Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

beSpacific: RSS Feeds For Summaries of Recent Supreme Court Decisions
From Thomas R. Bruce, Co-Director, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

toolbot.com : rss

Toolbot has several practical tools. I use this one when I come across a new RSS feed and want to have a quick look at it before I decide if it is one I want to see every day. Sure, I could just visit the home page, but a) some feeds don’t have homepages, and b) feeds are sometimes different from their associated web pages.

You just paste a link (or drag and drop on the Mac) into the tool and you get back a nicely formatted web page or, if you prefer, Plain display (suitable for handheld readers). You can paste in several links, too, and generate a quick page of todays news from your favorite sites.

Rss Readers

The AbbeNormal wiki hosts this page of links to RSS readers for handhelds, Macs, Windows, and multi-platform, as well as Mozilla-specific readers,
web-hosted aggregators, and tools to convert to and from RSS.
Since this is a wiki, you can add your own!

CNET News.com, February 26, 2004,
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Buchwald said in an opinion released this week that Berkshire Information Systems did not run afoul of the controversial 1998 copyright law by allegedly downloading up to 85 percent of a proprietary advertising-tracking database from the Web site of competitor Inquiry Management Systems (IMS).
Buchwald said, however, that she would allow the case to proceed to trial because Berkshire may have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a law commonly used to convict computer intruders. The law, invoked in the recent Adrian Lamo case, permits both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits when an Internet-connected computer is accessed “without authorization.”

Top News Article | Reuters.com
Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:15 AM ET.

Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. will create a digital archive containing every issue of Time magazine published, which Time will then make freely available to subscribers on its Web site….
HP said the digital archive would total more than 4,000 issues from 1923 to the present and be available in May.

LLRX.com .
By Scott A. Hodes.
Published February 23, 2004.

If youÕve tried to surf the net and find out what frequently requested information has been posted to agency websites recently, youÕve probably been greatly disappointed. Under the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996 agencies are required to post frequently requested FOIA material on their websites….Many agency websites donÕt even have a link to “Frequently Requested Material”, or FAQs. The agencies that do have the link update the sites infrequently and have very little material on them.

ALAWON.
Volume 13, Number 9.
19 February 2004.

H.R. 3261 would create what amounts to ownership rights in a wide variety of data including facts. Despite opposition from the libraries, an array of business concerns including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, telecommunications, financial services and high technology organizations, the House leadership has been committed to passing the legislation.

Toward
Equality of Access
The Role of Public Libraries
in Addressing the Digital Divide.
This report has been sponsored by the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and
developed in partnership with:
AARP
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
BEAUMONT FOUNDATION OF AMERICA
BENTON FOUNDATION
INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND
LIBRARY SERVICES
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
ON CIVIL RIGHTS
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Pew Internet & American Life Project
has served as research advisor.

Ninety-five percent of public libraries in the United States
offer free access to computers and the Internet, often
providing the only Internet access for residents of the
nationÕs poorest areas. This report evaluates the
importance of these library-based computers in addressing
the digital divide.
Drawing from government statistics and independent
research, the report finds widespread acceptance of
library-based computer and Internet access from patrons
and librarians. But more importantly, the report finds that
public access computing is benefiting those socioeconomic
groups with the greatest need.
However, the report also notes urgentÑbut manageableÑ
challenges facing libraries as they seek to maintain and
further develop their role in providing access to digital
information. This valued public service can only be
sustained by the continued support of policymakers,
librarians, and community advocates.

A new feed is born! The Forum on Information Technology and Research Universities (part of the National Academies’ Policy and Global Affairs division) has just created an RSS feed.

“We link to news and other items on information technology and research universities, as well as selected items on IT industry, IT and society, and higher education. “

ECAR Research Publications.
The Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has published a study,
Information Technology Leadership in Higher Education:
The Condition of the Community (PDF, 122 pages), which is available to members of
ECAR Subscribing Organizations.
The document
“reports the results of a quantitative survey of 1,850 IT leaders and professionals at 765 higher education institutions in the United States and Canada. The study examines the general demographics, job mobility, and leadership styles of these IT leaders and professionals, as well as the characteristics of higher education work environments, the innovation climate in central IT organizations, respondents’ perceptions of IT effectiveness at their institutions, and the possible shape of the future of this professional community.”
Among other interesting findings:

• Respondents reported that their central IT organizations, overall, are not environments that are very supportive of innovation. (page 14)
• …perceptions of IT effectiveness erode as one moves down the organizational hierarchy and outward from the institution’s center…(page 15)