May 2000

Web filter leaves residue of outrage

Rob Brian wrote in from OZ:

Members of our
Parliament and those of us who may need to access
the Internet in order to provide them with relevant
information now once more have full access to the
Internet.
You can read The Story from the The Sydney Morning
Herald

\”

An extraordinary exchange of e-mail communications
was provoked when MPs and parliamentary sections
were notified a week ago the Premier\’s Department
had ordered \”filtering\” (read censoring or shutting
down) of Web sites dealing with criminal skills, dating,
extreme or obscene sites, gambling, games, hate
speech and sex.\”

Rob Brian wrote in from OZ:

Members of our
Parliament and those of us who may need to access
the Internet in order to provide them with relevant
information now once more have full access to the
Internet.
You can read The Story from the The Sydney Morning
Herald

\”

An extraordinary exchange of e-mail communications
was provoked when MPs and parliamentary sections
were notified a week ago the Premier\’s Department
had ordered \”filtering\” (read censoring or shutting
down) of Web sites dealing with criminal skills, dating,
extreme or obscene sites, gambling, games, hate
speech and sex.\”Without access to gambling sites, library researchers
could not have written authoritative briefing papers for
MPs on the gaming industry.


\”By the way, if \’gambling\’ sites are filtered, does this
include the stock exchange and online trading?\” Mr
Brian demanded.

Pressing his anti-censorship case, Mr Brian ended by
invoking the library motto, inscribed in the stained glass
ceiling of the Parliament\’s grand Jubilee Room:
Knowledge is the mother of wisdom and virtue.

Not all were indignant. Upper House Liberal Mr Charlie
Lynn shot in: \”I have just checked the Yellow Pages in
my office and found that pages 107-111 advertise \’Adult\’
services. These should be removed forthwith.\”

May 30, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Nuvomedia Rocket eBook Reader Journey

Deborah Wiesehan writes:


Microsoft recently released their new Pocket PC, a handheld device
which combines the functions of a PC in a handheld device with handheld
reader functions. Their journey into the digital book world signifies
something important for the digital book industry. I think all would
agree that Microsoft doesn\’t venture into anything that they don\’t think
will be profitable.

Earlier this year, the Patchogue-Medford Library in Patchogue New
York started circulating Nuvomedia Rocket eBook readers. Although we do
not believe that our venture into the electronic book world holds the
same significance, generally, as Microsoft\’s does, we still learned some
interesting things on the journey.

Deborah Wiesehan writes:


Microsoft recently released their new Pocket PC, a handheld device
which combines the functions of a PC in a handheld device with handheld
reader functions. Their journey into the digital book world signifies
something important for the digital book industry. I think all would
agree that Microsoft doesn\’t venture into anything that they don\’t think
will be profitable.

Earlier this year, the Patchogue-Medford Library in Patchogue New
York started circulating Nuvomedia Rocket eBook readers. Although we do
not believe that our venture into the electronic book world holds the
same significance, generally, as Microsoft\’s does, we still learned some
interesting things on the journey.
The Nuvomedia Rocket eBook reader is a handheld device which allows
the user the ability to carry around up to 10 books at one time, all on
this one device. The numbers have been positive, and we have been
pleased with the progress that our pilot project has made. However, we
couldn\’t have made that progress without traveling down the railway of
innovation ourselves. So being a library, and fond of the idea of
sharing information, we thought we would share the three most important
things we have learned on the trip thus far.


The first thing we have learned is that purchase orders aren\’t
welcome at the virtual table; the library would a need a credit card.
Barnes and Noble.com is the primary retailer for content and the one we
felt most comfortable using. Barnes and Noble will accept a purchase
order for reader orders, but they will not accept purchase orders for
content purchase. So that means out traditional way of paying for books
wasn\’t going to work, and we would have to adapt ourselves to what was
already in place.


The second thing we learned was that electronic books were a lot of
fun. They had all of these really neat options like highlighting,
looking up words in the dictionary, (by just tapping on the word), and
making notes in the text. That led us to ask the question, \”Are we
going to get these back if we lend them out?\” To assuage our fears, we
created an acceptable use policy and waiver which we require patrons to
sign which states that they understand that this a new project, and that
this is new equipment and that there will be repercussions if it doesn\’t
come back reasonably close to how we lent it out.


The third and perhaps most important thing that we learned through
the journey is that the Cadet Maxim applies. \”Risk more than others
think is safe/ Care more than others think is wise/ Dream more than
others others think is practical/ Expect more than others think is
possible.\” For any library to undertake this project, it involves a
calculated risk- one that is going to require an initial effort which at
times may seem overwhelming. However the eBooks do circulate, and the
project has far surpassed our expectations.


Digital books, as they are right now, are not the end of the road.
Gemstar, the owners of Nuvomedia and Softbook are proposing the release
of better models by the end of this year. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson
once said, \”Life is a progress and not a station.\” We\’re just glad that
we bought a ticket.

