April 2010
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November 2009
Overdue Library Books Returned Half Century Later →
KPHO – “Camelback High School librarian Georgette Bordine says the two Audubon Society books checked out in 1959 and the money order were sent by someone who wanted to remain anonymous.”
…
Modifications to the Google Books Settlement →
Google – “The changes we’ve made in our amended agreement address many of the concerns we’ve heard (particularly in limiting its international scope), while at the same time preserving the core…
card catalogue art →
card catalogue art
Originally uploaded by blacktulip
Swiss privacy watchdog to sue Google Street View →
AP – “Google Inc.’s unstoppable drive to map and photograph the world has run into an immovable object — Switzerland’s strict tradition of personal privacy. The country’s privacy watchdog…
URL shorteners working with Internet Archive for... →
301Works – “The Internet Archive and founding companies announce today the launch of 301Works.org, a service to archive shortened Universal Resource Locators (URLs). This will enable redirect…
Google, book publishers to reveal new settlement →
AP – “The future of Google’s plans to sell millions of books online could begin to take shape Friday. Google Inc. and book publishers are expected to show a federal judge in New York a new…
International Activists Launch New Website to... →
EFF – “The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net), and other international copyright experts joined together today to launch Copyright Watch — a…
Universities Will Not Deploy Kindle DX as Textbook... →
and the NFB is pleased
Convicted Beverly librarian wants pension back →
MyFoxBoston – “The former director of the Beverly Public Library who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography continues to fight for his public pension. Thomas Scully has appealed a district…
Purdue students protesting librarian’s blog post →
AP – “Some Purdue University students are calling for a faculty member’s firing after he wrote what he called “an economic case against homosexuality” on a personal blog. Purdue senior Kevin…
ACLU Report Calls For Stronger U.S. Privacy... →
ACLU – “The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report recommending steps Congress should take to create the vigorous privacy oversight institutions that are desperately needed in…
Ancestry.com opens up US military collection →
AP – “Genealogy Web site Ancestry.com is opening up its entire U.S. military collection in honor of Veterans Day. The Provo-based company says anyone can search the collection for free through…
Convicted Murderer Sues Wikipedia, Demands Removal... →
Wired – “Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle, of Erding, Germany, sent a cease-and-desist letter…demanding removal of Werle’s name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German…
New Report, “Support for the Research Process: An... →
OCLC – “This brief call-to-action document includes a list of ten action items for libraries in today’s rapidly changing scholarly research landscape.”
Read the report
World Bank public data, now in search →
More public data searching, courtesy of Google
Bing getting a fall refresh →
CNET – “Unlike when you stand over your coworker’s desk, Microsoft’s Bing search engine actually works better when you hover. One of the key features of the would-be rival to Google is that when…
Web-based e-mail features come to desktop software →
AP – “E-mail has taken a full circle. Over the years, Web-based e-mail services have gotten much better, sporting many features once available only with the e-mail programs that reside on the…
Supreme Court of Texas Cases Available on St.... →
St. Mary’s Law School – “Since 2006, St. Mary’s University School of Law and the Supreme Court of Texas have partnered to provide the Court’s oral arguments to the public through access to live…
12 charged after library books worth $87K stolen →
AP – “Authorities threw the book at 12 people Tuesday, accusing them of checking out pricey textbooks from a public library system outside Washington to sell for quick cash. The Prince George’s…
Schools shun Kindle, saying blind can’t use it →
AP – “Amazon’s Kindle can read books aloud, but if you’re blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes…
Google and Facebook teach Vatican the mysteries of... →
Telegraph – “Two very different worlds collide this week when web-savvy executives of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia meet representatives of the Vatican to explain the mysteries of the…
CA Library To Debut Netflix-Like “Fines-Free”... →
Library Journal has an update
In Celebration of His 400th Year, the Papers of... →
Harvard University Library News – “Overall, the papers document the business transactions and family history of members of the Dunster and Glover families during the 17th, 18th, and 19th…
LegalPubs for Greener Law? →
Stem Legal – “The only way the premise works of course, is for Law Librarians to be using RSS for new product awareness. So the question becomes: Are we there yet?”
