Digital Invasion 

Sanford Berman's original cataloging to be decommissioned

Folks, Sandy Berman called me today and left a message on my answering machine that contained some bad news. The list of user-centered original subject headings created by him and his staff over two and a half decades at Hennepin County Library is now going to be replaced in the catalog by straight LC subject headings, or something close to that. In Sandy's words, "The curtain is coming down." No hardcopy of the authority file currently exists, and there is no reason to expect that the administration at HCL (which forced Sandy into retirement) will take steps to preserve it. Sandy's ideas about user-centered cataloging live on in the books and articles that he has written. [read more]
(link via Library Juice)

Book Exhibitions Online 

Science and the Artist's Book

Science and the Artist's Book is an exhibition which explores links between scientific and artistic creativity through the book format. In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) invited a group of nationally recognized book artists to create new works of art based on classic volumes from the Heralds of Science collection of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, a part of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Special Collections. The resulting artist's books, each inspired by the subject, theories or illustrations of the landmark works of science with which they are paired, offer a number of witty, imaginative, and even poignant insights into the creative side of scientific research. [read more]

Libraries, bookstores and the USA Patirot Act  

Big John Wants Your Reading List by Nat Hentoff

During the congressional debate on John Ashcroft's USA Patriot Act, an American Civil Liberties Union fact sheet on the bill's assaults on the Bill of Rights revealed that Section 215 of the act "would grant FBI agents across the country breathtaking authority to obtain an order from the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court . . . requiring any person or business to produce any books, records, documents, or items."

This is now the law, and as I wrote last week, the FBI, armed with a warrant or subpoena from the FISA court, can demand from bookstores and libraries the names of books bought or borrowed by anyone suspected of involvement in "international terrorism" or "clandestine activities."

Once that information is requested by the FBI, a gag order is automatically imposed, prohibiting the bookstore owners or librarians from disclosing to any other person the fact that they have received an order to produce documents. [read more]

Turn out the lights 

Nasa's Earthlights

Free Virus Fix 

Free Defense against the Internet Worm KLEZ from Kaspersky Labs

In connection with the numerous instances of infection caused by the latest modification of the Internet worm Klez (Klez.e), Kaspersky Labs has developed a free utility for detecting and deleting this malicious program. The utility can be downloaded at KL corporate site.

We remind users that the first Klez version appeared this past October. Today, Kaspersky Labs knows of five Klez modifications, with the latest version, Klez.e, posing the most serious threat to computer safety.

Klez.e sends itself via e-mail utilizing SMTP for sending messages. The subject of the e-mail is randomly chosen from the following variants:

Hi,
Hello,
Re:
Fw:
how are you
let's be friends
darling
don't drink too much
your password
honey
some questions
please try again
welcome to my hometown
the Garden of Eden
introduction on ADSL
meeting notice
questionnaire
congratulations
sos!
japanese girl VS playboy
look,my beautiful girl friend
eager to see you
spice girls' vocal concert
Japanese lass' sexy pictures

The body of an infected message is empty or contains a random text. ...

... A free utility for detecting and deleting Klez can be downloaded here. We also recommend temporarily not using the preview function in e-mail programs. [read more]

(link via dangerousmeta!)

Library Globalization? 

OCLC's Stategis Globaloney

Facinating COLLIB-L Discussion thread via Library Juice

Virus Alert--And this one's not a hoax 

Internet Worm Set to Delete Files on Wednesday

Computer security companies on Tuesday warned that a dangerous new Internet worm that is spreading will try to delete and overwrite files on infected computers beginning on Wednesday.

The worm, dubbed Klez.E, is programmed to delete and overwrite Word, Excel, video, image, and Internet files, among others, on the sixth day of every other month, said Mikko Hypponen, manager of antivirus research at F-Secure, a Helsinki-based company.

Klez, now listed as one of the 10 most common viruses worldwide, displays different subject lines, sometimes masquerading as a virus warning, and it tries to delete antivirus software as well, according to F-Secure.

The worm can infect computers running any e-mail system, but only sends itself to recipients listed in the address books of Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O Outlook, Hypponen said.

E-mail attachments containing the worm can execute automatically, infecting the system just by a recipient reading or viewing the e-mail message and not opening the attachment, the company said. [read more]

Perpetual Ownership 

Extending Copyright Helps Corporations, Not Artists

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether Congress violated the Constitution when it extended copyright protection four years ago. Individual creators will instinctively side with Congress, believing that control of copyrights should go on as long as possible. They are mistaken. Congress acted unconstitutionally and, by doing so, chose the economic interests of corporations over culture, knowledge and society.

In 1998, Congress extended the term of copyright from life plus 50 years for individual creators to life plus 70 years. In other words, my heirs can control any works I create and own for 70 years after my death. The law, known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, also added 20 more years of protection to "corporate" copyright. [read more]

Roadblocks 

A Library as Big as the World by Heather Green

Brewster Kahle has the technology to assemble the ultimate archive of human knowledge. What's stopping him? Restrictive copyright laws.

Brewster Kahle is tackling a big task. And despite some looming clouds, he's pretty darn excited about it. Kahle, a 41-year-old serial entrepreneur, is building the Digital Age's equivalent of the ancient library of Alexandria.

The first installment of his project launched last October. That's when the public could finally use the Internet Archive, a collection of 10 billion pages, including Internet sites, movies, and Usenet postings five times larger than the amount of information at the Library of Congress. [read more]

Who invented movable type? 

Renaissance Secrets: What Did Gutenberg Invent?

3 years ago Paul Needham and Blaise Aguera y Arcas set out to find a method of dating books. Some letters get damaged, making their printed form more distinctive, and their use in different publications links them to the same printing shop and an approximate time period. Paul and Blaise collaborated on a system to identify these distinctive letters. In the process they made a discovery that was so controversial that they revised their methods over and over again to test their findings. But the incontrovertible truth was staring them in the face. [read more]

Scholars Who Dig-itize Gutenberg by Kendra Mayfield

When people think about the printing revolution, one name comes to mind: Johannes Gutenberg.

But what if Gutenberg didn't actually invent the revolutionary technique of mass-producing words as we know it today?

Scholars will soon get a chance to examine in exquisite detail what is considered the first book printed with moveable type.

A project is currently underway at the Library of Congress to digitize its copy of the Gutenberg Bible. The library has partnered with Octavo to photograph, scan and digitize every binding, endsheet and page of the three-volume Bible. [read more]