May 2007

Public Library leads researchers in finding a cure

Helene Blowers writes “Yup, that’s the headline I would love see in print one day and given the most recent feedback that we’ve received from the coordinators of the World Community Grid project, Team PLCMC is actually not far off from this reality — seriously!!!!

In less than 8 months, the computers within Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County have already contributed over 36 years worth (yes! that’s right, 36 years) of computing run time towards helping to solve some of the world’s most critical medical needs. Problems such as fighting AIDS, curing Muscular Dystrophy, defeating Cancer, understanding the structure of human proteins, and helping to unravel the mysteries of the human genome have been assisted by computers within the PLCMC system providing the equivalent in processing time of a several small supercomputer centers. Read the full scoop and find out how your library can also get involved here.

Old Fashioned Words: Library!

Scott Adams (Yes that Scott Adams) Says:
Recently a friend joked about going to the library to help with his son’s school project. He said it felt like going back in time, to pre-Internet days. I wonder if libraries have an expiration date on them. I’m guessing yes.
Other old fashioned words include cell phone, multi-media and sneakers.

Footballing librarians compete in Copyright Cup

shrillczar writes “In Take it as read … librarians playing to win, the Edinburgh Evening news reports that the National Library of Scotland’s staff is competing in a soccer tournament against other library staffs from Ireland, England and Wales. Said team GM Rachel Edwards, ‘This tournament is a chance for us all to dust off our boots and play for Scotland and to show that librarians have more to their game than alphabetical order and cardigans.'”

If you want to change the world, a blog may not be the place to start

Seth Finkelstein Says The use of censorware by repressive governments is now becoming a legitimate policy matter. Many years ago, when the internet was much smaller, the corresponding reach of an individual aiming to be heard in it was much larger. But the integration of the internet into society at large necessarily meant individuals reverted to being as marginalised in terms of overall influence as they are in society at large. It’s not that nobody at all had a voice, but that the standard institutional power structures asserted themselves.

And blogs are no solution.

LiveJournal Deletes Journals Allegedly Promoting Pedophilia

LiveJournal, which hosts about 13 million web journals, has deleted about 500 journals that suggest an interest in sexual predation or pedophilia, among other illegal activities. Prompted by anti-pedophilia groups, notably Warriors for Innocence, the deletion has resulted in accusations of censorship from LiveJournal users, who observe that some of the deleted journals were fandom communities, fan fiction repositories, or role playing games that discuss sexual abuse and pedophilia in a fictional context without supporting it in real life.

LiveJournal, which hosts about 13 million web journals, has deleted about 500 journals that suggest an interest in sexual predation or pedophilia, among other illegal activities. Prompted by anti-pedophilia groups, notably Warriors for Innocence, the deletion has resulted in accusations of censorship from LiveJournal users, who observe that some of the deleted journals were fandom communities, fan fiction repositories, or role playing games that discuss sexual abuse and pedophilia in a fictional context without supporting it in real life.The maintainer of one such community, an archive of Harry Potter fan fiction, femmequixotic, reports that LiveJournal abuse staff claimed a legal obligation to close communities that had been reported to them and that listed illegal activities as interests. Responding to the outcry from LiveJournal users, Warriors for Innocence asserts that LiveJournal also closed down some communities not reported by their organization. For more information, see Declan McCullagh’s report for CNET News.com.

Kiwi libraries get access to 10-gigabit internet service

Kiwi libraries will get access to cutting-edge internet services after the National Library of New Zealand joined KAREN, the country’s State-run, high-capacity, ultra high-speed internet network.

The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) is administered by the Research and Education Advanced Network NZ (REANNZ) for New Zealand’s research, education and innovation sectors. It can transfer data at up to 10 gigabits a second (10,000 times the speed of a standard broadband connection), enabling seamless two-way interaction and almost instantaneous sharing of data over long distances.

Maggots Falling From The Library Ceiling

YUCK!: Maggots fell from the media center (Walt Whitman School Library) ceiling May 2 during first period, landing on a student and teacher and prompting a visit from exterminators two periods later.
Assistant principal Ben OuYang, the administrator on duty, said this kind of incident has never happened before and did not pose a major problem. An exterminator who visited thoroughly inspected everything in the library and did not find any more maggots.

The incident caused disturbance among those working in the media center, including English teacher Beth Rockwell.

The Future of Libraries

Here’s the second of three videos shot at the Mid-Atlantic Library Futures Conference two weeks ago by Phil Bowermaster. This one is a little more professionally focused than the other two — librarians talking about where they think their profession is going. The first of the three videos has responses to one of the Seven Questions About the Future.

Arizona library to be first to drop Dewey Decimal System

Interesting News From AZ where the new Gilbert library will be the first public library in the nation whose entire collection will be categorized without the Dewey Decimal Classification System, Maricopa County librarians say.

Instead, tens of thousands of books in the Perry Branch library will be shelved by topic, similar to the way bookstores arrange books. The demise of the century-old Dewey Decimal system is overdue, county librarians say: It’s just too confusing for people to hunt down books using those long strings of numbers and letters. Dewey essentially arranges books by topic and assigns call numbers for each book.

Spotted @ The Stuff.

Stop the Cliches!

Tom Payne from the UK’s Telegraph writes about cliches in book reviewing. His article is an “searingly honest” “tour de force” with “penetrating insights”….

Do you accept the redundancy of today’s book reviews “warts and all” or do you find them “woefully inadequate”?

(Thanks to Read Roger for pointing out this article.)