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October 31, 2008

B&N’s new social networking site

B&N Launches Social Networking Site

By Lynn Andriani — Publishers Weekly, 10/27/2008 8:17:00 AM

Barnes & Noble has introduced its answer to Shelfari, Goodreads and other social networking sites for books. It’s called My B&N, and it is live now. My B&N allows users to create free personal profiles around their preferences for books, music and movies. Users can customize their profile pages with a pen name, avatar, virtual library, reviews and ratings. B&N has also improved its list-making tools, and expanded its customer review and ratings features.

Much like other book social networking sites, My B&N has features that let users showcase the books they’ve read and what they’re currently reading (the site also lets them feature music and movies). The site reminds users of their recent purchases so they can add them to their library. Users can create lists that they can e-mail to friends and family, and share on Facebook, Digg and other outlets. An “EssentiaLists” feature allows them to create up to 100 customized lists on any topic or theme.

My B&N is accessible through a button on the homepage of BarnesandNoble.com.

posted by Lisa at 11:30 am | Comments (0)

Campaign ‘08 Links

The New York Times article about Joe Biden’s role in the last few days before the election.

Obama’s tax plan from The New York Times.

Obama’s campaign and spending from The New York Times.

Loads of articles on both candidates from The L.A. Times. Plenty here to keep you busy.

posted by Lisa at 10:52 am | Comments (0)

Freedom of the Press? Or not.

From The New York Post (full text):

SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine – and to diminish conservatives’ influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.

Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn’t seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats – including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore – strongly support the idea of mandating “fairness.”

Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It’s doubtful.

The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It’s a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.

Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don’t do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.

Then there’s all the lawyers you’d have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged – like entertainment or sports coverage?

For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of “fairness” might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer “equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary,” with 39 percent opposed.

Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of “fairness” is seductive.

Even with control of Washington and public support, Dems would have a big fight in passing a Fairness Doctrine. Rush Limbaugh & Co. wouldn’t sit by idly and let themselves be regulated into silence, making the outcome of any battle uncertain. But Obama and the Democrats also plan other, more subtle regulations that would achieve much the same outcome.

He and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters’ public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater “local accountability” on them – requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not. The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It’s a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge.

Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome.

It’s worth noting, as Jesse Walker does in the latest Reason magazine, that Trinity Church, the controversial church Obama attended for many years, is heavily involved in the media-reform movement, having sought to restore the Fairness Doctrine, prevent media consolidation and deny licenses to stations that refuse to carry enough children’s programming.

Regrettably, media freedom hasn’t been made an issue by the McCain campaign, perhaps because the maverick senator is himself no fan of unbridled political speech, as his long support of aggressive campaign-finance regulation underscores. But the threat to free speech is real – and profoundly disturbing.

Brian C. Anderson is editor of City Journal and co-author, with Adam Thierer, of “A Manifesto for Media Freedom,” just out from Encounter Books.

For more on the Post and  its reputation/bias, see Wikipedia. It is a right-leaning newspaper.

Grain of salt, people.

posted by Lisa at 10:28 am | Comments (0)

October 30, 2008

U.K.: Libraries’ book budgets fall again

From Guardian.co.uk:

” More bad news for library users in a month where culture secretary Andy Burnham has ticked them off for not “looking beyond the bookcase”. The amount UK libraries are spending on books is down for the third year in a row, according to a report to be released later this week, with further reductions predicted next year.

Book spend fell to £76.8m in the year to end-March 2008, down 1% on the previous year and equivalent to just 8.7% of UK libraries’ overall expenditure, which was flat this year compared to a fall the previous year. By contrast, spending on audio-visual materials – largely DVDs – was up 4.2% over the period. ”

Read more …

posted by Lisa at 11:35 am | Comments (0)

A Brooklyn Librarian’s Fine

From NYTimes (letter-full text)”

Re “A Brooklyn Librarian Is Fined for Promoting His Daughter’s Book” (news article, Oct. 22):

In the seemingly small action of the Conflicts of Interest Board is revealed the truly monstrous in the exercise of government authority.

A man who spends his life working in a school library has the temerity to indulge his parental pride by placing his daughter’s wholly appropriate book on a display table (an act that netted neither him nor his daughter any financial gain in that he gave the books away). For this he’s humiliated, disciplined and penalized, all so a flying wedge of petty bureaucrats can congratulate themselves on their swift application of justice.

Is it too much to ask that our government apply rules and regulations with something approaching a sense of proportion? One would hope not. The failure to do so has the certain effect of alienating its citizens and undermining its legitimacy.

Bill Finkelstein
New York, Oct.

posted by Lisa at 10:45 am | Comments (0)

Digital librarian criticizes Google’s settlement

From MercuryNews.com (Silicon Valley):

By  Chris O’Brien

“When I heard Google had settled its feud with book publishers, I knew exactly whom I wanted to call first: Brewster Kahle, the digital librarian who is the founder of the Internet Archive.

I first talked to Kahle back in 2004, around the time Google launched its Book Search. The program riled publishers, who felt it amounted to a massive copyright violation, triggering the class-action suit.”

Read more …

posted by Lisa at 10:43 am | Comments (0)

October 29, 2008

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month.

