December 2005

Jay writes “Peter Suber in Open Access News recently pointed out Heather Morrison’s blog entry on Open Access Textbooks from the Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, December 27, 2005. Online textbooks resources include: Textbooks in Mathematics.
(A list of links to useful mathematical textbooks available for free on the Internet.
They are all legal and maintained by their authors or by the legitimate publisher.) This site also includes electronic handbooks and guides on ‘How to prepare documents? TEX,LATEX etc.’
Online Mathematics Textbooks
, and American Mathematical Society Online Books are two other examples of online textbooks collections. Peter Suber also pointed out Jason Turgeon’s Textbook Revolution, a page that provides excellent information on textbooks in other subjects such as Biology, Business and Management, Economomics, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.”

mdoneil writes “The OpinionJournal piece notes that Kennedy called the the prevaricating student requested “The official Chinese translation of the Communist Manifesto”. That is so wrong in so many ways.

The article gets better when the author quotes Heinlein

These people could “prove” their opinions by quoting any number of Americans and American newspapers and magazines. That they were able to quote such American sources proved just the opposite, namely that we do continue to enjoy free speech even to express arrant nonsense and unpopular opinion, escaped them completely.

I thought it was brilliant and hilarious.”

stevenj writes “Questia, the for-profit purveyor of electronic books and articles, is on the rebound from a low point a few years ago when its payroll dipped from 300 to 24 employees. It currently has 70 employees. But getting to this point hasn’t been easy, and the road ahead could get crowded with powerhouses like Google and Yahoo also putting books online. This article from the Houston Chronicle provides an update on how Questia is doing in its effort to, as they say, “supplement not replace libraries.” Read more at:
chron.com“

The distinctive chocolate bar on the dust jacket of a new book about the founder of the Hershey Co. violates its trademark, the candy maker said in a federal lawsuit. Read the complete article here.
The cover of the book in question can be seen here.

Two Famous Authors have slammed a decision to close “essential” public libraries in the UK.

Bestselling writers Terry Pratchett and Sir John Mortimer say libraries are an important part of community life and have called for them to be saved from closure.

Eight libraries, including Micklefield, West Wycombe and Little Chalfont, have been earmarked for closure.

SunHerald.com Has A Rport On Katrina-whipped libraries, like the Statue of Liberty, welcome the tired, the homeless and the masses of refugees yearning to read free.

Some have become the heart of their destroyed communities, places where people who lost everything can get on the Internet, make telephone calls, get messages or take children for something as normal, yet as precious, as story hour.
What most libraries can’t do, however, is welcome the masses of books that people want to donate right now.

Mary Minow’s LibraryLaw Blog reports that people using Library Elf to track their checkouts and overdues may have their records exposed like these 228 Bloglines users.

My impression is that this that circulation records wouldn’t show if people used a pc-based newsreader instead of a public web-based one like Bloglines.

It’s also important to let any outraged people know that this isn’t the fault of the libraries because it is the patrons who sign up for Library Elf accounts.

All it took was one complaint by an Apache Junction grandmother last month and so began a fiery debate about the popular teenage novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
But if time hasn’t cooled the heated discussion which elicited cries of censorship, book burning and objectionable material then reality might.
Turns out, the book, which contains a graphic description of a date rape, is popular at some suburban high schools but has never been checked out of any library in Tucson’s largest school district. More From The AZ Star.
What’s more, the author of the book says he agrees with the advisory sent out by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne that sparked the debate, at least when it comes to opposition to elementary school students reading the book.

Shrihar Balan SaysLooking back at 2005, the single most important development that affected the world of publishing, was the Google challenge. This was the mission statement of the search engine: “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible”. Google stated that books would come under its ambit and explicitly stated that it was for publishers to state which books they would leave out of the program of digital conversion. Understandably, this created a furore among publishers as they saw this as a gross violation of the existing laws on copyright, and a threat to the very existence of the printed format.

Rose writes “A library in Naka City, Ibaraki prefecture, will begin using a biometric palm vein reader, in addition to traditional plastic smart-cards, in October 2006. The technology is already in place at several Japanese banks. From InfoWorld Nederland via Engadget.”