LISNews:

The Davis Enterprise reports that a \"mobile health/literacy resource van\" and a \"Bread and Books/Pan y Libros\" bus are taking to the streets to deliver food and information. The programs were sponsored by a $297,165 grant from the Yolo County Proposition 10 commission. Full story

This Story is on the new program down south called \"South Carolina Reads\", similiar to all the other \"read the same book things\" you\'ve seen in the states of Arkansas, Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi and Oklahoma and the cities of Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Denver, Boise, Philadelphia, Providence, R.I., and Buffalo, N.Y.
So far they just have a list in mind for SC, what makes a good book for this type of thing?

, “It has to be more than a good book; it has to be a good discussion. It has to be a book that is character-driven, not plot-driven. And a character has to be making a difficult decision or going through a difficult time.”

Remember that one scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the one with the witch? This story just made me think of that for some reason.

One of Britain\'s biggest teaching unions has issued a stern warning to parents and teachers that J.K. Rowling\'s phenomenally successful creation could lead schoolchildren into the sinister world of the occult.

Full Story from The Observer sent in by Bob Cox.

\"The premiere of Harry Potter the movie will lead to a whole new generation of youngsters discovering witchcraft and wizardry. We welcome the values this will ingrain, focusing on good triumphing over evil. Though it is important not to over-react to this entertaining phenomenon, the risks are clear.\"

IHT has a Nice Little Story by Liz Alderman, on the best sites for those who like the old newspapers.

They include,
lagalcante.com,
historic-newspapers.co.uk,
historybuff.com, and
rarenewspapers.com.

Thanks to Bob Cox for this story.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Senate Commerce Committee hearings relating to the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), originally set for October 25, have been postponed in the face of mounting opposition from the technology community.

The SSSCA would require that all future digital technologies include federally-mandated \"digital rights management\" (DRM) technologies that will enable Hollywood to restrict how consumers can use digital content. Response to the draft bill, which was authored by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC), has been largely negative. EFF announced its opposition to the bill several weeks ago and encouraged its members to express their concerns to Senator Hollings. IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and others have since announced their opposition, as well.

Senator Hollings has not re-scheduled the hearings, and has indicated that he would consider modifying the bill.

Steve Fesenmaier writes \"Mitch Freedman on privacy, defending intellectual freedom, combating the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act,
budget projections, promoting library advocacy, diversity, and better salaries and pay equity by overcome the stereotype of
pittance for pay and promote a better understanding of what librarians do.

Read The Full Speech \"

In an opinion piece for The Daily Californian, Rebecca Meyer writes...
\"Don\'t read this. Don\'t eat another bite. Put down your mental spoon and pick up something that will feed your mind. You have to consider carefully whose prose you ingest, because in a literate society, you are what you read. Critical thinking is overrated. The real obstacle to becoming an informed, responsible global citizen is not a lack of skepticism but a lack of exposure.\" more

Lee Hadden Writes: \"
There are several new items about scientific publishing in the October
18, 2001 issue of Nature:
\"Journal editors defect in protest at subscription costs\" on p.
662-663;
\"The best and worst of times--What winners will emerge from the
battles over access to scholarly date?\" by David R. Worlock, on p. 671;
\"Lessons for the future of journals--Science journals can continue to
thrive because they provide major benefits,\" by Carol Tenopir and Donald W.
King, on p. 672.
If you have an e-subscription to Nature, you can access the journal
at: nature.com\"

Salon has This Story on author N.K. Stouffer and her book \"The Legend of Rah and the Muggles\".

This is the book first published in the 1980s that has more than a few similarities with Harry.
Her books aren\'t selling and her lawsuit isn\'t going so well either.

Seth Finkelstein writes \"The ACLU has released a major new report concerning
censorware:

Sites Blocked by Internet Filtering Programs

Edelman Expert Report for
Multnomah County Public Library et al., vs. United States of America, et al. \"

jen writes \"N\'Sync\'s new CD can\'t be played or copied onto PCs.
While I\'m not necessarily crying about not being able to listen to N\'Sync at work [I am! says Blake], if I can make mix tapes, why not mix CDs?
\"Labels are reluctant to talk about their copy protection plans for fear consumers will be annoyed with any new restrictions. However, they\'re
already experimenting with copy-protection technology. \"

Full PCworld.com Story \"

