July 2001

Julio Santillán Aldana is looking to contact Spanish speaking Latino Librarians here in the States and elsewhere.


He runs a little magazine down in Peru called Bilbios.


Check it out, you can also reach him by email at:

[email protected]

The Vodka Library is situated 200 miles north of Moscow in the Russian town of Uglich on the Volga, hometown of Pyotr Arseneyevich Smirnov, founder of the Smirnoff brand. No books, just thousands of bottles of vodka encased in glass. It aims to celebrate the national drink but also to educate on the problems its consumption can cause.
\”Vodka has never done anything good, but without it, Russia would not exist\”
So you can get a taste test but also a lecture on responsible drinking. The full shot glass from The Boston Globe.

The face of public libraries in the US is changing, according to this story from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. New library buildings are designed for this new role.
\”People view libraries today more as \”information brokers,\” he said. Visitors expect a wider range of services, which includes access to computers, educational programs for children and places to meet and exchange ideas.\”

So let\’s see, first there was The Rarin
Librarian.


Now we have, The New Breed
Librarian, The Intolerant
Librarian, The Hip Librarian, The Rogue
Librarian, The
Lipstick Librarian, The
U*N*A*B*A*S*H*E*D Librarian, The
Library Geek, The librarian without
walls, The Library
Juice, Library
Stuff, The Barbarian Librarian, Belly
Dancing Librarian,
The Eclectic Librarian, The Laughing Librarian, The Best
Damn Librarians and 316 Others.

Did I miss anyone?

The decision of the British government to close the British Council library in the Indian state of Bihar has led to widespread protests and the creation of an Association to Save the British Library. Bihar has the lowest literary rate of all Indian states (47.53 per cent) and the library\’s supporters feel the loss of the library would only make things worse. However, the British government argue that the library is not viable. The the full story from the Khaleej Times.

A technically detailed assessment from someone in the trenches:

The University of California\’s California Digital Library (CDL) formed an Ebook Task Force in August 2000 to evaluate academic libraries\’ experiences with electronic books (e-books), investigate the e-book market, and develop operating guidelines, principles and potential strategies for further exploration of the use of e-books at the University of California (UC). This article, based on the findings and recommendations of the Task Force Report [1], briefly summarizes task force findings, and outlines issues and recommendations for making e-books viable over the long term in the academic environment, based on the long-term goals of building strong research collections and providing high level services and collections to its users.

(More from D-Lib.)

The U.S. Department of Justice\’s new budget includes greatly expanded funding for enforcement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

The Senate has earmarked $10 million for copyright prosecutions, enough money for 155 agents and attorneys in the fiscal year starting in October. That\’s up from a current $4 million allocated for 75 positions. . . \”We are very pleased with the amount. It\’s going to be used to prevent a whole lot of Internet piracy and mischief,\” said Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers. \”If someone crashed the international banking community, it wouldn\’t be too funny,\” Schroeder said. \”The Department of Justice wants to send the message that this is not a joke. You really could put someone out of business.\” (More from Wired.)

More on the growing trend toward search engines ranking query results based on payments made by advertisors:

Many of us in the new media industry have watched in despair during the past few months as several major search engines have abandoned all pretense at editorial integrity by adopting deceptive, misleading advertising practices at the expense of their users.Finally, someone has stood up and said, Enough is enough. And now it\’s time for the rest of us to join the battle as well. (More from the Online Journalism Review.)

Thanks to the always valuable Wood s Lot.

The U.S. Attorney\’s office has indicated that it will not drop charges against Dmitri Sklyarov:

Representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) met with representatives of the U.S. Attorney\’s office in San Francisco today. There was a productive dialog, however the U.S. Attorney\’s office gave no indication of dropping the prosecution against Dmitry Sklyarov. Having explored good faith negotiations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation rejoins the call for nonviolent protests worldwide to secure the immediate release of Dmitry Sklyarov and dropping of all criminal charges against him. A protest is already scheduled in San Francisco for 11:30am this Monday, July 30, at the Federal Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave. Additional protests will occur in 25 or more cities worldwide in coming weeks.

( More from FreeSklyarov.org. Thanks to Slashdot.)

Bruce Jensen has put together PLUS: Public Libraries Using Spanish.

\”Many public libraries find it difficult to fully serve their multicultural communities because of the time and expertise needed to perform translation and outreach work.


PLUS seeks to lend a hand by gathering useful documents that can help you make your library a more welcoming place for Spanish speakers. Card applications, brochures, programming suggestions, signage, press releases and news articles–many in Spanish with a side-by-side English translation–are collected here and are yours to use as you wish.\”