Digital School Library Leaves Book Stacks Behind →
NPR – “An elite boarding school in Ashburnham, Mass., just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on renovating its library. But Cushing Academy wasn’t just redoing its walls and carpets. The…
In Google Book Case, a Request for More Time →
NYTimes.com – “The parties to the Google book settlement, which would legalize the creation of a vast library of digital books, have asked the judge overseeing a revision of the agreement for an…
Library shows signs of progress on flood cleanup →
WAVE 3 – “Just three months after devastating floods caused over $5 million in damages at the Louisville Free Public Library, progress in the cleanup is beginning to show. The old heating and air…
This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and... →
ricklibrarian – “In a time of economic stress, when librarians are needed more than ever, yet library budgets are being cut, Marilyn Johnson speaks out in our behalf in her forthcoming book This…
Child protection or censorship? →
Kentucky.com – “Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain. She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for…
Gay Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! →
BeyondChron – “Parents do the dumbest things. Consider the mother in Piasa, Illinois who freaked out after she saw the website of her child’s optional reading assignment and bitched about it to…
What online journalists can learn from information... →
Insight from Eric Ulken
Googled: The End of the World as We Know It →
CSM – “Ken Auletta, an author and a longtime columnist for the The New Yorker, documents the meteoric rise of Google from its humble beginnings through its multibillion-dollar profits in his…
Murdoch could block Google searches entirely →
Guardian – “In recent months, Murdoch his lieutenants have stepped up their war of words with Google, accusing it of “kleptomania” and acting as a “parasite” for including News Corp content in its…
Library Uncovers “The Secret At Shadow Ranch” →
Book Patrol – “The staff of the Toledo Lucas County Library is shedding some light on the shadowy side of super sleuth Nancy Drew.”
Hitler bypasses Apple censors: Mein Kampf for your... →
Haaretz – “An iPhone application that recently made its way into the Apple App Store has sparked some controversy – a digital version of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf translated to Spanish. The…
Great cities need libraries now, more than ever →
SF Chron – “San Francisco is bucking the national trend of diminished funding and services thanks to a budget set-aside, which received overwhelming approval by voters in 2007, and substantial…
Hayward libraries to borrow Netflix model →
Oakland Tribune – “City libraries soon will offer a new borrowing system that borrows from Netflix, the mail-based, no-late-fee movie rental service. For a monthly fee, library users will be able…
Crusade for copyright-free literacy →
Toronto Star – “Writer, blogger and lifelong rabblerouser Cory Doctorow champions the sharing of intellectual property…[and]…will have mixed feelings when the news reaches him that employees of…
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County –... →
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County – Digital Bookmobile
Originally uploaded by digitalbookmobile
DeepDyve and PLoS – Q & A →
From PLOS
Google, Microsoft Urged to Limit Search Data... →
Bloomberg – “Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. must limit the amount of time they keep Internet- search records after failing to justify keeping the information beyond six months,…
Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia Quality and Tips for... →
WSJ – “Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said Friday that the online encyclopedia aspires to be a higher-quality source of information but added that mainstream publications could learn from its…
Bookless Libraries? →
Inside Higher Ed – “When does a library cease to be a library? What started as a debate over whether brick-and-mortar libraries would survive much further into the 21st century turned into an…
Can libraries, bookstores, and Kindle peacefully... →
CSMp – “Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card.” Or so Peter Daining reminds us in his worthy post today on Tainted Green entitled “Libraries: The cheaper, greener alternative to book…
Liberal lawmakers defy Obama on Patriot Act →
AP – “Defying the Obama administration, the House Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to remove from the USA Patriot Act a tool for tracking non-U.S. citizens in anti-terrorism investigations. The…
Save the State Library of Massachusetts →
State Library of Massachusetts Blog – “At a press conference on Thursday, October 29, the Governor’s Office announced that Governor Patrick is considering closing the State Library of…
Trans library worker files federal bias lawsuit →
Philadelphia Gay News – “Although trans woman Bobbie E. Burnett wants to leave her job at the Free Library of Philadelphia as soon as possible, she won’t leave yet. Burnett, describing her work…
State Senate Records Get More Transparent →
The New York Observer – “The New York State Senate’s chief information officer team just launched an early version of their Open Legislation Portal today.”
Direct to the new site
Library digital black hole →
Whitney Gazette – “Oxford’s Bodleian Library has seen plenty of change in its 400-year history, but the electronic revolution must be its biggest challenge to date, with pundits forecasting that…