CIPA - the Supply Side

Bryan Nichols has written a very funny and perceptive piece on the CIPA as a Machiavellian cure for our current ersatz economic recession. He writes for the online version of the Iowa State Daily.

He notes: \"Congress... is using CIPA as a way to get out of our current economic slump.\" ...everyone has an interest in getting cheaper, better, faster pornography. The Internet is perfect for this. In fact, according to CNN, 37 percent of Internet users access pornographic sites...

Topic: 

Why Vote for Mitch Freedman?

I asked all three ALA candidates one simple, final question. Why should we vote for them.
Here is his answer:
\"From my teen days as a page at the Newark [N.J.] Public Library through the years at U.C. Berkeley\'s School of Librarianship & the Free Speech Movement, the Library of Congress, Hennepin County Library, New York Public Library, Columbia University\'s library school, and the Westchester Library System (WLS), I have fought for free access and information equity. Today, as our libraries face laws mandating filters, the loss or privatization of government information, a growing digital divide, and the outsourcing of library service and management, we need a strong ALA more than ever.\"

Plenty more, so read on...

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Library Used to Commit Biggest Cyber-Fraud in History

If
[this one]
doesn\'t make some people nervous about online privacy, nothing will.
It seems that a number of the 400 wealthiest people in America, as listed by Forbes magazine, were ripped off by a busboy who used library computers to do the dirty deed. You\'ll be surprised at the names on this list and how many millions of dollars the thug is accused of stealing. And, he accomplished it via the Internet. One item of interest, he didn\'t try to rip off Bill Gates, whose name tops the list of America\'s most wealthy. [more...] from the New York Post.

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Harry Potter Joins Comic Relief

Although JK Rowland has experienced tremendous success, she remembers a time when life wasn\'t all that easy. Karen Jenkins Holt tells us [more...] from Brill\'s Content.

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E-Book Report

Charlotte Abbot wrote a report on E-Books for Contentville
According to her, the reason e-book innovation is a little slow is because \"publishers and authors are just now waking up from 500 years of paper-bound thinking.\" [more...]

Pope to Name Patron Saint of the Internet

This comes by way of a colleague. Does the Internet really need a Patron Saint? Perhaps this will solve the filtering issue. [more...] from Christianity Today

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Who\'s Really Thinking Of The Children?

SF Gate has This Editorial on the filtering hoo haa, sent in by Bob Cox.

They say that CIPA will do what no other ratings system (eg. MPAA) has tried to do, It doesn\'t just say what\'s good or bad, it will just block your access to the \"bad\".
This article makes more than a few good arguments against CIPA, example, CIPA effectively makes public Internet usage controlled by corporations.

\"For the federal government to put pressure on schools and libraries to filter the Internet is far more insidious than the MPAA or other rating schemes for entertainment media, because the Internet is far more than just an entertainment medium.\"

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Library Stuff Mailing List

Hello LISNews readers. I just wanted to let you know that I have started a mailing list for Library Stuff. Every friday, I will send out a summary of the weeks news, plus a few web sites of interest, and maybe a few library tid-bits. If you want to be added to the list, send an e-mail to me at [email protected].

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Napster Demands Fans March on Washington

[This one] comes by way of The Register
\"Tempting users with a free concert and the opportunity to hear Napster founder Shawn Fanning talk about programming, Napster hopes enough punters will show in the US capital on 3 April that legislators will back file sharing as a legitimate means of distributing music.\"

Library Card Catalog, R.I.P.

Wired has a good Story on the new OPAC at Sonoma State University. Rather than following DDC or LC they use ARS, a system that is completely random. It\'s all done with computers and robots.
They say librarians are happy and say randomness is what makes the system so effective. Cal State Northridge was the first library to get ARS, UNLV aand Eastern Michigan University also have the Automated Retrieval System. No more browsing the stacks for the perfect book.

\"\"I think there was a lot of trepidation up front, especially by traditional users like faculty who are very devoted to the idea of browsing shelves, and of having everything exactly where it was last year,\" Butler said. \"There was some anxiety. But once we explained what it does for us, then they began to understand the principle at work.\"

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Scholars Urge a Boycott of Journals

The Chronicle has an Interesting Story on a looming boycott of scientific and scholarly journals.

The boycotters want publishers to place their content in independent repositories on the Web six months after a journal issue has appeared in print.

See also:
Original Article in Science as well as the Editorial by Science\'s editors who say the proposal puts nonprofit, scholarly publishers at risk.

