E-Lert # 369 / Cyberavis no. 369
Friday March 26, 2010 / le vendredi 26 mars 2010
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CARL COMMUNIQUÉ / COMMUNIQUÉ DE L’ABRC
CARL Restates Key Copyright Reform Concerns
As there have been recent reports in the media that the government may be
introducing a new copyright bill this spring, the Canadian Association of
Research Libraries restates its key copyright reform concerns. Bringing
Canada’s copyright law into the digital age requires a fair, balanced
and reasonable approach to
copyright reform. PDF
/
L’ABRC fait valoir ses considérations clés
pour la réforme du droit d’auteur
Vu qu’il y a eu mention récente dans les médias que
le gouvernement peut introduire un nouveau projet de loi sur le droit d’auteur
ce printemps, l’Association des bibliothèques de recherche
du Canada fait valoir ses considérations clés pour la réforme
du droit d’auteur. Amener la loi canadienne sur le droit d’auteur
à l’ère numérique exige une approche honnête,
équilibrée et raisonnable de la réforme du droit d’auteur.
PDF
NEWS / NOUVELLES
IFLA Position on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade AgreementMarch 26, 2010
While IFLA and the international library community commend international
efforts to combat commercial counterfeiting, especially in situations where
such counterfeiting places the public's health and safety at risk, IFLA
is deeply troubled by reports emerging from the ongoing negotiations surrounding
ACTA. These reports suggest that ACTA's objectives and methods endanger
the balance of copyright, and seriously conflict with the library community's
commitments to equitable access to information and cultural expression.
http://www.ifla.org/files/clm/statements/ACTA-statement-en.pdf
Canada Foundation for Innovation Practices Called "World's
Best"
PR-USA.NET, March 26, 2010
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is the most successful research
funding organization of its kind in the world says an internationally renowned
panel of experts. Due to the dramatic increase in the quantity and quality
of research infrastructure, the CFI has had major impacts on research capacity
and productivity in Canada.
http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360294&Itemid=32
Vers une vie privée en réseau
Jean-Marc Manach
Le Monde, 26 mars 2010
« Pionnier de l'internet et auteur des "Confessions
d'un voleur", livre incontournable (et téléchargeable
gratuitement) pour qui veut comprendre les valeurs (et l'histoire) de l'internet
tel qu'il s'est développé dans les années 90, Laurent
Chemla a une conception somme toute particulière de la vie privée. »
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2010/03/26/vers-une-vie-privee-en-reseau_1324942_651865.html
Canadian Space Agency to use sophisticated computing platform,
created under a CANARIE-funded program, to help scientists understand the
impact of the upper atmosphere on our planet
CNW Group, March 25, 2010
How does one know when information is too much? When presented with the
problem of managing a daily data stream equivalent to a stack of books thirty
stories high. The solution? A sophisticated computing environment, known
as the Canadian Space Science Data Portal (CSSDP) that will also save up
to $1M worth of R&D time and effort. The CSSDP will enable scientists
to mine the vast amounts of data that will be generated by Canadian Space
Agency (CSA) instruments when the CASSIOPE satellite is launched in 2011.
The results will help shed light on space phenomena in the upper atmosphere
which can be crucial here on earth, as space events can have an impact on
radio communications, GPS navigation, and other space-based technologies.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2010/25/c4971.html
Writers' Union of Canada: Flexible fair dealing legalizes theft
Michael Geist
The Straight¸ March 25, 2010
The Charlie Angus fair
dealing motion has stirred up considerable anger from the Writers' Union
of Canada. The organization's copyright committee is urging its members
to write to their Members of Parliament to protest the motion, advising
them to use speaking points that include equating flexible fair dealing
with theft, claiming it will result in tens of millions in losses, and would
constitute an attack on Canadian culture.
