InfoWhale writes “Nat Hentoff has been writing for several months now about ALA’s refusal to join Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups demanding the release of imprisoned librarians and journalists. He has finally decided to officially renounce his 1983 ALA Immroth Award for intellectual freedom.
Story Here“
January 2004
CtrlAltDelete Guy Retires
David Bradley, the guy who spent five minutes writing the code for the CtrlAltDelete command in the early 80s, is retiring from IBM after 28 years. Bradley’s small bit of work even merited reference in a final round of ‘Jeopardy.’ To meet his life’s goals, he would like for his name to be a clue in the NYT Sunday crossword. More here from CNN.
UK Targets Rural Libraries
By Nancy Gohring
Special to Wi-Fi Networking News
Permanently archived item <http://wifinetnews.com/archives/002865.html>
[1] The UK government is thinking about adding hotspots to rural libraries as a way to bring broadband to rural areas: Only 15 percent of rural areas have broadband access as BT doesn’t think it’s worth it to serve those communities. The government will experiment by building in a few libraries first.
URLs referenced:
[1] <http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/wireless/0,39020348,39144470,00.htm>
“Flood” at the CBC archives
zamiel writes “”Hard-core fans of The Beachcombers, Don Messer’s Jubilee or Wojeck might want to sit down. A cultural crisis was narrowly averted last week when a burst water pipe flooded CanCon’s holy of holies — the CBC archives.”
This is reported as more of a joke than a crisis in McLean’s magazine. Knocking the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is somewhat of a national pastime in Canada.
As I work in one of the CBC archives affected I can tell you that the burst pipe was more of an annoyance than anything else although fortunately no one was hurt when water contacted cables and electronic equipment.
zamiel writes “”Hard-core fans of The Beachcombers, Don Messer’s Jubilee or Wojeck might want to sit down. A cultural crisis was narrowly averted last week when a burst water pipe flooded CanCon’s holy of holies — the CBC archives.”
This is reported as more of a joke than a crisis in McLean’s magazine. Knocking the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is somewhat of a national pastime in Canada.
As I work in one of the CBC archives affected I can tell you that the burst pipe was more of an annoyance than anything else although fortunately no one was hurt when water contacted cables and electronic equipment.The amount of water was small. The flood, such as it was, happened on Jan. 4 and was caused by a burst pipe in an electrical room(!) on the main floor of the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto that caused water to leak down into two of the archival storage areas and a audio workstation below. Due to some very cold weather (-20 C) the pipe froze in an apparently unheated electrical room. When things warmed up a bit later, water leaked downstairs into the first basement.
In the film archive, which the article addresses, the archived film had recently been re-shelved in new plastic, vented canisters which in the case of this “flood” protected the film from the small amount of water. In the audio archives damage was limited to the carpet in the audio workstation room and some water to be mopped up in one of the audio archival spaces. Classic CBC television episodes were never in danger, but thanks for your insincere concern McLean’s.
For non-Canadians:
CanCon = Canadian content, as in the arts or entertainment.
“The Beachcombers”, “Don Messer’s Jubilee” and “Wojeck” = old, popular CBC televisions shows now off the air.”
World Book Day Online Festival In March
A Little Piece From The UK says The launch of the 2nd World Book Day Online Festival is taking place on 4th March 2004 (during the actual World Book Day). The online festival will include films, live web chats, discussion forum and online poll for all ages, from the under 5s to adults.
Events are very reader-focused, with writers talking about their reading passions as well as their writing lives, and what books mean to them. There is also the chance for readers to interact with one another, and link to other book/reading-related websites.
The Festival home page is currently showing a preview film trailer for 2004, and you can also access the 2003 Festival archive.
Internet college classes costlier
The Merced SunStar is reporting on Merced College, where, after several years of offering online classes, Merced College administrators are finding out the endeavor has become quite costly.
But with 447, or more than 5 percent, of its students enrolled in those courses, Vice President John Spevak said Wednesday that the college has no plans of abandoning the program.
“We’re discovering that Internet classes are more expensive than (those held) in the classroom,� he said, but students pay the same price for both.
The college has formed a task force to study the issue, which could assist the campus in making plans for the program’s future.
Not your father’s library: DVDs, CDs prove more popular than books
stamfordadvocate.com Highlights the South Norwalk library.
DVDs circulate every day, every hour of the week,” said Reginald St. Fort, a South Norwalk branch librarian.
The popularity of DVD-borrowing has led a surge in the circulation of the library’s audio and visual materials. These CDs, videotapes, audiotapes and DVDs make up 11 percent of the 268,000 items in the library’s collection, yet they represent 45 percent of all items circulated in a month.
The shift toward nonprint materials, happening in libraries statewide, has been gaining momentum for years and has altered the approach libraries take in meeting clientele demand.
‘Library Cat’ violated his civil rights, plaintiff says as trial begins
signonsandiego.com is following the suit of Richard “Rik” Espinosa, a former radio and newspaper journalist, who seeks $1.5 million in damages because of L.C., the library cat.
