Library Stuff

“Since 2007, China has spent a massive amount of money to ensure that all villages have access to libraries with well-selected books, newspapers and audiovisual products for people in rural areas. The Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Wednesday in a statement posted on its website that it has appropriated a total of 5.9 billion yuan (937.99 million US dollars) to subsidize the construction of such rural libraries. In 2012 alone, the MOF earmarked 1.2 billion yuan for subsidizing rural libraries in a bid to put an end to the project of building libraries for all administrative villages in China, according to the statement. The project is one of the nation’s key cultural programs to bring tangible benefits to people living in rural areas, the statement said.”

via Globaltimes.cn

“At age 80, Chi Wang, the former head of the Library of Congress’ Chinese section in Washington, still has a dream – to open an office in China to enhance the country’s cultural interaction with the United States. Wang helped turn the Chinese section into one of the best library collections of its kind outside Asia, with about 1 million books, newspapers, magazines and films. The Library of Congress had only 300,000 volumes in its China collection when Wang began working there in 1957.”

via China Daily

Xinhua – “Over 80 percent of China’s counties have set up public libraries, attracting a record number of patrons, according to the Ministry of Culture. China’s 2,880 libraries received about 330 million visits in 2010, according to a document released by the Ministry of Culture on Wednesday at an annual meeting on public library projects in the city of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province.”

NYT – “A government official’s X-rated photos appear on the Internet and immediately go viral. Online traffic spikes as Web users hunt for the images with gleeful schadenfreude. When Representative Anthony D. Weiner’s anatomy dominated headlines in the United States this summer, the curious headed to search engines like Google or Bing to see more than usual of a U.S. politician. But when screen shots from a Web cam, showing a bureaucrat from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in a state of undress, hit the Web in late June, the majority of those who wanted to catch a glimpse of his naked body turned to Baidu, China’s most popular Internet search engine.”

Reuters – “Baidu Inc was sued on Wednesday by eight New York residents who accused China’s biggest search engine of conspiring with the country’s government to censor pro-democracy speech.

The lawsuit claims violations of the U.S. Constitution and according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer is the first of its type.

It was filed more than a year after Google Inc declared it would no longer censor search results in China, and rerouted Internet users to its Hong Kong website.”

AP – “Baidu Inc., which operates China’s leading search engine, said Wednesday it has removed 2.8 million items from an online library after authors complained it was distributing their work without permission.

The company apologized last weekend to Chinese authors and said it would screen material on Baidu Library and remove unauthorized work.”

WSJ – “Days after a judge shot down rival Google’s plans to create a digital library of the world’s books over copyright concerns, Chinese search giant Baidu has come under fire for its own library project. Chinese authors have slammed Baidu over its document sharing website, Baidu Wenke (called “Baidu Library” in English), saying the company rejected their demands to be compensated for downloads of unlicensed copies of their works. Baidu has since promised to remove unlicensed content from the website and apologized “to any of the authors or publishers whose feelings may have been hurt by the presence of infringing content on Baidu,” but that hasn’t stopped the onslaught of complaints.”

Reuters – “Yahoo email accounts of some journalists and activists whose work relates to China were compromised in an attack discovered this week, days after Google announced it would move its Chinese-language search services out of China due to censorship concerns. Several journalists in China and Taiwan found they were unable to access their accounts beginning March 25, among them Kathleen McLaughlin, a freelance journalist in Beijing. Her access was restored on Wednesday, she told Reuters.”

USA Today – “The professor sounds upset, the tour guide says she doesn’t care, and the taxi driver swears it’s a coverup. Google’s decision this week to close its self-censored Internet search service in mainland China was provoking diverse reactions here Thursday.”

Bloomberg – “Google Inc. said it’s still providing censored search services for some partners in China, after announcing this week it would begin offering unfiltered results in the country. The company needs to fulfill “existing contractual obligations as we believe it’s the responsible thing to do,” Jessica Powell, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today. Google will phase out censored services for partners “over time,” she said.