Charles Davis writes
\"Library bosses in Aberdeen are installing alarms in the
toilets to stop readers having sex in them.
The alarm goes off when more than one person tries to
enter the toilet at the same time.
Aberdeen Central Library staff have been forced to close
both the Ladies and the Gents.
According to the Daily Record, council bosses say drug
abusers have also been using the toilets.
Story from
anan
ova.com \"<

From Phil Agre of Red Rock Eater Digest fame:

Community Web filtering seems like a good idea, and it\'s time to explore automated tools to support it. In this article I will suggest a design for a Web-based filtering tool. I cannot participate in building such a tool, but I would be happy to try out any prototypes
that others might construct. I have established a discussion list for people who might be interested in working on a tool . . .

Here, then, is my proposed design. I am sure that people who design Web-based services for a living can do better, but I also hope that any designers will listen to my rationales, which are based on years of experience running a community Web filtering service by hand.

The \"webfilter\", as I\'ll call it, is a cross between a discussion list, a weblog, and a bookmark file. It is not just a weblog, since it includes numerous functionalities to deal with long lists of URL\'s. Nor is it just a discussion list, since the goal is to produce a
reasonably clean and orderly presentation of the URL\'s. Nor is it just a bookmark file, because of its community nature . . .

More with thanks to wood s lot

From Publishers Weekly:

Costco is hardly the most likely account for Yale University Press. But since September 11, that\'s exactly what the discounter has become, ordering the house\'s Taliban by Ahmed Rashid in numbers that have helped send the book as high as number two on the New York Times paperback bestseller list.

After a decade of trying to move into the trade, university presses now find the trade moving to them. Authors like Princeton\'s Bruce Lawrence (Shattering the Myth) have made nearly 80 media appearances since the terrorist attacks, while Rutgers UP director Marlie Wasserman found packs of editors at Frankfurt clamoring for her attention.

\"Sometimes we labor in the vineyards producing books with good information while everyone else is doing celebrity bios. It\'s a real morale boost to know that people are still interested in what we do,\" said Wasserman.

More (registration required).

The NYTimes Reports that more independants are signing up for BookScan.

This is the company that will be rewriting the bestsellers list soon, to show us what is really selling best. Under the new agreement, Bookscan will pay an undisclosed amount to the American Booksellers Association.
Remember when Soundscan started and everyone said \"Who the heck is Garth Brooks\"?

Could libraries gang up and do this for circ stats?

Boston.com has an Opinion Piece on Jonathan Franzen and his big hooha with Oprah. They say Franzen thinks he\'s too good for the likes of Oprah and her fans and he has it exactly backward.

There are also stories at The NYTimes The Observer The Nando Times MSNBC Entertainment News FoxNews and Boston.com.

Wow, criticize Oprah and suddenly your a celebrity.

Val writes \"Chicago became one big book-club when the city initiated it\'s \"One book, one Chicago\" program, with Harper Lee\'s classic _To Kill a Mockingbird_ as the centerpiece.
The _Chicago Sun-Times_ brought together 6 artists and intellectuals to give their takes on the book. They reveal how the events of Sept. 11th have colored their reading and thinking about the novel.

Full Story \"

After a light dinner and some wine, the discussion began. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

Val writes \"A West Virginia high school student was told by school officials and the court system she couldn\'t wear anti-war themed t-shirts to school, nor would she be allowed to form an \"anarchy club.\" Girl and her mother expect to pursue case.
Read more: At Salon \"

From yesterday\'s Washington Post:

The Bush White House has drafted an executive order that would usher in a new era of secrecy for presidential records and allow an incumbent president to withhold a former president\'s papers even if the former president wanted to make them public.

The five-page draft would also require members of the public seeking particular documents to show \"at least a \'demonstrated, specific need\' \" for them before they would be considered for release . . .

\"The executive branch is moving heavily into the nether world of dirty tricks, very likely including directed assassinations overseas and other violations of American norms and the U.N. charter,\" said Vanderbilt University historian Hugh Graham. \"There is going to be so much to hide.\"

More.

From the new issue of CLIR Issues:

If you ask people in research libraries to identify the most significant digital library challenge facing them, it is likely that most will respond with the same answer: the absence of standards. These people are not referring to the formal standards emerging from the International Standards Organization (ISO) or the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Such standards are plentiful. Instead, they are bemoaning the lack of a consensus about when and how to apply those formal standards in a digital library.

More with thanks to the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog.