E-Lert # 341 / Cyberavis no. 341
Friday September 4, 2009 / le
vendredi 4 septembre 2009
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NEWS / NOUVELLES
Amazon.com lashes out at Google's digital book settlement, contending
it will drive up prices
Michael Liedtke
Washington Examiner, September 3, 2009
Amazon.com Inc. is warning a federal judge that Google Inc. will be able
to gouge consumers and stifle competition if it wins court approval to add
millions more titles to its already vast digital library. Amazon.com filed
a 41-page brief that harshly criticizes Google's 10-month-old settlement
with U.S. authors and publishers in an attempt to persuade U.S. District
Judge Denny Chin to block the agreement from taking effect.*
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/economy/ap/56741837.html
Authors Guild Accuses Amazon of Hypocrisy in Google Filing
Motoko Rich
The New York Times, September 3, 2009
The Authors Guild, one of the parties to the Google Book Search settlement,
responded
to Amazon’s filing in opposition to Google’s landmark settlement
with publishers and authors. “Amazon’s hypocrisy is breathtaking,”
the guild’s statement reads. “It dominates online bookselling
and the fledgling e-book industry.” The deadline for filing objections
to the settlement has been extended until Tuesday, and various parties have
been busy preparing statements.*
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/authors-guild-accuses-amazon-of-hypocrisy-in-google-filing/?ref=technology
Il y a 40 ans naissait (presque) Internet
Samuel Laurent
Le Figaro, 3 septembre 2009
« C'était le 2 septembre 1969. Au sein de la prestigieuse
université de Californie, Los Angeles (UCLA), deux énormes
calculateurs électroniques, ancêtres de nos PC, s'échangeaient,
pour la première fois de l'histoire, des données par paquets
au travers d'un simple câble cuivré. Cette expérience
allait déboucher, un mois plus tard, sur le premier ancêtre
de l'Internet : l'Arpanet,
réseau d'ordinateurs, situés à Stanford, à Santa
Barbara (Californie) et dans l'Utah, financé en partie par les services
de recherches de l'armée américaine (DARPA). »
http://www.lefigaro.fr/web/2009/09/02/01022-20090902ARTFIG00263-il-y-a-40-ans-naissait-presque-internet-.php
Un an après son lancement, le navigateur de Google peine à
s'imposer
Le Monde, 2 septembre 2009
« Chrome, le navigateur Internet lancé le 1er septembre
2008 par Google, est aujourd'hui le quatrième navigateur le plus
utilisé dans le monde, d'après une étude réalisée
en août par Net applications. Avec environ 3 % de parts de marché,
le logiciel de Google se place loin derrière Internet Explorer, en
perte de vitesse mais toujours utilisé par deux internautes sur trois,
et Firefox, le navigateur libre de Mozilla, qui représente près
d'un quart des parts de marché. Il talonne toutefois le logiciel
Safari d'Apple, à 4 %. »
http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2009/09/02/un-an-apres-son-lancement-le-navigateur-de-google-peine-a-s-imposer_1234955_3234.html#xtor=RSS-651865
Wildfire Threatens Historic Observatory
Corina Roberts
San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, August 31, 2009
Firefighters were on sight at the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory, in Los
Angeles County (California), where they were joined by at least two
civilians to help save the 100-inch Hooker Telescope, built in 1917 by George
Ellery Hale. Still in perfect functioning condition today, this instrument
was the largest telescope in the world for half a century. Astronomer Edwin
Hubbell used the telescope when he discovered that our universe is expanding,
and the observatory is also where the “Big Bang” theory for
the creation of our universe originated. The observatory houses a museum
and two visitor’s galleries. Inside, the private library of Mt. Wilson
are documents, books, star charts and collections of astronomical data dating
from the mid-1800s, including rare and unique bodies of work.*
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/31/18620240.php
[More recent coverage of this story in the Chicago
Tribune from September 2, 2009.]
M. Mitterrand freine les ardeurs de la BNF dans ses négociations
avec Google
Alain Beuve Méry
Le Monde, 31 août 2009
"Je prendrai une décision rapidement, mais avec tous les éléments
en main", a indiqué au Monde le ministre de la culture, Frédéric
Mitterrand, dimanche 30 août. "La numérisation du
patrimoine de la Bibliothèque nationale est un sujet bien trop important
pour qu'on le laisse s'envenimer par des controverses", estime le ministre,
qui a décidé de s'impliquer dans ce dossier, et se donne au
moins deux mois pour aboutir. Il entend au préalable consulter le
gouvernement et les partenaires européens, notamment allemands.
