March 2002

WBEZ had a RRadio Show [Real File] today:


\”Children and adults are accessing the internet in public libraries, and this has rekindled an old debate. Should libraries contain material that may be harmful to kids? Gretchen Helfrich and guests explore how public libraries balance intellectual freedom with the protection of children.\”

Mandatory CIPA Link.

Bleak future looms if you don\’t take a stand.


1. Do you care if a few giant companies control virtually all entertainment and information?


2. Do you care if they decide what kinds of technological innovations will reach the marketplace?


3. Would you be concerned if they used their power to compile detailed dossiers on everything you read, listen to, view and buy?


4. Would you find it acceptable if they could decide whether what you write and say could be seen and heard by others?\”

You think filters are bad?

It\’s Only getting Worse.

Today the Austrialian New South Wales Industrial Commision declared that library workers are underpaid becasue of the historic and present gender makeup of the profession.

The most senior librarians will receive a 25% increase to $56,000 Austrailian dollars ($29,886.37 USD). That is not a typo, folks. Although the figure might seem a bit low to us (maybe not?) the descision is having beneficial psychological effects. A librarian in South Wales says, \”We are a profession, we have some value, we have some worth. The whole pay equity basis is that we have been underpaid, we have been undervalued because it\’s predominantly women. It\’s about time that sort of thing was thrown out.\”

Here is the full story.
Question: Do you feel underpaid?

Gerry writes \”Reading today\’s NOW MAGAZINE it seems the honeymoon is over for Heather\’s comfy bookstores (Chapters & Indigo) up north. Might Borders and B&N follow a Canadian trend for once instead of preceding it? This might prompt Torontonians to return to their woefully underfunded libraries (hint to TPL — lose a few branches, beef up the ones you have, get better hours, let \’em drink coffee!)


Full Story \”

The Internet Classics Archive lets you select from a list of 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors, including user-driven commentary and \”reader\’s choice\” Web sites. Mainly Greco-Roman works (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation.

SFGate has a Story that tells us how the word \”nerd\” became, well, nerdy.


Others include, \”bug\”, \”google\”, and \”Yahoo\”.

Someone writes \”David Burt, he\’s back! with a perspective from the american family association Although the ALA, in its own words, “does not endorse blocking or filtering Internet content in libraries,” apparently many local library boards, administrators, faculty and patrons do. As Burt says, “Slowly, but surely, we are winning this fight with the ALA.” \”

Today\’s CIPA Links:

ALA presskit and Expert Testimony and Full Coverage of the trial. James Nimmo passed along Photos from the courthouse today and the Politech Archive and A BBC Story.

Bob Cox sent along This SmithsonianMag Story on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.


Not much to this story, but the new library, meant to be an architectural signature like Australia\’s Sydney Opera House and Spain\’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, opens to the public April 23, 2002.

There seems to be an interest in the books of Michael Moore around here, so here\’s two recent stories in UK papers about Stupid White Men…

One from the BBC
One from the Guardian

And, as a bonus, you get a BBC panel\’s discussion of the book.

The average lifespan for a website is 60 days. \”To a librarian, whose whole role in life is to preserve information, that is the stuff of sleepless nights.\”

As well as regularly archiving 10,000 sites, the British Library will take half-yearly \”snapshots\” of the entire .uk domain, which is presently 25 million webpages, with 60,000 being registered monthly. The library plans to create a cross section of British websites, consciously choosing a variety of sites, \”for example, we chose the Soil Association site and also the Monsanto site, to see how the debates on GM foods matched up.\”

The archive will be cataloged, somehow, and they are investigated getting copyright clearance so that the public can browse the archives.

Read the Full Story here