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Price Increases Are Not the Problem
…And when we buy journals which cost a lot, we should be able to expect that "a lot" translates into a figure that is not the same thing as "perfectly outrageous."
Wonderfully sensible and well-written in a way even people not associated with libraries can understand.

Copyfight: the Politics of IP
The Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (DCIMA, H.R. 3261) extends extremely broad copyright-like protections to collections of factual data–data like the price of a TV, the temperature in Arizona or information collected during scientific research. DCIMA would allow companies to sue anyone who interferes with their ability to profit [...]

Mydoom variant appears, targets Microsoft
A new version of the Windows Mydoom e-mail worm is circulating on the Internet, according to warnings from antivirus companies.
The Mydoom worm variants do not directly affect Macintosh computers, although Mac users may see e-mail and attachments sent to them by infected Windows machines.
Ditto.

Silicon Valley – Dan Gillmor’s eJournal – Microsoft on Patenting XML Formats
Dan Gillmor has posted a reply he received from a MS PR person on the company’s attempt to patent XML.

TechnoBiblio: Patriot Act Takes A Hit
Wooo hooo! A federal judge ruled unconstitutional the portion of the Patriot Act that forbids giving assistance or expert advice to organizations designated as “foreign terrorist organizations”. Now if we can just move on to the rest of the unconstitutional portions.
Amen

PCWorld.com – Help! I’ve Been Web-Jacked
“I heard my hard drive churning and clicked on my task manager and saw three executable programs were installing themselves,” says Chris Brandon of Brandon Internet Services. “I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t get my task manager to cancel the programs.”

By the time he checked his registry, [...]

Caveat Lector: Ianuarii 18, 2004 – Ianuarii 24, 2004 Archives: Journal profit models
In fact, it seems possible to me that open-access journal publishing could turn into a small but reliable revenue stream for libraries, much as it already is for scholarly societies. I think that would be superlatively excellent. Libraries need the money.

Allegro serves iTunes to Universal Plug & Play devices
Once installed on your Mac or PC, the Allegro Media Server software locates your iTunes database file. It publishes that information on the network using the UPnP MediaServer standard, making it possible for UPnP-compliant devices to play your iTunes music. UPnP technology could similarly be used to [...]

Bj�rk, B-C. (2004) Open access to scientific publications – an analysis of the barriers to change � Information Research, 9(2) paper 170 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/9-2/paper170.html]
Trying to get researchers to support the move towards open access, which most agree would be good for the advancement of science in principle, is like trying to get people [...]

blogging the market
That’s why weblogs are huge: they take the power out of the IT department and the webmaster’s hegemony and hand it over to where knowledge really resides – to the individual workers who are knowledgeable enough and know how to speak with a human voice.
Which means less work for the IT department [...]

de-generationx.net :: Korgans News and Ramblings
Microsoft has filed patent #525484 with the New Zealand patent office to lay absolute claim over any “Word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML”. In otherwords, any XML webpage, all documents created by Star Office, OpenOffice.org and many other programs [...]

Wired News: Open-Source E-Voting Heads West
There are issues for and against both types of software but the fact that 4 years later so many people still believe that Bush didn’t actually win the election proves the need for some type of change.

Companies tossing aside consumers freedoms | ReachCustomersOnline.com
There are a few companies that ignore big media’s attempt to limit or deny fair use but they’re definitely not HP, Microsoft, or Intel.

There was a request on one of the mailing lists for examples of well-designed library pages. I thought that I would put the links up here for further inspiration along with my own comments as a web-surfer.

Library Journal – TRLN to Forgo the Big Deal
In another blow to the big deal, the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) announced this week that it would not be renewing its bundled deal with Elsevier.
In December, NCSU Head of Collection Management Suzanne Weiner said that NCSU’s current Elsevier deal, negotiated through the [...]

Library Journal – The Collaboration Imperative
If librarians want to lead in creating the digital future, they need to learn how to work with their colleagues in museums and archives
So far, most institutions have been working on developing and maintaining a web presence for their services. This is something I don’t think has been really explored [...]

Summary of Library IT Support Survey
In July 2003 I conducted a survey about Library IT departments’ work loads and how they are shared with other IT units on campus. The data was collected through a web form and participation was solicited on PACS-L, SYSLIB-L and other library listserve lists The purpose of the survey was [...]

Library portals could lead to increase in resource usage
A recent case study on the implementation of the MetaLib library portal at the University of Loughborough has revealed a significant increase in network database usage once the portal was launched to users.

From Chaos to Control relates the value of content management systems (CMSs). It’s a good read if you’re thinking about implementing one.

OpenOffice Finds Sweet Spot with Governments | ReachCustomersOnline.com
The Israeli government has switched from Microsoft Office.
Another government, another win for open source. Seriously, though, at the bottom of this article are some excellent reasons why OpenOffice and open source are healthy for businesses and consumers.

Huffaker, David, spinning yarns around the digital fire First Monday Volume 9, Number 1 � January 5th 2004.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/huffaker/
this paper will explore the importance of dialogue, storytelling and collaboration in children’s learning, followed by examples of digital technologies that support them.
This paper is more relevant to education than to libraries. However, I think it’s important just [...]

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Reference Sources of Terror
Just because it’s funny.

This won’t be news to most librarians but perhaps it will be a useful reference. Dorothea Salo (markup geek and library science student) has done an excellent and entertaining job of spelling out one of the major problems faced by academic libraries today, as personified by the publishing company Elsevier.

The Digital Preservation Tutorial from the Cornell library is extremely well done.

Bonaccorsi, Andrea and Rossi, Cristina, Altruistic individuals, selfish firms? First Monday Volume 9, Number 1 � January 5th 2004.
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/bonaccorsi/index.html
During 2002, we conducted a survey on 146 Italian firms supplying Open Source software. This paper compares our data on firms� motivations with data emerging from surveys made on individual programmers. We analyse the role played by [...]

mediAgora defines a fair, workable market model that works with the new realities of digital media, instead of fighting them.
I don’t know if this model is really workable but it is something to think about. There is also a blog

LIScareer.com : Librarians in the Information Age: Alternative Uses of MLS Degrees
My personal favorite is the manager of a store that sells sex toys. Not just because of the off-the-wall nature of the job but because she relates it to her degree. She mentions doing “reference interviews” to find out what the customer wants and [...]

Bush Grabs New Power for FBI | ReachCustomersOnline.com
The US Bill of Rights and the Constitution no longer apply when you buy insurance, travel, real estate, stocks, jewelry, cars, casinos, and even use the Post Office. You have no rights.

BW Online | January 12, 2004 | Asia Loves Linux — And Microsoft Scrambles
China, Japan, and South Korea, for instance, are working to develop an operating system more attuned to their character-based languages that will likely be modeled after Linux.
And if they’re careful, it will still work with western computers, giving them the best of [...]

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Open-source battle is heating up