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The King James version of the Bible may become the official book of the state of Louisiana. Legislation passed the House Committee on Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs this week. The bill will now head to the full House of Representatives for consideration.

The Times-Picayune has the scoop: “Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport, originally filed a bill to declare a specific copy of the Bible, found in the Louisiana State Museum system, the official state book. But by the time he presented the proposal to the committee, he changed language  in his legislation to make the generic King James version of the Bible, a text used worldwide, the official state book.”

Some opponents say that the bill should not be limited to the King James version of the Bible and should include all versions of the Bible or even all religious text to include more religions.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In 2010, Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old computer programmer and founder of Reddit, downloaded thousands of scholarly articles from the online journal archive JSTOR. He had legal access to the database through his research fellowship at Harvard University; he also, however, had a history of dramatic activism against pay-for-content online services, having previously downloaded and released roughly 100,000,000 documents from the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database, which charges eight cents per page to access public files. Given his status as a prominent “hacktivist” and the sheer quantity of files involved, law enforcement agents concluded that Swartz planned to distribute the cache of articles and indicted him on multiple felony counts carrying a possible sentence of $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison.

Swartz was slated to go to trial this year but committed suicide in early January, prompting a public outcry against the prosecution in his case. Swartz was a prominent voice in the heated debate surrounding modern copyright law and public access and use (see his 2008 “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”). New York’s current issue contains a great feature from Wesley Yang discussing Swartz’s activism, his life, and the controversy in which he was embroiled.

In the ongoing debate over Swartz’s prosecution, we’ve pulled together a brief reading list on the issues surrounding American copyright in the digital age from OUP’s stable:

Copyright’s Paradox by Neil Weinstock Netanel

Netanel weighs current IP law against the basic right of freedom of speech. Like Swartz, he finds it unacceptably constricting.

The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Intellectual Property by Dan Hunter

A concise overview of the current state and history of IP law in America from a prominent New York University IP expert.

Copyright and Mass Digitization by Maurizio Borghi and Stavroula Karapapa

Two UK scholars discuss “whether mass digitisation is consistent with existing copyright principles.”

How to Fix Copyright by William Patry

A Senior Copyright Counsel at Google takes a look at the changing economic realities of the globalizing, digitizing world and concludes that our government must “remake our copyright laws to fit our times.”

Democracy of Sound by Alex Sayf Cummings

An overview of music piracy stretching back to the advent of recorded sound. The RIAA made headlines throughout the last decade by litigating against users who shared music online, but musicians, record companies, songwriters, and fans were navigating this territory for nearly a century before the Internet became a factor.

Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein by Gary Rosen

The story of one early 20^th century musician who spent decades conducting high-profile lawsuits against the leading pop icons of the day. Though he never won a single case, Ira Arnstein managed to have a significant impact on the shape of music copyright through the decisions in his numerous cases.

Without Copyrights: Piracy, Publishing, and the Public Domain by Robert Spoo

Spoo homes in on the contested publication of Ulysses to reveal the impact on copyright of literary modernism (and vice versa). Characters such as Ezra Pound, the infamous publisher Samuel Roth, and of course James Joyce flesh out a revealing story about artists grappling with free speech and authorship.

Oxford University Press is committed to developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners in all areas of the law. Our practitioner programme continues to grow, with key texts in commercial law, arbitration and private international law, plus the innovative new ebook version of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. We are also delighted to announce the new edition of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, one of the most trusted reference resources in international law. In addition to the books you can find on this page, OUP publishes a wide range of law journals and online products.

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The post American copyright in the digital age appeared first on OUPblog.

by Cassie, Publicity Assistant

Happy Friday everyone! We’re sneaking out a bit early to go bowling today, aren’t you jealous? The week will end with beer and bowling balls, which is about as much as you can ask for in a week. I go on vacation next Thursday, so you all will be without me for a little while. Can you pretend to notice so I feel better? Thanks! In the meantime, here are some links to keep you occupied until you sneak out for your own bowling match.

All of us here at OUP send our condolences to Natasha Richardson’s family and friends. There are many touching articles out there about this week’s tragedy, take some time to check some out.

The geek in me really wants one of these, but the practical person tells me it’s probably not very comfortable.

The long lists for the Booker and the Orange prizes have been announced.

I had no idea eavesdropping was so complicated!

It’s a start, at least…some at AIG are paying back their bonuses.