\"\"As scientists,\" the scholars argue, \"we are particularly dependent on ready and unimpeded access to our published literature, the only permanent record of our ideas, discoveries, and research results, upon which future scientific activity and progress are based.\"

Church Members Burn Harry Potter, Other Books

This is so cool, I thought people had all but given up on actually burning books.
ABC News has This Story on the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Butler County PA.
Don\'t worry, they burned more than just Harry Potter Books, included were animated videos (Pinnochio and Hercules), CD\'s from Pearl Jam and Black Sabbath, and (here\'s the funny part) pamphlets from Jehovah\'s Witnesses.
I guess they are afraid of a little competition.


\"Our purpose comes out of the Bible,\" the Rev. George Bender of the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Butler County. \"We read in the Bible how people, after they received Jesus Christ as their savior, took things out of their homes and burned them. They [the members of the congregation] received Christ and they willingly did this.\"

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Book Pulled In Utah

Junetta writes \"Here\'s a news item from the Salt Lake City based deseretnews.com:
The Newberry award-winning novel about a black family\'s visit to Alabama at the outset of the U.S. civil-rights movement has been pulled from a UT School District middle school classes.Two parents complained about the use of the book in a seventh-grade English class at Payson Middle School. They said \"The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963\" was violent had bad language, and (this is the funny part) depicted a teenager who misbehaved and was not punished.\"

Topic: 

Priceless historical documents being left to rot

Charles Davis writes \"Tens of thousands of priceless historical documents are being left to rot,
fade and disintegrate in the attics of the French National Archives, according
to furious scholars who have described one of France\'s most famous
institutions as being in \"an appalling mess\".
Full Story at
The Telegraph \"

Showdown at the Lexis-Nexis Corral

A lawsuit that has been winding itself in the courts for 7 years is being heard by U.S. Supreme Court today. Freelance writers are upset that they are not getting enough royalty money from the publications and databases that show their work. The article from The Standard.\"The case pits the venerable Gray Lady, along with publications such as Sports Illustrated and the Lexis-Nexis database firm, against six freelance writers, led by Jonathan Tasini, president of the National Writers Union. The central issue: whether the Times and other publications are obligated to pay freelance authors for electronically redistributing, via a computerized database, such as Nexis.com, or on CD-ROM, work that was originally published in newspapers and magazines.\"

Guinness Book of Records Business Is Put Up for Sale

[This one] comes by way of BookWire

\"The self-appointed arbiter of truth on trivia from the world\'s hairiest man to its largest rabbit was put up for sale yesterday. The drinks giant Diageo, which owns The Guinness Book of Records, has brought in a merchant bank to seek a buyer after executives decided the 45-year-old publication was no longer a core interest.

It was founded to solve a bizarre dispute between top staff at the Guinness brewery over high-speed game birds. The sale will be the first time the book and the famous brewer have not had the same owner. The encyclopaedic annual has enjoyed remarkable success since it first appeared in 1955 by selling 90 million copies - a figure beaten only by the Bible, the Koran and Mao Zedong\'s Little Red Book.\" [more...]

Topic: 

Man Arrested in Minneapolis Library Child-Porn Case

David Chanen [writes...]

\"A 40-year-old man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of viewing child pornography on a computer at the Northeast public library in Minneapolis.

It was the first time anybody had been arrested at a Minneapolis public library for looking at such images, said Mary Lawson, library system director. A security guard called police after he saw the man viewing Web site pictures of naked and clothed children between the ages of 4 and 12.\"
[more...] from the Star-Tribune.

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A Look Over Seas

Super Helpful Charles Davis sent in a bunch of UK
oriented stories. I love to get news that isn\'t all
American for a change.
The
Telegraph

says The Queen is opened her library March to put
some of the world\'s rarest
books on display at a reception that will honour leading
figures in the publishing industry. This also ,arked the
first time that a radio programm (other than the
addresses to the nation) had been transmitted from
the Palace.
They also ran a story on a move by the British
Library lto stop 250 musical scores and extensive
correspondence with great European composers going
abroad. They include a signed and annotated score of
Beethoven\'s Ninth Symphony,

John W. Berry Answers Your Questions

We've had several interesting interviews so far this
year, they include all 3 Presidential Candidates for the
ALA, Maurice J. Freedman, Ken Haycock, and William Sannwald, and also Pat Schroeder, from the APA.

This time around I sent John W. Berry, President
Elect at the ALA, the same questions the current
candidates received. Read on to see what the new
president of the ALA has to say on all the current topics
that interested YOU, the loyal LISnews readers.

Is Iwon worth it?

The fabulous Greg Notess wrote this article about the value of iwon as a tool for librarians. It was published in Online Magazine.
\"The iWon approach has proved successful for the company, and for those few lucky cash prize winners, but it leads to many questions for the information professional. How can it fit in with the other Net searching tools in our arsenals? What does it search? How can it be used effectively? And what unique ethical dilemmas does it cause? This month\'s column takes a look at some of these issues, as well as at some of the unique ways in which iWon has approached the problem of search.\"

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