[LISNews] The LISNews For February 25th 2010

Thu Feb 25 12:51:11 CST 2010

Let's see what the most popular stories have been for the past 30 days:

-[1] - Coming Out Now...the iPad (aka the Apple Tablet)
   http://lisnews.org/node/35773/
-[2] - Did You Meet The Love of Your Life @ Library School?
   http://lisnews.org/node/35859/
-[3] - Facebook as a Library Tool: Perceived v. Actual Use
   http://lisnews.org/node/35917/
-[4] - The only perfect reference work Nelsons Perpetual Loose-Leaf Encyclopaedia
   http://lisnews.org/node/35823/
-[5] - Three Dollars a Month Is...Too Much
   http://lisnews.org/node/35869/

And here's the latest from LISNews:

--Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars
- http://lisnews.org/node/36066/
-Blog Entry by Bibliofuture Posted Thursday February 25th at 12:43 PM
-Read 35 times - 0 Comments
Book:  Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates   Since the rise of Napster and other file sharing
services in its wake, most of us have assumed that intellectual piracy is a product of the digital age and that it threatens
creative expression as never before. The Motion Picture Association of America, for instance, claimed that in 2005 the film
industry lost $2.3 billion in revenue to piracy online. But here Adrian Johns shows that piracy has a much longer and more
vital history than we have realized—one that has been largely forgotten and is little understood.   Piracy explores the
intellectual property wars from the advent of print culture in the fifteenth century to the reign of the Internet in the
twenty-first. Written with a historian’s flair for narrative and sparkling detail, the book swarms throughout with
characters of genius, principle, cunning, and outright criminal intent: in the wars over piracy, it is the victims—from
Charles Dickens to Bob Dylan—who have always been the best known, but the principal players—the pirates themselves—have long
languished in obscurity, and it is their stories especially that Johns brings to life in these vivid pages.   Brimming with
broader implications for today’s debates over open access, fair use, free culture, and the like, Johns’s book ultimately
argues that piracy has always stood at the center of our attempts to reconcile creativity and commerce—and that piracy has
been an engine of social, technological, and intellectual innovations as often as it has been their adversary. From
Cervantes to Sonny Bono, from Maria Callas to Microsoft, from Grub Street to Google, no chapter in the story of piracy
evades Johns’s graceful analysis in what will be the definitive history of the subject for years to come.  

--Library Signals Hope for Tamil Minority in Sri Lanka
- http://lisnews.org/node/36064/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Thursday February 25th at 11:36 AM
-Read 74 times - 0 Comments
Decades of civil strife have left their mark on Jaffna, the heartland of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. Bombed-out buildings
are a reminder of the fierce battles waged over the historic city.  The most potent symbol of the struggle, and the uneasy
peace since fighting ended last May, is Jaffna’s public library, which was torched in 1981 by an anti-Tamil mob. Nearly
100,000 books and manuscripts, including irreplaceable palm-leaf Tamil texts, went up in smoke. It was an act of cultural
vandalism that fed the Tamil resistance movement.  Eventually the library was rebuilt by Sri Lanka’s government and reopened
in 2003. It has plenty of new books in Tamil and English on its wooden shelves. But restoring the spirit of the library
presents a far greater challenge, says the chief librarian, S. Thanabaalasinham.  C.S. Monitor has the full story.

--Embezzlement or Cash Advances? NY Librarian Due in Court
- http://lisnews.org/node/36063/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Thursday February 25th at 10:52 AM
-Read 138 times - 0 Comments
Record Online reports: (Upstate NY) TUXEDO - Town police said a former librarian in the Tuxedo School District embezzled
more than $12,000 from the district’s teachers union while serving as its president and treasurer. Police said Teresa E.
Haslam, 45, of Chester, issued herself 20 checks and one electronic transfer from the union’s account between November 2008
and May 2009, when she left the district. According to the union, all but $645.98 has been repaid.  Haslam, who’s charged
with grand larceny, a felony, turned herself in Wednesday. She was issued an appearance ticket and is due back in Town Court
on March 18.

--"This Book is Overdue" Getting Tons of Ink---USA Today & New Yorker
- http://lisnews.org/node/36060/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Thursday February 25th at 7:52 AM
-Read 266 times - 0 Comments
"WESTMINSTER, Md. — Bryan Hissong is 31, happily married, and the father of a 2-year-old named Olivia. He seems quite
content with his life.  But Marilyn Johnson, who is not his wife, loves him and has said so very publicly. It doesn't matter
that she has never met him. Hissong is a librarian.  He doesn't look like the clichéd librarian of old. He favors plaid
shirts and is sporting a beard on his babyface — but that doesn't matter to Johnson, either. She's well aware that
librarians wear many disguises these days. Often they're pierced, tattooed, punk with bright blue hair. She loves them all. 
Who knew librarians had become so ... cool?" asks USA Today (we did).    Johnson does an interview with Jon Michaud in this
week's New Yorker blog. Here's a snippet: Ever think of becoming a librarian yourself?  I worked as a page at my local
library when I was in high school. I earned 95 cents an hour. After a year, I asked for a raise; I wanted to earn a dollar
an hour. They turned me down, so I quit. And that was the end of my library career. I’m really sorry now I played hardball
over a nickel. I’m never more at home than when I’m in a library.  How nice to have the reading public recognize the
intrinsic value of your profession and the many marvelous examples of librarianship at work. 