Remember when I posted a link about voting for the next celestial body Hubble studies? (Didn’t I do that? Or was it naming the ISS?) Here’s the winner!

Spacebat, we hardly knew thee.

When Fifth graders have anger management issues.

Sony Reader now offering 500,000 public domain titles.

Put a red bulb in this and you have Sauron’s eye staring at you. Good thing it’s just a concept design!

Google will soon be releasing their own take on a Wikipedia-style of information resource - Google Knols (screenshot).

Some of the significant differences will be: named authors (who can choose to receive a portion of ad revenue for the “knol” pages they write) instead of Wikipedia’s anonymous author model. The site will allow multiple “knols” on a single topic (each will be written by a single author) with the community voting for the best one and suggesting changes in a separate area instead of the collaborative style of composing articles used on Wikipedia.

(via MetaFilter)

On a completely unrelated note, this will be the last Friday Fun Link I post on LibrarianActivist. After some recent discussions with the other two librarians I took on this project with about the future of the site, it was felt that we need to re-focus on the serious side of activism. We also discussed some other potential changes and improvements to the site. Hopefully more details about these items will be forthcoming in the weeks and months to come.

I am happy to remain involved with LA as a contributor but for anyone who’s enjoyed this recurring feature, I will continue to post the Friday Fun Links on my personal blog.

- JH

The Toronto Star finishes up their story on medical secrecy with this wrap up article.

Here’s an immediate action opportunity, and no you don’t have to be a Calgary resident to take part:

Cory Doctorow points to an event being organized on Facebook to meet with Industry Minister Jim Prentice at his open house in Calgary on Saturday. If you are in Calgary, the open house runs from 1:00 to 3:00 pm on Saturday, December 8th at 1318 Centre Street NE, Suite 105. If you can’t attend, Cory has a great idea:

Not in Calgary? NO PROBLEM! Plan on calling the Minister tomorrow or on dropping him an email, expressing your regrets that you can’t attend the open house, but letting him know how you feel. Here are the numbers:

Ottawa office - (613) 992-4275
Calgary office - (403) 216-7777
Minister office - (613) 995-9001

His email address is: [email protected]. Once you send an email, print it out and mail it (no stamp needed!) to:

Jim Prentice
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

After you send Jim a note, there’s also these sources from Geist’s blog:

Geist’s 30 things you can do blog post.

Geist’s 30 things you can do wiki.

and what would a social activism push be without a corresponding Facebook group?
Facebookers can look for the Fair Copyright for Canada group.

-PC-

Librarian Chick provides an exhaustive list of online resources for students and librarians in the academic environment - from audio books to test taking and everything in between.

She also has a Learning Center that lets you search for free educational information, sites, games and software online.

Finally, to complete the trifecta of excellent resources, she also offers a search for free online audio books, e-books and textbooks. The search provides results from literally dozens of the biggest and most complete libraries that host free resources.

(via MetaFilter)

- JH

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has put up over 13 000 segments going back to 1999. That’s pretty cool…or at least it would be if I could get any of the videos in the archives to load.

Maybe the site’s just being hammered with traffic because it’s so new. But it almost makes you wish some of these media giant properties would skip the proprietary site designs and media players and just put it all up on YouTube instead.

(via MetaFilter)

- JH

I did an earlier post about the guy who designed a program to link IP addresses to Wikipedia edits. This has led to all kinds of discoveries of spin, manipulation and outright lies being planted by individuals and organizations who want to harm others or clean up their own image.

Now a blogger has compiled a list of the seven most scandalous edits that have been discovered…so far.

- JH

Wikipedia allows anonymous edits but it does track the IP of anyone who makes the edit. So a Cal-Tech computer grad student, inspired by news last year that Congress members’ offices had been editing their own entries, and curious whether other organizations were doing anything similar, developed a program to make it much easier to see the affiliation of anyone who made edits to any Wikipedia page.

This has led to numerous revelations about corporations like Fox News, organizations like the CIA and individuals such as staffers for a current US Presidential candidate abusing the intent of Wikipedia

(via MetaFilter which has lots of other links I didn’t include in this post)

- JH

Access Copyright has partnered with Creative Commons and WikiMedia (the people behind Wikipedia) to create a ground-breaking public domain registry that they hope becomes a model for the rest of the world.

