Twitter Comes to the Rescue
July 3rd, 2009NYT – “As hotels, airlines and other travel companies line up on Twitter to promote their brands, customers who voice their grievances in the form of tweets are getting surprisingly fast responses for everything from bad airplane seats to poor room service.”
Books as Planters
July 3rd, 2009BB – “BB pal Tara McGinley spotted these delightful planter kits, called Honbachi, from Japan, containing the plant, soil, and a hollowed-out book.”
Judge Annoints J.D. Salinger the King of the Internet
July 3rd, 2009Gawker – “J.D. Salinger invented blogs, according to a federal judge who granted a temporary injunction yesterday against John David California’s planned “parody” of Catcher in the Rye.”
Former director banned from library
July 3rd, 2009WBBM – “A former northwest suburban Elgin public library director says Randolph L. “Randy” Hopp was well-known to library staff, even before he was elected a library trustee this year. Hopp — banned by his own board this week from using the library — often left staff feeling ill at ease when he patronized the old Gail Borden Public Library at 200 Grove Ave., Zack said.”
Net neutrality gets a boost from the feds
July 2nd, 2009CNET News – “Net neutrality advocates got a boost of support Wednesday from the Obama administration when it released grant guidelines for spending the government’s $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package. Companies winning grants to help build new broadband infrastructure will have to follow the Federal Communications Commission’s Internet Policy statement, which prohibits companies from deliberately blocking or slowing Internet traffic on their networks.”
U.S. Confirms Inquiry Into Google Books Deal
July 2nd, 2009NYTimes.com – “The Justice Department confirmed on Thursday that it was conducting an antitrust investigation into the settlement of a lawsuit that groups representing authors and publishers filed against Google. In a letter to the federal judge charged with reviewing the settlement, the Justice Department said it was reviewing concerns that the agreement could violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.”
Wikipedia in the catalogue
July 2nd, 2009Loved-up inmate calls jail librarian
July 2nd, 2009The Australian – “A LOVED-UP Kiwi prisoner has been hauled through the courts for using a jail radio to make a “romantic” phone call to the prison librarian. The judge presiding over the case convicted Patrick Cook, 30, but decided the $NZ2.50 ($2) compensation being sought was “unnecessary”.
Google finally sued by makers of Finally Fast
July 2nd, 2009Webware – “Google has been sued again by a company mad over the use of its trademarks as keywords, but this one comes with a twist.”
The complaint is embeded below.
FriendFeed real-time search. We have it. It’s here
July 2nd, 2009FriendFeed Blog – “One of the coolest things about FriendFeed is how you can see everything that’s happening on the site in real-time. Starting today, this is even more true with real-time search.”
And, of course, RSS goodness.
Free People Searches
July 2nd, 2009These usually don’t work well, but when I looked myself up on Free People Searches, the results were dead on.
I Hadn’t Heard This One Before
July 2nd, 2009
Let e-Readers Be e-Readers
July 2nd, 2009Reuters – “Despite the Kindle’s continuing success, it’s widely believed that the device cannot remain simply a terminal for Amazon’s (AMZN) e-book sales if it is ever to become a true mass-market product. But what must it become? Some leading figures in the publishing business insist that sales growth in digital publishing will come only when e-books are incorporated into an all-purpose communications device like the iPhone.”
The Blogosphere 2.0
July 2nd, 200911D – “this morning, I just want to write about how blogging has changed in the past six years.”
Michael Jackson “Extremely Well-Read,” Had 10,000 Books
July 2nd, 2009Book Patrol – “The King of Pop a dweeby book lovin’ geek? Apparently so, and hooray. He was an avid reader who had an appropriately majestic library at Neverland that held 10,000 volumes on its shelves, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.
Song Owners Sue Over Free Online Access
July 2nd, 2009Courthouse News Service – “MCS Music America and a slew of song owners have accused Microsoft, RealNetworks and Yahoo! of allowing Internet users to stream and temporarily download copyrighted tunes without paying royalties.”
Google isn’t making us dumb – or smart. That’s the problem
July 1st, 2009The Guardian – "Far from dumbing us down, the constant ebb and flow of information on the internet is forcing us to change our habits"
West, Lexis Offer Help for Hard Times
July 1st, 2009Legal Blog Watch – “Two major legal publishers announced initiatives this week to help laid-off lawyers keep their heads above water and make the transition to new jobs. Coincidentally or not, both West and LexisNexis announced their initiatives on the same day.”
