The folks from the It’s All Good blog are sponsoring a libraryland blogger get together at ALA, Sunday, June 26, beginning at 5:30 pm, final exact location TBD.
Category: ala
ALA CMS RFP, OMG!
Looks like ALA is going to get a new CMS for dealing with their web site and they have sent out an RFP [pdf]. We can yammer all we want about how this should have been done last time, and debate what damage was done by two years of a substandard web site, but it’s a step forward to at least try to do it right the second time and hope too many people haven’t joined SLA or ASIS in the meantime. Here are my comments to the Council list, and here are Karen Schneider’s.
free speech on mailing lists – a peek at ALACOUN
ALA wins lawsuit over broadcast flag
Big big news. The American Library Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation and friends just won their joint challenge to the FCCs weird Broadcast Flag regulations, decision can be read here. Not only does this mean that the FCC has to back off from trying to require all digital video receivers to have special Digital Rights Management embedded [that’s Congress’s job, the courts say, if they choose to do it] but the courts also agreed that the ALA, and by extention librarians and educators, had standing to file this case in the first place. Here’s an example from one of the librarian’s affadavits cited in the decision.
There is clearly a substantial probability that, if enforced, the Flag Order will immediately harm the concrete and particularized interests of the NCSU Libraries. Absent the Flag Order, the Libraries will continue to assist NCSU faculty members make broadcast clips available to students in distanceeducation courses via the Internet, but there is a substantial probability that the Libraries will be unable to do this if the Flag Order takes effect. It is also beyond dispute that, if this court vacates the Flag Order, the Libraries will be able to continue to assist faculty members lawfully redistribute broadcast clips to their students.
Get more links and some discussion here, plus the great quote from the decision “Congress does not…hide elephants in mouseholes.”
wireless at ALA, for all
This just in over the ALA Council newswire. Wireless connectivity, which had previously been available only to ALA Councilors, will be available to all ALA Conference attendees in Chicago. Keith Michael Fiels, ALA Executive Director says the connnectivity will be available “at a highly discounted rate.” Of course, “discounted from what?” is the question here, since Councilors get their connections for free, but look forward to being able to be wireless at ALA in June.