Jonathan

Nat Hentoff on the PATRIOT Act

Fang-Face writes An opinion/editorial by Nat Hentoff has been posted to the First Amendment Center. There are a couple of new points of news. Hentoff writes that the [corporate lackey] media (emphasis is mine) is largely ignoring the SAFE Act movement and that the press misrepresented the congressional response to the news of its scheduled demise on 31 Dec 2005 by saying only Democrats applauded. What the press did not report was that anti-PATRIOT Republicans also applauded that point. Among other provisions, the SAFE Act would limit the government’s power to search library records as granted by the PATRIOT Act.

Oxford UP lays off 35

Oxford University Press USA has laid off 35 employees as part of a reorganization. According to Publishers Weekly, the target was largely the print reference department, which the publisher is said to have “consolidated in favor of its expansive online efforts.”

Publisher Laura Brown stated that OUP is “making significant investments in our higher education and professional publishing and our on-line activities, areas where we see exciting growth opportunities.”

As part of the reorganization, Casper Grathwohl was named publisher, reference division, while Karen Day assumes the title of associate publisher, reference. Ms. Day previously held the publisher’s position.

Simpsons visit the library

At least some US libraries were abuzz with discussion of Sunday night’s Simpsons episode in which the local library is found to be “dangerously low on books.” Tame the Web reads the story as a comment on library funding, but aren’t even the richest libraries reducing the space devoted to print collections?