May 2014

A serial entrepreneur and a digital community advocate, who is founder and CEO of BiblioLabs, a software and media company focused on helping libraries provide cool and engaging digital products.

http://www.elkharttruth.com/news/schools/goshen-college/2014/05/19/Goshe.html

A member of the Goshen College staff has resigned in part because of the college’s policy against hiring people in GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning) relationships.

Tabi Berkey, who worked in the college’s library, resigned Monday, May 19, and posted an open letter on Facebook explaining her decision.

Within two hours, the post had garnered more than 100 likes and had been shared 40 times.

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html
Changing the culture of a university requires shifting goals, values and attitudes at all levels of the institution. BALSA is redefining the role students and postdocs play in effecting change at WUSTL, empowering them to shape their research training as they envision and providing them with another avenue to express their passion for research.

Europe’s highest court recently ruled that EU citizens have the right to be forgotten—by Google’s search engines. Bob talks with Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, about the impact of this decision on freedom of information and internet privacy.

Download MP3

Individual page for story.

Story at NPR about a bill to get rid of the NTIS.

Related blog post: S. 2206 set to eliminate NTIS: fundamentally misunderstands the Internet

If you judge your books’ covers to be just a bit blah, then Thatcher Wine can change everything.

He is to a library what a tailor is to a suit. From his workshop in Boulder, Colo., he custom-tailors libraries all over the country.

He has always loved books, and not just for the words.

“When you look at a book — I hate to say this — how do you judge it?” asked Schlesinger.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bespoke-libraries-joining-book-love-with-interior-design/

The Internet’s eyes turned to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday, as the panel approved a plan to consider allowing Internet service providers to charge Web sites like Netflix for higher-quality delivery of their content to consumers. In the lead-up to the vote, tech companies, venture capitalists and even celebrities all expressed opposition to the proposal, arguing that it would effectively end the open Internet.

But another group who cares deeply about this issue is the library community. The Switch spoke to Lynne Bradley, the director of government relations at the American Library Association’s Washington office, about how net neutrality affects libraries, the people who rely on them and public institutions at large. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/16/why-the-death-of-net-neutrality-would-be-a-disaster-for-libraries/

The fast-food chain Chipotle announced on Thursday that it had enlisted 10 A-list writers to provide original notes and essays for the cups and bags in their restaurants as a way to foster thoughtfulness, without pushing a coporate agenda. The reviews for these new works of literature have ranged from enthusiastic to harsh.

Full article

In an unusually metaphysical copyright case, a German court has ruled that an American psychologist — and not Jesus Christ — is the author of a book that she said Christ dictated to her in a “waking dream.”

Story originally found here at NPR.

Another blog post commenting on this case.

http://www.zdnet.com/google-a-million-miles-away-from-creating-the-search-engine-of-my-dreams-says-larry-page-7000029485/
“Information is Google’s core,” Page said, noting that over 100 billion Google searches are conducted each month — 15 percent of which are never-before-asked new queries. The search engine is working on being able to provide direct answers to questions rather than just a list of results said Page, adding that Voice Search now works in 38 languages.