If you’ve been reading my blog a while (and why wouldn’t you?!), you’d know I’ve participated in this for the past two years. In 2006 I finished, writing 50,000 wds and “winning” – which just means I finished, by the way. But in 2007 I fell flat on my face. I hated the novel I started and went off on a tangent. So I just gave up. Oh, and the 50,000 words I wrote in 2006? I haven’t touched that project again.

But what the heck. I’ll try it again this year. I’m only a full-time grad student, part-time employee at my library, wife and mother of three. Surely I must have a little time to spare?

Yeah. Something like that. Either that or I’m insane.

The jury’s still out.

posted by Lisa at 11:41 am | Comments (0)

It never ends

From USAToday:

Schools, libraries see

hundreds of requests

to ban books

 

 WASHINGTON — John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is on high school reading lists across the country. But the classic novel occasionally appears on another list as well — of books that some parents want pulled from shelves because of vulgar language, sexual content or some other reason.

Every year, public libraries and schools across the country collectively field hundreds of requests from parents, public officials and activists pressing for the removal of books they deem inappropriate. That includes literary classics, human sexuality manuals and, occasionally, even the dictionary, according to the American Library Association.”

Read more …

 

 

posted by Lisa at 11:32 am | Comments (0)

October 27, 2008

I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Hee Haw!

From Scotland on Sunday:

Donkeys Are Just the Ticket for Mobile Library

” IN A ritual repeated nearly every weekend for the past decade in Colombia’s war-weary Caribbean hinterlands, Luis Soriano gathered his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, in front of his home.

Sweating already under the unforgiving sun, he strapped pouches with the word “Biblioburro” painted in blue letters to the donkeys’ backs and loaded them with an eclectic cargo of books destined for people living in the small villages beyond. ”

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/comment/Donkeys—are-just.4630354.jp

*

From FayObserver.com:

Morning Fires Hit Library, Gut Topless Club

” Fires early Saturday gutted an office in the county library downtown and destroyed the previously damaged Cloud Nine topless nightclub a few blocks away, on Russell Street.

About 60 firefighters battled the blazes. No one was reported injured.

The library fire, in the basement level of the Headquarters Library, at 300 Maiden Lane, appears to have been electrical, said Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Debbie Tanna. The books are largely undamaged — just a light coating of soot, said library Director Jody Risacher — but the library will remain closed indefinitely for cleanup of the books, the building and the fire alarm system.

The Cloud Nine fire — the second there in a week — remains under investigation, said Battalion Cmdr. Calvin Bishop of the Fayetteville Fire Department.

Arson investigators examined the remains Saturday and had not determined a cause, Bishop said. The fire appears to have started in Cloud Nine and spread to two businesses in the same building: a barber shop and the Little Inn Luncheonette. They were destroyed.

Cloud Nine, at Russell and Winslow streets, was the last topless club downtown since the city began forcing them out in the 1980s and 1990s. The clubs, which were concentrated on Hay Street, two blocks north of Cloud Nine, fostered a red-light district and a rough and tawdry reputation.

But after the city ran the clubs off Hay Street, Cloud Nine hung on, and tried to keep a low profile. In 2003, when a federal court ruling briefly permitted strip clubs to offer all-nude dancing, owner Bill Strickland said he wouldn’t have it because it would annoy his downtown neighbors.

Cloud Nine was heavily damaged by a fire reported at 3:40a.m. Monday, and the neighboring businesses had smoke damage. Firefighters said the Monday fire was caused by an electrical malfunction.

The cause of Cloud Nine’s Saturday fire is undetermined pending further investigation and laboratory tests, Bishop said.

Firefighters were called about 2:30 a.m.

Some were leaving that fire scene about 3:10 a.m. when the fire alarm activated at the public library just four blocks away.

Fayetteville Fire Dept. Battalion Cmdr. Richard Bradshaw said a fire captain checking the back of the building saw smoke and was walking toward it when the windows of an office blew out.

The fire was in the deputy library director’s office, Risacher said. Because its doors were closed and the building has a firewall, the fire damage was mostly confined to that office. “We were very lucky in that respect,” she said.

Library officials plan to inspect the library again today. Risasher said she wants to get the library cleaned as soon as possible so that patrons can use it again.

Throughout Saturday afternoon, library users drove up and were dumbfounded by the yellow fire scene tape blocking their access. “

posted by Lisa at 1:50 pm | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Unbelievable. I can’t believe I missed it …

From Barcorefblog:

“Sorry to say I completely missed the annual INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY yesterday, where people who really hate the caps lock key can vent all day. I’m not crazy about caps lock, but I do actually use it occasionally (once a month? Less? ) and I don’t accidentally hit it all that often (couple of times a week?). Anyway, the key I really really hate is the Insert key, the one that makes everything you type disappear. So in honor of the DAY AFTER CAPS LOCK DAY, for anyone who also hates the Insert key, here’s how I permanently disabled mine, with thanks to Steve Bass at PC World who calls the Insert key “as useless as the human appendix”:
Open up Microsoft Word. Click Tools, Customize, and in the dialog, choose Keyboard. In Categories, scroll to and click All Commands, and in the Command panel, select “Overtype.” Highlight “Insert” in the Current keys box, click Remove, and click Close until all the dialog windows close.
So easy, yet so satisfying.”

posted by Lisa at 11:47 am | Comments (0)

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