From Wired:
Two years after an appeals court hammered the final nail in Napster’s coffin, a new federal ruling will allow two remaining file-trading platforms to continue operating.
Delivering a significant victory for peer-to-peer networks, a federal judge ruled Friday that two popular file-trading services should not be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their users.
The Financial Times Says the latest edition of the Sunday Times newspaper’s list of the UK’s richest people estimates J.K. Rowling’s fortune at £280m ($160m) – £30m more than the figure listed for the personal wealth of the Queen.
The 37-year old author comes in at number 122, the ninth-richest woman in the list and the highest placed female not to amass her wealth by marriage or inheritance.
A report on the sad state of affairs in one New York neighborhood from today\’s New York Times:
Where Barnes & Noble is well-lighted and clean, the books invitingly displayed, most branch libraries are dim, cluttered and understocked. Just ask Don Bailey, a Texan who moved to the Upper West Side 11 years ago. Being a devoted reader, he immediately checked out his local library, the St. Agnes branch. It was, to put it mildly, a turnoff. \”There\’s something about New York libraries,\” Mr. Bailey mused. \”You don\’t have a good ambience.\”
No wonder, if money has anything to do with it. Barnes & Noble at 82nd Street grossed an estimated $10.3 million last year, eight times the average budget for one of the city\’s 85 branch libraries. And those budgets are being cut by the city for the second year in a row.
Complete article (registration required)
The University of Illinois budget has become the latest gob of spackling to be slathered across the state of Illinois’ gaping $5 billion budget hole. Libraries at all three campuses, which have already seen one round of cuts, will have to trim even more from their FY 2004 budget, and possibly see a recision in funds from the FY 2003 budget. The library’s math library was recently closed and the current cuts, if as deep as expected, will mean the closing of school’s art and architecture library. More from this LJ blurb.
The libraries at the school’s Urbana-Champaign campus hold over 9 million volumes, making it one of the top ten largest libraries in the nation, and the largest publicly-supported university research library in the world.
The ALA Web Site Advisory Committee is composed of ALA
members representing the Divisions
and is charged with advising Council and ALA Staff about
web site issues. We’ve been partially involved in the
process of designing the new site (giving feedback on
iterations of the design based on partial information),
but not as involved as we would like to have been. I
wrote an article
about
our experience with ALA staff in the web site development
process. It should be interesting reading for people who
are concerned about the new website and about ALA.
Library Directors seem to be getting some bad press lately.
This Time it’s Patsy J. Hansel, Directory in Mesa, Arizona, who after being investigated for sexual harassment, will remain on probation for one year and take special classes – even though investigators recommended she be terminated.
They say she inappropriately toward one of her employees by commenting on her legs, touching her hair and buttocks, and telling her that she loved her during an employee luncheon at a Mesa restaurant.
Hansel says the allegations were the result of her asking supervisors to start tracking the employee’s performance more closely.
Bob Cox sent over This One with a bit more info on the arrest of University of Pennsylvania library director Paul Mosher for allegedly possessing child pornography.
He is is charged with possession of child pornography, a felony offense of the third degree punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Other charges filed against Mosher under the Sexual Abuse of Children statute include illegal use of a computer, also a third degree felony, and possession of an instrument of crime (the computer), a misdemeanor.
Sources said a “significant” amount of money was spent to purchase the images, which include pictures of boys as well as girls. Also downloaded were pornographic images of adults, which is not a crime.
This Article by Elaine Cassel over at City Pages takes a look at the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the USA Patriot Act of 2001, and how the war on terror has gone too far.
She says Ashcroft, Bush, and numerous federal courts have decreed that freedoms must be curtailed in the name of fighting terror. But that formulation suggests they will be temporary. Given the nature of terrorism, and of politics, that is extremely unlikely.
Today’s ALA will-we-or-won’t-we statement concerning the Toronto conference comes from Executive Director Michael Fiels, who has announced the Executive Board will meet next Tuesday, April 29 to decide whether to convene as planned, move the venue, or cancel.
Mark writes “Here Is a Resolution from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA)Concerning the Impact of the War in Iraq. They say they are are deeply troubled by the recent actions of the United States in Iraq. As art librarians, they are dismayed at the unimaginable destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage.”
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