ACLU Foe Pursues Privacy Laws

Wired has a interesting Story on Bruce Taylor, he\'s the president of The National Law Center. Don\'t miss their NLC Proposal and Internet Use Policy for Libraries and Memorandum of Law in Support (It\'s a PDF).


He sounds like a rather nasty fellow from this story.

\"If we get grownups in the Justice Department and the White House, maybe they\'ll follow the law,\" says Taylor -- who, like other anti-pornsters, has complained that the Clinton administration was not sufficiently serious about defending the Communications Decency Act and its progeny in court. \"

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A Visit to the Ol Library

Bob Cox sent in This Nice Story from the NY Times on one woman\'s visit to her old college library (James Gamble Rogers\'s Butler Library at Columbia).

\"Gone are the long library tables that were underused because students prefer to space themselves out for privacy. In their place are individual carrels and square desks that seat four to six. But the old, sturdy Windsor armchairs are still the seats of choice, with easy chairs in small corner rooms that have been opened up for study.\"

Bodleian web site selected by studyweb.com

Charles Davis writes \"The Bodleian Library Map Room\'s web site, run by Nigel James, has been
selected as a featured site in Lightspan\'s StudyWeb® as one of the
best educational resources on the web. It will be featured in the
People & Places: Geography: Places & Regions: Historical Maps section.
StudyWeb® claims to be \'one of the Internet\'s premier sites for
educational resources for students and teachers\'.
Each site in StudyWeb® includes a detailed review describing its editorial and
visual merits.
The site can be found at studyweb.com/.
\"

Curiouser and curiouser

Brian writes \"The Glassbook version of Alice in Wonderland comes with the following condition: \"This book cannot be read aloud.\"


Does it mean what it says, or say what it means? Story on The Standard. \"


The permissions read as follows:
No text selections can be copied from this book to the clipboard. No printing is permitted on this book. This book cannot be lent or given to someone else. This book cannot be given to someone else. This book cannot be read aloud.


Adobe say \"Read Aloud,\" is Adobe\'s brand name for a text-to-speech feature available on its more advanced e-book Plus Reader. Read the full story and make up your own mind on this one.

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship

Science and Technology Librarians:

Are you looking for a place to publish your work in a peer-reviewed journal?
The editors of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (ISTL) invite
you to submit your work to to our Refereed Section. Articles submitted to
the Refereed Section are put through a blind review by at least two
referees. Our turnaround time, from receipt of your article to notification
of publication status, is a short 6-8 weeks.

Unlike journals from commercial publishers, ISTL does not have a
subscription fee or page charges. It is a high quality, society produced
electronic publication, freely available to all.


More info follows....

Short Story Dispensing Machines

Lee Hadden writes:
\"The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story of an entrepreneur
who has placed \"reading vending machines\" in the London Underground to sell
short stories to commuters. The stories are packaged like folded maps, and
can be read easily in a crowded subway car. The cost is one pound each
(about $1.50), and are designed so the average reader would spend about 40
minutes reading the story.
At the Baker Street Station, for example, are short stories about
Sherlock Holmes. Elementary, of course. Backers claim there is massive
potential in this market, and others claim it is the best new idea in
publishing since the paperback book. The backers of the new service want to
end the practice of commuters reading tabloids on the train.
Their website is: travelman.co.uk.


Wade Lambert. \"Publisher Puts Story Machine in London Tube.\" Wall
Street Journal. February 22, 2001, page B1, B4.

Topic: 

Surfers Getting Bored With the Internet

From CNet News... According to a recent Nielsen/NetRatings report, there has been a significant drop in online usage, both at home and work, during the last quarter of 2000. Surfers seem to be getting bored with time often spent at the expense of other leisure activities like reading, watching television or hanging out with real rather than virtual acquaintences. [more...]

For another related story, Click Here

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Potter Web fans organize boycott

The USA Today has a Story on Harry Potter\'s biggest fans organizing a worldwide boycott of merchandise because stupid clueless Warner Brothers has been sending nasty letters threatening legal action over copyright violations to kids who have created fan Web sites.
have launched the Defense Against the Dark Arts project.
You would think that being owned by AOL would give Warner Bros. a clue, but they must\'ve missed that memo.

\"Our intention was never to harass fans,\" says Warner Bros.\' Diane Nelson, who adds that letters are no longer going out en masse. \"The tone of the letters did not take into account that Harry Potter is unique, and many of the recipients were innocent, young fans,\" she says. \"We would encourage anyone who believes they received it erroneously to contact us.\"

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Bess (N2H2) To Stop Selling Your Info

CNN is Reporting N2H2 has stopped selling its \"Class Clicks\" lists that report the Web sites students visit on the Internet and how much time they spend at each one. This was just a disgusting thing to do in the first place, how the hell can companies get away with this?

\"It is not the purpose of the public schools to abet corporations that spy on the Web browsing of schoolchildren,\" said Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based group targeting commercialism in schools.\"

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Questionable Advertising @ Questia???

