Friday updates for this week include volumes of fun, computer source code issues, Ralph Nader, A bot more napster, librarians efforts recalled, readers make friends with books, the bible, and the Quote of the Week!!
Friday updates for this week include volumes of fun, computer source code issues, Ralph Nader, A bot more napster, librarians efforts recalled, readers make friends with books, the bible, and the Quote of the Week!!
Volumes of fun
Children at Cooper Park, in Boston have books that are water- and
peanut-butter-and-jelly proof. The collection of fairy tales,
classics, and international stories has been here for three
years, courtesy of Beth Lesley, who buys the books, laminates
them, and locks them on wire cables attached to benches
throughout the park. Now that\’s what I call a sticky situation!
Free Speech Rights for Computer Code?
From the NYTimes
"I see this as having a chilling effect on my ability
as a computer scientist to express myself," Professor
Touretzky said. He was referring to the court\’s preliminary
injunction that barred a Web site from posting the underlying, or
source, code for the cracking program. "If the court upholds
this injunction, what would happen is that certain uses of
computer language — my preferred means of expression — would be
illegal." . It would be hard to make a case "that
computer code of any kind has no expressive content," the
judge said. "Which then gets you to the question of how then
do you deal with it under the First Amendment?"
A
Ralph Nader Plan That \’Sucks\’
From
Wired
Just when you thought an aging Ralph Nader had lost his
ability to terrify large corporations, the Beltway activist wants
to set up a new class of domain names sure to strike fear into
the hearts of executives worldwide: dot sucks. Sign me up for
ralphnader.sucks! "We would not permit the organization that
owned an associated domain to also own .sucks, so it would expand
the name space in an important way. The domain would also be
available for other uses, such as work.sucks, life.sucks, or
television.sucks," says the letter written by Love and John
Richard of Essential
Information, also founded by Nader.
From 32 Bits Online
Napster Supporters Deface Web Sites, Blast Metallica
\”A hacker or hackers have defaced Web sites around the world to highlight their anger at attempts by the powerful music industry to close down music file-swapping services such as Napster.\”
From Courier-Journal
Early black librarian\’s efforts recalled
\”A visionary lover of education, Thomas Fountain Blue Sr. earned national recognition during the early 20th century for his efforts to make books available to local African Americans, as well as to black people across the South.
When Blue became the first librarian of the old Western Colored branch of the Louisville Free Public Library in 1905, he was the only black librarian in the country at a library with an all-black staff.\”
From the Washington Post
Young Readers Make Friends With Books
\”Pairs of schoolchildren, called \”Reading Buddies,\” have met regularly at the Oxon Hill branch of the Prince George\’s County Memorial Library System throughout the summer for one purpose: to share the joy of reading.\”
From the Star Telegram
Biblical covers for books are distributed in Grand Prairie
\”Prayer may be out of classrooms, but the Ten Commandments are back, at least in Grand Prairie, where Karen Wiegman is distributing 20,000 book covers bearing the biblical commands.\”
Quote of the Week
I take the quote of the week from an article in \”Public Libraries\”, written by Michael Sullivan, about small libraries utilizing the \”Give \’em what they want\” theory of librarianship.\”It is odd to hear librarians talking about intellectual freedom and the freedom to read whatever one chooses, then to watch them look down thei noses at library collections buillt on patron demands\”
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