August 2000

Mother Leaves Her 3 Kids at a Library

A woman in Virginia brought her three children into a library, left them there, and did not return. The article is provided by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.


\”She just dropped them off and walked away,\” Carey said. \”When we arrested her, she didn\’t even ask about the children. She didn\’t care about their whereabouts or their health. She wasn\’t remorseful.\”

A woman in Virginia brought her three children into a library, left them there, and did not return. The article is provided by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.


\”She just dropped them off and walked away,\” Carey said. \”When we arrested her, she didn\’t even ask about the children. She didn\’t care about their whereabouts or their health. She wasn\’t remorseful.\”

\”The children — 2 1/2-year-old twin girls, Breanna and Teanna Trabal, and an 8-month-old boy, Yabriele Trabal — were placed in foster care.\”

\”The kids appear to be well-taken care of,\” said Detective Dennis Brown, who is leading the investigation. \”There\’s no sign of trauma or abuse.\”

\”Mack\’s nephew, Andre Carter, said the family was shocked to learn the children had been found alone in the library.

\”We know she was having a difficult time,\” Carter said. He added that family members believed the abandonment was not something she planned, but \”just happened.\”

\”Police believe Mack, who moved to the area about two weeks ago, is unmarried and was living with her brother and sister-in-law near the Virginia Beach Central Library. The children were left at the library Monday afternoon, Carey said.\”

\”A large yellow sign designates the building as a \”safe place\” where children who think they are in danger can go for help, Carey said.\”

\”It was unclear how long the children were alone before a patron found them in the adult nonfiction section and notified the staff, librarian Pat Cook said.\”

\”The girls had juice bottles and were running around, while the boy was in a stroller and had a milk bottle and a pacifier, Cook said. There were no notes or identification tags on their clothing.

August 24, 2000 by Legal Issues Librarians Libraries

Studio B Buzz Highlights

Greetings Lisnewsteers. Thrice weekly the Studio B Buzz goes out from the folks at Studio B (including moi) and Blake\’s been kind enough to give me permission to post some of the highlights here. So for news on a new reading program from B&N, new reading devices from Thomson, and the Lightning Source deal with Versaware, read on…

Greetings Lisnewsteers. Thrice weekly the Studio B Buzz goes out from the folks at Studio B (including moi) and Blake\’s been kind enough to give me permission to post some of the highlights here. So for news on a new reading program from B&N, new reading devices from Thomson, and the Lightning Source deal with Versaware, read on…If you dig this news, you might want to check out the Studio B Buzz at http://www.studiob.com/cafenews . Or just read the highlights here.

* Lightning Source strikes a deal with Versaware
Publishers Weekly: August 21, 2000.
Lightning Source and Versaware have announced a
strategic alliance to expand digital services.
Versaware will provide digital conversion for Lightning
Source customers, and Lightning Source will provide print-on-demand technology for Versaware clients. The co-founder of Versaware revealed \”we\’ll be working with Lightning Source on other delivery and content-management technologies that we\’ll announce later.\”
http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/20000821_89571.asp

* Thomson will debut RCA reading devices
PR Newswire: August 21, 2000.
Thomson will debut the RCA-brand eBooks in September at the
New York is Book Country book fair. Fair attendees will be
able to see two models, REB1100 and REB1200, which will be
sold under the RCA brand name. The REB1100 model will
feature a 5.5\” backlit monochrome LCD touch screen, store up
to 20 books or 8000 paperback pages and weigh only 17
ounces. Features on the REB1200 will include a 8.5\” backlit
color LCD touch-screen, a 56K modem and an Ethernet port.
PRESS RELEASE.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000821/in_thomson.html

* Barnes & Noble.com and Nestle USA have announced
a special reading program. Plans include joining
with Donny Osmond, Maria Shriver and Rick Schroder
to encourage instituting family reading times.
Read the press release at http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000822/ca_nestle__2.html

August 24, 2000 by EBooks Yahoo

An Anthropologist at Work

Knowledge Management Magazine has a nice Interview with Brook Manville to discuss his views on how knowledge and learning management fit into today\’s quickly evolving, Internet-enabled business environment. You might learn a thing or two from this Knowledge Management stuff

\”What do you see in the future of Web-based learning?

The future will be about creating a mix of different kinds of learning opportunities and events, which would include collaborative spaces with networks of people or with instructors or moderators.

Knowledge Management Magazine has a nice Interview with Brook Manville to discuss his views on how knowledge and learning management fit into today\’s quickly evolving, Internet-enabled business environment. You might learn a thing or two from this Knowledge Management stuff

\”What do you see in the future of Web-based learning?

The future will be about creating a mix of different kinds of learning opportunities and events, which would include collaborative spaces with networks of people or with instructors or moderators.
What do you see in the future of Web-based learning?
The future will be about creating a mix of different kinds of learning opportunities and events, which would include collaborative spaces with networks of people or with instructors or moderators. The world is also getting more visual. There will be more and more scenarios, simulations and graphical representations to assist people to quickly understand and internalize situations. The training of soft skills is done much better through simulation than text presentations. Web-based learning will incorporate individual learning styles. Some people are visual, others are analytical.

August 23, 2000 by Internet Museums

Loyal King Fans Pay Extra

Someone sent in a cnn.com Story on \”The Plant\”. It seems some readers have been paying extra money — in $2, $10 and even $20 — to make up for less honorable readers who downloaded the files without paying. King won\’t finish the book without enough folks paying, so the fans hope to tip the scales.

