High Court Rules Against P2P (MGM v. Grokster)

Posted on June 29th, 2005 by Liz

The Supreme Court ruled this week that Peer-to-peer technology developers (such as those folks behind Kazaa, Morpheus, Napster, and a zillion other P2P apps) are legally responsible for the illegal acts of users. Read all about it at the following link:

High Court Rules Against P2P

The question is, can this ruling be applied in any way to libraries, where the content is initally purchased, but the license, according to the big media company, is probably being violated. Are libraries liable for distributing copyrighted content that could potentially be copied?

To Use That Library Computer, Please Identify Yourself

Posted on June 29th, 2005 by Liz

This came in through the MPLA IFACTION (Intellectual Freedom Action) e-mail list. I thought it was interesting enough to share. As a former university employee who was present when such a system went into place, I can definitely vouch for the reduction in access for users and intense user education on how to use the system that occured with the introduction of an authentication system.

To Use that Library Computer, Identify Yourself

By SCOTT CARLSON

A few years ago, just about anyone could turn up at a college library, sit down at a bank of public-access computers, and cruise the Internet with no password, little trouble, and only the slimmest chance of being identified.

But academic librarians, wary of increasing instances of Internet-related crime and hacking, are now having second thoughts about that unfettered, unsupervised access. At some college libraries, students must now log in to use computers, and visitors must show an ID to get computer access.

Read the rest of this entry »

Official Find – The Official-Site Searcher

Posted on June 28th, 2005 by Brenda

If you want to find the official site for a company or a brand, you can now try Official Find. I tried band names and it worked for those, too.

Internet access and public libraries

Posted on June 28th, 2005 by Brenda

Nearly every U.S. public library offers free access to computers and the Internet, but overall libraries are challenged to provide enough workstations to meet demand, pay for ongoing Internet connectivity costs, and plan for necessary upgrades to the technology, according to a report released today.

:: ConnectViaBooks.com ::

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by Liz

ConnectViaBooks is a social network site that connects people according to the books they read. Any use in libraries that anyone out there can think of?

:: ConnectViaBooks.com ::

The Importance of RSS

Posted on June 22nd, 2005 by Liz

From the article: “If you think about it, RSS feeds are a librarian�s wet dream (and make no mistake that Google is essentially a library, check that mission statement out again). An RSS feed is a blog distilled to its core essence. If you look at the output of an RSS feed in a reader, you�ll see no comments, no trackbacks and (for the most part) no design. It�s the better blog. It�s pure data.”

particletree · The Importance of RSS

Thomson Gale database contents and the web

Posted on June 21st, 2005 by Brenda

Librarians frequently lament the fact that patrons rely solely on Google and Yahoo for searching, completely missing all of the great stuff that’s available in the subscription databases. Thomson Gale is working to address this by making their database contents accessible by web crawlers. When searchers try to access the database articles that appear in their search results, they will need to enter their local library card number in order to access the content.

Database contents have long been considered one of the key components of the invisible web . This new development may help make that invisible web a whole lot smaller.

A position paper prepared for Kan-ed and the

Posted on June 16th, 2005 by Liz

For those of you interested in some of the issues discussed at the Kan-ed conference, here is the KLA Position Paper on what libraries want from Kan-ed from April 2005.

Position Statements