April 2001

There\’s a neat Audio Interview [You need Real Player] with author Simon Winchester over on NPR.

\”…who voices his frustration with the misuse of Roget\’s Thesaurus. Roget apparently never intended his book to be used for finding synonyms at all — its creation was merely a game to pass the time. Winchester is author of the bestselling book, The Professor and the Madman. His article on Roget will appear in Atlantic magazine\”.

I\’m pretty sure it\’s in the issue I have at home, so I think the article is already out.

It was Amnesty Week at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh so Lucille Colamarino returned a book due on November 10, 1924, that is $12,500 in fines. She was awarded a calendar organizer as a joke and a crown and sash for returning the book. Full Story

Is there a record for the most overdue book ever returned?

In September this year, many scientists could stop sending in papers to journals and refuse to renew subscriptions to them in support of a plan to create a huge Public Library of Science on the internet. Two new stories.
Publish Free or Perish from Scientific American.


The BBC also has Scientists threaten journal protest.

A review in The New Republic begins:

\”Some children dream of becoming astronauts when they grow up; others dream of becoming librarians. A.S. Byatt\’s characters fall into the second category…\”

MassLive.com says Web porno problem for library . A concerned mother collected 300 signatures to get a single filter installed.


Southbendtribune has Library official: filters don\’t work in which Cass District Library Director M.E. Harper there\’s not a problem in the first place [with porn in the library].


Installing Internet filters seen as problem is from MI, where they cover CIPA from the libraries view.


This Story covers a few companies that make different kinds of filters.

Ann Bartow has written an intersting Paper that looks at how technology and legal issues are affecting libraries. It\’s a great paper that covers the past, present and future of the legal issues that surround libraries.

As Fair Use is slowly taken away from us using laws like the DMCA, Copyright Term Extension Act, and who knows that else, I really think this is the kind of thing we need to be worried about. Where is the passion and emotion I see in the filtering issue when it comes to legal issues?

Godfrey Oswald writes:
\”Hello

Godfrey Oswald MSc.

information scientist and author.
London. \”

Scientific American has an Interesting Story by Tim Berners-Lee (you may know him from such projects as the WWW) on what they call \”The Semantic Web\”

The Semantic Web will bring structure to the meaningful content of Web pages, creating an environment where software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users. Kinda like what librarians do now.

MyLibrary is A Model for Implementing a User-centered, Customizable Interface to a Library\’s Collection of Information Resources.

Read All About It in this paper by Eric Lease Morgan.


It integrates principles of librarianship (collection, organziation, dissemination, and evaluation) with globably networked computing resources creating a dynamic, customer-driven front-end to any library\’s set of materials.

Possible Conference coming soon.

CNN is just one place you can Read About \”The Wind Done Gone\” appearing for sale on eBay. It must\’ve been pulled, I searched and found 0 results.

The Chicago Tribune has a Story on comments by the author, Alice Randall.


She says that the book is a parody of Margaret Mitchell\’s famous 1936 novel \”Gone With the Wind\” and not, as a federal judge ruled, a sequel.

\”I would never write a sequel to `Gone With the Wind.\’ I\’m not a romance novelist. I didn\’t seek to exploit her characters but explode them,\”