--Online archive of UK science launches
- http://lisnews.org/node/36057/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 3:52 PM
-Read 204 times - 0 Comments
Online archive of UK science launches The British Library has begun a project to create a vast, online oral history and
archive of British science.  The three-year project will see 200 British scientists interviewed and their recollections
recorded for the audio library.   An advisory board will help the project pick key technological innovators and scientists
for the archive.  

--Retaining School Librarians through Mentoring
- http://lisnews.org/node/36056/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 3:49 PM
-Read 193 times - 0 Comments
Retaining Librarians through Mentoring Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools (HCPS) noticed that the district’s newly hired
librarians had a substantial (56%) turnover rate. In 2004, a voluntary mentoring system emerged within the district that
encouraged seasoned librarians to reach out to new hires. By the 2005 school year, an official long-distance mentoring
program was launched pairing those new to the job with established librarians in other schools. Co-coordinators Joyce Ricks,
librarian at Twin Hickory Elementary, and Susan Howe, librarian at Tuckahoe Middle School, spearheaded the program, which
was christened Collaborative Partners.   

--ResourceShelf: My Library Seach Option To Return To Google Books
- http://lisnews.org/node/36055/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 2:23 PM
-Read 183 times - 0 Comments
In Coming Weeks: “My Library” Option on Google Book Search Will Be Searchable Again From Google’s Response: Last month, we
launched a new My Library that enabled users to create and then share collections of books by adding them to “bookshelves.”
In the coming weeks, we’ll be restoring the ability to search within My Library by enabling users to search across all of
their bookshelves as well. 

--Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars
- http://lisnews.org/node/36054/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Wednesday February 24th at 12:40 PM
-Read 223 times - 1 Comments
Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars is a book by William Patry. Patry is Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc. 
Wikipedia entry on Patry  Book description:  Metaphors, moral panics, folk devils, Jack Valenti, Joseph Schumpeter, John
Maynard Keynes, predictable irrationality, and free market fundamentalism are a few of the topics covered in this lively,
unflinching examination of the Copyright Wars: the pitched battles over new technology, business models, and most of all,
consumers. In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive
legal regime that has strayed far from its modest, but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian
government program--not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable
to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a
Reaganite "magic of the market."   The way we have come to talk about copyright--metaphoric language demonizing everyone
involved--has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates
over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions.   A centrist and believer in
appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak
copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of
encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives,
leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls
for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected. 

--Thousands of authors opt out of Google book settlement
- http://lisnews.org/node/36053/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 11:43 AM
-Read 297 times - 0 Comments
Thousands of authors opt out of Google book settlement Some 6,500 writers, from Thomas Pynchon to Jeffrey Archer, have
opted out of Google's controversial plan to digitise millions of books 

--University Park council members want Bush library parking changes
- http://lisnews.org/node/36052/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 11:41 AM
-Read 189 times - 0 Comments
University Park council members want Bush library parking changes With a little more than a week until they are scheduled
to vote, city officials made it clear Monday that they do not intend to rubber-stamp SMU's proposal to rezone land for the
George W. Bush Presidential Library. 

--Dynamiting Safe Harbors
- http://lisnews.org/node/36051/
-Front Page Story by StephenK Posted Wednesday February 24th at 9:04 AM
-Read 207 times - 1 Comments
One of the Deputy General Counsels at Google posted about the case of three of their employees being found criminally
liable by an Italian court for what a third party posted to Google-owned YouTube.  British tech publication The Register
posted more in the matter.  Who is liable for what goes online?  Google fears that this would kill the participatory web as
it would put platform providers in the unwanted role of censor.  The implications for public access computing at libraries
is not touched upon yet but the realm of imagination leads to scary destinations.