Here’s an announcement they recently sent out:

Name the Public Domain Registry!

A product is only as good as the name you give it.

As reported in our most recent newsletter (July 26, 2007), Access Copyright has been working with Creative Commons and the Wikimedia Foundation on a Canadian Public Domain Registry. The registry will be an online, globally searchable database of Canadian works in the public domain and it will allow users to search and edit records, similar to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. For more information on the registry, please click here.

While the new registry will be both comprehensive and accessible, it also requires an easily identifiable name, which is where you come in. The public domain project needs your creative input. And who better to ask than our affiliates - Canada’s greatest creative resource!

Our hope at Access Copyright is that the new online registry will be a model for similar systems from other parts of the globe. As such, the name should brief, catchy, and one which could work for other countries wishing to create a registry of its own public domain works. Other than that, the only limits are your imagination and originality.

This is your chance to be an integral part of this ground-breaking project. Please send any and all suggestions, whether a list of one or 100, via email to the Communications Department at [email protected]. We will pare down the list and keep you posted on what the winning name is.

We appreciate your feedback as we move forward with this exciting project.

- JH

Anyone familiar with UofT’s flagship humanities and social sciences Robart’s library knows that it’s the target of a lot of well earned potshots. Here are a few of its better known claims to fame:

is it sinking?
‘Brutalist‘ architecture
it’s a peacock … !?

The ‘prison’ analogy is another fave, what with the books cloistered into a closed stack system far, far away from the scant selection of windows.

Since 2005 however, quietly in a room in the library at St. Michael’s college, UofT’s partnership with the Open Content Alliance has been digitizing public domain works (books and more) for the Internet Archive. Blackfly magazine published an article (which inspired the heading for this post) in which Carole Moore, head librarian at the St. George campus spoke to UofT’s foray into digitizing public domain works in its collection to make them more accessible and the library more democratic. Articles also appeared at the outset of the project in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Owen Jarus at Blackfly spoke to how digitization can democratize and transform information through improved access, where WP and WSJ spoke to the business angle, mainly comparing the OCA’s initiative to the Google Books/copyright lawsuit situation. The subtext of course is ‘will we still need libraries’ if all the materials are online?

This week, I finished an intensive course on “Rethinking the Library” taught by guest instructor, Dr. Joseph Janes of the University of Washington’s iSchool. It gave a handful of lucky students the opportunity to have a forum to dialogue on where ‘the library’ is/can/should/isn’t going, and engage with the tough question of what was well coined by the University of Toronto Mississauga’s chief librarian, Mary Ann Mavrinac, as defining our ‘core’. While this question is an ongoing subtext to librarianship, having a sit down in a course environment was a great move. So kudos to the Faculty of Information studies at UofT for offering a full course on this important subject.

The content for me is still percolating … more discussion on this later. In the meantime, if you have burning thoughts on the matter, please chime in!

-PC-

The Torontoist has more great commentary on what’s wrong with the sponsorship deal that set up the MAPs program at the Toronto Public Library.

Jonathan Goldsbie notes this quote from Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler who voted against the deal.

“Corporate sponsorship might be nice in theory to some people, but in practice it’s anything but nice,” commented Library Board member Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler— who voted against the deal—on our post about the renaming of the Hummingbird Centre. “When an issue arises where it’s public interest versus private (sponsor) interest, it isn’t the public interest that takes priority.”

Thanks to Jonathan for the great piece as it also points out that some rad library initiatives have come out of TPL that didn’t rely on corporate funds.

-PC-

Not that I want to interrupt the letter you’re writing to the LPL board of directors, but as luck would have it, this would be the week that Canadian representatives decided to make life difficult at the World Intellectual Property Organization Development Agenda meetings in Geneva.

Fortunately, Michael Geist reports a positive update today on his blog.

Update: Reports this morning indicate progress with inclusion of the access to knowledge language. A welcome development, though Canada should be leading on these issues, not aligning itself against the developing world.

Apparently the Harper government needs a wake up call. If the Access to Knowledge issue is new to you, have a look at the Wikipedia community’s summary of A2K/Access to Knowledge. It also includes a long list of organizations active in the A2K movement.

The CIPO mission statement is also worth a look. I’m not seeing anything about Canada’s role internationally.