May 29, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Summer Reading Clubs around the corner

Memorial Day is considered the official start of the summer season. Here are two articles on summer reading for kids;
One from the Post Gazette and another from the Oklahoman.

Memorial Day is considered the official start of the summer season. Here are two articles on summer reading for kids;
One from the Post Gazette and another from the Oklahoman.From the Post Gazette: \”Studies show that children who read 30 minutes or more each day in the summertime maintain the academic skills they learned the previous school year, giving them a head start in September.\”


\”To promote summertime reading, the U.S. Education Department just kicked off its fifth annual summer reading campaign. The \”America Reads Challenge\” program will distribute 2.5 million posters featuring popular children\’s book character Arthur on the front and reading activities on the back.

The program also maintains a Web site filled with lists of recommended books and ideas at: www.ed.gov/americareads

From the Oklahoman: \”The classics endure. Tire swings, bicycles, swimming and picnics at the park are still every bit as much a part of summer for today\’s children as they were for their parents. This summer, though, state library officials also want to see Oklahoma\’s youngsters embracing other classics — namely time-honored titles such as \”The Wizard of Oz,\” favorites such as \”If You Give a Mouse a Cookie\” and new hits such as \”The Adventures of Captain Underpants.\”

May 29, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Don’t judge book by its skin

In a strange blending of art and promotion, a special
edition of a forthcoming book by a controversial
Newfoundland author will contain pieces of his own
skin. The
National Post up in Canada, has The Story.

In a strange blending of art and promotion, a special
edition of a forthcoming book by a controversial
Newfoundland author will contain pieces of his own
skin. The
National Post up in Canada, has The Story.

Portions of Kenneth J. Harvey\’s flesh, containing
his DNA, will be embedded in small, pink swatches of
paper stitched on to the cover of an abridged edition of
his 11th book, Skin Hound (There Are No Words), a
book whose protagonist is a serial-killing English
professor with a penchant for cutting away his victim\’s
skin.

The author and his publisher, The Mercury Press,
are looking for a way to similarly imbue general release
copies of the book when it is published this fall. \”When
you see me in Toronto at the [Canadian Booksellers
Association meeting], my arms will probably be raw,\”
Mr. Harvey said from his home in Burnt Head, Nfld.

The idea for the unique packaging started when Mr.
Harvey\’s wife, Janet, who is an artist and makes paper,
was creating a special book cover for promotional
copies of the novel to be given away at a trade
convention in June, Mr. Harvey said.

May 28, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Derek de Solla Price Article

Lee
Hadden writes:

An article about Derek de Solla Price
is in the May 18,
2000 issue of Nature. Dr. Price is the
ex-physicist who spoke about
the compounding effects of scientific publishing over
time, and first said
the famous and frequently un- attributed comment that
\”80 or 90 per cent of
the scientists who have ever lived are alive today\”
He also talked about and documented the
doubling of
scientific knowledge every ten or fifteen years or so
since the year 1700.

Lee
Hadden writes:

An article about Derek de Solla Price
is in the May 18,
2000 issue of Nature. Dr. Price is the
ex-physicist who spoke about
the compounding effects of scientific publishing over
time, and first said
the famous and frequently un- attributed comment that
\”80 or 90 per cent of
the scientists who have ever lived are alive today\”
He also talked about and documented the
doubling of
scientific knowledge every ten or fifteen years or so
since the year 1700.
If you have electronic access to Nature online, you can
read the interesting article at Nature.com

If you don\’t have an online account with Nature, you
can read this
article by Terence Kelly in Nature, May 18, 2000,
Volume 405, page 279,
the old-fashioned way: either from the subscription in
your library
collection or through inter-library loan.

May 28, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Yahoo! Changed

I\’m not sure if this is news or not, but sometime today,
Yahoo! made
some big changes on Yahoo.com.I get all
confused when sites I use every day change things. I
think I liked the old version, but I suppose they know
better than me. That cute little baby has been replaced
by a baby chicken, or some damn bird.

May 28, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Fight over Newspapers!!

I just got a kick out of reading this article from the Telegraph, obviously not from the racial remarks, but from the reason why they were said.


\”Robert Birchall, 69, believed that Mungai Mbaya, 60, had broken an unwritten rule in Cambridge Central Library by having two newspapers at once. He ended up having a tug-of-war over the International Herald Tribune with Kenyan-born Mr Mbaya, a Labour councillor, a former magistrate and a British citizen.\”

I just got a kick out of reading this article from the Telegraph, obviously not from the racial remarks, but from the reason why they were said.


\”Robert Birchall, 69, believed that Mungai Mbaya, 60, had broken an unwritten rule in Cambridge Central Library by having two newspapers at once. He ended up having a tug-of-war over the International Herald Tribune with Kenyan-born Mr Mbaya, a Labour councillor, a former magistrate and a British citizen.\”



\”Mr Birchall, a retired lecturer, claimed that he had merely been rebuking Mr Mbaya. He was fined £100 for the public order offence of using racially threatening or abusive words. He said afterwards: \”It\’s political correctness gone mad. I\’m not a racist and I wasn\’t being racist. I was brought up with people from mixed races and have been around them all my life.\”


Mr Mbaya told Cambridge magistrates that he was about to return a copy of the Cambridge Evening News to the rack and begin reading the Tribune when Mr Birchall came up looking for a copy of it. He said: \”He suddenly grabbed the International Herald Tribune which I resisted. I then said I wanted to read the International Herald Tribune.

\”I was very angry at this point and he still insisted on taking it. The paper would have been torn up so I let him have it. He then said, \’Behave yourself and go back to your country where you will behave.\’ I am a UK citizen. I don\’t have to go back to another country.\”

May 28, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Double Standards in Filtering Software

Wired has this very interesting article on other potential problems with filtering softare.


\”Blocking software, long criticized for mislabeling innocuous websites as pornographic, now has a new problem: accusations of double standards.

The most popular filtering programs allow their users to freely visit the websites of arch-conservative groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America, which feature strident denunciations of homosexuality. But when those identical fulminations against lesbians and gays were duplicated and placed on personal Web pages, Cyberpatrol, Surfwatch, and four other programs quickly added the addresses to their off-limits blacklists.

Wired has this very interesting article on other potential problems with filtering softare.


\”Blocking software, long criticized for mislabeling innocuous websites as pornographic, now has a new problem: accusations of double standards.

The most popular filtering programs allow their users to freely visit the websites of arch-conservative groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America, which feature strident denunciations of homosexuality. But when those identical fulminations against lesbians and gays were duplicated and placed on personal Web pages, Cyberpatrol, Surfwatch, and four other programs quickly added the addresses to their off-limits blacklists.



\”As a test, anti-filtering activists at Peacefire copied anti-gay excerpts from conservative publications to four websites on Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire, and TheGlobe.

After the links were submitted to the companies, each of the four sites was blocked as \”hate speech\” or otherwise labeled as verboten.\”

\”I can see why it would be called be called hate speech,\” said George Jelatis, senior technical architect at Secure Computing, which sells Smartfilter to corporations.

Referring to the second paragraph of Geocities\’ \”Straight Talk on \’Gay Rights\’\”, which is excerpted from a Concerned Women for America publication and says \”the truth of the matter is that homosexuality is an immoral behavior that can be changed,\” Jelatis admitted that \”there are people who would consider this (a) speech that would produce a hostile atmosphere in the workplace.\”

But Jelatis couldn\’t explain why the original document at Concerned Women for America was readily available to Smartfilter users.

\”I\’d have to go back and review the polices. But I think what you\’d find that we do is that we don\’t necessarily take controversial sites where we get one request and make a very painful decision without discussing it. We look at is this coming in multiple times,\” Jelatis said.\”

May 28, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

Guide Dog Causes Stress in Library

The Toledo Blade has this article about a guide dog that apparently caused some problems in a library for doing what he was trained to do.


\”Mr. Loesser, 36, said he went to the library recently to check out several books on tape when a girl started to pet Thunder. Mr. Loesser said he asked the girl to stop because the German shepherd was on duty.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Loesser said a librarian approached him and told him no dogs are allowed in the library. The librarian then allegedly grabbed his elbow, causing Thunder to bark, Mr. Loesser said.\”

The Toledo Blade has this article about a guide dog that apparently caused some problems in a library for doing what he was trained to do.


\”Mr. Loesser, 36, said he went to the library recently to check out several books on tape when a girl started to pet Thunder. Mr. Loesser said he asked the girl to stop because the German shepherd was on duty.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Loesser said a librarian approached him and told him no dogs are allowed in the library. The librarian then allegedly grabbed his elbow, causing Thunder to bark, Mr. Loesser said.\”



\”Library officials said they didn\’t ask Ray Loesser to leave, but told him he needed to have his guide dog, Thunder, under control – or take him outside – because they said the animal lunged at patrons and employees.\”

\”He was never asked to leave at any time throughout this whole incident. We want to make it clear that we never discriminate,\” Pat Hillmer, director of the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, said yesterday. \”But we want our patrons to be safe.\”

He later left the library, after telling employees that his ADA rights had been violated. Library employees then called police to report a possible vicious dog, because they said the animal lunged at them several times inside the building\”

.

Ms. Hillmer said none of her employees ever touched Mr. Loesser. Instead, she said one librarian became startled, and even a bit scared, after the dog jumped at her.\”

May 27, 2000 by Uncategorized 0

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