--Social Workers @ Your Library
- http://lisnews.org/node/36050/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Wednesday February 24th at 8:51 AM
-Read 290 times - 0 Comments
Important story from the Associated Press about the San Francisco Public Library hiring a social worker to help homeless
library patrons.   Every day, when the main library opens, John Banks is waiting to get inside. He finds a spot and stays
until closing time. Then his wheelchair takes him back to the bus terminal where he spends his nights.  Like many homeless
public library patrons, all Banks wants is a clean, safe place to sit in peace. He does not want to talk to anyone. He does
not want anyone to talk to him. The day he decides he wants help, he knows what to do: ask for the library's social worker. 
The main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, where hundreds of homeless people spend every day, is the first in the
country to keep a full-time social worker on hand, according to the American Library Association.  Cities across the country
are trying different approaches to deal with patrons who use bathroom sinks as showers or toilet stalls as drug dens. In
Philadelphia and San Francisco, libraries have hired homeless patrons to work as bathroom attendants who guide others to
drop-in centers or churches where they can bathe.

--Colleges test Amazon's Kindle e-book reader as study tool
- http://lisnews.org/node/36049/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 7:20 AM
-Read 380 times - 0 Comments
Colleges test Amazon's Kindle e-book reader as study tool Now, as several major universities finish analyzing data from
pilot programs involving the latest version of the Amazon Kindle, officials are learning more about what students want out
of their e-reader tablets. Generally, the colleges found that students missed some of the old-fashioned note-taking tools
they enjoyed before. But they also noted that the shift had some key environmental benefits. Further, a minority of students
embraced the Kindle fairly quickly as highly desirable for curricular use.  

--Save the county, close the libraries
- http://lisnews.org/node/36048/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 7:17 AM
-Read 603 times - 4 Comments
Save the county, close the libraries If Mendocino County is strapped for money, and I believe it is, the most logical thing
it could do is close down all the libraries. Lock the doors, shut off the lights, sell the books. Rent out the buildings to
Domino Pizza outlets and Verizon franchises. Turn the bookmobile into a taco truck. Libraries are the blacksmith shops of
the 21st century, obsolete relics of another era.  

--Beyond "Harry Potter": 5 interesting tales of plagiarism 
- http://lisnews.org/node/36047/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Wednesday February 24th at 7:15 AM
-Read 360 times - 0 Comments
Beyond "Harry Potter": 5 interesting tales of plagiarism  Rowling is hardly the first well-known writer to face plagiarism
charges. The results of such charges tend to vary widely. Some end up dismissed as without merit, others ruin careers, and
yet others seem simply to disappear.  

--Tuesday Night Deep Thought: Information Future?
- http://lisnews.org/node/36046/
-Blog Entry by AndyW Posted Wednesday February 24th at 1:55 AM
-Read 247 times - 3 Comments
Today I found myself pondering the following question:  “Where will information content be in five years? Ten years?”  And
after a long bout of deliberation this evening, I couldn’t really come up with an answer. I think that’s part of our
professional problem, really. I can’t think of one person who has more than the most speculative of an educated guess. I’m
sure there are some who might read this and take umbrage at this statement, thinking that they are or know someone who could
provide an answer. But my guess is that if we were to take the answers, seal them in an envelope, place them in a time
capsule, and open them in five or ten years, they would be mostly (if not completely) wrong. (There could be a wager in
this, I reckon.)   In thinking about the future, I did a survey of the past. I took a look at some of the sites I use now
(and some related ones) to acquire a proverbial snapshot at what existed, what just started, and what was yet to be five
years ago. Here are the results:     Established five or more years ago: Amazon, Blogger, Livejournal, Delicious,
StumbleUpon, Google Picasa, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Wordpress, LISNews, TinyURL.     Infancy/just started five years ago:
Gmail, Facebook, Bebo, Flickr, Yelp, Netvibes, Ning, Reddit, Library Thing, Digg, Kayak, Vimeo, Newsvine, Renren (formerly
Xiaonei; it’s the world’s largest social network based in China).     Didn’t exist five years ago: Google Calendar, Reader,
&amp; Maps; YouTube, Twitter, Friendfeed, Tumblr, Diigo, Foursquare, Jaiku, Plurk, Good Reads, Brightkite, Scribd, Hulu,
Fancast.    This doesn’t mention the leaps in technologies like mobile phones (iPhone, 2008) or e-readers (Kindle, 2007)
within this time period, nevermind the announcements of the last few months (the iPad and the Nook). Nor does it include the
general decline in printed newspaper and periodical readership that has trended during this time period. And, to toss
something else into the mix, it doesn’t account for the change in design of library spaces that make them more community
oriented (this would be more of something of the last ten to fifteen years, give or take).   There is simply a lot of things
going on; too much, I believe, for anyone to grasp in terms of the big picture. And I think it’s time that the librarian
community admits that we really don’t know where exactly information content is going to end up in that time. Sure, we can’t
say where it will be in the short short scale of maybe a year, perhaps two, but beyond that is lost to us.   Am I wrong? 
AndyW

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