September 2002

Here\’s A Businessweek Story on Eldred v. Ashcroft. On Oct. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft. It\’s a challenge to the controversial 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which lengthened copyright terms by 20 years, stretching them to 70 years after an artist\’s death.


A Supreme Court ruling against the CTEA would be the first major victory for digital-rights activists, who want more books, music, and images to enter the public domain. And it would be a grand defeat for corporations, which claim they would forfeit billions in lost revenues.

Gary Deane shows us This GlobeAndMail.com Story on Heather Reisman. She owns The Chapters superstore chain, Coles, SmithBooks, Indigo\’s, both chains\’ e-commerce ventures, and a growing slice of the college bookstore business. They say she operates the closest thing to an unregulated monopoly in Canada\’s private sector; no other sizable developed country has let ownership of bookselling become so concentrated. The whole enterprise is losing money

Marian writes: “Eric has a wonderful Article By Abby Kasowitz-Scheer and Michael Pasqualoni on Information literacy instruction. They cover ACRL’s Best Practices Initiative, have a great bibliography, and make some wonderful points. They say Information literacy instruction is alive and well on campuses today. However, there is much work to be done before integrated ILI across the curriculum is standard practice. It’s a bit older than most things you point to, from June 2002, but worth the read!”

Note: You might need a subcription to read this.

Troy Johnson writes “The Librarian’s Book Club is a group to read and discuss books that are about libraries and the library profession. The membership of the group voted for readings for Oct.-Nov. and the selections are “The Social Life of Information” and “The Future of the Past”. More information about the books selected and the Librarian’s Book Club can be found at the LBC Homepage
“

Bob writes “I’ve seen about a million stories on “Banned Books Week”, this one seems to be worth a read.
Nothing big or exciting, just touches on some good points. A nice title too! “

The October issue of Learned Publishing is now available:

From Sci-Fi.com…

\”Author Michael Crichton was robbed at gunpoint and tied up by two men who ransacked his home, but he wasn\’t harmed, his publicist told a newspaper. The author of Jurassic Park and Timeline and creator of the television series ER was robbed shortly before 5 a.m. on Sept. 23.
Read It Here.