I don’t generally use IE, but I opened it for some reason, oh to do go to a microsoft site and this is what it looked like after I installed windows, Google Pack, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Messenger Live:

Although this time, much more lowkey, no feedburner, no goat pinging, just writing. I miss writing, I do.

Thanks for reading it. I will leave the content up. The entry page will remain as it is until I can think of something better to do with it. Comments have been disabled, and images are no longer available. The feedburner feed has been deleted.

Thank you,

Bjorn

House Republicans are proposing a new bill that will block social networking sites from schools and libraries. I recommend reading the entire proposal (in PDF format). First librarians have had to succumb and install filters on the computers within our library walls, and now this. This an egregious assault on the freedom of speech. Give an inch and they will want to bite off your entire arm. Will ‘blog people’ hating ALA elites care about this? Will newly graduated library school students understand the implications? Surprisingly, there is little to be seen on this issue in library news journals.

Here is the killer:

…prohibits access to a commercial social networking website or chat rooms…
COMMERCIAL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES.�The working term �commercial social net website� means a commercially operated Internet website that�
��(i) allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and ��(ii) offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger.

What will be affected: blogs, sites like digg, friendster, myspace.com, the potential for harm has no bounds.

Groklaw has a great article about how DRM is changing libraries in the US and in the UK. It is a lengthy deconstruction of usage requirements of the NY Public Library and (mostly) the British Library’s digital services. Libraries once were an active force preserving equitable access for all people regardless of their economic status but things are changing. Even I have noticed in library school an all too eager adoption of DRM technologies by vendors of subscription services with restrictive licensing obligations. The Groklaw article points out some bizarre requirements in order to use library services such as requiring users to install anti-virus software on their personal computers (What about Linux users? what if you don’t want this software?) and the new habit of charging fees to users so copyright owners can collect royalty payments. The author predicts:

…the death of public libraries as we have known them, and the world’s knowledge will be available only DRM’d and for a price.

I am not so sure about any ‘death’, but I do see a lot of ignorance when it comes to DRM and libraries in library school. As a library student, I am most concerned about other students that do not know the difference between a browser and an operating system, who will graduate without knowing this and become librarians. I am not joking. I have taught HTML to library students, and I was surprised to find out the extent of their ignorance. How are they going to be guardians of information when they can not understand the basic technology that is changing information content, distribution, and access?

Some of my professors have explained to me that librarians and the profession are well informed on DRM issues when I challenged them on it. It does not appear to me that way, however, and in fact it seems that librarians are all too eager to sign whatever dotted line vendors require them to whenever they adopt a new database or other form of digital service. Groklaw is right, libraries are changing for the worse, and I believe that the reasons for this stem from deeply rooted ignorance of the technology, of the basics, of the jargon, and how much technology is out there that is in opposition to fundamental library values. My library school, SIRLS, doesn’t do enough to ensure admitted library students have an understanding of basic information technology. It does not do enough to educate them on it through out the program. Information technology and DRM ought to be a required component of the curriculum, and the ALA accreditation should include it as a fundamental requisite. The library profession sometimes seems excessively compulsive about its self-image, and frightened to death of Internet search. Yet neither of these factors seem to serve as jarring enough wake-up call to change the nature of librarianship at a pace fast enough to catch up with what is happening in the outside world.

The Share Wonders redesign is complete. Here’s a screenshot for all you bottom-’feeders’ who don’t actually visit (get it? bottom…feed..ers? hohoho - so this is why you read my blog! - or why you just stopped reading it):

It is a lot of blue, low contrast, and large widths. I did some word press hacking to generate the various subsections on the front page. It is broken up into three categories: web development, information, and humor. There is a recent post list with excerpts and a list of pages and blog archives. I went crazy and put a featured article above the site header. I like it a lot. I was going to intend on organizing single article pages (with article above the header) too, but then I grew weak in the knees and changed my mind. I also have removed any badges and or scripts I had on the page from outside sites because they slow down the loading and probably were never really that useful. I’m planning to add some style switching capabilities for those with smaller screen widths or non-standard color vision. I’m going to actually do that next. And yes of course the site validates. I never mind feedback, in fact I appreciate it, so if you have any comments, please let me know! Thanks.