The gag reflex 

Most Far-Reaching Gag Order In 1st Amend. History? by Nat Hentoff

John Ashcroft's war on terrorism includes the most far-reaching gag order in First Amendment history -- preventing the press from reporting on the FBI's seizure of the lists of books bought or borrowed in bookstores and libraries by noncitizens and citizens suspected of terrorist activities. Under the omnibus USA Patriot Act, the FBI has the authority to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- a secret body composed of rotating federal judges -- to seek "any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA) have particularly alerted their members to part of the law that prevents booksellers and librarians -- once the FBI has come calling -- to reveal that a search has been made. The law states: "No person shall disclose to any other person ... that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained" these records.

This means that the press and, therefore, the public cannot find out how often and where these searches have taken pace -- and what books, as well as readers, are under suspicion. Customarily, when a court imposes a gag rule on pretrial or trial participants, including the press, it is fought in open court by the press and often overturned.

Now, however, this chilling incursion on the First Amendment right to read remains as hidden as some of the security operations of the People's Republic of China. [read more]

Future Bibliography 

Libraries of the Future Bibliography by Carol R. Gurstelle

"Are we there yet?" Like restless children in the back seat of the car, librarians and information professionals keep searching for the "library of the future." There's no agreement what such an institution is. Is it an actual place or a virtual site? Is it just the latest technology? What's the human component? Each new building brings a newspaper headline announcing that the library of the future is now part of the community. A quick search for the phrase on popular search engines yields tens of thousands of hits, but the irony is that those headlines, books and articles become part of the past the instant they are printed.

These are the challenges in compiling a list of resources to help in learning about and planning for the library of the future. It's not that existing materials have no value. We need the foundations and the history, but we also need to create a dynamic resource that changes as new ideas and new technologies emerge. For that reason, we have included the Web sites of core publications and professional organizations, allowing you to connect to their most current information. We encourage you to add your contributions and make this resource as dynamic and evolutionary as institutions we seek to create. [read more]

Copy Protection 

Another Punch for Copy Protection

A political brawl over mandatory copy protection is about to spread to the U.S. House of Representatives.

A Democratic legislator from the home of the Walt Disney and Warner Bros. studios is drafting a bill to reduce online piracy by implanting strict copy controls in digital devices.

On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, California, circulated a letter on Capitol Hill seeking co-sponsors for his legislation, which he said would follow the same approach as the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) in the Senate.

"I plan to introduce legislation that would safeguard digital content by spurring the rapid development of copyright protection technology," Schiff's "Dear Colleague" letter said. "Similar legislation, S. 2048, has been introduced in the Senate.” I believe this is a necessary step and I encourage you to join me in this effort.

By introducing this measure in the House, Schiff hopes to accelerate the passage of digital rights management legislation: The House can move forward on it without waiting for the Senate to act first. [read more]

CIPA opinion 

Why the Feds CAN'T protect kids from Internet porn by David Coursey

The ongoing battle over the Children's Internet Protection Act isn't about right vs. wrong as much as it's about deciding which side is more right. It's one of those cases that makes you glad you're not a judge.

Signed into law two years ago, CIPA requires schools and libraries that receive federal funding to install technology (usually software) that would prevent children from accessing objectionable content--porn, bomb recipes, hate speech, and the like. Libraries that choose not to implement such filters would lose their federal dollars. [read more]

Online bookstore browser reading mode 

amazon.com has a introduced new feature called "look inside". It allows a potential buyer to view scanned pages of the book including:

• dust jacket covers and flaps;
• introductory pages of the book;
• the table of contents;
• multi-page excerpt from the book.

Roger Ebert say thumbs down 

Don't Confuse Fans With Pirates by Roger Ebert

This year, Universal's music division plans to use a new copy-protection scheme that excludes its discs from being played at all on "Macs, DVD players, and CD-compatible video game consoles." This according to Peter Cohen of MacCentral, who also reports that the plan will block discs from being copied to other CDs or being saved to the hard drives of most PCs in the MP3 format. The first disc to get this treatment is More Fast and Furious: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a title that will live in infamy.

