Bad News From the University of Michigan. Broad discussions of state budget cuts at the University of Michigan turned into a specific list of layoffs Thursday when the campus library system confirmed it will terminate 15 full-time employees, eliminate 16 vacant positions and reduce 11 full-time jobs to part-time.
March 2003
Hey, There’s a Federal Agent In My Book!
Bob Cox spotted Hey, There’s a Federal Agent In My Book!, by Jessamyn West.
It’s a nice look at the PATRIOT act for those who aren’t aware of the associated troubles.
“You should care about the PATRIOT Act if you frequent libraries or bookstores, use pay phones, use an Internet service provider, go to school, go to the doctor, use credit cards or banks, have a lawyer, leave the country, go to jail, belong to an activist organization, read alternative publications [like this one] or know anyone who is contemplating any of the above activities, or maybe if you’re just a fan of freedom or the Bill of Rights.”
Book Banned by Government and Schiff Enjoined From Speaking
“As U.S. Forces seek to bring democracy to Iraq, the U.S. Government is seeking to eliminate it here. On Wednesday, March 19, 2003, Federal District Court Judge Lloyd D. George granted the Government’s Motion to ban Irwin Schiff from selling and distributing his book “The Federal Mafia: How The Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes.” “The Mafia,” first published in 1990, has sold over 75,000 copies and can be found in most libraries, including the UNLV law library. The banning of Schiff’s book was based on a hearing in which no Government witness testified under oath or could be cross-examined by Schiff. Schiff noted that Judge George banned the book without even reading it, and apparently saw it for the first time at the hearing.” (from PR Newswire)
Note: The man who wrote the book filed this press release.
Freedom to Read Information Act Now Has 58 Co-Sponsors
At present, 58 fellow members of Congress have joined Rep. Bernie Sanders in introducing federal legislation that would remove a threat created by the USA Patriot Act to the privacy of bookstore and library records. The bill, H.R. 1157, the Freedom to Read Protection Act, would prevent the FBI from seeking \”personally identifiable information concerning a patron of a bookseller or library.\” However, the government could still attempt to subpoena this information if it can make sufficient legal showing.\”
\”Currently, under the Patriot Act, the FBI has vastly expanded authority to search business records, including the records of bookstores and libraries. The FBI may request the records secretly, and it is not required to prove that there is \”probable cause\” to believe that the person whose records are being sought has committed a crime. In addition, the bookseller or librarian who receives an order is prohibited from revealing it to anyone except those whose help is needed to produce the records.\” (from Bookselling This Week)
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web
Bob Cox writes sent along This Review of the new “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web”.
They say it has useful ideas and valuable insights. The chapter on Labels is particularly novel, innovative, and useful. All designers of large Web sites need to be familiar with the indexing and cataloging skills that Rosenfeld and Morville explain. Lessons from library science are worth learning, and the author’s preference for the magisterial title “Information Architect” over the more familiar but still honorable title of “Librarian” should not blind us to the lessons we can learn from the traditions of the library.
Weeding of State Library’s books suggested
Kathleene passed along This tallahassee.com story that says Librarians from across Florida urged legislators Monday to allow a little “weeding” of unneeded books, rather than uprooting the State Library from Tallahassee as Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed in his budget.
“I fear that by breaking up the collection, we’ll become more forgetful than we already are,” he said. “Florida is a state of newcomers; we lack a cultural memory. Our real historic resources are in that building and to the extent that we scatter them, we may as well be throwing out our own heritage, our own consciousness, up in the air.”
Harry Potter and the Library Waiting List
News From Utah, where they say more than 1,000 Davis County Library patrons have put their names on the waiting list to check out ”Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” scheduled for release in July.
Library director Pete Giacoma said this is the first time in his 22 years with the county library system that a book has had that type of demand.
He said the No.2 waiting-list favorite may have been the previous J.K. Rowling previous book, ”Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” with a hold list of 400 to 500.