http://www.straight.com/article-300109/vancouver/writers-union-canada-flexible-fair-dealing-legalizes-theft
Kremlin picks tycoon to oversee its "Silicon Valley"
Reuters, March 24, 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev has picked a billionaire tycoon to oversee the
creation of a new high-tech hub as part of his attempt to spur modernization
of the Russian economy and reduce its dependence on oil and gas. Viktor
Vekselberg, an energy and metals magnate who owns a stake in leading Swiss
technology firm Oerlikon, will oversee the project at a site outside Moscow,
a Kremlin spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62N2IH20100324
EC to Urge Transparency in Secret Copyright Treaty Talks
Paul Meller
PC World, March 23, 2010
The European Commission has promised to propose a motion calling for the
opening up of the secretive anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) at
the next meeting mid-April in New Zealand, an official said during a conference
Monday. Eva Lichtenberger, a Green Party member of the European Parliament
who attended the conference, said that if the effort to open up the ACTA
process to public scrutiny fails, then Europe should walk out.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/192157/ec_to_urge_transparency_in_secret_copyright_treaty_talks.html
Debate needed on digital economy bill
The Guardian, March 23, 2010
The digital
economy bill is highly controversial (What's
left of Digital Britain, Media, 22 March). We believe that it threatens
to severely infringe fundamental human rights, by allowing the disconnection
of internet accounts for alleged copyright infringement, and also by new
"website blocking" laws that could result in new ways to suppress
free speech and legitimate activity. There are also dangers to business,
through restrictions on provision on open wifi networks, that could damage
our economy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/23/digital-economy-bill-commons-debate
How we'll get a gigabit to US hospitals, libraries, colleges
Nate Anderson
Ars Technica, March 23, 2010
One key recommendation in the National
Broadband Plan was that the government support a scheme to wire hundreds
of thousands of "anchor institutions" with 1Gbps fiber. The move
would mean that schools, libraries, colleges, and community centers in every
town in the country could eventually have a fat pipe and a future-proof
fiber connection. Not only that: both the FCC and the plan's backers
envision the system being used to push faster broadband out into the surrounding
community. The only question is how to pay for it all.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-well-get-1gbps-to-every-us-hospital-library-and-college.ars
Pour contourner la censure chinoise, Google se replie vers Hongkong
Brice Pedroletti
Le Monde, 23 mars 2010
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2010/03/23/google-se-replie-a-hongkong-pour-ne-pas-ceder-face-a-pekin_1323236_651865.html
MP shakes up copyright landscape
Michael Geist
Toronto Star, March 22, 2010
Charlie Angus, the NDP Member of Parliament and musician, has a reputation
for speaking his mind. Last week, he did more than just speak out. Angus
single-handedly shook up the Canadian copyright landscape by promoting two
reforms – an extension of the private copying levy to audio recording
devices such as iPods and greater flexibility in the fair dealing provision,
the Canadian equivalent of fair use. The iPod levy proposal sparked immediate
controversy.
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/technology/lawbytes/article/783079--geist-mp-shakes-up-copyright-landscape
Iain Stewart Appointed to the National Research Council Canada
Marketwire, March 19, 2010
The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible
for the National Research Council Canada (NRC), today announced the appointment
of Iain Stewart as a member of the Council. Currently, Mr. Stewart is the
Assistant Vice-President, Research, at Dalhousie University. Prior to this,
Mr. Stewart was the Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of the Science and
Innovation Sector at Industry Canada. Over the past 15 years, he has occupied
positions at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Transport Canada,
Infrastructure Canada and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Iain-Stewart-Appointed-to-the-National-Research-Council-Canada-1134933.htm
Why E-Books Failed In 2000, And What It Means For 2010
Michael Mace
Business Insider, March 19, 2010
There are at least six ebook reader devices on the market or in preparation.
A major business magazine predicts that up to seven million of these devices
will be sold next year. A major consulting firm says ebook sales will account
for ten percent of the publishing market in five years. And an executive
at the leading computing firm predicts that 90 percent of all publishing
will switch to electronic form in just 20 years. But the year isn’t
2010 — it’s 2000, and the ebook market is about to go into hibernation
for a decade. What went wrong, and what can the failure tell us about the
prospects for ebooks in 2010?
