A study released by a Library of Congress digital information program reviewed the impact of various laws on digital preservation of copyrighted works, reports Library Journal.  Proposals were offered for legislative reform, as well as suggestions for non-legislative solutions.

Suggestions included:

• That countries establish “laws and policies” to encourage and enable the digital preservation of at-risk copyrighted materials and that these apply to “all non-profit libraries, archives, museums and other institutions,” provided they do not seek commercial advantage;
• That preservation laws and policies apply equally to all categories of copyrighted materials, including “literary, artistic, musical and dramatic works, as well as motion pictures and sound recordings;”
• That laws cover all copyrighted materials in all media and formats, “hard copy or electronic, born digital or digitized for preservation;”
• That “preservation institutions” be allowed to actively harvest publicly available content (such as web sites) for preservation purposes;
• That “preservation institutions” be permitted to “proactively preserve at risk copyrighted materials before they deteriorate, are damaged or are lost.

The need for more significant research and discussion was also identified in order to form policies and best practices, including research “on the national level” to determine “whether and under what circumstances access to digital preservation copies can be provided without harm to right holders,” and “to reexamine the interaction between copyright and private agreements as it relates to digital preservation.”

Solutions in the digital preservation arena are increasingly urgent.  LJ notes that although the report recognizes that copyright and related laws as just one obstacle to digital preservation activities, it clarifies that “there is no question that those laws present significant challenges.”

Free Web conferencing tools useful for librarians
iLibrarian has collected a group of six Web conferencing applications that enable a presenter to host a Webinar or meeting with live video and audio, text chat, whiteboards, shared files, and even desktop sharing.

Web conferencing systems have been expensive and certainly beyond the every day uses that librarians might enjoy such as remote library instruction, hosting Webinars, and online meetings with library or community groups.

The tools include:

• VRooms
• Yugma 
• Wiziq
• Dimdim
• PalBee
• Vyew 

Free Web app tutorial sites
Web Worker Daily recommends four free tutorial sites especially for web developers.  Topics covered include photoshop, DreamWeaver, Adobe Premiere and Illustration, Excel, CSS, and more.

The sites include:

• TechTutor.TV
• FreelanceSwitch
• InPictures
• BMC PhotoArt 

Napster offers 6 million DRM-free MP3s
Napster has started offering its complete catalog of more than 6 million tracks in the MP3 format. 

Napster’s Web-based store, where you can purchase and download the tracks, is compatible with every operating system, and the MP3s can be played on any MP3 player, portable video player, or music cell phone.

The online and To Go subscription services for $12.95 or $14.95 per month, respectively, will continue and the music associated with a subscription will remain in the protected WMA format with the time-out capability.

The 123,291 libraries in the United States are the nation’s single largest consumer of audiobooks, making up a whopping 32% ($295.4 million) of the total annual audiobook market (according to the Audio Publishers Association), says LISWire.

CDs are still the dominant audiobook format but the digitally downloaded audiobook format has been growing at over 50% a year since 2004, and modern libraries are leading the way when it comes to digital audiobooks.

I am not surprised at the numbers, being devoted to digital audiobooks and the free access I have to them through my library. 

A popular audiobook series called The Freeway Guides sold into libraries nationwide and Jared Patrick, owner, states, “two years ago we would never have guessed how many people would be downloading the Freeway Guides directly from their local library websites without ever leaving their homes.  Increased commute times, improvements in technology and the expectation of information on demand are driving this movement, and we are excited to see libraries leading the way.”

The industry’s leading magazine on audio trends, AudioFile Magazine, reports that audiobook use continues to soar.  Libraries offering digital audiobooks via their websites have expanded their patron base, they say, because of the 24/7 availability and ease of access.  Robin Whitten editor & founder of AudioFile states, “The amount of digital audio content purchased by libraries will only continue to increase.”

Digital audiobooks cover many topics and genres, including best-selling fiction and nonfiction.  If you haven’t looked for them at your library, you may be missing out.  The library audiobook services I am familiar with require an MP3 player rather than an iPod, but there are many players that are simple and inexpensive.  Audiobooks are perfect for those on the go.  On a recent trip abroad, I took 6 unabridged audiobooks with me on an MP3 player no bigger than a pack of gum.