\”As it is, some 76 percent of readers are volunteering to pay the $1 King is asking for each copy — just above the amount King says he wants for the project to continue — so the project appears set to continue for now.\”

August 23, 2000 by Authors

Teachers union tells students to avoid library

A couple of strike updates:

Teamsters back library workers

Teamsters will march in downtown Canton today in support of striking library workers.
The Solidarity March, as it’s being called, is to begin at 2 p.m. at the Hilton on Market Avenue S.
Between 300 and 350 people are expected, said Paul Bair, city safety director.


Teachers union tells students to avoid library
Sam Dorto, president of the 1,000-member Canton Professional Educators Association, said he hopes teachers will forgo giving library-based assignments while District 925 of the Service Employees International Union is on strike.“The library is a tremendous resource, but we won’t put the kids in a position where they have to cross the picket line.”Dorto said he is concerned about the kind of service that nonunion library workers will provide to students. He also questioned whether they would be safe, citing the library’s decision to hire security guards from Troy, Mich.-based Huffmaster Cos.

August 23, 2000 by Librarians Libraries

Harry Potter Coming to Life

Never heard of Daniel Radcliffe? Well, you can now call him Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe, an 11-year-old British boy has been chosen by Warner Bros to play Harry in the upcoming movie. There will be other people in the movie, but no one seems to care. Bookwire has the Full Story.

Never heard of Daniel Radcliffe? Well, you can now call him Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe, an 11-year-old British boy has been chosen by Warner Bros to play Harry in the upcoming movie. There will be other people in the movie, but no one seems to care. Bookwire has the Full Story.In a somewhat related Story from Salon, people are divided over what Harry has done to the NY Times best seller list.

\”\”It\’s been a long time coming,\” remarks Joanna Cotler, publisher of Joanna Cotler Books at HarperCollins Children\’s, \”and I\’m thrilled that Harry Potter is what finally pushed them into it. I\’ve always looked at the New York Times\’ bestseller list as wonderful free advertising. Now children\’s books get it, too.\”

I seem to recall a story that said the publisher is fighting this, but now I can\’t find it.

August 23, 2000 by Harry Potter

What the Internet cannot do

“IT IS impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.” Think that was written about the internet? Think again.
The Economist has an interesting Story on the never ending hype surrounding the internet.

\”The extent to which the Internet will transform other fields of human endeavour, however, is less certain. Even when everyone on the planet has been connected to the Internet, there will still be wars, and pollution, and inequality. \”

“IT IS impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.” Think that was written about the internet? Think again.
The Economist has an interesting Story on the never ending hype surrounding the internet.

\”The extent to which the Internet will transform other fields of human endeavour, however, is less certain. Even when everyone on the planet has been connected to the Internet, there will still be wars, and pollution, and inequality. \”That quote was said by Victorian enthusiasts, acclaiming the arrival in 1858 of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. I think they were wrong.

August 23, 2000 by Internet

Linking to DeCSS illegal

Wired has a Story that scares the hell out of me. In an unprecedented expansion of traditional copyright law, it is no longer merely illegal to distribute a potentially infringing computer program — but now even linking to someone else\’s copy could be verboten. You can now break the law by linking to DeCSS.
Related Case.

\”I think that Judge Kaplan does not know his head from his ass,\” says Adrian Bacon, owner of Linux News Online. \”Outlawing a site from linking to another site that has DeCSS is just plain wrong.\”

Wired has a Story that scares the hell out of me. In an unprecedented expansion of traditional copyright law, it is no longer merely illegal to distribute a potentially infringing computer program — but now even linking to someone else\’s copy could be verboten. You can now break the law by linking to DeCSS.
Related Case.

\”I think that Judge Kaplan does not know his head from his ass,\” says Adrian Bacon, owner of Linux News Online. \”Outlawing a site from linking to another site that has DeCSS is just plain wrong.\”

More From Wired

:\”It\’s bad enough that this decision diminishes the expressive character of this code,\” says Paul McMasters, the Freedom Forum\’s First Amendment ombudsman. \”But it extends far beyond that to threaten the ability of those writing about DeCSS to even link to the code. That puts this ruling in league with recent legislative attempts to slap a prior restraint on speech that links.\”


The U.S. House of Representatives currently is considering the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, one version of which makes it a crime for anyone, including journalists, to knowingly link to drug-related websites.


\”Even if there is no First Amendment right to put up the source code, there is a very strong argument to include the URL to anything you please,\” says Eugene Volokh, a UCLA professor who teaches copyright and free speech law.

August 23, 2000 by Censorship Internet Legal Issues

Open Source software for maintaining a Library

Slashdot has a cool Article on Open Source software for maintaining a small to medium sized library
card-catalog. Someone asked for, and got, many suggestions.

\” It seems all the tools are available: a perl module for working with MARC records,
several for working with Z39.50 and XML, and even a web site apparently devoted to nearly this exact
topic. An actual, working, catalog, however, seems to be missing. Is this something that would be valuable?
I, for one, have nearly 5k volumes in my collection, and they\’re begging for some discipline.\”

Be sure to check out oss4lib.org is this kind of thing interests you. Open Source = Free

August 23, 2000 by Librarians Libraries

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