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-ebooks-failed-in-2000-and-what-it-means-for-2010-2010-3
[Of similar interest: How the Tablet will Change the World,
Wired, April 2010, 13 of the brightest tech minds sound off on the rise
of the tablet. HTML]
Québec facture 107 000$ aux défenseurs du logiciel
libre
Fabien Deglise
Le Devoir, 16 mars 2010
« Intimidation ou simple perception? Un groupe de citoyens qui
cherchent à faire la promotion du logiciel libre dans les institutions
étatiques dénonce la «grossière intimidation»
du gouvernement qui, dans les derniers jours, lui a fait parvenir une facture
de 107 000 $. Motif? Le remboursement des honoraires d’avocat
découlant d’une poursuite intentée par le groupe contre
le Centre de services partagés du Québec (CSPQ) et rejetée
par un tribunal en décembre 2008. La pression financière ainsi
exercée sur l’association à but non lucratif pourrait
la conduire directement à la faillite. »
http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/science-et-technologie/285002/quebec-facture-107-000-aux-defenseurs-du-logiciel-libre
Des livres datés grâce à l'odeur
Isabelle Paré
Le Devoir, le 12 mars 2010
« L'âge des livres? Une question de pif, selon des scientifiques
qui viennent de mettre au point une méthode olfactive pour deviner
l'âge et la condition de vieux livres et de documents d'archives.
Dans un article publié dans Analytical Chemistry, une équipe
de chimistes britanniques rattachée au University College of London
affirme avoir développé un test olfactif pour mesurer l'état
de dégradation de documents anciens et, éventuellement, améliorer
la conservation des vieux bouquins. »
http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/science-et-technologie/284788/des-livres-dates-grace-a-l-odeur
SPARC e-news, March 2010
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:5584.8106811625/rid:5257698d5b3d0becdf9551eeb0dfc095
Planetarium, The News Bulletin of the Planets Programme, Issue
9 – March 2010
http://planets-project.eu/docs/newsletters/Planets_newsletter9_March2010.pdf
ARTICLES
An Approach to Open Access Author PaymentDonald W. King
D-Lib Magazine, Volume 16, Number 3/4, March/April 2010
There have been hundreds of articles in recent years exhorting the strengths and warning of the weaknesses of Open Access through author payment. This article discusses a few of the favorable and unfavorable issues and proposes an approach that takes advantage of the favorable aspects and overcomes some of the unfavorable ones. It requires extensive government support, which may or may not be feasible, but the approach is presented here nevertheless. Some evidence is given for the potential savings that would be achieved by scientists, publishers and libraries in the US.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march10/king/03king.html
Cleaning the barnacles from the S.S. Copyright
Nate Anderson
Ars Technica, March 22, 2010
Bashing current copyright law is easy according to Jessica
Litman, a professor of law at the University of Michigan. She calls
current US copyright a "swollen, barnacle-encrusted collection of incomprehensible
prose." Or, to change the metaphor to aging, copyright law is "old,
outmoded, inflexible, and beginning to display the symptoms of multiple
systems failure."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/cleaning-the-barnacles-from-the-ss-copyright.ars
Digital economy bill: what you need to know
Charles Arthur
The Guardian, March 22, 2010
The murmuring in parliament is that the digital
economy bill will get its second reading on Tuesday 6 April –
the day that Gordon Brown is expected to hop into a car and head over to
the palace to ask for the dissolution of parliament. The timing is precise:
by getting its second reading in the Commons, the bill becomes eligible
to go into the "wash-up" – the dirty process by which bills
that have run out of proper parliamentary time are hurried through to royal
assent via a series of backroom deals. But what shape is the digital economy
bill in now, compared to what was offered by the Digital
Britain report (DBR) last June, and the first reading of the digital
economy bill (DEB) in the House of Lords last December?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/22/digital-economy-bill
Saving the Google students
Sara Scribner
Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2010
The current generation of kindergartners to 12th graders- those born between
1991 and 2004 - has no memory of a time before Google. But although these
students are far more tech savvy than their parents and are perpetually
connected to the Internet, they know a lot less than they think. And worse,
they don't know what they don't know. Scribner, a recently pink-slipped
school librarian, argues that not teaching kids how to search for information
is like sending them out into the world without knowing how to read at a
time when information literacy is increasingly crucial to life and work.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scribner21-2010mar21,0,764753.story
How today’s students use Wikipedia for course-related research
Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg
First Monday, Volume 15, Number 3, March 1, 2010
Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large–scale
survey about how and why students (enrolled at six different U.S. colleges)
use Wikipedia during the course–related research process. Head and
Eisenberg suggest Wikipedia is used in combination with other information
resources. Wikipedia meets the needs of college students because it offers
a mixture of coverage, currency, convenience, and comprehensibility in a
world where credibility is less of a given or an expectation from today’s
students.
