Archives
Friday, January 30, 2004
Price Increases
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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.
Open Access — laura
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Anti-Feist
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 from data that they collect. In other words, academic researchers, public libraries, Internet innovators and other database users would have to pay up if someone else claims to have assembled the data first.
Guess whose lobbyists are part of the engine behind this madness. No, go on, guess, it�s not hard.
Elsevier. Told you it wouldn�t be hard. Yet another reason to hope libraries get involved with publishing and full-text databases. Yet another reason to pray for open access.
Just when you think corporations couldn’t get greedier and government couldn’t get stupider.
Copyright — laura
Doom, Doom, Doom
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.
Computing News — laura
Microsoft on Patenting XML Formats
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.
Computing News — laura
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
PA Unconstitutional
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
Patriot Act — laura
Spyware gets worse
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, the Trojan had installed dozens of programs that replaced the default Web page with its own, and loaded its own IP addresses in his favorite places, short cuts and safe zones. When he tried to erase the programs and reboot the machine, the virus reinstalled.
I love my Mac mostly for how it works and lets me work. However, I am increasingly grateful for the extra security it provides. Even if someone wrote a virus like this for the Mac operating system, it couldn’t do this much damage because it wouldn’t have access to the important files for it. This is where we need international regulations. Invasions like this are far worse than stealing.
Computing News — laura
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Information Costs Money
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.
Open Access — laura
Streaming iTunes
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 serve digital photos and video, as well, according to Van Andel.
Oh Jennnny
Computing News — laura
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Barriers to Open Access
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 to behave in a more ecological way. While most people recognise the need to save energy and recycle waste it takes much more than just awareness to get them to change their habits on a large scale. It takes a combination of measures of many different kinds, such as technical waste disposal infrastructure, legislation and taxation to get massive behavioural changes underway.
Open Access — laura
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 and the content producers and better content management (i.e. more updates and predictable archive arrangements) for the users.
It’s a pretty interesting article on the use of blogs . However, I really want to teach the author about margins.
Blogging — laura
MS Patents XML
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 and applications.
Um, isn’t the point of XML that it’s open?
Computing News — laura
OSS E-Voting
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.
Open-Source Software — laura
Built-in DRM
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.
Copyright — laura
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Library Webpage Examples
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.
Tutorials — laura
Friday, January 16, 2004
Not a Big Deal
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 TRLN, cost the library roughly $1.4 million annually. That translated into roughly 15 percent of NCSU’s $9.2 million collections budget. Under that arrangement some 38 percent of the libraries’ serials budget went to Elsevier, representing 11 percent of NCSU’s journals.
Open Access — laura
Collaboration Imperative
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 yet. Using the power of the Internet to enrich services (for both parties).
Library Links — laura
Library IT survey
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 mainly for me to get some idea of what libraries of various sizes were doing compared with what my library does, not to create a rigorous, definitive survey, but I’m making it available in case anyone else is interested in the results.
Library Links — laura
Portal Power
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.
Library Links — laura
From Chaos to Control
From Chaos to Control relates the value of content management systems (CMSs). It’s a good read if you’re thinking about implementing one.
Web Tools — laura
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Israeli OpenOffice
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.
Open-Source Software — laura
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Interactive Education
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 the same.
Education — laura
Reference Sources of Terror
WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Reference Sources of Terror
Just because it’s funny.
Patriot Act — laura
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Elsevier
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.
Open Access — laura
Digital Preservation Tutorial
The Digital Preservation Tutorial from the Cornell library is extremely well done.
Library Links — laura
Monday, January 12, 2004
OSS Research
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 different classes of motivations (social, economic and technological) in determining the involvement of different groups of agents in Open Source activities.
Open Source is simply too powerful an idea and too useful a tool to overlook. Understanding what makes it work can help to find a middle ground that balances the needs of users with the rewards that developers deserve.
Open-Source Software — laura
mediAgora
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
Copyright — laura
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Alt MLS
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 “collection management” to maintain her stock.
This is a creative librarian. She sees how she can apply her skills in ways beyond the traditional library setting and she doesn’t hesitate to go her own way.
Career Info — laura
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
No Rights
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.
Patriot Act — laura
Asia Loves Linux
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 both worlds.
To address concerns about security, Microsoft has started sharing parts of its code with government programmers in China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. That allows them to write in extra security and “gives them peace of mind,” says Mirchandani. These days, though, plenty of Asians such as Chen, Wan, and Sharma are finding even more peace of mind using Linux.
Open-Source Software — laura
Monday, January 5, 2004
OSS in Massachusetts
Boston.com / Business / Technology / Open-source battle is heating up
Open-Source Software — laura