http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2009/08/31/m-mitterrand-freine-les-ardeurs-de-la-bnf-dans-ses-negociations-avec-google_1233815_3246.html#xtor=RSS-651865
Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Says Trust Us With Your Personal Information
Laura Sydell
National Public Radio, August 31, 2009
Brin says he can't see any reason people shouldn't trust Google with private
data, pointing out that his company successfully fought back the Department
of Justice's attempts in 2006 to subpoena user search records in connection
to a DOJ effort defending the Children's Online Protection Act. For staff
attorney of the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Cindy Cohen, that isn't enough. Although she doesn't doubt Brin's sincerity,
Cohen thinks it is unwise to “assume that the Google of tomorrow will
be the same." * HTML
Faceoff with Facebook
Toronto Star, August 30, 2009
Canada's privacy watchdog issued a bark heard around the world – and
a quarter-billion Facebook users are better off for it. Operators of the
popular social networking site have pledged to tighten protection for all
users after federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart raised concerns
about how Facebook stored and shared peoples' personal information. Third-party
game and quiz developers will no longer be permitted to access Facebook
users' personal data without consent. The company has also agreed to give
people more control over information being given out, and to let them know
how it will be used.*
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/688102
Access and the Internet
The New York Times, August 29, 2009
A Web site run by a solo blogger can load just as quickly as any corporate
home page. It has often been suggested by some observers that Internet service
providers, including leading cable and phone companies, want to be able
to change that so they can give priority to businesses that pay, or make
deals with, them. Representatives Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts,
and Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, have introduced a bill to prohibit
Internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against content
that travels through their pipelines. Telecommunications and cable companies
are likely to oppose it.*
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/opinion/29sat3.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Students demand fair copyright and fair copyright consultations
CNW Group, August 28, 2009
At a Toronto town hall meeting, held as part of the federal government's
copyright consultations, students reiterated their call
for fair copyright legislation. Students are asking the federal government
to balance the rights of users and creators of copyright works as it prepares
to craft new copyright reform legislation. "Students have been clear
in their demand for fair copyright," said Shelley Melanson, Chairperson
of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. "New copyright legislation
must carefully regulate technological protection measures, eliminate Crown
copyright and provide a more flexible definition of fair dealing."
*
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/August2009/28/c8466.html
Ottawa denies altering copyright submissions
CBC News, August 28, 2009
Industry Canada dismisses allegations that it has altered submissions from
the general public to its current copyright reform consultations website.
The government ministry issued a letter that counters some of the allegations
that have recently been made.*
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/28/industry-canada-copyright-consulation.html
Europe's Digital Library doubles in size but also shows EU's lack of common
web copyright solution
August 28, 2009
4.6 million digitized books, maps, photographs, film clips and newspapers
are accessible online at Europeana,
Europe's multilingual digital library. The collection has more than doubled
since it was launched in November 2008. The European Commission declared
it intends to bring the number of digitized objects to 10 million by 2010.
A public debate on the future challenges for book digitization in Europe
has been opened to discuss, among other things, the potential for public
and private sector collaboration and the need to reform Europe's too fragmented
copyright framework.*
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=5181
[Communiqué en français]
Google dans la tourmente
Stéphane Baillargeon
Le Devoir, 28 août 2009
« L'Europe du livre se divise autour du puissant moteur de recherche
Google. Pendant que les éditeurs italiens de journaux lancent une
poursuite pour «abus de position dominante», l'ancien directeur
de la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) dénonce l'idée
d'un accord sur la numérisation des oeuvres entre l'institution et
l'entreprise américaine. Au contraire, la Commission européenne
appelle les grandes institutions culturelles à s'allier à
Google ou d'autres sociétés privées pour favoriser
la numérisation rapide et maximale du patrimoine imprimé du
Vieux Continent. »
Diverse Coalition Unites To Counter Google Book Settlement
August 26, 2009
Librarians, legal scholars, authors, publishers, and technology companies
announced the formation of the Open Book Alliance to counter the proposed
Google Book Settlement in its current form. “Just as Gutenberg’s
invention of the printing press more than 700 years ago ushered in a new
era of knowledge sharing, the mass digitization of books promises to once
again revolutionize how we read and discover books,” said Open Book
Alliance co-chairs Peter
Brantley and Gary Reback.
“But a digital library controlled by a single company and small group
of colluding publishers would inevitably lead to higher prices and subpar
service for consumers, libraries, scholars, and students.” *
http://www.openbookalliance.org/news/diverse-coalition-unites-to-counter-google-book-settlement/
ARTICLES
5 College Majors On the Rise
Karin Fischer and David Glenn
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2009
While tomorrow's bachelor's-level majors might look very much like those
offered by colleges today, academic experts, business analysts, and economic
forecasters identify five emerging areas of study – service science,
health informatics, computational science, sustainability, and public health.
