Library Juice 3:5 - February 2, 2000


Contents:

1. Entrepreneurial libraries
2. Hear It Again/Libraries and Their Ashes
3. Blocked by CyberPatrol: www.thelibraryshop.com
4. Song Yongyi released and back in USA
5. Gary Price website update
6. SearchEdu.com and SearchGov.com
7. Women in the History of American Librarianship
8. Racial and Ethnic Diversity Among Librarians: A Status Report
9. Phony/Malicious MLK site
10. EnVironmental Education oNline - EVEN
11. free!way
12. Study Circle on Political Librarianship (Mexico)
13. Email Copyright Tutorial available free to ALA members
14. John Pateman letter calling for a democratization of IFLA
15. The Library as an Agency of Culture (call for papers)
16. LIBER: REVISTA DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA
17. LAURENTIUS 3/99
18. Etoys Finally Drops Lawsuit, Pays Court Costs
19. Burnt out guy at the library
20. FishBase


Quote for the week:
"Every day computers are making people easier to use."  -Unknown


Homepage of the week: Ken Thompson's Home Page
http://www.pform.org/ken/

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1. Entrepreneurial libraries


Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 12:17:02 +1300
From: "Alistair Kwun" <a.kwun[at]auckland.ac.nz>
To: "New Librarians" <newlib-l[at]usc.edu>
Subject: [website] entrepreneurial libraries

Check this out!! -- Alistair

http://www.multnomah.lib.or.us/lib/entre/

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2. Hear It Again/Libraries and Their Ashes

A Ted Hughes Poem, "Hear It Again,"
and an article by Alberto Manguel,
"Libraries and Their Ashes,"
in the Index On Censorship

http://www.oneworld.org/index_oc/299/hughesmanguel.html

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3. Blocked by CyberPatrol: http://www.thelibraryshop.com

What?

That's right, Maybe I should say it again:

   Blocked by CyberPatrol: http://www.thelibraryshop.com

I ran into the block surfing with the filter on at the reference desk
at the Campbell branch of the Santa Clara County Library on Saturday.
Go figure. -Rory
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4. Song Yongyi released and back in USA

On January 28, 2000, the People's Republic of China released College
Librarian Yongyi Song. In an official statement from the Chinese
Embassy in USA, authorities say they "have treated his case with
leniency according to law and decided not to pursue his criminal
responsibility."

After more than five months of detention on suspicion of gathering
state secrets Mr. Song arrived in the USA on Saturday the 29th.
Contrary to reports from Beijing, he said that he had "refused'' to
confess and that "all those charges are very ridiculous''. He stated,
that the documents he was accused of taking were widely available
during the Cultural Revolution.

On January 19, 2000, the IFLA / FAIFE Committee wrote a letter to the
Premier of the People's Republic of China in regard to the arrest of
Mr. Song. The FAIFE reaction to the arrest of Song Yongyi in China
can be found at: http://www.faife.dk/news/china0001.htm.

Further information on the latest development, including media
reports, can be found at at the Dickinson College web site:
http://www.dickinson.edu/action/#new

FAIFE (Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) is the
instrument of the International Federation of Library Associations
and Institutions (IFLA) to promote intellectual freedom and the vital
mission of libraries as gateways to knowledge and ideas. FAIFE
advocates intellectual freedom in all aspects related to libraries
and librarianship. FAIFE was launched in 1997 and consists of a
Committee and an Office. The Committee has 29 members nominated by
national library associations from almost all parts of the world.

  IFLA / FAIFE Office
  c/o Copenhagen Department of Culture
  Islands Brygge 37
  DK 2300 Copenhagen S.
  Denmark
  Phone +45-33 66 46 37 or +45-33 66 46 27
  Mobile: +45 20 26 77 30
  Fax +45-33 66 70 64
  E-mail: faife[at]ifla.org
  Web site: http://www.faife.dk
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5. Gary Price website update


>===== Original Message From Gary Price <gprice[at]gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> =====
It has been about 2 months since my last message and since that
time the web reference compilations I organize have continued to grow.

Perhaps the biggest growth areas have been the two "breaking news"
compilations.

NewsCenter
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/newscenter.htm
Text based news from a variety of sources. A great deal of business and
industry news.

and

Current Awareness using Web Accessible Audio and Video
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/audio.htm

Listen and watch breaking news from around the globe.
Also, more and more conference keynote speeches and academic
presentations are coming online.
It's amazing how much is available and how useful it can be.
**Note the new page of major market U.S./Canada newsradio
and television newscasts.
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/majmkt.htm
------------------------------------------------------
Here are the urls for the other compilations.

direct search
Specialized Searchable Databases

direct search is composed of 3 pages.