ACRL’s College & Research Libraries News (May,2008), has published an article about, and with links to, online digital collections at universities, libraries, the Library of Congress, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and other organizations.

The efforts in recent years by libraries, archives, and historical societies to digitize collections have created incredible visual resources that inclue many subject areas and media formats.  Many focus on education, such as the Education by Design site in Broward County, Florida, (shown).

“Researchers now have access to millions of primary materials from any Internet-accessible computer, which would otherwise require an in-person visit to the physical collection,” states author Anne Blecksmith. 

Please note that although the collections in the article may include digital images of primary materials in the public domain, they must be properly credited when used for educational purposes, and inclusion in a publication or other media project requires permission from the copyright holder.  [via Resource Shelf]

In response to concerns raised by Congress’s Committees on Appropriations that the complete papers of America’s Founding Fathers are not available online, the National Archives released a planning document (PDF) for how they would provide online access, within a reasonable timeframe, to researchers, students and the general public.
 
The report’s Executive Summary notes that the papers of the Founding Fathers —- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington -— are vital to our understanding of American democracy.  Making those writings available to the public has been the solitary work of scholars for the last 68 years.  But now, in the age of information and a period of renewed interest in American history, there is a need to make the documents readily available online.

“The report provides a brief history of the scholarship that has gone into producing the documentary editions of the papers of the Founding Fathers, outlines the challenges we face in making the transition to the Internet age of the 21st century, and proposes options for achieving the shared goal of world-wide access to the political thought that produced the creation of the United States of America.”  [via Resource Shelf]

The American Library Association has listed 2007’s ten most challenged books.

For the second year, the award-winning And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book about two male penguins caring for an orphaned egg, tops the list.

For more than 15 years, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has received reports on book challenges, defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. In 2007, 420 reports were received on efforts to abolish materials from school curriculum and library bookshelves.

“Free access to information is a core American value that should be protected,” said Judith F. Krug, OIF director. “Not every book is right for each reader, but an individual’s interpretation of a book should not take away my right to select reading materials for my family or myself.”

The 2007 list includes:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
7. TTYL, by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

For more information on book challenges and censorship, go to the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom’s Banned Books Web site.

The Internet Archive successfully challenged an FBI-issued National Security Letter (NSL) in court, states a PC World story.  The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.

The FBI has withdrawn a secret demand that the online library provide it with a user’s personal information.  NSLs come with gag orders so that only Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive founder, and his lawyers knew about it. 

Some provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT passed by Congress shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., allow the FBI and other U.S. government agencies to issue administrative subpoenas to businesses and organizations for customer and other personal information, usually requiring complete secrecy.

“The NSLs basically allow the FBI to demand extremely sensitive personal information about innocent people without any prior court approval, often in total secrecy,” ACLU attorney Melissa Goodman said Wednesday.

FBI Assistant Director John Miller issued a statement about the case Wednesday. “The information requested in the national security letter was relevant to an ongoing, authorized national security investigation,” he said. “National security letters remain indispensable tools for national security investigations and permit the FBI to gather the basic building blocks for our counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations.”

Brewster Kahle says the goal of the suit was to help other recipients of NSLs to understand how you can push back on them, and he regards the settlement as a success even though some of the information is still secret.  You can see the newly unsealed, but still partially redacted documents, here. 

The gag order prevented Kahle from discussing the case with the library’s board of directors, staff, and even his wife, he said. “Gags don’t seem to be necessary,” he said. “Gagging librarians is horrendous.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more on the story.  They say that since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, relaxing restrictions on the FBI’s use of the power, the number of NSLs issued has seen an astronomical increase, to nearly 200,000 between 2003 and 2006.  EFF’s investigations have uncovered multiple NSL misuses, including an improper NSL issued to North Carolina State University.

Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced H.R. 3189, the “National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007,” and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) introduced a Senate bill of the same name (S. 2088).  Both bills are aimed at narrowing the statute by enacting limits on when and how NSLs can be used and bringing the gag order provision in line with the Constitution.

We have reported several stories about NSLs and particularly its impact on libraries previously.  Photo by ricklibrarian.  Creative Commons license.

50 open source resources for online writers
I found an interesting group of open source applications for those of us who write online at iLibrarian.  Compiled by the folks at Job Profiles, the apps are organized by category and include:

• Word Processors
• Reference
• Organization
• Helpful Tools
• Web Tools

A look through the list showed me a few that I use with some regularity.  Notepad++ is an often used favorite, and I find myself regularly keying Launchy which I wrote about recently.  PDFCreator, one of the popular free PDF resources, and the ever useful FileZilla FTP are among those making an appearance.  Check them out.

Learning Webinar from WebJunction 
As someone who has long linked librarianship and education/training in my career, I was happy to see that WebJunction, an online community for library staff, is sponsoring a one hour “webinar” on June 10th, called Cultivating a Culture of Learning in the Library.  The elearning opportunity is free and closed captioned.

“In this webinar you will learn why you need to get your staff out of the classroom and instead focus on creating a culture of learning in your library,” they state.

Some of the points that will be explored…

• The differences between training and learning
• The benefits to libraries for creating a culture of learning
• The key elements of a learning organization
• Tips for creating a culture of learning in any size library

[via Librarian in Black] 

Downloadable digital resources at your library
The New York Times recently featured information about how public libraries are offering downloadable e-books, audiobooks, and video to patrons in its article, What’s New at the E-Library.

If you haven’t explored the resources available at your library, look for digital services provided by Overdrive, Netlibrary, Recorded Books, and TumbleBooks.  Some libraries also subscribe to a service called Next Reads which sends personalized book recommendations to patrons’ email inboxes.

Audio books, especially those that can be downloaded and listened to on an MP3 player, are convenient for people who have trouble getting to the library (they “check” themselves back in when they are due) and for those with difficulties reading print resources.  They are also great for those of us who enjoy having a good story told to us and/or like to carry on reading while doing errands and shopping.

Libraries are adopting downloadable resources to better serve their patrons.  “Technology is not something we’re afraid of, it’s something we’ve embraced and our patrons have embraced,” said Diane Lapsley, assistant director of the Sparta (New Jersey) Public Library.  “Technology is a steppingstone — we don’t know what else is coming down the pike, but we do know that everything we use will allow us to build on that technology and have our patrons build on that knowledge.”  [via iLibrarian]  Photo by Karsh.  Creative Commons license.

Free icons
The icons on this site are either licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, or they are entirely free for personal or public non-commercial use.

 You can modify the design, but in some cases you must include the provided link back to the author’s site or notify the author.  Some free icons do not require a link.  

Contact the author if you want to use the icons for a commercial purpose.  See the FAQ for more information [via What I Learned Today] 

The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, together with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, is to create the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, a freely-accessible digital collection.  The quartos are the earliest printed editions of the Shakespeare’s plays and are the closest to what he actually wrote still in existence.
 
News of the initiative, one of five transatlantic digitization collaborations between British and American institutions, can be found at the Bodleian Library website.  Funded by JISC (for British institutions) and NEH (for American institutions), the project’s other participating organizations include the British Library, Edinburgh University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Shakespeare Institute at Birmingham University and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.
 
All seventy-five pre-1641 quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays will be part of a single online collection.  The website will feature high-resolution reproductions and the full-text of surviving Shakespeare quartos in an interactive interface.  The ability to overlay text images, compare images side-by-side, search full-text, and mark and tag text images with user annotations will facilitate scholarly research, performance studies, and new pedagogical applications.

The quartos are of particular interest to scholars, teachers, editors, and theatre directors.  They have not been readily available to study due to their rarity and fragility.  The Shakespeare Quartos Archive will make these earliest quartos freely accessible for in-depth study to Shakespeare students across the globe.  [via LISNews]