Some majors develop in response to student demand, others are created to
provide an industry with workers, and there are the programs that cross
disciplinary boundaries, such as combining environmental science with agriculture
or bringing together chemists and computer scientists for instance. "Most
of the interesting work today is done at the interstices of disciplines,"
says Robert B. Reich, a former U.S. labor secretary and a professor of public
policy at the University of California at Berkeley.*
http://chronicle.com/article/5-College-Maj%20ors-On-the-ise/48207/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars
Geoffrey Nunberg
The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 31, 2009
Google's book search is on track to becoming the world's largest digital
library. The company’s five-year head start and its relationships
with libraries and publishers give it an effective monopoly; no competitors
will be able to come after it on the same scale. Regardless of who has control
of the vast collection 50 or 100 years from now if not Google - Elsevier,
UNESCO, Wal-Mart - the digitized books that scholars will be working with
then will likely be the very same ones that are sitting on Google's servers
today, augmented by the millions of titles published in the interim. That
realization lends a particular urgency to the many concerns voiced about
the settlement regarding pricing, access, and privacy, among other things.
For scholars, it raises another, equally basic question: What assurances
do we have that Google will do this right? Nunberg discusses some of the
problems with Google Book Search metadata.*
http://chronicle.com/article/Googles-Book-Search-A-Dis/48245/
Google's plan for world's biggest online library:
philanthropy or act of piracy?
William Skidelsky
The Observer, August 30, 2009
Some of the world's most venerable libraries have been playing host to some
incongruous visitors. Teams of workers dispatched by Google have been beavering
away to make digital copies of books. By now, Google has scanned more than
10 million titles from libraries U.S. and European libraries. The exact
digitizing method used is unclear as the company does not allow outsiders
to observe the process. Google's book-scanning project is proving controversial
with several
opponents having recently emerged, ranging from rival tech giants to
small bodies representing authors and publishers across the world. Opponents
of the proposed settlement have leveled two sets of criticisms at Google
– the first questioning whether the primary responsibility for digitally
archiving the world's books should be left to one commercial company, and
the second concerning the legality of the project.*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/30/google-library-project-books-settlement
Equity for Open-Access Journal Publishing
Stuart M. Shieber
PloS Biology, Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2009
Academics produce articles to be read - the more access to their articles
the better - so one might think that the open-access publishing model, in
which articles are freely available over the Internet to all, would be an
attractive competitor to traditional subscription-based journal publishing.
Open-access journal publishing, however, is currently at a systematic disadvantage
relative to the traditional model. Shieber proposes a simple, cost-effective
remedy to put open-access publishing on a path to sustainability, allowing
the two journal publishing systems to compete on a more level playing field.*
http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000165
Crisis management
Norm Medeiros
OCLC Systems & Services, Volume 25, Issue 2, 2009
This paper describes the challenges presented by the global economic crisis.
Medeiros focuses on effects as they pertain to his institution as well as
the larger library community. He suggests libraries and library associations
must develop new ways of performing business such as the initiative of the
International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) to work with publishers
and contain costs. *
Bioline International: A case study in open access and its usage for enhancement
of research distribution for scientific research from developing countries
Stephanie R. Walker
OCLC Systems & Services, Volume 25, Issue 2, 2009
Walker examines the growth and changes in Bioline International (BI), a
non-profit scholarly publications aggregator, distributor, publisher, and
publishing assistance service founded in 1993 and operated by scientists
and librarians who are strongly committed to the principles of open access
and to broad distribution of scientific information. BI has changed considerably
since its early days. It provides a model of flexibility and adaptability,
with minimal resources, and demonstrates the possibilities enabled by broad-based
collaboration, across multiple countries, large and small societies, academe,
and non-governmental organizations.*
Copyright issues in the selection of archival material for internet access
Jean Dryden
Archival Science, Volume 8, Number 2, June, 2008 (Published online: 5 August
2009)
Archival repositories have enthusiastically begun digitizing their holdings
to make them more widely available via the Internet, but copyright issues
influence what is selected for online access. Dryden reports the findings
of a study that investigated how copyright affects Canadian archival repositories’
selection decisions for digitization and online access. The findings suggest
that repositories’ selection decisions are more restrictive than the
law requires; because archivists wish to avoid copyright complications,
they make available online fewer holdings than they could.*
