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Liblog: A Library Weblog
Welcome to Liblog 1 - a weblog of current web sites and stories dealing with the interface between technology and libraries. Sometimes the connection to the sphere of the library is tenuous... but in today's world, everything has an impact on libraries, on librarians... and on library users. If you find this weblog of interest, you may enjoy these other library weblogs as well.
Monday, September 17, 2001
Red Herring: Assessing Net’s structural integrity
"Red Herring examines the critical issues facing the Internet infrastructure, like the hardware and software technologies being used in the backbone of the Net, as well as those at the “edge” (near cities and large corporate headquarters)."
posted 6:18 PM
Tech Law Journal: Opinion: An Analysis of How the Events of September 11 May Change Federal Law
A look at how the balance between law enforcement authority, civil liberties, and privacy rights likely will lean further toward law enforcement.
posted 10:39 AM
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Wired: Computing Made Good, Easy
Microsoft Windows and Office are so oriented toward replicating a "paper-centric" world that they actually interfere with productivity in a digital world. To really be productive, we should adopt the philiosophy of... Unix!?
posted 11:13 PM
Monday, September 10, 2001
Wired: New Copyright Bill Heading to DC
The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), scheduled to be introduced by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) would make it a civil offense to create or sell any kind of computer equipment that "does not include and utilize certified security technologies" approved by the federal government. It also creates new federal felonies, punishable by five years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Anyone who distributes copyrighted material with "security measures" disabled or has a network-attached computer that disables copy protection would be covered by the bill. DMCA2?
posted 12:36 PM
Friday, September 07, 2001
Salon: Copywrong?
The U.S. Copyright Office recently released their study of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, essentially saying that it should be allowed to stand pretty much as is for now... and sidestepped concerns about fair use by staying that ""the impact of section 1201 on fair use and other copyright exceptions is outside the scope of this Report."
posted 12:12 AM
Thursday, September 06, 2001
Census Bureau News: 9-in-10 School-Age Children Have Computer Access; Internet Use Pervasive
But also noted in the report was that: "only 43 percent of African American children and 37 percent of Hispanic children" lived in households with
computers. The full report is also available. (.pdf format)
posted 11:59 PM
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
NY Times: Giving the Web a Memory Cost Its Users Privacy (free registration required)
Continuing our privacy theme... the Times begins a three-part series looking at state of online privacy. This first installment examines "cookies", the technology that gave the World Wide Web a "memory", at the expense of decreasing anonymity. The second installment looks at the problems involved with trying to deactivate cookies... and the problems with using many sites if you do turn them off, while the third examines how "Government Is Wary of Tackling Online Privacy".
posted 8:26 PM
Tuesday, September 04, 2001
CNN: Ultrafast wireless technology set to lift off
Ultra-wideband (UWB) uses millions of very short, very fast, precisely timed bursts or pulses of energy, measured in nanoseconds and covering a very wide area, to offer a throughput capacity 1,000 times greater than the 11M bit/sec typical of today's wireless LANs.
posted 4:18 PM
LA Times: Single-Number Plan Raises Privacy Fears
Would you find it convenient to be able to use an 11-digit number to send e-mail to someone? Or to send them a fax, or call theirphone? The proposed ENUM system would let you do just that... though (and introducing to today's theme) the cost might be a further erosion of privacy.
posted 4:02 PM
USA Today: Case may set new telephone privacy standard
A look at Commonwealth v. Rekasie, the recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that held that citizens no longer have a reasonable expectation that their telephone conversations are private.
posted 2:38 PM
Friday, August 31, 2001
Salon: No free speech for animal rights Web sites
Yet another "feature" of the DMCA is the "safe harbor" for ISP's - when notified that a site they host is violating the DMCA, if the ISP immediately removes the site they will not be held liable for having hosted it. Now it appears that some organizations are using this to prevent criticism, by simply accusing sites they dislike of violating the DMCA.
posted 10:51 AM
Thursday, August 30, 2001
San Francisco Chronicle: U.S. plots to circumvent China's Internet censors
Safeweb, a firm partially funded by the Central Intelligence Agency's Silicon Valley venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, is proposing a computer network that would circumvent the Chinese government's central control of the Internet in China. The company would install their software, "Triangle Boy", on computers outside China. People in China could then connect to these computers over the Internet and bounce to Safeweb's computers, allowing them to anonymously visit any Web site. Hmmm... unless Safeweb is careful, they might find themselves in violation of CIPA....
posted 4:46 PM
ChipCenter: Machines in the Myths: The State of Artificial Intelligence
Judging by the recent increase in the number of articles, Artificial Intelligence seems to be getting "hot" again. DeAnne DeWitt's article is another nice overview of the field.