Main Page
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm

Direct Search-State Page
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/state.htm

Direct Search-Bibliograhies
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/bibs.htm


Direct Search-Bibliograhies, Library Catalogs, Librarian Tools
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/bibs.htm

------------------------------------------------

Price's List of Lists
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/listof.htm
Business and Industry rankings accessible "on the www".
-----

Speech and Transcript Center
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/speech.htm
Read full transcripts of speeches from business and government leaders.
-----------------------------

Congressional Research Service WWW Accesssible Reports
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/crs.htm
While far from complete MANY CRS reports are available in full-text.
---------------------------------


Thanks for your continued support.

cheers,
gary


Gary D. Price, MLIS
George Washington University
Virginia Campus Library
Gelman Library
Ashburn, VA and Washington, D.C.
gprice[at]gwu.edu
703-726-8235
703-726-8237 (fax)
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6.

SearchEdu.com
http://www.searchedu.com/

SearchGov.com
http://www.searchgov.com/

Launched on January 14 by MaxBot.com, the creators of SearchGov and
SearchMil (reviewed in the January 12, 2000 _Scout Report_), this new
search engine claims to index over 20 million pages in the .edu
domain. Like Google and its other search engines, SearchEdu caches
the versions of pages that its robots find and offers a simple
keyword search interface and ranked returns that include brief
excerpts from the site and links to the site or the cached version.
At SearchEdu, users can also try their query in other MaxBot search
engines and alternative reference sources such as dictionaries and
encyclopedias. Additional resources include reference links,
resources for calculations and conversions, and a (sadly outdated)
metapage of links to colleges and universities. [MD]

> From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
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7. Women in the History of American Librarianship

http://www.pe.net/~ellerbee/wom_lib.html

Purpose
I created this page as part of a project at the University of
California, Los Angeles in the Department of Library and Information
Science in June, 1996. After almost a year of study, I had read about
Cutter, Otlet, and Dewey, but I couldn't name a single woman who had
contributed to librarianship. This page is the result of my search
for women in the history of librarianship. It is an effort to make
the information easily available to others, be it for research
purposes or for professional inspiration. Currently, I am working
compiling a bio-bibliography on all of the women in the list.
Selection Criteria
After examining the initial research, certain librarians caught my
interest. I chose the women for this page in a purely subjective
manner. All of the women listed at the bottom of the page are worthy
of interest and further study, but it is not practical to mount all
of the biographies on this web page.
Generally speaking, these women worked in the field for a great part
of their career, rather than in the business-end or the academic-end
of librarianship. Because I will be working in the field, I found
these women more inspirational. In addition, I chose women who were
active in the profession: creators of associations, active members of
committees; communicators to others in the field via lecturing or
publishing. Finally, I admired women who moved beyond the field and
its internal interests, women who used libraries and librarianship as
a stepping-stone to participating in, and improving, the world.

Caution: You will not find detailed information on where the
librarians were born or what their mother's religion was. You will
find impressions of personality, character, and professional
accomplishments.  I remind the reader that this information
represents only a beginning, to gather information on these women. It
is far from being comprehensive.

E-mail Lisa Bartle at: ellerbee[at]wcoil.com
View Resume.
Text - Copyright © 1996-99 Lisa Bartle
Last Revised - 12/23/1999 13:39:44.
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8. Racial and Ethnic Diversity Among Librarians: A Status Report


Sandra Balderrama wrote:

If you haven't seen already:
Check out "Racial and Ethnic Diversity Among Librarians:
A Status Report" at

http://www.ala.org/alaorg/ors/racethnc.html

This arcile by Mary Jo Lynch, Director, Officer for Research
and Statistics at ALA...also appeared in the Nov. 1998 issue
of American LIbraries.
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9. Phony/Malicious MLK site


From: Laverne Simoneaux <lsimoneaux[at]selu.edu>

BI-L subscribers:

The following is a post forwarded to me by a composition instructor at my
university.  It offers information about an MLK site which from the outside
looks benign, but as you explore the site further brings up information
sponsored by the hate group, Stormfront.

For our purposes, this site gives us an great example of a site that from
the outside and from the normal criteria for Web evaluation looks to be
pro-MLK; but upon further exploration, we truly find that this site is a
means to promote this hate group's agenda.  You may want to include this in
future lessons on web evaluation.

