LISNews: Librarian News

Excite News Has this interesting business-side oriented story on how Encyclopaedia Britannica\'s image has seen a dizzying transformation.

\"The new, gizmo-loving side of the august publisher showed through again Monday with the introduction of a software application that gives users of Palm handheld computers access to all 44 million words of the encyclopedia.

\"Britannica now goes wherever you go,\" said Don Yannias, chief executive officer of Britannica.com Inc., the Chicago encyclopedia publisher\'s digital arm.
\" -- Read More

CIO.com has a nice review of the book Building Wealth By Lester C. Thurow; a book that seeks to define the rules in a Knowledge-Based Economy.

\"Everyone understands what it means to own land or productive equipment and how those rights can be enforced. It is not so clear, however, what it means to own knowledge or how those ownership rights can be enforced\" -- Read More

Finally a Story that admits the web is not going to shut down libraries.

\"It soon became clear that libraries are far from the tar pit - that, in fact, as both Reid and Keith Lance, director of Library Research Services for the Colorado State Library, noted: This idea so many people have, about libraries declining in the age of the Internet, is just wrong. Libraries, in fact, recognized the competition that technology presented and have offered it themselves. -- Read More

This Story from Digital Mass puts an interesting spin on a new web site that offers to respond to a typed-in question with an answer and an attributed source, usually in as little as a tenth of a second. The Web site is Factcity.com and if they do indeed pull this off, could put a few Reference Librarians out of work. Check it out and let us know what you think. -- Read More

I can\'t pass up the opportunity to post a story that Involves Who Wants to Be a Millionare? and Drew Carey!

Carey, who launched his career in 1986 at the Cleveland Comedy Club, has chosen Ohio libraries to receive proceeds from his celebrity appearance on ABC\'s popular television show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Carey will appear on the Millionaire program on May 2 and 3 in a special game show featuring celebrities who will be playing for their favorite charities and causes. Carey has chosen Ohio libraries as recipient of his winnings during \"Celebrity Week\" on the program.

Is he smart enough to win a Million? -- Read More

Freedom Forum has a great Story From the prophetic Jon Katz on how quick people have turned to the web for news.

\"The Chicago-based group, a consortium of 3,000 university professors who consult on high-tech startups, found in a nationwide phone survey that the Net has replaced television and newspapers as the top source of key information for young adults, 67% of whom are already online.

In the survey of 1,014 households, nearly 70% of Americans aged 14 to 24 live in households that use the Net to gather important information, compared to a nationwide average of just 46%.\" -- Read More

A Story from the Binghamton Press has good things to say about book clubs.

\"This week is Turn Off TV Week. Reading is something where everyone can use their life experiences and enjoy an alternative to television,\" said Melanie Battoe, library director at the Guernsey Memorial Library in Norwich. Battoe started a book review group at the library Friday with a noon brown-bag discussion of Memoirs of a Geisha . This fall, she plans a monthly mystery book group. -- Read More

TechReview
has a very provocative Article on how the
DMCA and E-Books are going to change what we
all take for granted now.

\"We still have the same old freedoms in using
paper books. But if e-books replace printed books, that
exception will do little good. With “electronic ink,” which
makes it possible to download new text onto an
apparently printed piece of paper, even newspapers
could become ephemeral. Imagine: no more used
book stores; no more lending a book to your friend; no
more borrowing one from the public library—no more
“leaks” that might give someone a chance to read
without paying. (And judging from the ads for Microsoft
Reader, no more anonymous purchasing of books
either.) This is the world publishers have in mind for us.
\" -- Read More

The Nando
Times has a great St
ory on the latest trends being used in public
libraries as
competition increases from book stores, and the
internet. They give great coverage to everything from
coffee, to library buildings.

\"Imagine a place
where you can rent videos, get your hair braided or sing
in a rock \'n\' roll band. Imagine a place where you can
also attend plays, fax a document or walk among rows
and rows of computers.

Imagine Starbucks, Amazon.com and bonus
membership cards; market research, tracking systems
and snappy slogans. Imagine all of this at no
charge. -- Read More

Larocque Marce writes:

A Manuscript Written on the Margins of a Book will be
available to the worldThe
National Library of Canada has microfilmed
and sent to a Jerusalem publisher, a valuable 18th
century Hebrew printed
text containing 112 annotated pages of manuscript
commentary. \"The entire Torah world will thank you for
your gracious assistance in bringing these annotations
to light\", stated Rabbi Yosef Buxbaum, Dean of Machon
Yerushalayim, The Jerusalem Institute of Talmudic
Research, in a letter to Roch Carrier, the National
Librarian of Canada. -- Read More

Small Cap Center.com has a nice report on a Knowledge Mangement Study.