"I came to the conclusion that the media's representation of AI is akin to seeing hackers portrayed in the media. Which is to say, that the reality and the meme (or belief) are radically different things."
posted 3:20 PM
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Ray Bradbury is on fire!
While censorship hasn't gotten to the stage of employing firemen for book burning (yet), an awful lot of other things in Ray Bradbury's stories have parallels with what's going on around us today.
posted 5:59 PM
Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Search Engine Watch: Carrier Pigeons for the Web
Blogdex, the creation of MIT PhD student Cameron Marlow, is an index of more than 10,000 weblogs. By examining the link structure of the thousands of blogs in its index, Blogdex "can get an instantaneous look at internet fashion from democratic means."
posted 9:30 PM
Washington Post: Brain Cells, Silicon Chips Are Linked Electronically
"The advance is an important step toward a goal that is still more science fiction than science: to develop artificial retinas or prosthetic limbs that are extensions of the human nervous system. The idea is to combine the mechanical abilities of electronic circuits with the extraordinary complexity and intelligence of the human brain."
posted 5:56 PM
Monday, August 27, 2001
InfoWorld: 'Parasitic grid' wireless movement may threaten telecom profits
The free metro wireless data network movement wants to create 802.11b wireless networks across the country - free to be used by anyone with an 802.11b wireless access card in their laptops, handhelds, or PCs. It turns out to be a good use for used Pringlestm cans, too!
posted 4:12 PM
Friday, August 24, 2001
NY Times: Can Hacking Victims Be Held Legally Liable? (free registration required)
Some legal scholars, such as Stanford Law School's Margaret Jane Radin, believe that companies that suffer hacking attacks might be vulnerable to lawsuits for failing to prevent the attack that harmed their site. On the other hand... isn't this a bit like blaming the victim?
posted 1:28 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
Reuters (via SiliconValley.com): Web Pirates 'Ripping Off' Top Authors, Survey Says
Research by Envisional (a UK-based Internet monitoring company who develop software to search the Internet for copyright abuse) showed 7,267 pirated e-books could be freely accessed. Science fiction and fantasy titles were the most pirated, and the most common method used was taking traditional copyrighted paper books and scanning them into electronic format.
posted 12:14 PM
Newsbytes (Washington Post): Appeals Court To Consider 'Fair Use' Of Online Images
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether Ditto, a visual search engine, infringed on Leslie Kelly's copyrights when the company indexed 35 of his photographs and put them in its database. Ditto has maintained that the "Fair Use" doctrine, which provides copyright exceptions that include reproduction for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research, allows them to index and display the images.
posted 11:32 AM
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Wired: What's On Tap? Why, Haptics
Haptics is the science of integrating the sense of touch into human/computer interactions. Not only to feel what is on a computer display, but as a means of a computer interacting with the user (such as getting your attention by "tapping" your shoulder.)
posted 3:03 PM
Computerworld: Cell carriers eye wireless LANs
There are a lot of issues regarding security and network management, but several cellular phone companies are looking for some way to expand their networks to include access to 802.11b wireless LANs.
posted 12:12 PM
USA Today: Houston citizens get free e-mail Project attempts to close 'digital divide'
In an ambitious attempt to close the digital divide, Houston, TX has partnered with Houston-based Internet Access Technologies (IAT), to offer a package of software and e-mail services dubbed SimDesk to all of its 3 million area residents. The city will give residents free use of about 1,000 PCs already in libraries and fire and police stations. Houston residents who own PCs also can access the software if they have an Internet service provider.
posted 12:07 PM
Monday, August 20, 2001
Scientific American: Little Big Science
Nice, readable overview about nanotechnology.
posted 6:07 PM
Guardian (uk): Computer games stunt teen brains
Computer games may well be creating a generation more disposed to violence - but not necessarily due to their content. Instead, researchers have suggested,this may be due to damage done by stunting the developing mind. Computer games only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement, rather than the frontal lobe - which has been associated with self-control.
posted 6:04 PM
SF Chronicle: PALM READERS - Valley visionaries predict next wave in wireless communication devices
A look at what may lie ahead... and present day obstacles that may get in the way of those visions.
posted 5:26 PM
Wired: Israeli 'Hal' Eyes Turing Test
Rather than trying to program an "adult" computer, why not program a computer to be like a "child" instead... and then help it "grow" to adulthood.
posted 5:17 PM
Thursday, August 16, 2001
IEEE Spectrum: Welcome to the Always-On World
"With the growth of new information and communications technologies, each relationship is becoming a continual presence.... The always-on world... is a world of freedom, but it is also a world of anonymous global forces that ceaselessly rearrange all relationships to their liking."
posted 11:02 PM
Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Technology Review: Taming the Web
"The world may well be on the path to a more orderly electronic future—one in which the Internet can and will be controlled. If so, the important question is not whether the Net can be regulated and monitored, but how and by whom."