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
7 Things You Should Know About Cloud Computing
EDUCAUSE Publications, August 2009
Cloud computing delivers scalable IT resources over the Internet, rather
than hosting and operating those resources locally such as on a college
or university network. An organization can purchase these resources on an
as-needed basis and avoid the capital costs of software and hardware by
deploying IT infrastructure and services over the network. IT capacity can
be quickly and nimbly adjusted to accommodate changes in demand. More transparent
IT costs that match consumption of IT services to those who pay for
such services are another benefit of cloud computing. Operating in
a cloud environment requires IT leaders and staff to develop different skills,
namely managing contracts, overseeing integration between in-house and outsourced
services, and mastering different IT budget models.*
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EST0902.pdf
Image Resources Interest Group (ACRL - Association of College and Research
Libraries)
Many academic disciplines require access to quality research and
instructional image content, and many research libraries are responding
by offering image collections as a standard resource. Libraries evaluate
and fund subscription image databases, curate local interdisciplinary image
collections, provide technical infrastructure for image collection development
and delivery, and support research and instruction with images. The ACRL
Image Resources Interest Group provides a forum for ongoing discussion of
the issues related to development and support of interdisciplinary
image collections in academic libraries.*
http://connect.ala.org/node/78932
The Public Index
The Public Index is a project of the Public-Interest Book Search
Initiative and the Institute
for Information Law and Policy at New
York Law School. Professors, students, and volunteers have built the
site to foster full, careful, and thoughtful public discussion on the pending
Google Book Search settlement decision. As is stated on the homepage, “This
is a site for everyone, dedicated to no particular point of view other than
the advancement of dialogue and understanding. We hope that the site will
help the settlement’s fans and foes dispel misunderstandings and find
common ground, and that those who have not made up their minds will find
the facts and explanations they need to reach informed decisions for themselves.”
*
http://thepublicindex.org/
Emerging trends in New Zealand special libraries
Gillian Ralph and Julie Sibthorpe, April 2009
Ralph and Sibthorpe explore the evolution of special libraries in New Zealand
over a twenty year period, but also provide a global snapshot of the special
libraries sector. Library closures are explored in depth. Although
the number of libraries in commercial entities decreased, the number in
non-commercial organizations increased. In the section of the report entitled
"Ideas for Further Research" the authors suggest some key subjects
to write about and study: employers' perception of skills, reporting
structures, corporate library consortia, recession strategies, and what
happens after libraries close among others. *
http://www.lianza.org.nz/community/special-libraries/files/SzentirmayReport2009RalphSibthorpev2.pdf
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
Connecting With Our Clients: Marketing and Communicating Information ServicesLondon, Ontario, October 26, 2009, 10:00 am
The Canadian Library Association is hosting a one-day seminar to explore marketing and communications strategies to connect with clients. Participants will have an opportunity to learn: how to successfully brand their information service; how to get and keep the attention of stakeholders; how to develop a communications strategy; and how to build compelling business cases. Speakers include Janine Schmidt, Trenholme Director of Libraries at McGill University, and Ulla de Stricker, President of de Stricker Associates. Register before Monday, October 20, 2009 (or before September 30th to receive the early-bird discount).*
http://www.cla.ca/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News1&CONTENTID=8146&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm
Investir le monde numérique; Premier Congrès des milieux documentaires
du Québec
Montréal, Québec, 11 au 14 novembre, 2009
« Les quatre journées d’échanges et de réflexions
du Congrès seront consacrées au thème Investir le monde
numérique. Alors que le web fêtera bientôt ses 20 ans,
les milieux documentaires ont dépassé l’étape
de la compréhension et de l’adaptation à la culture
numérique. Tant par la disponibilité des contenus que par
la relative stabilité des outils et des infrastructures du numérique,
les acteurs des milieux documentaires ont la responsabilité d’intégrer
ces nouvelles formes de représentation des savoirs dans leur pratique
et dans leurs services. Il s’agit d’un changement de paradigme
très important qui sollicite l’audace de tous les professionnels
et techniciens des milieux documentaires. »
http://congres2009.asted.org/home.php?lid=2
Electronic Resources & Libraries
Austin, Texas, February 1-3, 2010
ER&L will provide information professionals a forum to explore ideas,
trends, and technologies related to electronic resources and services. This
event will have broad appeal bringing together stakeholders inside
and outside of the library to consider the digital environment’s impact
on library collections, access to resources, and knowledge organizations.
The organizers invite various perspectives and approaches to managing, promoting
and accessing electronic resources.*
http://www.electroniclibrarian.org/erlwiki/ER%26L
*Text adapted from source / Texte adapté de la source
