Monday, June 23, 2003

After obscenity filters, watch for "terror filters" Andy Oram puts it well: 'After obscenity filters, watch for "terror filters". An important precedent has been set. With the legal and technical infrastructure in place, all the government has to do is add more and more to the banned content.'   1:28:58 PM    comment [] Library Group Launches New Subscription Management Tool InfoToday reports that: "The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries launched GOLD RUSH (http://grweb.coalliance.org), a new tool to help librarians manage subscriptions to electronic resources. Gold Rush currently has title lists from over 500 sources representing over 55,000 different serial titles. Later in 2003, the product will allow a library to load a list of serials from a local OPAC into GOLD RUSH. In the meantime, the GOLD RUSH Linker (link resolver) can send the patron back to a local catalog or union catalog for easy look-ups of local print holdings or cataloged items. Source: Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries" 10:20:03 AM    comment [] Justices Uphold Use of Internet Filters in Public Libraries. I wasn't thrilled to read about this first thing this morning: A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that Congress can force the nation's public libraries to equip computers with anti-pornography filters. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: Technology] Here's the official response from the ALA. 9:58:46 AM    comment [] Library cuts can be an incentive An editorial in today's Visalia Times-Delta summarizes how Tulare county in northern California has ended up dealing with cuts in funding: "The solution finally adopted spreads the pain around, and it hits everywhere. Every branch will lose some hours. The main library in Visalia will lose a day, Thursday. The county bookmobiles will shut down entirely." The editorial goes on to say: "What we're left with is basically an imperfect solution that shows everybody how critical the situation is. There is a good side to that, though, because now everybody in the county will be affected by the cuts to the libraries, and everybody in the county will be seeking to relieve them. If Visalia had not been affected, there would have been little incentive for folks in Visalia to appeal for the opening of branches in Alpaugh, Pixley and Ivanhoe." How are your local public libraries dealing with funding cuts? Are they closing branches and if so, which ones? Or, like Tulare county, are cuts being distributed across all library service areas? Which seems more fair? Is one approach better than the other? And finally, can funding crises really lead to better long term solutions? Let me know what you think -- leave a comment! 8:45:32 AM    comment []

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