One way the Internet is being tamed, according to this article from the Economist, is through the use of firewall and filtering technologies that are imposing geo-political limits on the Internet.
posted 10:42 PM
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Wired: Searching for Google's Successor
Wisenut, Teoma, Lasoo, Cure and Vivisimo are all trying to beat Google at its own game - providing smarter, more relevant search results.
posted 4:24 PM
Monday, August 13, 2001
NY Times: A Black Mud From Africa Helps Power the New Economy (free registration required)
A complicated story about Coltan, a black mud that is a source for tantalum, a key component in cell phones and other high-tech items. In the Congo, mining of Coltan may be destroying the environment and driving the lowland gorillas to extinction. It may also be the only way that many in the Congo can survive.
posted 3:43 PM
Friday, August 10, 2001
Law.com: Exclusive Right to Name Limited on Internet, Federal Judge Rules
What do you do about two different products when they share the same name (Chambord the liqueur, and Chambord, a line of coffee makers)? In particular, who gets to use that name for their web site? In Chatam International Inc. v. Bodum Inc., the judge decided that the coffee maker could keep chambord.com, in part because Internet surfers are accustomed to finding that a Web site is not exactly what they were seeking. "A consumer attempting to access an upscale liqueur product is unlikely to be dissuaded, or unnerved, by... having first brought up the coffee maker's screen."
posted 1:30 PM
Thursday, August 09, 2001
Cornell University's Engineering and Computer Science Library: StickerShock
In case you were wondering why many librarians, professors and scientists are complaining about the rising cost of scientific journals....
posted 11:24 PM
NY Times: Jail Time in the Digital Age (free registration required) updated
An op-ed piece on the DMCA and copyright law from Larence Lessig:
Technologies that protect copyrighted material are never as subtle as the law of copyright.... Thus when the D.M.C.A. protects technology,... it often protects much more broadly than copyright law does. It makes criminal what copyright law would forgive.
openp2p has published an interview with Lessig in which he further makes his case for preserving the information commons:
Employees at Smith & Wesson don't have to fear arrest because their products led to somebody being killed, yet employees at software companies need to fear arrest because somebody may have used their code to steal a John Grisham novel.
posted 10:59 PM
Wednesday, August 08, 2001
CNet: Drug sites may be hazardous to your health
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds Internet search engines tend to direct people to sites that appear to promote drug use and provide incorrect or even dangerous information. One reason why - those Web sites that provide reliable information on illegal drugs, including sites funded by the federal government, don't appear among the top search results. It seems they haven't done a good job of manipulating their position (such as by using hidden keywords.)
posted 10:01 PM
Tuesday, August 07, 2001
NY Times: Time of Growing Pains for Information Age (free registration required)
What, exactly, do the terms information or complexity mean? And what does that have to do with files and folders as a lousy metaphor for computers to use?
posted 10:37 PM
Monday, August 06, 2001
San Jose Mercury News: Birth of the PC
While it really wasn't the first Personal Computer, IBM's PC certainly transformed the industry. This series of stories looks back at its construction 20 years ago.
posted 11:20 AM
Infoworld: Plugging into the Global Grid
The Great Global Grid would be a computing environment where anyone can plug in from anywhere and access any resource on the grid. Creating "virtual machines" by stringing together multiple systems to take advantage of processing power that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive, users would be able to rent processing power as well as software resources.
posted 10:17 AM
Thursday, August 02, 2001
NY Times: A Scientist's Art: Computer Fiction (free registration required)
Twenty years ago, Vernor Vinge published his classic story True Names, a prescient look at what came to be called Cyberspace. Now, he's thinking about what he terms the technological singularity, a point at which the intelligence of machines takes a huge leap, and they come to possess capabilities that exceed those of humans. He sees the singularity as probable if not inevitable... and most likely arriving between 2020 and 2040.
