Free Range Librarian

K.G. Schneider’s blog on librarianship, writing, and everything else, since 2003.

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Entries from February 2005

Tout Alors! The French Get Wound Up over Google Print

February 20th, 2005 · 3 Comments

The eponymous blog On Language has an amusing discussion, complete with translations, of a rather nervous Le Monde editorial about Google Print by Jean-Noël Jeanneney, head of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF).
Jeanneney is worried to the point of near-hysteria about “the risk of a crushing domination by America in defining the idea that [...]

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Tags: Google

Librarians talk about Wikipedia on NPR

February 20th, 2005 · 1 Comment

At last! Wikipedia’s Growth Comes with Concerns is a news story about Wikipedia that interviews librarians and discusses Wikipedia from the users’ point of view, not just in terms of the quality of the content but in terms of what’s included. It’s a balanced perspective, and Laura Sydell’s conclusion that in the future “the [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Update on Batesline Debacle

February 19th, 2005 · 3 Comments

Last night ALA President-elect Michael Gorman responded to my second request for an explanation about his cryptic comments about Tulsa World’s harassment of the Batesline blogger. I’ll print his post to the Council list, and my response.
“Dear Ms. Schneider I am sorry to have kept you waiting for an explanation. It is in the letter [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics · Intellectual Freedom

Media Bloggers Association to the Rescue

February 18th, 2005 · 1 Comment

Read all about it: the counsel for the Media Bloggers Association is representing Michael D. Bates in response to the allegations of the Tulsa World that by linking to and briefly quoting from articles, Bates had violated copyright law. The Media Bloggers Association represents bloggers who are “actively blogging on the topic of news/political media.”
I’ve [...]

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Tags: Intellectual Freedom

LITA Forum 2005: You Know the Way to San Jose!

February 17th, 2005 · 1 Comment

I think I forgot to add LITA Forum (Sep 29 - Oct 2) to my list of conferences because I take it for granted. Miss LITA Forum? When monkeys fly out of my butt! (There’s an endorsement I hope to see on the LITA web page!)
LITA Forum is my favorite library conference, bar none, [...]

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Tags: LITA Councilor

Blogs Worth Reading

February 16th, 2005 · 3 Comments

(Second entry in a new series, published mid-week on Free Range Librarian.)
I track over 100 blogs, but I really like several dozen, and they are all over the map–news, librariana, literature, technology, opinion, humor, and other kibbles and bits. This week I’ll talk about two very different blogs, one from academia/librarianship and the other [...]

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Tags: Must-Read Blogs

Tulsa World Harasses Blogger

February 15th, 2005 · 2 Comments

Update: I posted a link to this blog entry on the ALA Council list, and ALA President-Elect Michael Gorman responded, “Perhaps I am missing something but I cannot see why unauthorized and unremunerated reproduction of whole copyrighted articles and editorials is ‘fair use.’” I responded that to the best of my knowledge Batesline was following [...]

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Tags: Blogging and Ethics

Geoffrey Nunberg Hearts Librarians (But I’m Still Worried)

February 15th, 2005 · 1 Comment

“In the end, then, instruction in information literacy will have to pervade every level of education and every course in the curriculum, from university historians’ use of collections of online slave narratives to middle-school home economics teachers showing their students where to find reliable nutrition information on the Web.”
– Geoffrey Nunberg, “Teaching Students to Swim [...]

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Tags: Librarianship

For Sandy on Valentine’s Day

February 14th, 2005 · 2 Comments

(Written for Rebecca Mackinnon’s Valentine Day sonnet contest. Librarians, start your engines. Don’t worry, I’m not leaving the “creative nonfiction” track in my MFA program–this was truly, in every meaning, a labor of love.)
Recorded Knowledge
It’s Valentine’s Day.
Cold and foggy in the valley.
Saw my neighbor up the alley
Bend down to get the paper. He’s o.k.
But I [...]

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Tags: Podcasts

MP3 Players Storm the World

February 14th, 2005 · 1 Comment

I hardly ever do “here’s the news” entries, but the Pew Report released today stands almost without comment for anyone following podcasting and related technologies. “We just got the results of the survey we took between January 13 and February 9 and for the first time asked a question to find out how many American [...]

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Tags: Hot Tech