Archive for August, 2008
Anti-porn group wants teen books under wraps
August 26th, 2008Kirkwood-Webster Journal - “A citizens anti-pornography group wants certain books in the St. Louis County Library’s teen section segregated from younger eyes and placed in the adult section.”
Library scofflaw: ‘They were good books’
August 25th, 2008MSNBC.com - "Pay your library fines — or you could wind up like Heidi Dalibor"
Don’t you just love this great PR for public libraries. Oy!
County orders library audio books English-only
August 24th, 2008WTOP: “The Frederick County Commissioners will not pay for audio library books in a language other than English, unless the book is teaching that language.”
Wow.
Everybody’s Business - Connected, Yes, but Hermetically Sealed
August 23rd, 2008NYT - “What if we didn’t have cellphones or P.D.A.’s? We would still have duties and families and bosses, but they would not be at our heels, yipping at us constantly, barking at us to do this or that or worry about this or that. We would have some moat of time and space around [...]
Please put a sock in it - this is a library
August 23rd, 2008Hephzibah Anderson: - “[T]he notion of an open-plan library is ridiculous, especially if you’re going to allow people to talk.”
Librarian fired for writing book on patrons
August 22nd, 2008Librarian fired for writing book on patrons - "A library employee in this Lake Michigan resort community has been fired for writing a book that describes a range of unpleasant patrons, from the merely unpleasant to online sex fiends, in a town she calls "Denialville.
Library-worthy MP3 players and review dates
August 19th, 2008CNET Reviews - “Many city libraries are now offering audiobooks as free downloads…but there’s a catch. Find out what it is below.”
Microsoft experimenting with a pause button for incoming e-mail
August 19th, 2008Webware - “Microsoft Office Labs has launched a new product called E-mail Prioritizer that will not only sort through your in-box to figure out what’s important, but also give you an honest-to-goodness pause button in case you want to escape an Exchange server e-mail avalanche.”
SEC Announces Successor to EDGAR Database:
August 19th, 2008More from beSpacific
Sanctioned Forgery
August 19th, 2008Publisher Recruiting People to Sign Books For the Author
More here:
Verizon exec: Some Net neutrality fans suffer from ‘paranoia’
August 19th, 2008The Iconoclast - “Verizon’s chief technologist took a swipe at Net neutrality advocates on Tuesday, saying the concept has become overly politicized and important engineering details have been overlooked in Washington debates.”
Will ALA speak out?
FindLaw gaming Google, and possibly scamming lawyer customers?
August 18th, 2008Real Lawyers Have Blogs - “FindLaw appears to have been caught gaming Google by selling links to lawyer websites and, in the words of one blogger, possibly scamming their lawyer customers. And, as of Friday evening, it appears Google has already taken steps to penalize FindLaw.”
RSS Overload?
August 18th, 2008LawyerKM - “RSS overload continues to plague us.”
Of course, I disagree.
Unlikely?
August 18th, 2008San Jose Mercury News - “One local librarian called “on behalf of 10 others” to question the description. But it didn’t end there. The Internet is a far-reaching thing, stretching into libraries across the globe, which linked the story to the American Library Association electronic newsletter. Oh, boy. Heather Bistyga, a reference librarian in Greenville, [...]
New magazine-sharing site may violate copyrights
August 16th, 2008Yahoo! News - “A fledgling Web site called Mygazines.com encourages people to copy and upload popular magazines that are currently on newsstands. Visitors can read high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles, including People, Men’s Health and The Economist, in their entirety.”
Allegany libraries adopt weapons ban
August 16th, 2008Examiner - The Allegany County Library System’s board of trustees has voted to ban weapons, handguns or firearms from its branches.
READ
August 15th, 2008Jamil
Originally uploaded by The Black Hole Kids
Does this (and more from this Flickr user) photo breach ALA’s Trademark on READ?
MLS Or No MLS
August 15th, 2008Great conversation going on over on Friendfeed about business cards and using MLS on business cards.
Books Un-Covered
August 14th, 2008Bookslut - “Awhile ago, my husband Brian said “wouldn’t it be funny if you were sitting on the subway reading a book and on the front cover it said, How to Murder a Complete Stranger and Get Away with It? Imagine what people around you would think, especially when you finally finished the book”.
Westlaw on Twitter
August 14th, 2008LawyerKM - “Westlaw even has a Twitter account that you can follow, if you like.”
CAPTCHAs work—for digitizing old, damaged texts, manuscripts
August 14th, 2008Artstechnica - “[T]he works that are most in need of preservation are likely to already be damaged or distorted, making the use of automated scanning and text processing less likely to succeed. Researchers are now reporting on a successful way to identify the words that computers can’t handle: turn them into CAPTCHAs, and get people [...]
Google Being Sued Over Blogger’s Identity
August 14th, 2008Inquisitr - “An Indian construction company is trying to force Google to divulge the name of a blogger who wrote negative things about its business.”
Mexican Program Using ATVs Wins Gates Access to Learning Award
August 14th, 2008Library Journal - “On Wednesday, the Vasconcelos Program in Mexico’s Veracruz state was awarded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2008 Access to Learning Award. The program was cited for its provision of free access to computers, the Internet, and training via all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) equipped with technology classrooms”
Meet The Kindle
August 12th, 2008Jeff Gomez - "[D]uring the next week or so I’m going to be writing about the Kindle, sharing some thoughts on the device as well as the reading experience in general…"
Will Twitter make it?
August 12th, 2008Adam Lashinsky - “If Twitter has a future, what I think will be key to its success is the serendipity of finding people with shared interests.”
Should libraries develop their own e-book reader?’
August 12th, 2008TeleRead - Library-developed hardware? I don’t think so.
LJ Update on LibraryThing
August 12th, 2008A summary of the latest on LT
Speech Wars
August 12th, 2008Commentary - Ben Reis deserves credit for his nifty new creation–a compilation of all major campaign speeches by Barack Obama and John McCain into a searchable, easy-to-use website. The website, www.speechwars.com, allows one to compare the actual words of debate in this ongoing, verbose election.
Web Firms Tell Congress They Track Behavior Without Consent
August 11th, 2008washingtonpost.com: - “Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.”
Read… and sshhh
August 11th, 2008Read… and sshhh
Originally uploaded by library_mistress
heh.