Archive for October, 2009
A superintendent in H.B. to decide on book banning
October 31st, 2009OC Register – “The superintendent of a Huntington Beach elementary school district said he will decide Tuesday whether to ban an autobiography by Maya Angelou from middle school libraries – a book opponents say has inappropriate material for children.”
Scholastic hones the douchery/flip-flop duality to fine art
October 31st, 2009Book Ninja – “Aside from selling kids a steaming load of plastic shite (along with a few TV tie-in books) in their “book” catalogues, Scholastic has now pitched their corporate tents in the realms of bigotry, censorship, and homophobia.”
More here
Chinese Authors Object to Google’s Book Scanning
October 30th, 2009NYT – “A long-running dispute over Google’s efforts to digitize books has spread this month to China, where authors have banded together to demand that their works be protected from what they call unauthorized copying.”
Ariz. court rules records law covers ‘metadata’
October 29th, 2009Associated Press – “Hidden data embedded in electronic public records must be disclosed under Arizona’s public records law, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case that attracted interest from media and government organizations.”
Read the opinion
The case against the FCC’s Net neutrality plan
October 29th, 2009CNET News – “The same FCC that now casts itself as savior of the open network has grown increasingly aggressive and prudish in policing content in its traditional job as regulator of over-the-air television.”
2 ASTRONAUTS DONATE PAPERS TO PURDUE LIBRARY
October 28th, 2009AP – “Janice Voss and Roy Bridges Jr. will donate items including log books, notes, childhood photographs and journals to the Purdue Libraries’ Division of Archives and Special Collections. The archives also house papers from Armstrong, a Purdue alumnus.”
Peace on Facebook
October 27th, 2009From the site – “Facebook is proud to play a part in promoting peace by building technology that helps people better understand each other. By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long term.”
Librarian Forced to Resign over Fees
October 27th, 2009WSET – “It’s an amazing show of support for a former librarian in South Boston, forced to resign two weeks ago for waiving some overdue fees. Hundreds have signed a petition to support Woodson Hughes, and on Tuesday, lots of people came out to show their support for him.”
Thank You, Nancy Drew and Judy Blume
October 27th, 2009From Carole Barron at the Huffington Post
Document rental service brings “deep web” content to the mainstream
October 27th, 2009Between The Lines – “DeepDyve, a search engine that specializes in indexing the contents of documents published deep into a Web site, is announcing a Netflix-like service that allows users to “rent” documents such as medical journal articles on a per-use basis.”
Take a look at DeepDyve
More here
School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’?
October 27th, 2009USA Today – “[T]he venerable boarding school west of Boston — the first in the USA to admit both boys and girls — last summer undertook another first: It began getting rid of most of the library’s books. In their place: a fully digital collection.”
More here
Amazon’s Kindle ignites legal upheaval
October 27th, 2009Silicon.com – “Legal Eye: Piracy and copyright at forefront as e-books go mainstream”
2008 Federal Court Statistics: Judicial Facts and Figures
October 27th, 2009USCourts – “One of the federal judiciary’s major statistical compilations, Judicial Facts and Figures, recently was updated to include caseload statistics and judgeship totals for calendar year 2008.”
Chinese paper accuses Google of hampering searches
October 27th, 2009AP – “Google Inc. faces a new controversy in China after a Web site run by the Communist Party’s main newspaper accused the U.S. search giant of trying to keep Internet users away following its reports on a copyright dispute.”
Harry Potter themed dinner banned for ‘infringing copyright’
October 26th, 2009Telegraph – “The not-for-profit event, which has been renamed “Generic Wizard Night”, was to have a menu of dandelion wine, pumpkin soup and Dumbledore’s favourite – mint humbugs. Guests would have been led down ‘Diagon Alley’ by the side of the house and been met by a portrait of the “Fat Lady” who would have [...]
HP, UMich deal means a “real” future for scanned books
October 25th, 2009Ars Technica – “HP and the University of Michigan have inked a deal that will see HP reprinting rare and out-of-print books from Michigan’s library via the printer maker’s print-on-demand service. Here’s why this is potentially as important as anything Google Books is doing.”
Open Internet
October 25th, 2009Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Users
October 25th, 2009NYTimes – “Twitter’s smart enough, or lucky enough, to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. and author of the book “Democratizing Innovation.”
Google Billionaire Aids Jewish Charity That Aided Him
October 25th, 2009NYT – “Were it not for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, there might be no Google. Thirty years ago today, Sergey Brin, a 6-year-old Soviet boy facing an uncertain future, arrived in the United States with the help of the society.”
Wow!
Wikipedia striving for balance on divisive issues
October 25th, 2009JTA – From January’s war in Gaza to Holocaust denial, the world’s largest collaborative encyclopedia has become a battlefield over history.
Pre Halloween Festivities
October 25th, 2009This generation embraces innovation
October 25th, 2009CJOnline – “Boomers are also connecting to old favorite places through social media. David Lee King is the Digital Branch and Services manager at the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library. The library has 20 to 30 blogs that customers can comment on. It has a Facebook page and Twitter, YouTube and Flickr accounts. King said [...]
A History Of R.E.M…
October 25th, 2009Minus The Greatest Hits, from NPR
More here from REMhq
The album will be released in 2 days. I’m so buying it!
LA Public Library Photo Game
October 24th, 200989.3 KPCC – “It’s time to play our favorite game. It’s called, “Go to the LA Public Library Photo Archive and type in a random word.”
Mary Dempsey loves Chicago’s library
October 24th, 2009and is willing to fight for it
Apple Lurks as Kindle, Nook Squeeze Out Sony
October 24th, 2009Rich Jaroslovsky – “Everyone from desperate publishers to techno-lusting consumers knows what an e-reader should be: a thin, light, affordable tablet with a bright color touch screen, decent battery life and fast wireless access to books, magazines, newspapers and work documents.”
How High Will Real-Time Search Fly?
October 24th, 2009NYT – “No one doubts that helping users find fresh, up-to-the-minute content on the Web is valuable. But plenty of other valuable Web services — including content sites, free Web e-mail and social networks — have struggled to find effective business models. Analysts say Twitter may well find ways other than search to make money [...]
In diverse times, libraries seek to broaden appeal
October 24th, 2009AP – “Libraries have always been in the business of providing information. But as diversity continues to grow in the United States, libraries like the system in Queens are trying to remain vital and relevant to their communities by offering information in a range of new ways.”
Stop Your Search Engines
October 24th, 2009NYT – “I’m not wishing the Internet away. It has become so integral to my work — to my life — that I honestly can’t recall what I did without it. But it has allowed us to reflexively indulge every passing interest, to expect answers to every fleeting question, to believe that if we search [...]
Euthanasia activist banned from hosting right-to-die workshop at Vancouver library
October 23rd, 2009The Province – “Dr. Philip Nitschke, the director of Exit International, has instead decided to go ahead with the event at a local church, after the library refused his booking for a second time citing legal concerns.”
