September 2005

A senior U.S. official rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, reiterating U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as the medium’s principal overseer.
“We’ve been very, very clear throughout the process that there are certain things we can agree to and certain things we can’t agree to,” Gross told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. “It’s not a negotiating issue. This is a matter of national policy.”

The Boston Globe has a report on Kemal Bozkurt. He made a few phone calls, visited mosques, and chatted up business owners who jumped at his idea of creating a directory of Muslim-owned businesses. In 2003, he published 3,500 copies of his first edition of the ”Green Pages” — a 16-page directory of Muslim businesses around Lawrence.

Here’s A Follow Up on Mayor of Ripon CA, Chuck Winn, and his decision to cancel the speaking engagement of Irma Slage — a self-proclaimed psychic.
“The controversy that is occurring is not really benefiting the community at the moment,” Winn said in an out-of-town phone interview from where he is attending a conference. “This has been blown out of proportion, and that really takes the focus off of the things that are really important in the matter.”

There is a story at the Bookfinder.com blog called Amazon Marketplace shrinks Amazon.com has changed their policy, preventing aggregators like Abebooks, Alibris, A1Books, and others from listing member booksellers’ titles on Amazon.com Marketplace; this is part of a shift toward ensuring that Amazon.com is always dealing directly with the final booksellers.

Peter Morville has the distinction of having the first full-color O’Reily “animal book.” Ambient Findability is finally in-stock at Amazon. In celebration, he’s Posted a brief excerpt. Ambient Findability examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Could be a good Librarian’s Book Club selection for next year.

The Beeb looks at self help books. Self-help – also known as mind body spirit – has become a multi-million pound market. Figures show that Britons spent £20m on personal development titles in 2004, a figure which rises to £90m when health and spirituality are included in this amorphous genre.
Whereas 10 years ago all but a fraction of sales were to women, today men buy about one-third of the self-help books sold. And there is a whole sub-genre of books aimed at them, particularly guides to picking up women.

The Catholic News Service reports Three nonprofit U.S. church and synagogue library organizations have set up a relief fund to help rebuild Gulf Coast congregational library ministries damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

The organizations are the Catholic Library Association in Pittsfield, the National Church Library Association in Stillwater, Minn., and the Church and Synagogue Library Association in Portland, Ore.

An Anonymous Patron writes “Personal libraries can include almost anything, although books may be the most typical components. Here are six academics’ comments on what’s in their libraries. This is at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sorry, you’ll need a subscription to read it.”

The Council of State Historical Records Coordinators has posted Photos of Damage in Mississippi
from Hurricane Katrina. These photos were taken September 18-20, 2005, during a visit by a team from the archival community. They include visits to the Biloxi Public Library, City of Bay St. Louis, Hancock County Historical Society, and Waveland. A preliminary report on a trip by Miss. Archivists is also online.

CNET:When Esquire magazine writer A.J. Jacobs decided to do an article about the freely distributable and freely editable online encyclopedia Wikipedia, he took an innovative approach: He posted a crummy, error-laden draft of the story to the site. Jacobs decided to craft an article about Wikipedia, complete with a series of intentional mistakes and typos, and post it on the site. The hope was that the community itself would be able to fix the errors and create a clean version that would be ready for publication in Esquire’s December issue. According to the Wikipedia page for Jacobs’ story, the article was edited 224 times in the first 24 hours after Jacobs posted it, and another 149 times in the next 24 hours.

Shame on me for not linking To The Article.