That the CD itself has been ripped off from other CDs (it is a compilation of tracks having little connection to the movie or one another) is a delightful irony. That Universal has copy-protected it, and blocked out Macs and DVD players altogether, has to be the worst marketing decision in consumer electronics since the original DivX format (which was Circuit City's widely hated, intrusive pay-per-view system). It confuses fans with pirates. My guess is that no musician or band still actively engaged in trying to build an audience will want to come anywhere near it. [read more]

It may not seem important or relevant--but it is 

Bleak future looms if you don't take a stand by Dan Gillmor

This is a quiz about your future. It's about how you view some basic elements of the emerging Digital Age.

1. Do you care if a few giant companies control virtually all entertainment and information?

2. Do you care if they decide what kinds of technological innovations will reach the marketplace?

3. Would you be concerned if they used their power to compile detailed dossiers on everything you read, listen to, view and buy?

4. Would you find it acceptable if they could decide whether what you write and say could be seen and heard by others?

Those are no longer theoretical questions. They are the direction in which America is hurtling.

Media conglomerates are in a merger frenzy. Telecommunications monopolies are creating a cozy cartel, dividing up access to the online world. The entertainment industry is pushing for Draconian controls on the use and dissemination of digital information.

If you're not infuriated by these related trends, you should at least be worried. If you're neither, stop reading this column. You're a sheep, content to be herded wherever these giants wish. [read more]

A cure, worse than the disease 

Guard Copyrights, Don't Jail Innovation by Alex Salkever

U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) has earned a reputation over the years as a fearless contrarian, speaking the truth as he sees it. So it was a bit of a surprise to hear his folksy doublespeak on Mar. 21, when the senator solemnly introduced the Consumer Broadband & Digital Television Promotion Act.

The legislation would mandate that copyright-protection mechanisms be embedded in PCs, handheld computers, CD players, and anything else that can play, record, or otherwise manipulate digital information. The law's stated goal is to stop rampant digital piracy. ...

... In this case, however, the proposed cure is far worse than the disease. Introducing copyright-protection mechanisms into almost all digital hardware clearly flouts the interests of consumers. And it's more evidence that, when it comes to delivering content in the 21st century, the entertainment industry is hell-bent on stifling technology, rather than using it in ways that eventually could become highly profitable. Hollings' proposal hands control over the innovative forces that drive tech development to some of the most change-resistant companies in the world. [read more]

Read it online or download and print it 

The Transition from Paper: Where Are We Going and How Will We Get There? edited by R. Stephen Berry and Anne Simon Moffat

Summary
The world of communication is going through a transition unlike any that humans have ever experienced, with far-reaching consequences possibly greater than any prior advance since the invention of written language. Now communications are faster, cheaper, and potentially more accessible than we could have imagined even just a decade ago. Information of traditional and very nontraditional kinds is available, in principle, for anyone with a link to the internet. The scientific community has been at the vanguard in developing and using the new modes and in experiencing the consequences, both positive and negative, of the transition. We are still in the early stages of that transition, trying to feel our way ahead. The project that produced this set of essays has been an attempt to anticipate changes and to feel our way ahead in the process. [read the entire text online]

Print vs. digital publishing 

Critics attack net journal initiative by Ivan Noble

Critics of a project to set up alternative open-access scientific journals on the internet say the idea is ill-conceived and will undermine quality.

Financier George Soros announced in February that he was giving a $3m grant to the Budapest Open Access Initiative to set up open-archiving systems.

But, says Sally Morris, of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, open-access initiatives will undermine existing journals without replacing them.

"People value peer review and they value research being gathered together in things called journals," she told BBC News Online. [read more]

Not to discount the merits of their arguements, but the critics seem to be largely the publishers.

Film vs. digital photography 

Digital cameras click with consumers by Tiffany Kary

... The study found that most households now use their digital cameras as their primary means of photography, according to Slaughter, and 19 percent have stopped using film cameras altogether.

"The growth in market penetration will have a noticeable impact on the entire photo industry," she said. [read more]