Wired News: Where Sharing Isn’t a Dirty Word
By Michelle Delio. November 15, 2003.
Ibiblio is one of the Web’s oldest and largest digital libraries and all of it is completely free to visitors, thanks to backing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and technology companies like Linux distributor Red Hat.
ALA | MARSBestRef2003
Best Free Reference Web Sites 2003.
Fifth Annual List by
RUSA Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS)
of ALA.
“This is an annual series initiated under the auspices of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web.”
World-Information.Org is preparing a newspaper that will be distributed at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003.
The aim of the infopaper is to alert the delegates and the participating public that current and future regulations and practices concerning intellectual property are among the most fundamental issues shaping the Information Society.At stake is whether the information order will be characterized by centralized control by a few transnational owners of IP claims with the majority of the population relegated to the status of passive consumers or excluded entirely; or by decentralized participation of the widest range of citizens around the world who have access to intellectual resources of production inside and outside the market system.
Articles include “Open Access to Science and Scholarship” by Peter Suber,
“First World IP Regimes slow China’s Modernization” by Jeff Smith, and 16 others.
the paper (pdf)
Karen Coyle: Luminary Lectures @ Your Library.
Karen, until recently at the California Digital Library, will deliver what will surely be a thought-provoking lecture at the Library of Congress on Wednesday, November 19th from 10:00am -12:00 noon.
The video of the live lecture will available from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/lectures/coyle.html.
Karen has over two decades of experience in digital libraries, is a long-time activist with Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, is a well-known metadata expert and has served on the MARC standards committee, the NISO OpenURL committee, and has advised in the development of MODS and other metadata efforts.
ABC News” href=”http://rss.lockergnome.com/archives/feeds/007854.phtml”>ABC News. ABC News now has 23 RSS news feeds.
FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa
By Frances Williams in Geneva. Financial Times November 10, 2003.
Another story about ICANN, the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and control of the Internet.
An attempt by developing countries to put management of the internet under United Nations auspices is likely to be shelved at next month’s world information summit in Geneva…
ICANN: Steady as She Goes
by David McGuire.
Washington Post Monday, November 10, 2003.
ICANN is as close to a governing body for The Internet as we have. It has, according to one critic “vanquished any vestige of democracy.” This story is
a wrap up of what ICANN has been up to this year.
Microsoft: Back to its old ways?
By Martin LaMonica,
CNET News.com
November 6, 2003.
Microsoft is developing its next generation operating system, “Longhorn,”
and with it, according to this article, are changes that
would result in “increased lock-in to Windows.” Microsoft’s wants to offer richer functionality but is doing so by turning
“more browser applications into Windows applications” it could lock out other operating systems and even make web-browsers including IE obsolete; that could turn the open nature of the web into a Microsoft-only neighborhood.
With Longhorn, some industry veterans believe, Microsoft is attempting to steer software development back toward the Windows desktop and away from software such as browser applications that can run on other companies’ OSes.
FCC Deserves a Digital Thanks for Nothing
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post
Sunday, November 9, 2003; Page F07.
Want a quick overview of the FCC decision on “the broadcast flag”? This short article explains what it will mean to consumers — and that includes libraries.
Among other things, “You won’t be able to make a lower-resolution copy of a digital broadcast to watch on your DVD player or move a recording to the laptop or handheld computer you own today. And by forbidding all Internet transfers, even of brief excerpts, the scheme steals fair-use rights.”
Report: Microsoft dominance poses security risk | CNET News.com
September 24, 2003, 4:36 AM PDT
By Robert Lemos.
The report from the Computer and Communications Industry Association argues that the reliance on a single technology such as the Windows operating system for such an overwhelming majority of computer systems threatens the security of the U.S. economy and critical infrastructure,
See more about this and how one of the authors lost his job in
our previous post.
The full report is:
CyberInsecurity: The cost of Monopoly: How the Dominance of Microsoft’s Products Poses a Risk to Security (PDF).