August 2000

Librarian’s Guide to Anime and Manga

\”You may have had some very young skate board toting library patron ask you, \”Do you have any Guyver?\” or a student requesting the seven tape set of the Hakkenden, subtitled, or had a club ask to use your meeting room to show anime. Have you wondered what all of this was about?


Given the increasing popularity of anime and manga in the English speaking world I feel that it is perhaps time that a resource be created to help librarians understand what this is all about and to aid in the selection of items for their collections.\”


That\’s the introduction to The Librarian\’s Guide to Anime and Manga, by Gilles Poitras. It\’s an interesting discussion that has got me interested in this pop-cultural art form.

Stark library strike settled

Ohio.com is Reporting the strike is finally over.

\”Striking workers and the board of the Stark County District Library reached a tentative contract agreement last night, according to a union representative.


Anne Hill, executive director of Service Employees International Union 925, which represents the striking library workers, said a tentative contract was reached about 7:30 p.m. She said she could not provide specifics about the proposal, which would end a nearly four-week walkout.\”

Ohio.com is Reporting the strike is finally over.

\”Striking workers and the board of the Stark County District Library reached a tentative contract agreement last night, according to a union representative.


Anne Hill, executive director of Service Employees International Union 925, which represents the striking library workers, said a tentative contract was reached about 7:30 p.m. She said she could not provide specifics about the proposal, which would end a nearly four-week walkout.\”

The union has been asking for a 6 percent pay increase the first year of a three-year deal and 5 percent raises the following two years. The union rejected the library\’s offer of a 4 percent raise for each of the three years. According to figures released by the union, Stark County librarians are hired at a pay scale of $12.78 an hour and can earn $13.41 an hour after three years.


The starting salary for library associates is $7.88 an hour, increasing to $9.13 an hour after 12 years. Senior library associates make $9.64 an hour to start and $12.61 an hour after 12 years, while bookmobile drivers receive $7.88 an hour to start and $9.46 an hour after 11 years. Union representatives say Stark\’s pay scale is lower than comparable library systems\’.

Wave of the Information?

Bill writes \”I found an article in The Chronicle last week you may be interested in. It Talks about a number of issues that may affect libraries in the future. The article is an interview with William Y. Arms who runs dlib magazine. He says that the quality and quantity of free information is growing. \”

Friday Updates

The friday updates for this week include reference books over the Internet, bigger libraries in Ottowa, the purpose of the Library of Congress, Yad Vashem\’s library, new technology, e-mail protests, more thefts, more extortion, and much, much more….plus the Quote of the Week. Have a great weekend!!

The friday updates for this week include reference books over the Internet, bigger libraries in Ottowa, the purpose of the Library of Congress, Yad Vashem\’s library, new technology, e-mail protests, more thefts, more extortion, and much, much more….plus the Quote of the Week. Have a great weekend!!


From the Cincinatti Post

Library offers reference books over Internet

\”But a new service the library is trying aims to make such research
easier through online access to reference books. The company providing
the service – netLibrary – is among a handful of start-ups seeking to
connect people accustomed to researching online to sources that started
out in print\”


From the Ottowa Citizen

Bookworms to benefit from new city\’s bigger, better library

\”When the region merges into one city on Jan. 1, so will the 33
libraries. That means someone in Clarence-Rockland, who now has access
to about 30,000 books, will suddenly be able to access more than 3.5
million titles. \”This is going to be amazing,\” said Linda Caporicci,
chief librarian of the Cumberland library, which has about 75,000
volumes. \”People in the outskirts are going to have the same selection
as people downtown Ottawa.\”


From the Washington Post

Congress Asks, Whose Library Is It Anyway?

\”What started as a ho-hum morning meeting of a Senate oversight
committee yesterday turned into a spirited questioning of the very
purpose of the Library of Congress.\”


From the Jerusalem Post

Yad Vashem\’s library floor officially inaugurated

\”With 86,000 books about the Holocaust in its library, and over 55
million pages of documentation in its archives, the new archives and
library building, which officially opened in March, houses the largest
collection of Holocaust material in the world.\”


From Syracuse.com

New technology prompts debate in local libraries

\”A survey of approximately 20 of the 59 community libraries in the
four-county region revealed only two – the Oswego School District
Public Library and the Annie Porter Ainsworth Memorial Library in
Sandy Creek, also in Oswego County – that employ filtering software.\”


From the Press Republican

Wead Library bansman after e-mail protest threatened

\”Alan Ritchie, 49, of Chateaugay was citied for trespassing and
disorderly conduct after he refused to leave the library when he was
caught using e-mail on a computer there. Ritchie said he was using
his e-mail account to conduct his sheep- and goat-farming business
on-line.\”


From the Post Tribune

Thefts plague Porter County libraries

\”Someone has been checking out more than books from the Porter
County Public Library system recently. In an unprecedented crime
wave, small safes have been stolen from the Valparaiso and South
Haven branches. Also, someone tried to break into the safe at the
Portage library. Adding to the mystery: None of the buildings
were broken into.\”


From Syracuse.com

Watertown Library Is a Gem

\”When it opened in 1905, the Roswell P. Flower Memorial Library in Watertown was called \”the most beautiful small library in the United States.\”

Ninety-five years later, it\’s still a contender.\”

From the St. Petersburg Times

FBI arrests extortion suspect at library computer

\”The man using the Internet at the Tarpon Springs Public Library looked inconspicuous. In recent weeks, he came and went from the library, largely unnoticed by the librarians.\”

From Booksonline

E-books: a revolution in reading

\”Electronic publishing is no longer science fiction. It’s here. Books will never be out of print, publishers may become redundant and readers will be able to carry a whole library in their briefcase. Susannah Herbert reports.\”

From CNN.com

Kennedy library releases thousands of once-classified papers

\”Thousands of secret CIA missives and other previously classified materials, many documenting the internal foreign policy debate in the Kennedy administration, have been made public for the first time.\”

From the Washington Post

Giving the Disabled Increased E-Access

\”
Making the Web easier to navigate for people with disabilities has always been a mission for the true believers–a small band of volunteers, motivated by empathy or personal experience rather than business acumen.

But that\’s about to change.\”

From Information Today

Freelance Authors Turn Up the Heat with More Lawsuits; Major Database Providers Under Siege

\”After last week’s report about a settlement between the National Writers Union (NWU; http://www.nwu.com) and Contentville (http://www.contentville.com) over author royalties [See Paula J. Hane’s August 14 NewsBreak] the pressure on database providers has escalated, with two new class-action lawsuits being filed on behalf of freelance authors whose copyrighted works have been sold online.\”

From Michigan Live

\”Library board rejects bid to review videotape access

\”After discussing a recent Press article that identified the system as one of a handful locally that allow full movie access to minors, including R-rated videos, the board nixed a suggestion by Commissioner LaVerne Blickley to review the policy.\”


Quote of the Week

\”J.K. Rowling\’s Harry Potter novels feature hate, death, evil, witchcraft and astrology, themes officials say don\’t belong in their church schools.\”

From this article

Searchable video contect available through Lexis-Nexis.com

Virage, Inc. a leading provider of software products and
application services that enable video for the Internet, and
LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r), a leader in online information solutions for business,government, academic and legal professionals, announced the availability of searchable video content as part of the vast LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r) services through the Virage(r) platform.

Virage, Inc. a leading provider of software products and
application services that enable video for the Internet, and
LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r), a leader in online information solutions for business,government, academic and legal professionals, announced the availability of searchable video content as part of the vast LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r) services through the Virage(r) platform. The integration
of Virage-enabled video, in the form of the Campaign 2000 Video Search
Engine available today on www.lexis-nexis.com and on August 22nd via
LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r) Political Universe, represents a major step toward making
valuable video content as easy to access as text information.
The NEXIS business unit is using Virage Application Services and Virage\’s
Internet video infrastructure to integrate video seamlessly into its site,
enabling viewers to easily locate the televised speeches of presidential
candidates quickly by any topic or keyword. Visitors to the LEXIS-NEXIS home
page at www.lexis-nexis.com are able to quickly browse and view video clips
based on pre-selected topics, such as gun control or education, or simply
watch the latest coverage dynamically published to the site. Viewers are
also able to search through hundreds of hours of unfiltered C-SPAN footage
using a familiar search-engine style interface. By incorporating Virage\’s
Campaign 2000 Video Search Engine, LEXIS-NEXIS provides its users with
comprehensive Internet video coverage of leading political candidates on the
road to the White House.


NEXIS is providing access to this new video-based decision support tool in
their booth at the Democratic National Convention. The Campaign 2000 Video
Search Engine is also accessible from a NEXIS research page installed on
computers dedicated to members of the press covering the convention.
NEXIS products and services provide direct access to a vast information
universe. Millions of documents are added weekly to the more than 2.5
billion documents on the LEXIS(r)-NEXIS(r) services. The NEXIS service alone
offers more than 18,800 sources of news and business information and is
unmatched in depth and breadth of information. The LEXIS-NEXIS services are
distinguished from all other electronic information sources, including the
World Wide Web, by the scope and quality of its online content.


“Searchable and interactive video is revolutionizing the way NEXIS can
unleash the power of our web products,\’\’ said Bill Pardue, president and CEO
of NEXIS. “Video is a very valuable and widely-used information source, and
by joining with Virage, we now have the capability to turn it into easily
searchable information. The Campaign 2000 Video Search project provides a
glimpse at the future of information search and retrieval on NEXIS. We\’re
excited about the opportunity to strengthen our offerings with the addition
of technologies that allow searching of rich media.\’\’


“NEXIS continues to set the industry standard for high quality
information,\’\’ said Paul Lego, chairman and CEO of Virage. “We are pleased
to be working with them to extend the reach of their content database to
include video, a very powerful information resource. Our alliance validates
the position of video as a first-class data type on the Internet and
significantly expands the scope of high-quality information available to
users of LEXIS-NEXIS services.\’\’


About NEXIS
NEXIS is a leading provider of online information to the business,
government and academic markets. NEXIS offers targeted information solutions
that can be integrated into its customers\’ business processes and systems.
Combining searchable access to over 2.5 billion documents from thousands of
sources with leading edge systems and tools for managing this content, NEXIS
delivers a high quality resource with which to build knowledge-management
solutions for the entire enterprise. NEXIS is an operating unit of
LEXIS-NEXIS, part of the global publisher and information provider Reed
Elsevier, Inc. For more information about NEXIS, please visit
www.lexis-nexis.com.


About Virage, Inc.
Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, Virage is a leading provider of software
products and application services that enable owners of video content to
publish, manage and distribute their video assets over the Internet or
corporate intranets. Virage Application Services provide content owners with
the complete infrastructure for seamlessly integrating Internet-compliant
video into their web sites. Virage VideoLogger(TM) and Video Application
Server(TM) software set the standard for real-time indexing, publishing and
distribution of video across the Internet and corporate intranets. From ABC
News to Yahoo!, Virage has over 150 customers worldwide in a range of
markets including media and entertainment, large enterprise, education,
government and Internet destinations. Contact Virage at
http://www.virage.com/ or 650-573-3210.


This press release contains “forward looking\’\’ statements about the
products and services of Virage and LEXIS-NEXIS, as that term is used in
Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Phrases such as “will
demonstrate\’\’ and “ will use\’\’ denote forward-looking statements. These
types of statements address matters that are subject to risks and
uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. In
addition, our forward-looking statements should be considered in the context
of other risk factors discussed in our filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, including our Registration Statement on Form S-1, as
amended, available for viewing on our web site. (To access this, please
click on “Investor Relations,\’\’ “SEC Filings\’\’).


NOTE: Virage and the Virage logo are registered trademarks and VideoLogger,
Internet Video Guide, Virage Application Server and SmartEncode are
trademarks of Virage, Inc. LEXIS and NEXIS are registered trademarks of Reed
Elsesvier Properties Inc. Other company product and service names may be
trademarks or service marks of others, and are hereby acknowledged.
CONTACT: Jonathan Hirshon of Horizon Communications, 408-969-4888, or
[email protected], for Virage, Inc.; or Carlos Montalvo of Virage, Inc.,
650-372-2648, or [email protected]; or Kelly Soden of NEXIS, 301-951-4692,
or [email protected].
SOURCE: Virage, Inc.

Controlled Vocabulary and the Internet

Presentations from REFERENCE/CITATION LINKING: THE FEDERAL PERSPECTIVE — A JOINT CENDI/FLICC WORKSHOP Pickford Theater, Library of Congress June 21, 2000 and Presentations from the Subject Analysis and Retrieval Working Group Conference Controlled Vocabulary and the Internet, September 29, 1999
Are now available online at:
http://www.dtic.mil/cendi/pres_arc.html

Presentations from REFERENCE/CITATION LINKING: THE FEDERAL PERSPECTIVE — A JOINT CENDI/FLICC WORKSHOP Pickford Theater, Library of Congress June 21, 2000 and Presentations from the Subject Analysis and Retrieval Working Group Conference Controlled Vocabulary and the Internet, September 29, 1999
Are now available online at:
http://www.dtic.mil/cendi/pres_arc.htmlA closely related Page by Michael Middleton, This page provides links to examples of thesauri and to classification schemes that may be used for controlling database or WWW page subject content. It also provides links to descriptive and critical material about such metainformation.

