From the San Antonio Business Journal:
The Texas State Library and Archives Commission convened a meeting in San Antonio to launch a new strategy to improve Internet access in public libraries.
More than 200 public library systems in Texas lack Internet access. The purpose behind the Texas Opportunity Online Broadband Summit is to pinpoint ways public libraries [...]
Archive of entries posted on October 2009
Texas works to improve Internet access in libraries
Samuelson Says Google Book Search Settlement Doesn’t Fully Reflect “Public Trust Responsibilities”
From Library Journal:
“You create a public good this substantial, guess what: public trust responsibilities come with it.” So said University of California law professor Pamela Samuelson Friday during a keynote lunch at the D is for Digitize conference, held at New York Law School.
And Google and the plaintiffs, the Authors Guild and the Association of [...]
State Support for Libraries in Pennsylvania Cut Nearly 27%
From Library Journal:
After nearly 100 days of deadlock on the Pennsylvania state budget, legislators last week agreed to a compromise, including a 26.7% slash in state support for libraries, from $93,246,000 to $68,322,000, cutting back on direct public library aid and even more so on statewide services.
Given the national economic downturn, and particularly Pennsylvania’s painful [...]
Federal Court Denies Government Attempt to Delay Release of Telecom Records. Again.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Today a federal district court denied the government’s latest emergency motion asking for a 30-day stay in last Friday’s deadline to release records relating to telecom lobbying over last year’s debate over immunity for corporate participation in government spying. The new deadline is October 16, at 4 p.m. Pacific time. We [...]
Google Co-Founder Defends Book Search Settlement, Draws Criticism
From Library Journal:
In an op-ed October 9 in the New York Times defending the Google Book Search settlement, Google co-founder Sergey Brin called it a win-win for authors, publishers, and Google, with the “real winners… the readers who will now have access to a greatly expanded world of books.”
The op-ed, headlined A Library to Last [...]
Bandwidth Boost For Libraries Gaining Support – A plan to put fiber optic technology in public libraries may be a candidate for federal stimulus funding
From Information Week:
An effort to make the nation’s public libraries a major source of robust Internet access is gaining momentum as a disparate group of foundations, companies, and trade and government agencies weigh in with plans to build support for bringing fiber optic technology to the country’s 16,500 libraries.
Librarians says Leahy let them down on Patriot Act
From the Times Argus:
Sen. Patrick Leahy is finding himself at odds with privacy-protecting librarians in the state — a group that usually has praise for Vermont’s senior U.S. Senator and has often worked with him in the past.
TNR Debate: Too Much Transparency? (Part II)
From The New Republic:
Lawrence Lessig’s essay warns that the unintended consequence of the success of what he calls the “naked transparency movement” will be to “simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff.” His implication is that the movement’s proponents are insufficiently interested in appropriate analysis of all political data they are [...]
Against Transparency – The perils of openness in government by Lawrence Lessig
From The New Republic:
How could anyone be against transparency? Its virtues and its utilities seem so crushingly obvious. But I have increasingly come to worry that there is an error at the core of this unquestioned goodness. We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may [...]
Google Claims to be the Lone Defender of Orphans: Not lone, not defender
From the Open Content Alliance:
At a press conference that Google held today, Techcrunch reported these statements by Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt. They deserve correction.