Amke

An Anonymous Patron writes “Da Vinci Code’s last secret: how did it succeed? It may be the last mystery left about “The Da Vinci Code” — how did a work by a near unknown author and sneered at by some of literature’s leading lights become one of the best-selling novels of all time?
 
“The book challenges the familiar story of Jesus’s life but it is also challenges ideas that for a vast number of Americans are a familiar part of their faith and people enjoy toying with things that are subversive.””

In a timely post, Jay writes “Several Pennsylvania Library Programs judged as conducive to early childhood learning won awards at the recently concluded Pennsylvania Library Association’s conference.

Public libraries win awards at forum showcasing exceptional programs and speakers.”

As a member of the NJLA Information Technologies Section, I am proud to announce that the New Jersey Library Conference (April 24-26) is being blogged here.

For the first time ever, we will be hosting a podcasting station at the conference!
Check us out!

MJG writes “In light of all the tangles and snags of Intellectual Property laws and DRM, UnNews has posted a mock interview with the CEO of the RIAA:

The basic problem that the RIAA has in protecting it’s property, is that after people have bought music, they can actually listen to it. So far we’ve made some very successful efforts to protect our property from our customers. However, even if we stop people from copying our property digitally, they will always be able hear it, and thus to reproduce it through analog means.

Like putting a taperecorder and a microphone next to the speaker?

Right, or by memorizing a song, and singing it to a friend who hasn’t purchased the listening rights to the song. That poses a real problem for musical artists. If everybody can just sing the songs to each other, no one will ever pay for the music. That’s the problem in a nutshell. Every user has it’s analog hole – or a-hole as we’ve come to refer to it – and it’s that hole that the RIAA is determined to seal. It’s our intention to plug customer’s a-holes.

For your collective viewing pleasure.”

Daniel writes “Both the volunteers at Free Government Information (http://freegovinfo.info/) and Michele McGinnis, FGI’s guest blogger for February posted new stories this week.

• Those Pesky Gov Docs
  
• MIT & Alternet Challenge the Conventional Dumbdom
• Big Tele’s plans to subvert the Internet
• Unwriting Wikipedia

Regular Volunteer postings

• LIS Webcast: Government Information at the Crossroads – James R. (3 comments)
• Net Neutrality Not An Optional Feature of Internet – James R.

If you use Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/) or some other RSS Reader, consider subscribing to the FGI Feed at http://freegovinfo.info/blog/feed to get FGI stories as they are posted.

Although the the FDSys blog makes no reference to it, a set of “Handouts received by Industry Day Attendees and Questions and Answers” was posted to the main FDSys web site in the past week.”

Texas academic librarian writes to share this story from the Houston Chronicle, “Choosing sports over libraries is only one battle brewing under Gov. Perry’s 65% spending directive”

“Standard & Poor’s school evaluation services is nonpartisan and designed to help policymakers, educators and parents understand relationships between achievement and investment. In addition to Texas, the study looked at Minnesota, Ohio, Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida, Kansas, Arizona and Colorado, among a number of states considering a 65 percent rule. The study concluded that while the data do not support mandating a minimum instructional spending threshold, monitoring the percentage districts allocate to instruction can be a useful benchmark.”

Melchior Sternfels writes to share this interesting news: “According to the January 16 issue of OCLC Abstracts, the University of Baghdad is now a member of the OCLC network. Apparently it isn’t the first Iraqi library to become an OCLC member: Baghdad University Law School did so in early 2005.”

Daniel writes to share this information from Free Government Information about the Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects.

“Currently the registry only contains entries for publications being digitized by GPO, but we should soon start to see other entries. I think this will well be worth keeping an eye on and thank GPO for putting it together. Hopefully it will become one more tool for libraries to show their value.”

Daniel is sharing this interesting piece by Danny Sullivan on the SearchEngineWatch blog about the trustworthiness of search engines in the aftermath the government’s request for information.

gsandler writes “Here is an Infoworld story about the recent history of Wikipedia and its possible future. "By the time you read this column, Wikipedia will be celebrating its fifth anniversary. It’s been a wilder ride than anybody could have imagined, and it’s gotten even more so lately. In a widely cited incident, John Seigenthaler, Sr., a prominent journalist, publisher, and political figure, reacted with justifiable horror when he learned that his bio entry in Wikipedia falsely implicated him in the assassination of Robert Kennedy."”