turned into something that has a quasi-physical existence and which can be traded as if it were a physical commodity. ``Thus database services sell pure inform ation, whilst software houses sell applied information in the form of computer software, and much of this information is generated not by human effort but as the result of computer-controlled processes. Fixed physical documents turn into dynamic digital data, and are `signed' in non-physical ways.''

So, a simple BL is not enough now. Go for a BCL.

Active learning

``I LISTEN, I forget. I see, I understand. I do, I remember,'' is a saying that highlights the importance of doing. Activities -- experiential or practical learning events -- form a major part of training programmes today. ``They offer the learn er the opportunity to move from being a passive receiver to an active participant, involved in the learning process. They give the shy, quiet, retiring member, or the one who has a fear of exposing themselves in a group, the chance to be an effective part of the group and make a positive contribution to its success,'' writes Leslie Rae in Using activities in training and development.

After all, learning is not just about understanding principles or concepts, but being able to remember what has been learned and applying it in the working environment. ``It must be remembered that activities are not learning itself,'' cautions Rae. ``T hey must be supported by a variety of other skills -- briefing, observing, feedback, and so on.''

To introduce some activity in reading, why not you please stretch yourself a bit before moving over to the next line?

Digital world

DIGITIZATION is the conversion of an analog signal or code into a digital one. ``Most of our everyday life is spent in the analog world, receiving natural signals,'' writes Stuart D. Lee in Digital imaging -- a practical handbook. For instance, our eyes take in colours, our ears pitch and tone, delivered to them in waveforms. But, since the digital world cannot deal with these continually changing patterns, it does a sampling of the analog patterns and converts them to simple numerical values -- o nes and zeros.

The most quoted and easily defended advantage offered by digitization is that it can increase access to particular resources. In most cases, items that are selected for conversion are rare or unique, usually housed in only a handful of locations worldwid e. The British Library (http://wwrw.bl.uk) recorded in 1999 figures of 407,000 readers visiting the library to look at its holdings, but a staggering 10 million looked at the Web site and the online collections during the same period.

But, ``the process of digitization is littered with many pitfalls, traps and abandoned projects,'' Lee cautions the eager ones armed with scanners and ample disk space.

Tailpiece

A: ``I filled my fuel tank before the price could go up.''

B: ``My barber gave me a haircut at pre-Budget rates.''

C: ``Huh... please take me to the heart hospital. I have already booked a bed there.''

(Books courtesy: The British Council Library, Chennai. e-mail: contact.chennai@in.britishcouncil.org)