posted 8:54 PM
Salon: The parasite economy
A look at the growing phenomena of plug-in programss that pay the producers of a more popular program for the privilege of piggybacking on the hot download of the moment.
posted 8:37 PM
Washington Post: Nonprofit Firm Could Guide '.us'
When the US Commerce Department went ahead with plans to take bids to privatize the .us domain, several non-profits decided to see if they could work directly with the bidders to have their concerns addressed.
posted 5:29 PM
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Slate: Apocalypse Soon
Soon, people will be able to get very accurate sales figures for books. So, why are so many people in publishing against this?
posted 10:25 PM
NY Times: Car Calls May Leave Brain Short-Handed (free registration required)
"The first study using magnetic resonance images of brain activity to compare what happens in people's heads when they do one complex task, as opposed to two tasks at a time, reveals a disquieting fact: the brain appears to have a finite amount of space for tasks requiring attention."
posted 3:30 PM
BBC News: Happy 40th, computer games
Back in 1961, a group of MIT students got their hands on the TX-0 and a DEC PDP-1 computer. What better use could they be put to than... Spacewar!?
posted 12:16 AM
Monday, July 30, 2001
San Francisco Chronicle: Mystery links - New Web advertising tool gets results, draws criticism
Contextual advertising uses a plug-in to turn existing words on a Web page into hyperlinks that redirect a computer user to an advertiser's site. So the word "shoe" on your page, for example, would become a link that might take you to the Nike site. Which might get Reebok a bit upset when it starts happening to them.... The thing getting other people upset is that they didn't even know they were installing th eplug-in in the first place.
posted 12:08 PM
Friday, July 27, 2001
TIME: Are Libraries the Next Napster?
"Publishers fear a proliferation of downloaded material that can easily be obtained for free. Libraries, meanwhile, are getting nervous about how, exactly, the publishers will try to control the bottom line — will they have to pay extra to maintain rights to materials, instead of buying a book and owning it forever?"
posted 1:49 AM
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
The Standard: Teens Turn On, Tune In, Log Off
While American teens overall are more likely to be Net users than adults, kids actually spend 1/3 less time online than adults do.
posted 11:11 AM
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
University Business: Ready or Not, Here Come Digital Libraries
A look at some of the companies competing to provide digital content directly to students and faculty as (private) digital libraries.
posted 1:34 AM
Monday, July 23, 2001
Boston Globe:Battle rages over planned sale of net domain and L.A. Times: Dot-US Belongs to All of Us
Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans has released a plan to have a private contractor take over administration of the .us domain... without any conditions on what taxpayers will get in return for giving up this public asset. The Times editorial suggests that a better plan would be to share any profits "in ways that benefit Americans--by, for example, helping libraries and schools afford access to the growing number of high-fee, high-quality Web sites."
posted 11:40 PM
Knowledge@Wharton: Citizen Hacker: The Joy of Dedicated Play
Nice review of Pekka Himanen’s new book, The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age. Are hackers creating an alternative to the Puritan work ethic?
posted 6:35 PM
We've put together a resource/backgrounder page on the Steve Coffman proposal, and some of the issues it raises for libraries.
updated 10/30/2000 11:50:37 AM
Other web logs with links to library issues:
- Colleen Bell's and Juanita Benedicto's nicely designed NewBreed Librarian, "intended to foster a sense of community for those new to librarianship, whether in school or just out."
- Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff I Found This Week (and her Ex Libris E-Zine for librarians.)
- Tara Calishain's Research Buzz, which focuses on Internet Research.
- Blake Carver and Steve Galbraith's LISNews.com, focuses on (as the subtitle puts it), "news for information professionals."
- Stephanie Davidson's 'brary 'blog, featuring "librarians and libraries heard round the 'net".
- Craig Jensen's Booknotes, looking at "Books, Libraries, Preservation and..."
- Ms. Acquisitions, Anna Belle Leiserson, has created AcqWeblog for, "librarians and other professionals interested in acquisitions and collection development."
- Dennis Moser's Acronymania, with notes, URLs, and place to "blow off some verbal steam from time to time" on EAD, TEI, SGML, HTML, XML and digital imaging.
- Peter Scott's Library News Daily, part of his worldwide directory, LibDex.
- TJ Sondermann's libray_geek, collecting and commenting on a wide variety of subjects having to do with library and information science.
- Nancy Turner's remarked bookmarks remarks on news related to libraries and digital culture
- Jessamyn West's librarian.net, keeping track of the nifty reference sites - and library references - she finds.
- Chris Zammarelli's Caterblog (definitely not least!)
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