May 2002

A recent article from The Guardian titled How To Fix Our Libraries presents a grim picture of libraries in England.

As a country we pay £900m a year for our public libraries: a Millennium Dome each year. Is the money wasted? One thing is clear. Unless the management make significant changes to the way they work, in 20 years\’ time, nobody will be using libraries at all.

This article was written because an audit of public libraries was recently released. Written by the governmental Audit Commission, it was titled Building Better Library Services [1.86 MB PDF]. See the easily digestible summary.

June 2002: Vol. 2 No. 8

From the Wall Street Journal:

For more than 15 years, [Pamela] Samuelson . . . a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has been fighting what she sees as overzealous and innovation-stifling expansion of copyright laws in the high-tech arena . . .

Now she is taking on one of her biggest challenges so far — attacking the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, an anti-piracy law backed by the entertainment industry. Ms. Samuelson thinks the law protects intellectual-property rights at the expense of technological research and innovation, as well as the broader public interest . . .

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More.

ALA Celebrity \”READ\” posters seem to do pretty well on
eBay — \”extremely rare\” Yoda posters selling for over $15, Ani DiFranco posters regularly topping $20 or even $25. That\’s a markup of 150%-200% over regular prices, not including a discount for membership or buying more than four posters at a time.

\”Hmm, my salary is low
because people are stupid and like to go to the Internet instead of
asking a librarian…
my salary is low…
there are stupid people on the
Internet…
my salary is low…
there are stupid people on the
Internet…
by Dewey, I think I\’ve got it!\”

Yahoo News says the House voted overwhelmingly to establish a new domain for kid-friendly Web sites and to expand wiretap authority to target Internet predators.


The domain measure, approved on a 406-2 vote, would have the federal government oversee a \”.kids.us\” domain on the Internet that would have only material appropriate for children under 13. Web site operators\’ participation would be voluntary. Parents could set computer software to limit a child\’s access to only addresses ending in .kids.us.

Read Bill H.R. 3833.

\”I have repeatedly said that libraries have children\’s book sections, why can\’t the Internet have the same type of section devoted to children\’s interests?\”
-Rep. John Shimkus

Leddy writes \”As it turns out, the Jedi Archive/Library is an almost exact replica of one of the finest libraries in the world – The Old Library of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland


Cinescape Has The Story, and pictures to prove it.\”