Karl

Thomas Register Ceases Print Publication After Centennial Year

We just received our 2006 edition of the Thomas Register. I was pleasantly surprised to open the carton and see hardbound books, since last year’s edition was a floppy paperback set that was nearly impossible to shelve. My pleasure faded, though, when I saw the enclosed announcement. After 100 years of providing the industry-standard directory of American manufacturers, Thomas will cease publication of its print edition in favor of its online product, ThomasNet.

The press release linked at ThomasNet leads to a blank page at press time, but the letter printed in the front of each volume paints this as simply an inevitable move toward digital publication. I can’t help but see it as another sign of the fading of the U.S. as a world industrial power.

April 2, 2006 by Karl Internet

Transgendered Veteran’s Suit Against Library of Congress Can Proceed

Babylon Sister wants us to know that, as reported by the ACLU, a federal court has ruled that a transgendered person and Army Special Forces veteran who was denied a position at the LOC can pursue legal action against the Library. Highlights:

Finding that sex may not be “a cut-and-dried matter of chromosomes,” the court ruled that federal protections against sex discrimination may also protect transgender people who are discriminated against based on their gender identity. In rejecting the government’s argument that discrimination against transgender people is not sex discrimination, the court noted “the factual complexities that underlie human sexual identity. These complexities stem from real variations in how the different components of biological sexuality – chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal, and neurological – interact with each other, and in turn, with social, psychological, and legal conceptions of gender.”

[…]

The ACLU filed the lawsuit against the Library of Congress on June 2, 2005. After retiring from the military, Schroer, who had been hand-picked to head up a classified national security operation while serving as an Airborne Ranger qualified Special Forces officer, applied for a position with the Library of Congress as the senior terrorism research analyst. Soon thereafter she was offered the job, which she accepted immediately. Prior to starting work, Schroer took her future boss to lunch to explain that she was in the process of transitioning and thought it would be easier for everyone if she simply started work presenting as female. The following day, Schroer received a call from her future boss rescinding the offer, telling her that she wasn’t a “good fit” for the Library of Congress.

Google Romance

Today Google announced the latest in a long series of new products, Google Romance. In the company’s own words, “When you think about it, love is just another search problem. And we’ve thought about it. A lot. Google Romance(tm) is our solution.”

April 1, 2006 by Karl Google

Alternative to Google that is Really Decent?

librarianscott writes: Better than Google? You must be joking?

Walt Mossberg, in his free WSJ Personal technology site reviews the new ask.com

He says, “search-results pages are richer and better organized than typical Google results, and they give greater priority to content over ads”

Here’s an example. I searched for Ted Williams, the Red Sox outfielder who was the greatest hitter of all time. In Google, I got a plain results page topped by a link to the official site on Williams, with a few ads down the right side for Williams-related items.

In Ask.com, the top of the page, above the ads, featured a Smart Answer box that included a picture of Ted, an excerpt from a biography, direct links to his official site, an encyclopedia article and other images of him.

March 31, 2006 by Karl Google Libraries

Retire to a town with a library, profs

alf7e writes: An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education advises retiring academics to consider retiring to college towns. Says one emeritus professor, “You might underestimate your dependence on the libraries.”

March 30, 2006 by Karl Librarians Libraries

Baghdad Burning Blog

Incondicional wants us to know that a female blogger from Iraq who goes by the name “Riverbend”
has been nominated for the BBC’s Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction. Her blog Baghdad Burning chronicles the experience of a being a civilian behind the lines in the Iraq war. She is highly educated and conversant with Western culture — Smurfs and the Oscars make appearances alongside Sunni/Shia conflicts and the devastation of war. It brings to mind Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis:The Story of a Childhood …only the war is happening now, and there’s no guarantee the author will survive until tomorrow to make the next entry.

March 30, 2006 by Karl Uncategorized

Libraryprivacy.org

Cstout writes: “In my efforts to find instances of direct cooperation between the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Civil Liberties Association (ACLU) I discovered Libraryprivacy.org. A joint project of the California Library Association and the ACLU of Southern California, the website is an excellent resource for libraries nationwide to take action against the USA PATRIOT Act.

“The groups, ‘believe that these new powers violate the basic tenets of intellectual freedom, that library users should have the right to read free of surveillance, and that a high wall of privacy should be re-established around an individual’s private library records.’

“Included on the site are links to articles about the impact of the PATRIOT Act on library privacy, resolutions against the act and a ‘Take Action’ section that calls for support of amending the Act to protect library use privacy. This is an excellent resource for us in the librarian profession concerned about the privacy and protection of our patrons.

“No one has ever proven that terrorists used library materials or equipment in support of their activities. What has been proven though, is that the Bush administration has no problem secretly spying on American Citizens. The PATRIOT Act just makes it easier. Let’s help the ACLU in their efforts to protect our freedom.”

March 30, 2006 by Karl American Library Association Librarians Libraries Privacy

Researchers team to create Credibility Commons

Durst writes: “An article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Ed (sub. required) describes a collaborative effort between researchers at Syracuse U. and U. of Washington that will use different computer technologies to evaluate websites for the usefulness of their content.

“Credibility Commons will investigate the creation of a search engine that could bring back sites that librarians typically send their patrons to. The project is funded by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.”

March 29, 2006 by Karl Libraries

RFID Association Refutes RFID Virus Claims

We reported about a week ago that an academic research team had published a paper, cleverly titled “Is Your Cat Infected with a Computer Virus?”, suggesting that RFID tags might be a vector for computer intrusion.

AIM Global, an association comprised of, “…manufacturers or service providers of technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), bar code, card technologies (magnetic stripe, smart card, contactless card, optical card), biometrics, and electronic article surveillance (EAS)….” has put together a statement refuting the claims in the students’ paper. Some highlights:

In response to this paper, these experts emphasize that there are two broad types of RFID tags, ones that have pre-encoded or fixed data and ones that have data that can be changed. Systems with fixed data such as those used to identify pets cannot be changed and therefore are immune to infection by a virus. So RFID animal tags are safe for your pets and cannot spread data viruses.

[….]

Being able to insert a virus into the system implies a tag contains executable code that is recognized by the software. This is simply not possible with many applications of RFID since they look for specific kinds of data and will either flag or reject anything that doesn’t fit the data template.

March 24, 2006 by Karl Uncategorized

Teen gets two years, sex offender therapy in library assault

From Michigan’s mlive.com :

A juvenile court referee has ordered a 13-year-old boy who sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl in a library restroom to remain under the court’s supervision for two years and to receive sex offender therapy.

The teenager, from Brighton, apologized to the girl during his sentencing hearing Monday, but Livingston County Juvenile Court Referee Kathleen M. Oemke called him a predator who is likely to commit sexual assault again.

“The problem is, while you are very sincere, we have not yet addressed what got you to this point of having to act out in this way,” she told the teen. “You need help.”

March 23, 2006 by Karl Librarians Libraries