I’m sure I’ll be dribbling out these little notices for the next few months, but I just learned that Bill Ivey has been appointed “to lead the Obama transition team with responsibility for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.” Here’s an interesting article about Ivey discussing how cultural pushes by administrations are not seem in the same way as actual public policies.
go vote
I voted. I feel that only one candidate shares my values of intellectual freedom and privacy and the importance of public institutions like libraries. If you’re not against that sort of thing, please go vote today. Thank you.
Happy Ninth Birthday LISNews
Happy ninth birthday to the entire crew at LISNews. Blake’s written a nice little “how it’s going” blurb and would like anyone who is interested to chip in and contribute. If you’re a nascent blogger and don’t feel ready for your own blog, consider adding the occasional comment or story over at LISNews.
Harvard decides to opt out of Google book scanning
In light of the recent Google Books/APA settlement, Harvard has examined the details and decided not to be part of the project after all.
Harvard’s university-library director, Robert C. Darnton, wrote in a letter to the library staff, “the settlement provides no assurance that the prices charged for access will be reasonable, especially since the subscription services will have no real competitors [and] the scope of access to the digitized books is in various ways both limited and uncertain.†He also expressed concern about the quality of the scanned books, which “in many cases will be missing photographs, illustrations, and other pictorial works, which will reduce their utility for research.â€
Update: According to the comments, I had this sort of wrong. Harvard is deciding to not have Google scan their copyrighted books but the digitzation project proceeds apace. Thanks Jon.
podcast suggest: Unquiet History
For those of you who thrilled to Matthew Battles’ book Library: An Unquiet History should try out his podcast — similarly titled but not library-specific — Unquiet History. I’m currently enjoying listening to a short history of medeival urban garbage. Fun!