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2830/2476
Interview With Stevan Harnad: A Prophet Whose Time Has Come
Richard Poynder
Information Today, Volume 27, Number 2, February 2010
In June 1994, Stevan Harnad, a cognitive scientist at the University of
Southampton in the U.K., posted a message on a mailing list that called
on fellow researchers to make their papers freely available on the internet.
The message became known as the Subversive Proposal. “For centuries,”
wrote Harnad, “it was only out of reluctant necessity that authors
of esoteric publications made the Faustian bargain to allow a price-tag
to be erected as a barrier between their work and its (tiny) intended readership
because that was the only way to make their work public in the era when
paper publication (and its substantial real expenses) were the only way
to do so. But today there is another way.
http://www.infotoday.com/IT/feb10/Poynder.shtml
PreserVision: Newsletter of the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust
of Canada
Final issue, Winter 2010
After more than a year of grant proposals, discussions, and other unsuccessful
attempts to secure new funding for its activities, the AV Trust has agreed
to a merger with the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. This final
newsletter highlights the many accomplishments of the AV Trust since it
was created in 1996.
English - PDF
Français - PDF
RESOURCES / RESSOURCES
ARL Public Policy Blog for Research Library CommunityThe Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announces the creation of ARL Policy Notes, a blog developed by ARL's Law and Policy Fellow Brandon Butler. ARL Policy Notes reports on public policy issues that impact the research library community, from copyright and intellectual property issues, such as the Google Book Search Settlement, to access to federally funded research, the Federal Depository Library Program, and telecommunications policies, such as net neutrality.
http://policynotes.arl.org/
Copyright for Librarians
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and eIFL.net
The Berkman Center is pleased to announce that Copyright
for Librarians is now live. It is an online, open access curriculum
on copyright law, developed in conjunction with eIFL.net (Electronic Information
for Libraries). The course materials of “Copyright for Librarians”
-- nine modules organized into five different levels -- can be used as the
basis for a self-taught course, a traditional classroom-based course, or
as a distance-learning course.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/newsroom/copyrightforlibrarians
Tear Sheets: Grey Literature
The goal of GreyNet is to facilitate dialog, research, and communication
between people and organizations in the field of grey literature. GreyNet
further seeks to identify and distribute information about grey literature
in networked environments. The tear sheets: 1. List of Grey Literature
Document Types, 2. Index to Web based Resources in Grey Literature,
3. Who is in Grey Literature – Country Guide, 4.
Collections of Conference based Papers, 5. Thematic Index to The Grey
Journal (TGJ), 6. Bibliographic Archive on Grey Literature.
http://www.textrelease.com/tearsheets.html
EVENTS / ÉVÉNEMENTS
Getting the Word Out: Scholarly Communication and Academic LibrariesACRL Western New York / Ontario Chapter, Spring Conference
Niagara Fall, New York, May 7, 2010
The WNY-O ACRL 2010 Spring Conference will explore how academic librarians are engaging with faculty in promoting Scholarly Communication. Presentation topics can include the development of Scholarly Communication policies and programs for faculty outreach, library support for faculty research and publishing, librarian integration into curriculum, and library/faculty collaboration for institutional repositories and open access resources.
http://wnyoacrl.org/
Current Issues for Academic Librarians: Leadership and Opportunity
- A CACUL / CARL Preconference
Canadian Library Association National Conference, Edmonton, AB
June 2nd, 2010, 9:00am - 5:00 pm
The program is designed to identify opportunities where Canadian academic
librarians at all levels and at all stages in their careers can lead change
at the local, provincial, national, and international level. Individual
sessions will serve as a call for both individual and collaborative action
on issues of vital importance in academic libraries. The featured sessions
will be: Google Books, the HathiTrust, and Providing Service with Digital
Collections, Developments in Library Scholarly Communication Services, Information
Policy and Librarian Participation, and Teaching and Learning: Emerging
Campus Partnerships Models.
http://www.cla.ca/conference/2010/
