Legal Battle Brews Over Texts on Electronic Reserve at U. of California Libraries, from the Chronicle Publishers are objecting to an electronic reserve system at the University of California… Offering limited amounts of supplementary materials for educational purposes, without having to pay royalties, is allowed under fair-use doctrine. But how much access libraries can provide is not always clear under the law. Mr. Adler [vice president for legal and governmental.. Read More
Duke iPod program re-upped for ’05-’06 AY
Duke released a memo to faculty today about the iPod project for next year: The iPod will continue to serve as the core technology to enable digital audio and beginning in Fall ’05, DDI will shift the iPod program from a class based (i.e., all freshmen) to a course based distribution method. This will enable faculty members who see uses for iPods in their courses to build them into their.. Read More
Bibliocasting listserv
This post to the Dig_Ref listserv announces the launch of the Bibliocasting listserv, “dedicated to a discussion of streaming media in the library environment.” Brought to you, natch, by the good people at the Information Institute of Syracuse. In an interesting experiment, you can subscribe to the list either by email or as a podcast, thanks to some text-to-speech app. I’ll be interested to see how sig blocks are handled;.. Read More
Digitization of Early 20th Century Newspapers
4 Universities Will Help Digitize Newspapers From the Early 20th Century, from the Chronicle of Higher Ed Four universities and two public libraries are sharing $1.9-million in grants to digitize newspapers from the beginning of the 20th century so the publications can be preserved and searched online. The two-year grants were announced on Monday by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the.. Read More
$100 Laptops for Poor Nations
Group Puts $100 Laptops in Poor Countries, from AP If you believe that it’s important to bridge the digital divide in the Third World, then this is an incredibly cool idea. Me, I tend to believe that in the Third World food on tables & stable governments are just a bit more important than internet access. Though on the other hand, the Grameen Bank‘s Village Phone Program makes microloans so.. Read More
DARPA cuts CS research funding
A Blow to Computer Science Research, from the NY Times As if it wasn’t difficult enough for CS research to get funded: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon – which has long underwritten open-ended “blue sky” research by the nation’s best computer scientists – is sharply cutting such spending at universities, researchers say, in favor of financing more classified work and narrowly defined projects that promise a.. Read More
7 years in internet time = way obsolete
This is funny in that makes-you-want-to-cry kind of way: Feds Complete Internet Traffic Report, from AP Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million study, ultimately called “Signposts in Cyberspace,” under a 1998 law. Passed almost at the dawn of what became the Internet boom, the law required the Commerce Department to seek a study about Web addresses and trademarks by the National Research Council and wrap up the report within nine.. Read More
225,964,951-1
Distributed computing pays off: An eye surgeon in Germany has discovered the world’s largest known prime number – or at least his computer did. The surgeon, Dr. Martin Nowak of Michelfeld, is among thousands of participants in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, one of several big projects that tap idle computers worldwide. Now, Can You Find Its Square Root?, from the NY Times Here’s the GIMPS site itself. Me,.. Read More
MGM v. Grokster
Oral arguments for MGM v. Grokster start tomorrow before the Supreme Court, according to this article from CNN. Docket from the Supreme Court. Compiled documents from the EFF. (Note the brief from Greg Newby!) Press releases & related news from Grokster. Tellingly, I can’t find a thing about this on MGM’s site.
Jessamyn West
Saw Jessamyn West gave a talk today, Postcards from the Other Edge of the Digital Divide: Technological/Political Choices and the Information Poor. Actually her talk overlapped with half of my DL class, so in the spirit of democracy I let the students vote on it: their regularly scheduled program of me, or Jessamyn. I don’t know if I should be dismayed by the resounding vote in favor of Jessamyn, but.. Read More