L.C. attacked Espinosa’s assistance dog Kimba when they entered the building Nov. 16, 2000, scratching the canine. Espinosa claims he hurt his back trying to pull the dog away from the cat.
Cuba Says Internet Ban Deters “Satanic Cults”
Robert Kent writes: “The Cuban government has responded angrily to worldwide protests of its
tightened ban on home-based access to the Internet, scheduled to go into effect in
late January. Only a small percentage of Cuban citizens are allowed to surf
the World Wide Web, and even before the new ban was enacted home-based access to
the Internet through the public telephone service was generally illegal, but
until now many Cubans have been able to surf the Net clandestinely by
purchasing passwords on the black market. The new law will make it easier for the
government to track down and prosecute unauthorized Internet use over the public
telephone lines.
Robert Kent writes: “The Cuban government has responded angrily to worldwide protests of its
tightened ban on home-based access to the Internet, scheduled to go into effect in
late January. Only a small percentage of Cuban citizens are allowed to surf
the World Wide Web, and even before the new ban was enacted home-based access to
the Internet through the public telephone service was generally illegal, but
until now many Cubans have been able to surf the Net clandestinely by
purchasing passwords on the black market. The new law will make it easier for the
government to track down and prosecute unauthorized Internet use over the public
telephone lines.From its London-based headquarters, Amnesty International issued a report
saying that the new law to “impede unofficial Internet use constitute[s] yet
another attempt to cut off Cubans’ access to alternative views and a space for
discussing them.” In a letter to a New Zealand newspaper (Scoop, January 24), the
Cuban ambassador, Miguel Ramirez, described Amnesty International’s protest
as “totally biased and full of prejudices according to the values of western
and developed countries…,” and he defended Cuba’s new law as a reasonable
measure to “regulate access to [the] Internet and avoid hackers, stealing
passwords, [and] access to pornographic, satanic cults, terrorist or other negative
sites…”
In response to a Jan. 16 protest of the new Internet ban by the intellectual
freedom committee of the International Federation of Library Associations,
known by the acronym FAIFE, Cuba’s official library association accused FAIFE of
using a double standard in criticizing violations of intellectual freedom.
Declaring that the IFLA committee “spins acrobatic pirouettes in order not to
scrape, not even with a flower petal, the ‘democratic’ societies…,” the Cuban
organization complained of FAIFE’s alleged neglect of western nations such as
Spain, where the government “closes newspapers and tortures journalists,” and
the United States, where the government “hunts down readers’ records,
blackmails librarians, and violates the privacy of all of its citizens’
communications.” In contrast, the island’s government-controlled library association accused
FAIFE of “showing unusual vigor and astonishing agility when trying to issue
anathemas against revolutionary Cuba.”
(http://www.bnjm.cu/librinsula/2004/enero/03/dossier/dossier.htm)
On the domestic front, Cuba’s official press responded to international
criticism of the Internet crackdown with a flurry of defensive articles (“Cuba
Promotes a Truly Democratic Internet, Specialists and Social Leaders Affirm,” La
Jiribilla, Jan. 24-30). The Cuban Minister of Information and Communications,
Ignacio Gonzalez Planas, asserted in a press interview (Juventud Rebelde, Jan.
18) that “everywhere, every day, measures are taken [in other countries] to
prevent disorder, which is essential if the Web is to function well. When we
ourselves take certain basic measures to control illegality, criticism
immediately flares up from people claiming to be worried about the ‘freedom’ of the
Cubans, even though [the critics] could confirm for themselves, although it pains
them to do so, that the Cuban people are the freest people on Earth.”
The new law cracking down on home-based Internet use is only one segment of
an intensified government campaign to reduce contacts between Cuba and the
outside world. In recent weeks the police, in coordination with Cuba’s nationwide
system of block committees, have renewed their efforts to locate and tear down
unauthorized satellite antennas used by some Cuban homeowners to view foreign
television stations; the owners of the antennas are heavily fined. Videotapes
stocked by clandestine rental stores, denounced as “transmitters of violence,
vice and pornography,” are being seized in raids intended to suppress
“ideological diversionism” and limit television viewing to Cuba’s official
broadcasters. Registered computers can be legally purchased only at government-owned
stores, and the baggage of arriving foreign visitors is often x-rayed to prevent
the importation of high-tech equipment. The regime is also conducting a
campaign called “Operation Windows” to register all computers on the island, whether
publicly or privately owned. Many Cubans, fearing that Operation Windows will
be followed by a general confiscation of home-owned computers, are hiding
their high-tech equipment from the police and the nationwide system of
neighborhood surveillance groups, known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Turned on by books
A taipeitimes.com Report says The Taipei World Trade Center will be transformed into Asia’s biggest bookstore once again this week, as international and local publishing houses turn out on masse for the annual Taipei International Book Exhibition.
Attracting publishing houses from around the world, the annual event has become Asia’s largest and the world’s fourth-largest international book exhibition since its inaugural show in 1987. This year a total of 925 publishing houses representing 51 countries are set to fill 2,078 booths at TWTC’s I and II exhibition halls.
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