Karen K

In South Dakota, the state library is considering removing a link to Planned Parenthood from a website for teenagers, due to objections from the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese. The governor, Mike Rounds, supports removing the link because “A state Web site shouldn’t have links to sites that promote particular positions.” The bishop of the diocese makes a somewhat contradictory statement that “This issue [promoting safe sex over abstinence] is much too important to leave to a ‘balanced’ approach.” The link will be gone for two months while the library conducts a review. (full story from Associated Press).

The Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette reports on a petition drive opposing the construction of a new library building in the town of Kendalville. The opposition is to the tax increase that would fund construction. The article estimates the increase as $62.74 to $68.67 a year for the owner of a $100,000 house. The library director says the library had always hoped to raise as much as it could through other means, so that the tax increase could be less.

This Declan McCullagh story, from News.com.com, describes several cases in which judges used Google searches to support their ruling opinions. The incidents range from testing whether ‘Johnny’s sauce’ is too common a phrase to be copyrighted to researching the effects of secondhand smoke on children. Another one that struck me was a court’s decision that a Sri Lankan film maker who claimed to be famous must not be, since his name returned no hits in a Google search.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Google’s announcement of its upcoming Gmail service, an online e-mail provider that would offer users 1 gigabyte of storage space. (see this post from April 2) Here is another article, from the Associated Press this morning, explaining some of the concerns.

The big worry is the concept of scanning e-mail in order to place advertisements related to the topics users write about in their e-mails. Another concern is that Google could keep copies of e-mail messages on its system, even if users had deleted them from their accounts. Privacy International, a London-based group, has filed a complaint against Google in the UK.

Yahoo News reports that President Bush spoke today in Albuquerque about the importance of broadband Internet access. The only concrete step mentioned in the article is a continuation of Internet tax ban. Bush named 2007 as the year by which everyone in the U.S. should have broadband.
Here is the full story.

A U.S. army captain, who in civilian life is a lawyer in Indianapolis, helped start a library in Baghdad’s only juvenile prison. Captain David Seiter asked friends back home to donate Arabic-language materials, and yesterday the library officially opened in Karkh Juvenile Detention Facility. The inmates here, who are 13-18 years old, are not insurgents against the U.S. forces; they are mainly convicted of armed robbery, though some are convicted of rape and murder. Some more detail is in this Associated Press story.

Lois Shelton, a Missouri woman trying to collect signatures for a petition outside the Columbia Public Library, was asked to move by 3 police officers. Apparently the library has designated three spots where signature-gatherers can stand, and Shelton was not in these areas. This article in the Columbia Daily Tribune quotes a “constitutional law expert” who makes some puzzling statements:

‘”There is certainly an argument that a library is meant for patrons’ use and is not necessarily a public forum.”‘

Is there a difference between patrons and the public? Is “use” only reading but not congregating or talking?

Baylor University is looking like the location for Bush’s Presidential Library. This article from a local paper says that 400 mayors in Texas have endorsed Baylor, which is in Waco, as their choice location. Bush’s father’s library is at Texas A&M in the town of College Station.

Google Local is a new service that allows searchers to add a zip code or town to their search and find information on local businesses and maps. Results are integrated into regular search results, or you can use the Google Local interface.
An article from Pandia, a search engine newsletter which I believe is Norwegian, describes this in some detail. The service is going to be launched in the UK soon, says this article from Revolution Magazine.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is helping Baghdad University restore its Russian collections, which were destroyed when the U.S. attacked Iraq. There is a really brief article from Russian Information Agency Novosti.