August 2004

kmhess writes “This afternoon, I listened to Rocking in the Key of Nintendo on NPR’s All Things Considered, about a Phoenix Band, called the Minibosses, who cover background music from Nintendo games.

Who want’s to bet this garage band gets a cease-and-desist letter tomorrow?”

Daniel writes “In GPO’s continuing effort to increase the accessibility of the resources available on GPO Access, users can now browse the catalog of House, Senate and Treaty documents, by Congress, beginning with the 104th Congress (1995-1996).

The Browse Documents page is available at:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/brow se.html

House and Senate documents include communications and reports from the President and other executive branch officials. Browsing the 108th Congress contents turned up progress reports on Kossovo peacekeeping and the War on Terror, among many other issues.

GovDoc trivia – The “catalog of House, Senate, and Treaty documents, by Congress” contains most of the same materials as the Serial Set.”

Over on Web4Lib, there’s been a bit of discussion based on this article, in which a school librarian says that Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia built by a community of web users, is not an authoritative source and is therefore untrustworthy.

Some of the questions raised on Web4Lib were: who makes the determination that a source is authoritative? How do they reach that conclusion? Can a community-built encyclopedia be equated with the latest World Book?

Wikipedia is immensely popular at the community college where I work and students use it all the time. Do other librarians use/recommend/hate/revile this resource?

This morning’s Globe & Mail features an analysis of how technological change has affected the issues of copyright and file-sharing.

Author Peter de Jager creator of the technobility website, starts by saying, “”Sharing” an electronic file, is far more cost effective than buying it.

“…but the element of authorization is missing.”

Read “When Understanding Lags Behind Technology” here.

A Metropolitan (Denver, CO) State College political-science professor has been disciplined in a highly publicized case in which a student accused her of political bias in the classroom.

Metro is punishing tenured professor Oneida J. Meranto for violating a federal student privacy law, not for political bias, a claim student George Culpepper lobbed against her.

The standoff came last winter while the contentious “academic bill of rights” was before the state legislature. The proposal, which was intended to protect students from political bias among professors, did not become law.

The conflict took on a national flare when U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, asked the U.S Department of Education to investigate.

Read more.

David Rothman writes “David Faucheux–author of the Blind Chance blog praised by Audioblogger and featured as a Feedster Feed of the Day–will moderate an audio chatcast on the topic of historical fiction. It will start 7 p.m. CDT August 31, Tuesday.

David Rothman writes “David Faucheux–author of the Blind Chance blog praised by Audioblogger and featured as a Feedster Feed of the Day–will moderate an audio chatcast on the topic of historical fiction. It will start 7 p.m. CDT August 31, Tuesday.

This is “good read” territory. No need for stuffy academic discussion. Dive right in and join David; share your own finds in the historical fiction category. While the chatcasts are for the blind and visually impaired, anyone can join in. Tom Peters, host of MITBC’s Meting of the Minds and eBookWorm, will participate in David’s discussion.

Got blind or visually impaired patrons or others interested in historical fiction–and a PC in your library with a sound card and a speaker (microphone helpful but optional)? Perhaps you could invite these known HF fans to come to the library and enjoy the Faucheux chatcast and maybe hold a local discussion afterwards.

With book sections shrinking in recent years, public libraries need new techniques to promote interest in books. Local-national events such as audio chatcasts are one way for this to happen–via publicity in local media.

Another form of promotion might be to come up with a notice on a paper bookmark that the circulation desk can hand out to patrons who are reading books similar to those about to be fodder for a chatcast.

Tip: If you haven’t particpated in MITBC’s chatcasts before, you might want hold off the promo until you’ve experienced the present one and can confirm that your hookup is functioning well. The software downloads automatically and is very easy to deal with.

Note: I host David’s blog on the TeleRead site but would feel the same about his work even if I did not have a connection with him.”

Here’s more on the Chicago Sun Times story about those Literary treasures found in that abandoned library in St. Louis, where volunteers had to wade through human waste in order to get to books that had been left behind after the library moved to another location. It was reported earlier here at LISNews. Read more about it.

Featuring fifteen beloved pets of the children of Glenco IL, Pets on Parade managed to entertain the crowd during the last lazy days of August.

This was the third annual show sponsored by the Glenco Public Library.

Each child brought an animal and introduced the pet to their peers. Children’s librarian Janet Hauser said the roster included medium-sized dogs, a bearded dragon, a gerbil and a quartet of hermit crabs. Children also learned a thing or two from their local animal control officer, who spoke on the subject of pet safety, maintenance and vaccinations.

Here’s the link: Pioneer Press .

(Ed: where were the cats?)

Law enforcement agents have raided five homes and one ISP in what the Department of Justice calls the first federal enforcement action against piracy on peer-to-peer networks.
Agents seized computers, software, and computer equipment in the searches, which took place Wednesday in Texas, New York, and Wisconsin. The action targets illegal distribution of copyright-protected movies, software, games, and music on five P-to-P networks operated by a group known as The Underground Network, the DOJ says in a statement. No charges have been filed. Read all about it.

The European Commission announced Wednesday it will extend an antitrust probe of a move by Microsoft and Time Warner to take control of technology that could help the music and movie industries fight piracy.
Microsoft, Sony, Apple Computer, RealNetworks and IBM are all trying to become dominant suppliers of digital rights management technology, or DRM. The technology is designed to give content publishers a tight grip on how digital music, video and other software can be used.

Spending by U.S. companies on DRM software will grow to $274 million in 2008 from $36 million in 2003, according to Jupiter Research in New York. Read More.