Online catalogue of books is the library that never closes
July 1st, 2009The Guardian – “The Open Library hopes to unite the net and the printed word by creating a web page for every book. Bobbie Johnson talks to the audacious project’s leader.”
HarperCollins Buys Series From James Frey
July 1st, 2009NYTimes.com – “A week after submitting a young adult novel anonymously to editors, James Frey, the notorious author of “A Million Little Pieces,” and a writing partner, Jobie Hughes, have sold North American rights to “I Am Number Four” to HarperCollins Children’s Books.”
Overlawyered turns 10
July 1st, 2009Libraries are a Vital Community Resource in the Information Age
July 1st, 2009IMLS – “The character of library services has changed dramatically with the advent of new information technologies, the continuous development of locally-tailored services, and the expectations of the 21st century library user, according to the first analysis of the Grants to States program by the Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS). The report, “Catalyst for Change: LSTA Grants to State Program and the Transformation of Libraries Services to the Public,” focuses on services provided through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants to State Library Agencies, the single largest source of federal funding for the nation’s libraries and the only library grants that require state-wide planning. IMLS conducted the study to inform the American public, the Administration, Congress and the library community about the program’s contributions.”
SMU Landed the Bush Library, But a Group of Former Condo Owners Still Want the World to Know At What
July 1st, 2009Dallas News – “Even though Leslie Davenport is not a party to the litigation, nothing can keep her away from the Dallas County district court next October. That’s when Southern Methodist University is scheduled to defend its reputation for what Davenport claims was the unconscionable treatment her mother and others suffered at the hands of a school willing to intimidate and deceive in its plan to grab land for the George W. Bush Presidential Library.”
Library of Congress on iTunes U
July 1st, 2009Library of Congress – “In an ongoing effort to make its digital educational, historical and cultural resources available to web users across a broad spectrum of platforms, the Library of Congress today launched “The Library of Congress on iTunes U.”
Elgin library board member banned from library
July 1st, 2009Daily Herald – “A recently elected Gail Borden Library trustee has been banned for a year from visiting the place that his constituents frequent: the library itself. Randy Hopp, a retired engineer who was extremely critical of the library’s leadership on the way to winning a 4-year seat on April 2009, was banned from library grounds and forbidden from checking out materials after the seven-member board met behind closed doors Tuesday night.”
Forget Twitter, library wants to be new social hub
July 1st, 2009Folsom Telegraph – “Rather than using Facebook or Twitter for social networking, one local library is doing things the old fashioned way — discussing books. This summer, librarians Julie Rinaldi and Regina Maduell are planning events at the Folsom Public Library that will get adults together to talk about novels they have read. The main summer reading program, Rinaldi said, is a simple concept with low commitment — read a book of your choice, attend the meeting, talk about your book with others, and enjoy food, at no cost.”
MySpace, Web servers not liable for assaults-court
July 1st, 2009Reuters – “Internet servers like MySpace cannot be held liable when minors are sexually assaulted by people they first meet on a website, a California appeals court ruled in an opinion filed late on Tuesday. The ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles is consistent with federal appeals court rulings.”
Amid criticism, Rutgers officially drops ‘Library Studies’ from school division name
July 1st, 2009MyCentralJersey.com – “University officials on Wednesday closed the book on a controversial move to drop the words “Library Studies” from the name of its School of Communication, Information and Library Studies. As of Wednesday, the school will be known as the School of Communication and Information, or SC&I, pronounced “sky,” the university said in a statement.
The Internet Age that vanished
July 1st, 2009Random Mumblings – “There are no yellowing, faded newspaper Web sites. Except for the WayBack machine — the best we have, but admittedly spotty — the whole dawn of Internet newspapers from the mid-1990s on could vanish, never to appear in a yard sale or a treasure proffered up on the PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. A database crash, a decision to shut down some old servers, or even some spirited housecleaning, and, blink, days, months, years of an electronic newspaper could be gone” (via)
Google Drops News Comment Feature
July 1st, 2009NYTimes.com – “People in the news media were intrigued by the idea of giving article subjects the power to comment, and the idea drew considerable news coverage. But the feature never got a lot of use –- the company declined to provide numbers –- and it was dropped without an announcement in May.”