Questia seems to be using what some might consider questionable advertising techniques, personally I\'d call it SPAM, or worse, but make up your own mind.
Steven Bell pointed out (On COLLIB-L) some interesting posts he found on the new Google Groups (the old deja.com), so I did some searching, and found some very \"interesting\" posts from \"people\" about Questia. Interesting and people are emphasized here to highlight the important words I am questioning. They seem to be spamming, a number of academic oriented newsgroups, and Ebay under what may be considered false pretenses. The people posting the messages try to make it look like they are not affiliated with Questia (most of the time), but some evidence shows this is may not be entirely true. If they are really using this type of advertising they are guilty of fraud at worst, and being a slimy corporation at best. I have sent this story along to Questia for comment, and I really hope to hear back.


Read on to see what I found.

Library officials reject Bible ban request

You may recall This Story from Feb 6th on a man\'s request to remove The Bible from The Marion County Public Library. Well, Here\'s The Follow Up As expected, library officials have rejected a request to remove the Bible from their permanent collection.


\"The Holy Bible is the source of a significant portion of western cultural expression and has been a wellspring of inspiration for artists, poets and musicians over the centuries,\" wrote Library Director Julie Sieg in denying the request.

Topic: 

Up in Arms About Usenet

Wired has this article on the Google takeover of deja\'s archives. Google has temporarily taken the archive offline, and people are angry. They also believe that the coding that google is going to use for the database should be open source.\"Some suggest the best place for the archives would be the Library of Congress. But one former Deja user wants to create an open-source, community-based Usenet archive and has asked Google to contribute the programming code of the old Deja service to the open-source community and give the project full access to the Usenet archive.\"

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Boycott of ALA Marriott Conference Headquarters

If you like ALA controversies, try this one relating to their decision to use the Marriott Hotel near Moscone Center in San Francisco as the headquarters hotel for this year\'s annual conference. The decision was made quite a while ago, but not before it was widely known that Marriott was under a boycott for labor troubles. The boycott is endorsed by many important groups city officials, including the Mayor. Read on for an open letter regarding this situation.

Topic: 

The Day the Earth Stood Stupid

Mary H. Musgrave writes:
\"Just thought I\'d point out that last night’s episode of Futurama was partially set in a library. Seems Fry was the only \"person\"; not affected by a brain invasion that made everybody stupid. When he went looking for the \"BIG BRAIN\"; the place he thought he would find it was the Library. Sure enough, it was there and he used several literary classics to curb its powers and destroy it. The funniest part (you had to really watch to catch it) was the stereotypical librarian who was trying to shelve a book and was trying to put it back on the shelf horizontally instead of vertically. That only lasted a few seconds, but I thought it was a hoot. Hope others that didn\'t see the episode will get a chance to see it later.
Below is the info about the actual episode.

Topic: 

NY Times Print Edition Going Online

Bill Lucey writes:
\"The New York Times and Newstand Inc. have agreed to provide an online
version of the New York Times print edition beginning this spring. The online
version will include all the advertisements, photos and graphics found in the
print edition. Copies will be sold on a single-copy or subscription basis.
According the New York Times, the new online version will be available at
NYTimes.com in the second quarter of the year; by the fourth
quarter it\'s expected to be available at NewsStand.com, which will
also include other major newspapers nationwide.
For more information, see: ``Times to announce Deals With Newstand, an
Online Publisher
\'\'.

Topic: 

Children\'s Internet Protection Act: A Good Idea Ahead of Technology\'s Reach?

This one comes by way of Christianity Today \"What is it about the Children\'s Internet Protection Act that, for the past four months or so, had pundits and politicians tied up in knots? One might have expected the law, which requires schools and libraries that receive federal technology funds to use anti-pornography filtering software, to be met with the same praises and damnations one always hears. But that didn\'t happen this time. Instead, Republicans and social conservatives found themselves praising federal control of schools and libraries, something that\'s been anathema, since long before the Contract with America.\" [more...]

Topic: 

Consumers May See Return to Anonymous Web Surfing With Help of CIA Funding

With surveys finding that a quarter of Internet users are alarmed about their loss of privacy, Internet service providers could find that a company called Safeweb, with the help of the CIA, will reassure customers about the safety of Internet surfing.

Using Safeweb also evades software that schools and libraries have installed on computers to limit Internet sites students can visit. [more...]

Library Round Ups

Now that More Than Half of The US population is online maybe libraries are more important than ever. What percentage of people get online at a library? Brian wrote \"The General Accounting Office has found that the e-rate program has $1.3 billion in unspent funds. Somehow, I don\'t think CIPA will help put the money to use.Story in Wired News\"

Of course for the kids (in the UK) there is the special toy libraries under a £6 million scheme launched by the Government and for the adults there is the Tool Library at the Grosse Pointe Central Branch Library in MI.
Not to be outdone, CA Senate bill would provide funds for libraries, an additional $66 million!

Topic: 

Over $1 Billion in E-Rate Money Lost Under Reams of Bureaucratic Red Tape

Wired had this to report today on the continuing saga of the missing e-rate funds.....\"The e-rate has been hailed as a lifesaver for bringing schools and libraries into the information age. Now a study by the General Accounting Office reveals that $1.3 billion in e-rate funding has gone unspent, leaving some schools without the Net access that they are entitled to. What happened to the money? [more...]

Topic: 

Is Oprah\'s Book Club About More Than Feel Good Hype?

Alfred Kazin, writing in The Los Angeles Times, called Oprah\'s Book Club the \"carpet bombing of the American mind.\" Some critics disagree...
[more...]

Topic: 

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