USA PATRIOT Act

On Thursday, July 31, the ACLU will be hosting a live online chat discussing the FBI's broad new surveillance powers under the USA PATRIOT Act. Hear about the Fourth and First Amendment defects to a provision in the law that allows the government to obtain records or personal belongings from any person or entity, including public libraries, upon the mere showing of "relevance" to a terrorism investigation.

Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director, will be answering questions about the USA PATRIOT Act from 1-2 pm Eastern Thursday, July 31. Just visit the ACLU to join this important discussion.

Blogging

The Semantic Blogging Demonstrator has a nice tree view available to his 'blog. I've always liked that structured approach to information. I liked Gopher. I'd like to see a tree view to classification numbers in our catalogs. The ability to drill down or move up a hierarchy I find a very useful feature, especially when the number of hits is shown at each level.

Copyright

A bill in Congress is over-kill, take the time to send a note to your representative. Sponsored by the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

You could spend up to five years in prison, pay a $250,000 fine and lose your right to vote for trading a *single* copyrighted song if the Author, Consumer and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act (ACCOPS, HR 2752) is passed by Congress. This is a profoundly wrong-headed approach to file-sharing and it's up to you to stop it. Write your Congressperson today and urge them to stop this unbelievable attack on the American public.

MARC

The updated proposals and discussion paper from the annual 2003 meeting of the MARC Advisory Committee are now available from the MARC Web site. They each include a brief review of the discussion and status of the paper.

The updated papers are located online at:

• Proposal 2002-14/9R
• Proposal 2003-03
• Proposal 2003-04
• Proposal 2003-05
• Discussion Paper 2003-DP04

Books

The new ALA catalog has arrived. Keeping Current by Steven Cohen (of LibraryStuff) gets a full page description and some space on the back cover. Congrats.

In cataloging, Cartographic Materials: A Manual of interpretation for AACR2 is due in August. This is a must have for anyone cataloging maps. Also due in August are the update pages for AACR2.

Journals via RSS

Ariadne, D-Lib and Information Research all have RSS feeds at DoIS (Documents in Information Science, not to be confused with Digital Object Identifiers)

IFLA

Additions to the First IFLA Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code/Papers page:

• Code comparision:
  Anglo-americká katalogizacní pravidla (Czech republic)

The results of polls on rule comparisons are also available.

IM

I've added the ability to be notified by your AIM client (Jabber, Trillion and the other cross system clients should work) when new postings appear here. Just an option. If you use it please let me know how it works.

RSS

It is possible to convert an RSS feed to iCal format. Now your Timex Data Link watch can read iCal, so you could read your 'blogs on your watch. Not very useful, but rather interesting. Someone will be doing it just to show how leading edge they are.

Cataloging

Why library catalogs fail - comments from SLA sessions by Kathy Bryce appears in Wired West v. 6 no. 4.

I think Roy Tennant summed up the call to action with the phrase "surface the content". Library catalog users are used to searching Google and Amazon - how can librarians compete and learn from the success of these two search interfaces? His challenge was to search a library catalog and then search for that same title on Amazon - which gives the user more useful information?

IFLA

The paper Statement of principles : adopted by the International Conference on Cataloguing Principles Paris, October 1962 has just been posted to the conference site. This one is a classic, it is good to have it available on-line.

Dewey

The new Dewey tip is Musings on Music. Gives instructions on how to treat scores and criticisms of musical works.

Cataloging

Industrializing the Work Flow New Trends in Technical Services is the theme of the latest OLA Quarterly v. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2003). Articles include:

• Beyond MARC: New Trends for the Library of the Future by Bessie Mayes
• The Craft of Local Practice: How Catalogers are Gaining Efficiency but Losing Control by Lloyd Jansen
• Authority Control is Alive and ... Well? by Richard V. Jackson
• Handcrafted or Mass Produced: What are You Willing to Pay and What is it Worth? by Gary Houk and Alane Wilson
• I am Cataloger - Hear Me Roar by Mary T. Kalnin
• Dressing the Part... by Nelia C. Wurangian-Caan
• Training - the Missing Step in the Industrialization of Technical Services by Deborah Fritz
• Eli's Coming (and he has some questions) by Fred R. Reenstjerna
• Technical Services No Longer by Daniel CannCasciato
• New Challenges for Cataloging Management by Sharon Walbridge
• Even the Assembly Line has Standards! by Marguerite E. "Maggie" Horn
• The Art and Science of Cataloging by Felicia Uhden
• Batchloading MARC to Maximize Cataloging Output by Trina Grover

RSS

This is an interesting application of RSS, sending it via Instant Messaging. The RSS-IM Gateway allows a site with an RSS feed to make their feed available via an IM network. You do need the ability to load files on the same machine as the 'blog. Blogger folks are excluded. Any library 'blogs doing this?

your headlines are viewable on that network automatically, including from most cell phones if you use AIM or MSN. It works with AIM, ICQ, YIM and Jabber.

Using AvantGo, I knew it was easy to send to a Palm device, I've seen a tool to read RSS in iCal. Structured mark-up of text seems to make it easy to format the item to the user's liking and method of reading. Structured mark-up of text also has implications for cataloging. Automatic extraction of the descriptive elements of the record becomes possible. It might require some editing, but certainly it would save time and typos.

Catalogs

The multiple library search catalog (looks like Z39.50) of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium has a nice write up in their local paper. This is a useful tool for the local populace and deserves some publicity.

I was glad to see a on-line form to apply for a library card. Shows a commitment to service. Seen on ResourceShelf.