So, now *we’re* your child’s mom?

Brian Smith writes \”A couple weeks ago, Laura Schlessinger, Ph.D., gave a speech on \”The Crisis of the American Family\” at the Claremont Institute. It looks like she mostly talked about herself and plugged her latest book, but she mentioned that \”libraries ignore their primary responsibility to protect and nurture our children.\”


Text is at http://www.claremont.org/publications/schlessinger000818.cfm


CSPAN televised the speech on Aug. 19. Video is available at http://www.cspan.org/ \”

Dead authors write to Amazon

Bob Cox suggested this.
The Register has a spooky Story on long dead authors leaving comments on their books.

\”Einstein has revealed that he got it wrong about quantum mechanics and God does play with dice. And Fyodor Dostoyevskywrites that he still likes his work even though he\’s dead.\”

They call them \”an amusing fake author posting\”, I think they are real! The dead speak to us through the web.

Bob Cox suggested this.
The Register has a spooky Story on long dead authors leaving comments on their books.

\”Einstein has revealed that he got it wrong about quantum mechanics and God does play with dice. And Fyodor Dostoyevskywrites that he still likes his work even though he\’s dead.\”

They call them \”an amusing fake author posting\”, I think they are real! The dead speak to us through the web.More from the Register

\”And here\’s one we\’ve discovered ourselves. Political writer Hugo Young wrote the book One of Us, a highly rated biography of Margaret Thatcher. In the US this is called The Iron Lady. One of its fans posted a five star review to Amazon.com in 1997 but also mentioned that Young was dead. So six months later, Young\’s son Dominic posted a message pointing out his dad is alive and well. He entered this in the author\’s comment slot. Both messages are still there.


If Amazon.co.uk discovered anything like this on its site it would take swift and draconian action. Following the Reg\’s test of Amazon\’s security the author Matt Thorne, (under whose name we posted our bogus message), had images of his book covers, reviews from national newspapers, synopses of his books, and reader comments removed from his bit of the site. Amazon.co.uk also removed the ability to post any further comments on his books. Everything was replaced five days later. \”

Simon & Schuster joins in

Simon & Schuster has announced that they are going to be offering E-books this fall. Read the article from Mercury Center.

\”Consumers will be able to download the electronic books, or e-books, at the Web sites of online retailers such as Barnesandnoble.com. They can read the books on their computer screens using Microsoft Reader or Glassbook software, on an eBook or SoftBook device, or on personal digital assistants.\”

Simon & Schuster has announced that they are going to be offering E-books this fall. Read the article from Mercury Center.

\”Consumers will be able to download the electronic books, or e-books, at the Web sites of online retailers such as Barnesandnoble.com. They can read the books on their computer screens using Microsoft Reader or Glassbook software, on an eBook or SoftBook device, or on personal digital assistants.\”


\”We\’re putting our stake in the ground,\’\’ said Adam Rothberg, vice president and director of corporate communications at Simon & Schuster.\”

\”The titles include a biography tracking the life of the next president, from childhood to Election Day (Nov. 7), to be sold for $5 beginning at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 8.\”

\”Other books will be published simultaneously in digital and traditional paper-and-ink formats. One of those is “Morgan\’s Run,\’\’ by Colleen McCullough, author of “The Thorn Birds.\’\’

\”Simon & Schuster\’s announcement follows similar news during the past month from competitors Random House and Time Warner\’s iPublish unit.\”

\”A new imprint at Random House, AtRandom, will publish 20 new electronic book titles starting in January. An additional 100 works of classic literature from its Modern Library imprint will be published in electronic form.\”

\”Time Warner\’s iPublish.com unit released a list of its electronic book titles that will be available starting in September. The majority have already been published in traditional, hard-copy format and are now being offered as e-books.\”

\”E-books have mostly been available on a one-time basis. The most high-profile example, Stephen King\’s “Riding the Bullet,\’\’ was downloaded 500,000 times in two days when he released it through Simon & Schuster in March.\”