Seth Finkelstein To Speak Tonite @ MIT
Don Saklad sent along word of \”Net Control–
From the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA
to censorware \”filtering\” to peer-to-peer programs:
How the battle to control the Internet is being shaped by government
and corporate interests\”, happening tonite 7pm
Thursday, March 27, at MIT,
Bartos Auditorium, basement of E15.
Details below and Slides Here.
Don Saklad sent along word of \”Net Control–
From the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA
to censorware \”filtering\” to peer-to-peer programs:
How the battle to control the Internet is being shaped by government
and corporate interests\”, happening tonite 7pm
Thursday, March 27, at MIT,
Bartos Auditorium, basement of E15.
Details below and Slides Here.Seth Finkelstein,
Electronic Frontier Foundation\’s (EFF) Pioneer Award winner in 2001
a. Why is the digital copyright issue of so much concern?…
b. Don\’t the artists have a right to be sure that their songs a paid-for
and not illegally shared/copied?
c. Why should we be concerned about filtering and blocking software?…
d. Isn\’t it important to support the Children\’s Internet Protection Act?…
e. What can be wrong with protecting children on the Internet?…
From using the telephone to seeking medical treatment to applying for a
job or sending e-mail over the Internet, Americans\’ right to information
privacy is in peril.
Our personal and business information is being digitized through an
ever-expanding number of computer networks in formats that allow data to
be linked, transferred, shared and sold, usually without our knowledge
or consent.
The same technological advances that have brought enormous benefits to
humankind also make us more vulnerable than ever before to unwanted
snooping.
Enjoying the right to privacy means having control over your own
personal information, and the ability to grant or deny access to others.
But government and business practices that cause serious privacy
violations are often insulated from the law.
f. Is \’Big Brother\’ a reality?…
g. Is it a tolerable or intolerable reality?…
h. What do we need to know?…
Speaker\’s bio:
Seth Finkelstein is a professional programmer and also a civil-liberties
activist.
He spent hundreds of hours over several years to decrypt and expose to
public scrutiny the secret contents of the most popular censorware
blacklists.
His work has armed many with information of great assistance in the
fight against government mandated use such systems.
His technical and political efforts have raised the level of public
awareness about the dangers that Internet content blocking software and
rating/labeling schemes pose to freedom of communication.
For his ground breaking achievements, in 2001 he received a Pioneer Of
The Electronic Frontier Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
He has degrees in both Mathematics and Physics from MIT.
Proposed changes to Fair Labor Standards Act
Rochelle Hartman writes “The Department of Labor is proposing changes to the creaky Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938. The plan would make 1.3 million additional low-wage workers eligible for extra pay for any work beyond 40 hours. Current, higher-paid recipients would be removed from eligibility.
‘Organized labor supports some change, particularly allowing more low-paid workers to be eligible for overtime. But they fear the net effect could be that more workers would lose overtime pay because of job-classification changes,’ reports Cindy Skrzycki in the Washington Post. The story here. Once the proposal is formally introduced, there will be a 90-day comment period, available, I assume on the Department of Labor website
I’ve been working on a story about this with a library law attorney, wanting to investigate what the FLSA means to non-management, public “professional” librarians. What I’ve learned so far is that the Department of Labor does not consider MLS librarians professionals because they are not treated as such by their managers, their municipalities, and the public. Shouldn’t have been news to me, but it did make me cranky. Currently, MLSs’ “non-professional” status makes them largely and legally non-exempt (eligible), but not sure how the new proposal will affect this.
“
Libraries under attack
“Are public libraries stealing the livelihoods of Japanese authors? So say writers and publishers as the number of books borrowed climbs while sales of books and magazines steadily decline.”
“The first salvo in this battle was fired by Bungei Shunju in December 2000, with an article that branded libraries as free rental shops. In June the next year, the Japan Pen Club issued a statement critical of libraries, and last year an authors’ association petitioned the Japanese government to establish a European-style public-lending-right system, under which authors would be paid from a national fund for lost royalties from library lending.” (from The Japan Times)
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