Keep up to date on IP news through IP Watch and Sarah Bannerman

via the CLA discussion list a la Heather Morrison

-PC-

To add on to Sabina’s earlier post … now that Siobhan Stevenson’s call for keeping the public domain in public libraries has cracked into the public domain itself through First Monday, it’s time to talk turkey.

First, let me wax poetic for a moment and say that isn’t it great to be a part of a profession that shares information amongst each other, just because we want to? It will never cease to warm my heart. Second, our commitment to information sharing means that private interests from Gates and vendors alike, with their prepackaged sales pitches and honourary Harvard degrees, can’t measure up to the library community’s capacity to educate and inform the public, critically. It’s what we do.

That said, when terms such as Free and Open Source Software and Community Informatics arrive on the scene, they may not make the best first impression. FOSS and CI at first seem like brash guests at the party. They talk over your head, interrupt and confuse the humble and loyal guests, eat too much finger food and then question your menu choices, all while being nervy enough to recommend a better place for you to get your veggies.

Humph. So much for an invite back. However, if techie terms such as these crash the party again and continue to be so obtuse and unreachable, I urge you to see past their initial lack of manners and see them as the bold and renegade newcomers that they are, and simply need a guiding hand from some of the more experienced kids on the block. (And hey, they’ve got a solid point when it comes to buying more organic and locally grown food.)

If I were to have a standing list of block party invitees to mentor these newcomers into our midst, who would be on it? First, I’d make it a potluck. Second, I’d invite the ppl with whom FOSS and CI are already good friends and regularly exchange recipes.

The usual suspects of course:

Jessamyn West. Pimp your Firefox. Watch a video on installing Ubuntu. Make friends with Wikipedia.

Sarah Houghton-Jan. Too many ideas to mention.

Aaron Schmidt . Great blog title, appreciated the Gmail Greasemonkey tip.

Erica Olson. Another great blog title, probably helped me stay in library school at a moment of weakness. Includes some in your face techie goodness.

The Team at Lifehacker. (Still getting acquainted).

Casey Bisson. From whom there is recommended reading: Open Source Software and Libraries; LTR 43.3

And for a few Canadian based suspects

Richard Akerman - Science Library Pad.

Dean Giustini - Open Medicine.

… this list is a work in progress. Any suggestions?

-PC-

Oy, librarians! No doubt you’ve already heard. But in case you haven’t, the push for direct-to-consumer advertising in Canada is marching on. However, if you like acronyms, it’s DCTA.

CanWest Global Communications Corporation stands to increase its profits should a lawsuit they are waging in the name of ‘freedom of expression’ succeed. While the public health system is strained under the weight of increasing costs that are largely the result of pharmaceutical expenses, CanWest seems to be thinking to themselves … why should Pfizer get all the cash? How can we get a piece of this action?

I say “they” because a corporation such as CanWest Global is not an individual. It is a group of individuals. If you’ve seen The Corporation, you will know the importance of this distinction. Despite this, under the law corporations are viewed as having the same rights as individuals. So does a ‘corporation’ as an individual have a moral responsibility to society? What about the people who run that corporation? This lawsuit is claiming that CanWest Global’s right to freedom of expression is being violated. Does a corporation have this ‘right’? Better yet, do they have the ‘right’ to ‘freely express’ an advertisement on behalf of another multi-million dollor corporation, especially when they stand to profit from airing that ad?

Still reading? Back to direct-to-consumer advertising. The basic skinny is that it is legal in the US and New Zealand, Canada not so much. It gets muddy. Canadians have been exposed to drug ads through the American media, and in Canada ads for over the counter medications are permitted as are ads that don’t recommend a drug for a specific condition. Americans and New Zealanders are exposed to the “feeling X? ask your doctor and buy Y” kind of marketing. According to the Toronto Star, US spending increased 10x over the course of 11 years, from 1994 -2005. Open Medicine, the British Medical Journal, Toronto Star, a recent CBC podcast, the Canadian Pharmacists Association and the CMAJ all have good information describing how direct-to-consumer advertising impacts health spending. No one seems to be a fan.

Direct-to-consumer advertising is not ‘free speech’. Advertising messages are carefully constructed bids to pitch products. They are created by talented, creative and well-compensated advertising teams. Legalizing direct-to-consumer advertising would permit profit-seeking corporations to compete with public health interests and public (as in your tax) dollars. As librarians, we can inform the public that for safe and effective medical and health information, ads are not credible sources given that they are rife with branding strategies and backed by well-funded market research. Even if some ads are deemed ‘legal’ and hit the airwaves, they are in fact not ‘health information’. Unfortunately, the research suggests their impact is still huge.

