September 2001

Librarian read riot act for pacifist stance

In this story from the Oregonian, we learn about librarian,
Miss Hunt,
who stood her ground during World War I. She worked for the
Library Association of Portland, now the Multnomah County Library

John Terry writes:

\”All citizens were under pressure to assign money, and public
employees were instructed it was public duty to commit part of their
paychecks.

Louise Hunt thought otherwise. She was a pacifist and made no secret
of it.

Anonymous word of her refusal inspired the drive\’s chieftains to
furious scorn. A delegation was dispatched to Hunt\’s boss, head
librarian Isom, to demand Hunt either be commanded to duty or
dismissed.\”

Full
Story

Ethiopian University Plans to Expand Library Facilities

The Institute of Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University has begun a fundraising campaign to finance the construction of a badly needed new library:

The Institute of Ethiopian Studies on Monday September 24, 2001 held a pre-launch of a fund raising campaign to build a new library that is estimated to cost USD 5 million. The open house held by the IES on Monday attracted over 250 guests, who were entertained by Ethiopian singers, musicians, and dancers . . .

President of Addis Ababa University, Prof. Eshetu Woncheko, emphasized the importance of the IES, which has the largest collection of Ethiopian artefacts in the world, and the need to provide a new library. The library is currently in Ras Makonnen Hall, a palace donated by Emperor Haile Selassie to the university. The hall was not designed to display or hold the weight of the growing IES collection of manuscripts, books and periodicals.

More from allAfrica.com. More details on AAU library collections can be found at the IES library homepage.

American Girl Literary Theatre

The Chicago Tribune has an article about the new stage show at the American Girl Place complex in town. I\’m posting this because of a quote from the AG theater director:

"We have a wonderful library of literature, and, as with a lot of theater that is based on literature, our goal is to create the best piece of entertainment we can from that base."

Yeah, but how much theater is based on literature based on expensive dolls?

Porn Filmed in Budapest Library

While pornography is a hotly debated topic in libraries, most of the debate concerns filtering the Internet to keep porn out. Library officials in Budapest apparently took a different approach- they gave permission for the taking of \”sensual photographs\” in 1995.

It all comes back to the Internet however, as the case didn\’t receive attention until the video was posted on a Hungarian web site. From Ananova

Winning Hearts and Minds in the Budget Battle

Acknowledging that the future of a Detroit-area public library hinges on active taxpayer support, administrators are pounding the pavement to insure the public knows what it\’s worth:

Brighton District Library officials are predicting that a future expansion of library services will require more help from district taxpayers, and they\’re making the rounds to tell member communities that they\’ll get their money\’s worth . . .

\”We\’re going to go around to all the member communities before we go to the polls,\” Huget said. \”People have to know about us. If they\’re with us every step of the way, we get more buy-in from the communities\” . . . Library officials are hopeful that getting their message out in advance will make the next request for tax dollars less of a struggle.

More from the Detroit News.

webArchivist.org Still Archiving

There\’s more on webarchivist.org in The Washington Post, in case you missed the earlier stories we ran.

Volunteers from all over are joining the Library of Congress and Internet Archive in San Francisco to create a special digital archive, one that aims to re-create what appeared online in the hours, days and weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. They plan to publish their re-creation on Oct. 11.


\”There is the potential for a new level of civic activism emerging,\” said Kirsten Foot, a professor at the University of Washington who is co-directing the effort. \”There\’s been a huge surge in people feeling compelled to make statements about the events online. We see it everywhere online, and we want to preserve a record of it.\”

Letter by Letter

The Great Bob Cox sent along This One from U Of Chicago Mag on the University Library\’s Special Collections.


They have a $125,000 grant from the Save America\’s Treasures Program, and librarians have begun going through the collection piece by piece, putting it into order and preparing it for microfilming. By next June they plan to have the entire collection on film. The oldest paper-like documents in Regenstein are fragments of flattened papyrus from the second century a.d.

No word on plans to put the collection online.

Anti-Terrorism Act Dovetails with DMCA, SSSCA

Security Focus is running a disconcerting article on the anti-hacking provisions of the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act:

Hackers, virus-writers and web site defacers would face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under legislation proposed by the Bush Administration that would classify most computer crimes as acts of terrorism.

The Justice Department is urging Congress to quickly approve its Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a twenty-five page proposal that would expand the government\’s legal powers to conduct electronic surveillance, access business records, and detain suspected terrorists.

The proposal defines a list of \”Federal terrorism offenses\” that are subject to special treatment under law. The offenses include assassination of public officials, violence at international airports, some bombings and homicides, and politically-motivated manslaughter or torture.

Most of the terrorism offenses are violent crimes, or crimes involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. But the list also includes the provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that make it illegal to crack a computer for the purpose of obtaining anything of value, or to deliberately cause damage (emphasis added).

More. This legislation appears to dovetail nicely with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act.