LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Story on "All Things Considered" about Snopes.com

You'd think it would take an army to truth-squad the rumors on the Web, but you'd be wrong.

Full piece here

In the story in mentions that the Mikkelsons have their own personal library they use for fact checking and I bet they use local library resources but I have always thought that it would have been nice if the library community would have been the original creators of a site like Snopes. Maybe it is not to late for the library world to be involved in something like this. There is the old adage that there is always room at the top. (Don't check that at Snopes)

‘Honest mistake’ sparked library Internet uproar
Stephen Harper’s Conservative MPs were told in caucus today that “an honest mistake” led to libraries and community groups being told their public funding for Internet access was ending.

Senior Industry Canada bureaucrats had “misunderstood” the plan, which simply involved moving money to a different pot, according to Tory insiders.

Internet of Things Explained
IBM's Smarter Planet team has created a great 5 minute video explaining the emerging trend of Internet of Things, an exciting topic ReadWriteWeb has and will continue to cover frequently and in depth. Internet of Things is about, as the video explains, the coming future when there are more "things" on the Internet (sensors especially) than there are people.

The result of that will be "a kind of global data field" the video says. "If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. That's where societies become more efficient, that's where more innovation is sparked." Check out this artistic, succinct, optimistic and inspiring video explaining what could well become a big factor in how the future unfolds.

If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address?

Probably not.

Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae — birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched.

Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number.

Full story

Click on the "Read More" link below to see the column.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a national "broadband plan" Tuesday that aims to give 90 percent of Americans access to affordable, high-speed Internet by 2020.

"This is not something that is nice for us to do; it is everyone's right," FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said at a commission meeting Tuesday.
The plan calls for billions of dollars in programs to extend fiber-optic Internet cables into new corners of rural America and to educate people about why they need the Web and how they can learn to use it.

Full article at CNN

Libraries, community groups squeezed by cuts to Internet program
The Conservative government is quietly cutting funding to hundreds of community groups and even hospitals that provide free Internet access to Canadians who might not otherwise have a chance to get online.

Organizations that benefit from Industry Canada's 16-year-old Community Access Program began receiving letters last week informing them that sites located within 25 kilometres of a public library would no longer be eligible for cash.

Web Illiteracy: How Much Is Your Fault?
These are ways of writing which bring about undesired consequences, and yet bloggers and other members of the technological elite use them all the time. Is this part of the new illiteracy? The funny thing about the patterns in these misunderstandings is that they predate the Web. Newspapers receive misdirected mail for celebrities. Scientists receive email from people who want help registering a patent. ...The Internet simply makes this kind of confusion more obvious to the rest of us.

The number of visitors to the Enoch Pratt Free Library increased by 20 percent in a six-month period, prompting library officials to suggest that the Internet is helping boost usage at an institution known for its printed word and paper collections.

"It's been a steady increase, across the boards," said Carla D. Hayden, the library's chief executive. "People are using our Web site to find the treasures we have in here. New digital technologies have opened up the collections to so many more people."

Why Wikipedia Should Be Trusted As A Breaking News Source

Traditional media get bits of breaking news wrong all the time, but we accept that as part of the game. To vilify Wikipedia for the same errors sets unequal standards and besides, you'll likely never see the same level of transparency in traditional media about where it went wrong. With Wikipedia, it's all laid bare for the world to see.