Your Media notes that it is not safe to assume that it will be easy to prove that CanWest Global does not have a case. So you may be thinking, what can a librarian do in a situation such as this. Let’s consider some options …

First, whether you are a health librarian, academic librarian, public librarian, or special librarian - make your patrons aware of this issue:
a) CanWest Global is attempting to encroach on the public’s rights and they have a right to be informed about it
b) from an media/information literacy standpoint, DCTA exemplifies what NOT to use for informative purposes.

While I’m all for seeking alternative sources to health information, DCTA stinks. Freedom of expression being the wonderful thing that it is, you can exercise yours by talking to your Member of Parliament, sending a dirty note to the CRTC, and ccing whatever you do to the CanWest Global turkeys.

Oy, that was long. Thanks for hanging in there.
-PC-

Congratulations go out to Marcel LaFlamme of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston, MA. for his essay entitled “Towards a Progressive Discourse on Community Needs Assessment: Perspectives from Collaborative Ethnography and Action Research.”

LaFlamme’s essay will be published in an upcoming edition of the PLG Journal.

Honourable mentions go to Katherine Becvar, Department of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, for her paper, “Intellectual Freedom and Sensitive Knowledge: Embracing Pluralism in the Process of Knowing,” and to Joshua Jackson, Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College, for his paper “Taking the Next Step: A Critical Encounter with Critical Information Literacy.”

I for one am excited to hear about the work of fellow library students.
Anyone else for submitting this work to E-LIS?

via the PLG listserv

-PC-

The Internet Library of Early Journals is a digitized collection of journals from the 18th and 19th centuries.

(via MetaFilter)

- JH

(Thanks to Kerry M. for the tip!)

- JH

We’ve highlighted a couple sites in the past that offer free e-book downloads but this page has a comprehensive list of all the options online for getting free e-books and tree-books.

(I love that the title of the post where I saw it on MetaFilter is “The Best Place To Get Free Books” and the first comment is “…would be libraries.”)

(via MetaFilter)

- JH

The Toronto Star’s latest piece in its series on medical secrecy today brought with it some good news for Ontarians.

The word is … no more secrets, no more lies. The stage has been set for Ontario to be the leaders in medical transparency in Canada.

Not only will mortality and morbidity records of hospitals be made public, but the health professions colleges will be required to make public findings against nurses, occupational therapists, dentists, acupuncturists, and physicians and the like. That’s findings, not complaints. Due process is still at work here. To boot, the records of physicians will not be wiped clean after six years, as they were previously.

The latest high profile case of cronyism and cover ups within the medical establishment led to wrongful convictions against innocent people due to the incompetent practice of Ontario pathologist Dr. Charles Smith. The CBC reported that ten years ago, Ontario’s Chief Coroner Dr. James Young attempted to block complaints against him. Evidence that eventually led to the release of one of Smith’s victims was found on his desk.

Here are the people who want to help you stay safe in the hospital and the medical establishment at large:
Ontario Hospital Association
Ontario Medical Association
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
(and the colleges of nurses, dentists, acupuncturists, PTs, OTs, social workers, etc.)

Please drop them a line to say ‘well done!’ or ‘you’ll be hearing from us!’ or rather, ‘it’s about time.’

-PC

An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums and watches what happens.

What he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net. Some of the other things they learned, Mitra says, astonished him.

Strong evidence in favour of the $100 laptop? I think so!

(via Reddit)

- JH

Here is a rad and inspiring interview with Hugh McGuire, founder and Head Rockstar of Librivox. What a good, good man.

At the end of the show, he talks about where the “Librivox model” can go, and brings up the need to make basic data available to the public for urban planning, environment, health, and political purposes. One group that’s working on making such data available in the public domain is CivicAccess. They’re currently trying to make electoral information freely available to everyone who wants to use it because, at present, the database that links postal codes to electoral information (e.g. based on your postal code, who’s your MP?) is a licensed one. And the license ain’t cheap — it starts at $2900 — fine for marketing companies but not so accessible for citizens’ and not-for-profit groups. CivicAcces want to do the same with the 2006 StatsCan Census information and other civic data. More good people!

-SIO