Month: April 2004

an old chestnut from Bruce Sterling

Posted on by jessamyn
Speaking of free-as-knowledge [nod to Melvil Dewey], here is an old speech by Bruce Sterling about the intersection of money and the public good, and the benefits of Deep Archiving, when he spoke to LITA in 1992.

People talk a lot about the power and glory of specialized knowledge and technical expertise. Knowledge is power — but if so, why aren’t knowledgeable people in power? And it’s true there’s a Library of Congress. But how many librarians are there in Congress?

reading assignment for today

Posted on by jessamyn
Isn’t it great that as librarians we have such good stuff to read online? For today’s assignment, please read “Lawfully Surfing the Net: Disabling Public Library Internet Filters to Avoid More Lawsuits in the United States” Even though I date a law student, I’m all in favor of fewer lawsuits.

If you’ve never heard a librarian sputter, just get one talking about CIPA and staff computers. Many librarians correctly determine that, since all staff are adults (with the exception of any under 17 who should be treated differently), they have the right to disable the filters….Why install them in the first place, many argue, causing untold hassles in maintenance and sometimes significantly increased fees? This is a reasonable position. Yet the text of the law says “any of its computers with Internet access” [thanks raizel]

one year full text American Libraries online

Posted on by jessamyn
ALA is partnering with ebrary to get the full text of American Libraries online. It was not quite working yesterday. Today it seems to be working. To get there, follow these easy steps

  1. Go to http://www.ala.org/
  2. Click the link to American Libraries. This takes you to http://www.ala.org/al_onlineTemplate.cfm?Section=alonline
  3. Click the link on the side that says “Read American Libraries on eBrary” which takes you to http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/alonlineebrary/alonlineebrary.htm
  4. log in
  5. Click the link that says “search the full text of American Libraries on eBrary”
  6. Click the link that says “Click here to search American Libraries online with eBrary”

note: some of these steps can be avoided if you are smart enough to click on the current issue of AL in the upper lefthand corner of the American Libraries main page.
note: do not click on any of the header links once you are using ebrary. Bad things happen.
note: all appearances to the contrary, ebrary is properly written in all lower case.

Posted in ala

your assignment for today

Posted on by jessamyn
The assignment for today is to read this “The Perils of Strong Copyright”

“For all the talk that the American Library Association does in regards to Open Access and freely available information, here’s the truth of the matter. A chart showing how a few ALA publications compare to Creative Commons licenses.” [unalog]
Posted in ala