March 2007

A ten-year correpsondence between Ernest Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich will be made available Monday April 2 at the JFK Presidential Library.

“These extraordinary letters reveal Hemingway as a loyal and caring friend,” said Tom Putnam, the museum’s director. “When combined with the Library’s collection of correspondences from Dietrich to Hemingway, these new letters help to complete the story of a remarkable friendship between two exceptional individuals which has never been made available to the public before in such depth.”

More from All Headline News.

UC Santa Cruz Science and Engineering Library had an unwelcome guest the other day…a man videotaping women’s feet. Not illegal, but not to be encouraged either. One grad student confronted the tootsiephile who was later found by campus police with the ‘footage.’ Story from ABC News.

The New York Times looks at the arms race for search supremacy that has engaged top researchers at Microsoft and Google. So far, Microsoft has failed to gain ground against the dominant search provider Google.

Search in the future will look nothing like today’s simple search engine interfaces, said Susan Dumais, a veteran Microsoft search expert, adding, “If in 10 years we are still using a rectangular box and a list of results, I should be fired.”

madcow writes “The Medford (Jackson Co. OR) paper
reports that the County’s library system may be saved after all thanks to some federal maneuvers by the senate. It’s not clear that the bill will survive the threatened Bush veto.
“The Senate voted 75-22 for emergency funding for more than 700 counties in 39 states that benefitted from the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act, passed in 2000 but not renewed last year. Jackson County would receive $23 million of the $425 million in the first year, about the same amount it received under the act.””

The Internet’s key oversight agency voted Friday not to give adult Web sites their own “.xxx” domain, the third time it has rejected the idea.
“This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments. That consideration has led a majority of the board to believe that the proposal should be rejected,” said Vinton Cerf, ICANN’s chairman.
You can see More @ ICANN including A transcript of the Board meeting.

Anonymous Patron writes “Slashgeo links to a tool to map worldwide library statistics. From the about page: “WorldMap allows users to select a data set, then represents the data geographically by country on a world map. (For many data sets, data also may be displayed for U.S. states and Canadian provinces.) The collection data for the map were generated from WorldCat, and gathered from more than thirty other sources.”“

Karim Boughida writes “We invite you to participate in the online International Digital
Preservation Systems Survey.

This survey is intended to provide an overview of digital preservation
system (DPS) implementation. DPS is defined here as an assembly of
computer hardware, software and policies equivalent to a TDR (trusted
digital repository) “whose mission is to provide reliable, long-term
access to managed digital resources to its designated community, now,
and in the future”.

The survey was produced by the Getty Research Institute departments of
Digital Resource Management and Library Information Systems, and will
be distributed primarily among members of the Digital Library Federation
(DLF). Results will be shared at the DLF Spring Forum, April 23-25,
2007 (Pasadena, California, USA) , and with all respondents who provide
contact information.

Please respond by March 30, 2007.
“

Peggy Cadigan, New Jersey State Library writes “The Mid-Atlantic Futures Conference, a groundbreaking partnership between the NJ, PA, MD, WV, and DE state libraries and PALINET,will take place May 7 and 8, 2007, at the Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City.

Will libraries exist in 20 years? Is it possible to keep up with the incredibly rapid pace of technological innovations? What job skills will we need to be efficient in the future? Will we remain relevant? Who will our customers be and what kind of information will they need?

We have assembled a stellar list of presenters to help us begin to imagine various future scenarios. We have carefully selected presenters who are willing to engage in a dialogue with the people attending this conference, because we believe that the conversations that take place and the connections that people make with one another at this conference will coalesce into the transformative force that propels libraries into the future.
To register: Go To Palinet.org“

Seth Finkelstein writes “LISnews’ers may enjoy my recent column discussing
COPA
and censorware:

“If a control system works for parents using it for what teenagers can
see, it will work for governments using it for what citizens can
see. Likewise, if citizens can escape government control of what they
can read, teenagers will be able to escape parental control of what
they can read. Now, pick one.””

Libraries at the Cutting Edge: The trendiest meeting place on many college campuses these days features a coffee bar, wireless Internet zones, free entertainment and special programs, modern lounge areas and meeting rooms.

And free access to books. Lots of books.

This educational social hub is the campus library, which is beginning to look more like an Internet cafe than the academic library you remember from your college days.