October 2000

Mayor Mel Lastman [Toronto\’s chief Muggle] gave J.K. Rowling the key to the city yesterday, and when she spoke at a fundaraiser for the Osborne Collection of the Toronto Library, she admitted she\’s just terrified about the big event. Part of the International Festival of Authors is a reading by Rowling at the Sky Dome, Never Been?(it\’s quite a place, worth the trip, wherever you are). Her biggest audience in the past was 2,000 in Germany, the Sky Dome holds 36,000. Did you know her friends call her Jo?

“The reading is a way to reach a lot of children. But I\’m plainly not a rock star, not the Rolling Stones.\’\’

The Full Story is at The T.O. Star

Cluebot.com has posted a Letter from some conservative groups, including American Family Association of Oregon, and Libertarian Party of Mississippi who all oppose library filtering [H.R. 4577]. They choose education over filtering.

\”Nothing is more effective than efforts to educate parents and children about Internet safety and how to properly use online resources. Moreover, Internet filters are an imperfect solution to this important problem. With millions and millions of web sites already online, and more added every day, children will always be able to access content we might wish they couldn\’t. Education programs can help them to deal with the very real danger certain kinds of content could pose; Internet filters offer a false sense of security on this issue. \”

Here\’s an interesting essay from The Chronicle written by Wayne A. Wiegand,a professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

He says people go to the library to find stories to read. Folks are looking for material that inspires them or affirms their identities. Mr. Wiegand says the problem is librarians have little knowledge of why people read what they do, therefore librarians tend to lack a deeper understanding of how libraries serve some readers. This is a missed opportunity to show evidence to state legislatures and other sources of financial support that spending money on stories is important. Librarians are also often not able to help people find the right story to read and don\’t develop enough programs to connect readers to one another. He puts part of the blame on library and information-science programs, that have ignored the literature on reading usually undervalue the reading of stories.

What about you, do you know why people come in, what they are reading and why?

The Denver Post reports that \”police will be allowed to search customer purchase records\” at the Tattered Cover Book Store.

Astute readers will no doubt have already drawn a comparison to the 1998 case involving Kramerbooks & afterwords, the Washington DC bookstore that told Ken Starr to mind his own business. So why has a judge given the police carte blanche this time? Perhaps because they said the magic word: \”drugs\”.

\”If it only takes one or two records from a bookstore to help us eliminate drugs on the street, then so be it,\” said Lt. Lori Moriarty, commander of the North Metro Drug Task Force, which is seeking the Tattered Cover records.

Ah, so that\’s the problem. It\’s not that Prohibition has failed again — it\’s just those pesky booksellers who are protecting readers\’ right to privacy…

CNN has posted a Transcript on a TalkBack Live show called \”Filtering the Internet for Children: Censorship or Protection?\”

It\’s interesting the first clip is the famous (or infamous) \”chocolate chip cookies\” incident.

\”She typed in chocolate chip cookies, hit the search button, and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman.\”

Remember that one from February? If not, Read It

The transcipt is interesting, worth the read if you\’re into the filtering thing.

The Chronicle has an Interview with William Y. Arms , the guy who runs Dlib Magazine. He has some interesting things to say about the future of libraries. Mr. Arms says that once people are able to get all they need from the internet, they will stop going to the library, ease of access leads to use, and the library is harder to use.

\”I think it may be possible to have substantial research programs without access to conventional libraries\”.

Some provocative stuff in this one.

I ran across this Page a part of Denise Plourde\’s cool Web Site. Her Library Humor page has a great section with An annotated bibliography of Library Cartoons, where cartoons have mentioned libraries or librarians. My favorite is Dilberts date with the libarian who is so smart she can read his mind. Blondie, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes and many more are included.

The UCITA Saga continues.

The Federal Trade Commission will hold a public forum on October 26 and 27, 2000 to examine warranty protection for software and other high-tech goods and services marketed to consumers.

The public forum will be held at the Federal Trade Commission headquarters, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. on October 26, 2000 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and on October 27, 2000 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

You can also see FTC staff comments to NCCUSL during the date
preceeding NCCUSL\’s approval of UCITA, the first on October
30, 1998, and the second on July 9, 1999.

Bob Cox sent in this Story
from SF Gate
on antiquarian bookstores in San Francisco. They
interview store owners on the effects of the internet, and
the crazy real estate market in SF and how things in the
old book market are going.

\”It\’s not the quantity
of books sold, it\’s the quality. We\’re not about turnover.
\”

The internet is driving them out of business
indirectly, due to high rent prices.