As communities start understanding the importance of providing free Wi-Fi, we are beginning to see resistance from legislators and industry.
Telecommunications companies have taken notice as cities, nonprofit organizations and startup companies have begun using these technologies to offer free or steeply reduced Internet access, said Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist with […]
Here’s a PDF link to the EFF brief. As quoted on Copyfight, Eben Moglen lays it out wonderfully:
At the heart of Petitioners’ argument is an arrogant and unreasonable claim–even if made to the legislature empowered to determine such a general issue of social policy–that the Internet must be designed for the convenience of their […]
Similar to the brief mentioned yesterday from 17 comp sci profs, 22 media studies scholars have filed a brief (PDF) discussing how the case relates to scholarly work and education. Long excerpt:
Amici are deeply concerned that recent legal, commercial, and political turmoil surrounding the proliferation and use of “peer-to-peer” communicative technologies threaten to chill […]
Via Freedom to Tinker and Boing Boing, 17 comp sci profs have file an amicus brief (PDF) in the Supreme Court Grokster, a case that will determine whether p2p tech is illegal and if tech companies can be liable for copyright infringement using their products. I’ve only read what F2T and BB posted of […]
I don’t really want to give any more fame to the comments from ALA prez-elect Gorman last week, but George Needham’s satirical post at It’s all good is a rather amusing response.
From Cory Doctorow:
It’s not a service I’d use, but I believe that it’s the kind of service that is vital to the Web’s health. The ability of end-users to avail themselves of tools that decomopose and reassemble web-pages to their tastes is an issue like inlining, framing, and linking: it’s a matter of letting users […]
librarian.net linked yesterday to a fantastic article by Nathan Bierma on the future of libraries: Future Bound: The greatly exaggerated demise of an American institution. He discusses how audio books and multimedia have had tremendous growth at a time when the ebook was supposed to be taking over (which it barely has started to). […]
Last week we had a very interesting discussion on the Web4Lib discussion list about how libraries relate to other online tools like, of course, Amazon and Google. I thought Alane Wilson’s post was dead on in a lot of ways, although we shouldn’t forget the absolutely vital role that non-tech librarians play. Going […]
These two articles are great resources on the wiki phenomenon:
Wikis Described in Plain English from Common Craft
Wikiphilia - The New Illness from Hacknot
And while we are on the subject of wikis, don’t forget to buy some Wikipedia products for the fundraiser.
Over the past week or so folks have been up in arms about the Google Toolbar’s new AutoLink feature. I haven’t tried it (IE only), but the core of the major complaints is that it adds links to web pages without the consent of web authors, something very much like the Microsoft Smart Tags […]
A couple interesting articles on Google from Library Journal:
The first, Google Out of Print by Roy Tennant, takes a critical look at the copyright restrictions of the service, speculating that there will be an overrepresentation of text from the pre-1923 books.
The second, The Google Opportunity by Stephen Abram, lists some ways that libraries can keep […]
Everybody’s been talking about Righting Copyright: Fair Use and Digital Environmentalism from the current BOOKFORUM, so I’m linking to it for those who haven’t yet read it. It’s actually a very good overview of the current state of digital copyright and what some call the Digital Environmentalism movement, led by folks like Lessig, that […]
I don’t have much to say that can’t be taken care of with the following links:
mSpace info
Classical Music Browser (requires Mozilla-based browser)
Slashdot article and discussion
Register aritcle
more on the semantic web movement (interesting articles and applications with varying degrees of relevance):
Wikipedia entry
A Comparison of Hyperstructures: Zzstructures, mSpaces, and Polyarchies (PDF)
Taking a Stand on the Semantic Web
August […]
Google Scholar now has a preferences page to specify your institution (if it’s among the few included in the pilot) and get links to your resolver in the results. I don’t have time to play with it just yet, but according to a post by North Carolina State University’s Andrew Pace on the web4lib […]
Bowing to the primary complaint from ILL librarians and staff about the Ariel electronic document delivery software, Infotrieve has announced that they are working on a patch that will make Ariel 4 compatible with older versions of the software. As previously noted here on Bibliotheke, the incompatibility between older versions and the recently released […]
From the press release:
Thanks to an eBay-shopping English professor, the University of Iowa has acquired more than 250,000 science fiction fanzines and almost overnight has increased its stature as a prominent science fiction research center.
The collection was assembled by Martin M. (Mike) Horvat of Stayton, Ore., a longtime science fiction fan and collector of fanzines, […]
Need help choosing a wiki engine, particularly for use with a library? I’ve spent some time with a number of different options and have come down to two engines that can fill different needs.
1. PmWiki
PmWiki is, IMO, probably the single best option for a library. In fact, the Univeristy of Minnesota Libraries staff […]
From the
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and […]