According to a just-released study, that free-flow of information in the digital age presents a daunting set of challenges for global firms struggling to generate, retain and leverage knowledge. “The growth of the Internet and digital businesses, which have been so critical in fueling our booming economy, is conversely the very reason why knowledge is so difficult to share and leverage,\'\' says Windle B. Priem, President and CEO of Korn/Ferry International.
The study identified four key areas where tensions are rising. -- Read More

Thomas J. Hennen Jr. writes: Those of us in Catholic grade schools of the 1950\'s know the terror that nuns induced with: \"That, young man, will be on your PERMANENT RECORD!\" Sister would record it and send it to the \"permanent record place\" at the parish, then it would go to the archdiosese and then, perhaps, ever and anon, to Vatican City by diplomatic pouch. :-)

Is that COLD terror or what? Makes you think about privacy, no?

The enonymous.com report, released April 10 is, according to their press release, the most comprehensive online privacy research effort to date, covers 30,000 Web site privacy policies over nine months and across all domains. Enonymous.com rates the sites\' policies from 0 to 4 stars, based a site\'s privacy policy regarding release of personally identifiable information. -- Read More

Andy Breeding writes \"Today\'s technology cover story on Salon.com titled \"The Twilight of the Cryptogeeks\" mentions that \"Librarians everywhere\" were given an EFF Pioneer award.

Be sure to Check it out.

\"Whitfield Diffie bounds to the platform, He stands now before the audience with his neat gray beard, shoulder-length blond hair and sudden uncontained enthusiasm. \"Librarians!\" he exclaims. \"I\'m thrilled with this award.\" -- Read More

The Standard has a rather interesting Article on what the future holds for the web. The author presents several reasons why in the future we may move away from web pages. Technologies like wireless access, napster, and zaplets could change the way we interact with one another -- Read More

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has this Report on Galileo, Georgia\'s free online library.

\"
Georgia was one of the first states in the United States to start building a big online library that everybody in the state with a computer --- from professors to schoolchildren --- could use for free. Gov. Zell Miller liked the idea of making the new world of Internet services available to every student --- as in public education --- and Gov. Roy Barnes also has supported the project, which has cost $30 million so far.

But the project --- called Galileo; now most states have a version --- keeps facing the obstacles of too little money and attention. -- Read More

Thomas J. Hennen Jr. writes:

Only those of a certain age argue about whether it was Pogo or the Alligator that said: Younger demographic groups just look it up on the web. :-)

What a difference a few months can make in the looking glass world of e-texts! Five months ago, I lamenated that NetLibrary (tm) was marketing to gen-exers not boomers like myself. But now NetLibrary has cut off both exers as individuals and me at the virtual knees! And, it appears, librarians like myself must share the blame. -- Read More

Read this Story from the Ann Arbor News. Does anyone have any opinons on only using email for overdue notifications? It may save money but does it exclude many patrons, particularly on an economic level?

You\'d better make sure that\'s not a library book
languishing on the coffee table, forgotten for weeks.

Unless you\'ve given the Ann Arbor District Library your
e-mail address, you won\'t be getting an overdue notice.
As of March 6, the library stopped mailing notices to
customers, one of many cost-saving measures taken
since faced with an unexpected million dollar deficit. -- Read More

Read this Story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Stung by the Great Depression, Helen M. Brown knew the
value of a dollar and appreciated those who helped make
her money work.

The tiny, tight-fisted West Sider spent hours at a time in
the Cleveland Public Library studying the stock market. It
was time well spent, for Brown and the library - her
charitable trust has bequeathed $350,000 to the library
system and thousands more to local institutions that
touched her life.

Enonymous.com has released what they call the most comprehensive report ever done on web privacy standards. While more sites than ever are posting privacy policies and a large number ask for consumer permission regarding data usage, other sites still leave the door open to share user data without consent or are silent on their practices.
Only 3.5 percent commit to never share personally-identifiable information with third parties, nor use such data to contact a user without permission. -- Read More

HeraldNet in Washingston had this brief story.

\"A tough-talking 14-year-old boy got more than he bargained for after he allegedly waved a knife at a 46-year-old man outside the downtown Everett Library about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

According to witness statements, the man accidentally bumped the boy on the sidewalk outside the library. The man excused himself. The boy allegedly said, \"Darn right, you\'d better excuse yourself, old man,\" said Everett police Lt. Greg Lineberry. -- Read More