Rock and Rollingly yours,

Laverne

>From My colleague Dan Butcher (originally from Nick Carbone,
 Writers' Center Director CSU Writers' Center
(http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/WritingCenter))


In Salon.com, Lee Hubbard has a piece about a website,
(http://www.martinlutherking.org), that on the surface looks to be a
pro-King site, but that in reality is an anti-King site put on line by a
hate group. The Salon article is available at
(http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/24/mlk).

For those whose students regularly do research online, the site can be
problematic. It uses, for example, government documents, giving it a ring
of authenticity and fact. The article reports that site is maintained by
Stormfront; "the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks
hate groups, Stormfront is at the epicenter of the white supremacy
movement on the Web."

Hubbard speculates:

"This new practice of mislabeling sites could mean an attempt by hate
groups to sneak past Web filters. Or it could be a way to
stealthily go after young people whose parents and teachers try to
monitor what they read on the Web."

I think this practice has some important implications. Here are few:

1. As WWW pages become easier to create, and as websites on evaluating
sites continue to grow, there will develop, even more than now, a greater
sense of what makes a website credible. A good degree of that will be
based on surface features--see various checklist approaches to evaluating
websites that focus prominently on these. However, as these checklists and
surface features grow, more people will be able to use them to disguise
content that would normally be suspect.

2. Given one, research evaluation will need to be more context-dependent
and content-focused. It always already should be this, but now I think
we'll have to emphasize it more than we might have in the past.

3. One way to help create a greater sense of context and content focus is
to take the "research as conversation with a field of knowledge" metaphor
that we use when we write and make it real for students by having them
engage in conversations as they research so that alternate views and
competing ideas can help them to test what they are reading and writing.
Obviously the WWW can help extend such conversations beyond the classroom.

I know there's no earth-shattering news--nothing new to this group--here,
but thought the article offered a timely reminder as the semester begins.

Laverne Simoneaux
User Education Librarian
Sims Memorial Library
Southeastern Louisiana University
SLU 10896
Hammond, Louisiana  70402
Phone:504-549-3965; Fax: 504-549-3995
lsimoneaux[at]selu.edu
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10. EnVironmental Education oNline - EVEN

EVEN is intended to serve college students and faculty as a resource
of environmental information and as a tool to equip users to
understand scholarly communication and master essential library
research skills. The draft site has just been completed. Your
comments are sought during the review period of spring 2000.

http://eastlib.east.asu.edu/Reference/even/

Bill Johnson, Science Librarian
-----
From ResPool Research Network - http://rtiess.tripod.com/respool.htm
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11. free!way


The Freedom Forum is putting up a new feature on its free! web
site at http://www.freedomforum.org. It is called the free!way
and is designed to serve as a "mall" where our visitors may go
to find out about other web sites that have similar content
dealing with First Amendment issues and developments.

http://www.freedomforum.org/freeway/

______________
Don Wood
American Library Association
Office for Intellectual Freedom
http://www.ala.org/oif.html
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12. Study Circle on Political Librarianship (Mexico)

PLG members at the ALA mid-winter 2000 conference met with
a representative of a group which wishes to establish a PLG-like group
in Mexico. We are happy to present below a translation of their
mission statement. We look forward to joint work and mutal support in
the future!

Mark Rosenzweig
co-editor, Progressive Librarian


Mission

In Mexico, libraries and information centers are generally
institutions which have been created and developed, not on an
original, indigenous model, but in imitation of library practices
from the First World countries.

Regretably, on the other hand, libraries here have often been used
for government/political purposes and to promote official political
campaigns.

These are among the principal reasons why Mexican libraries don't
have an appropriate plan for development.

We are conscious of the fact that libraries and information centers
have been created without a clear commitment to the social classes
they must serve. We also think that libraries here have become one of
the resources globalization has usedto reinforce its power.

Since library education in Mexico is based on a technical and
management perspective, Mexican librarians don't realize the
importance of linking librarianship with work in politics, sociology
and other fields. Librarians participation and resistance against
unilateral decisions is scarcely visible.

Recognizing that democratic libraries and information centers can
contribute to the transformation of social structures, our group is
founded to promote the real particpation of the Mexican library
community in the political and social aspects of libraraianship as
well as contributing to the support of social movements and of
non-govermental groups that fight for a Mexico with justice and
social equity.

Founders: Felipe Meneses Tello (felipe[at]math.unam.mx)
          Julia Gonzalez Valencia (jgonza[at]uiacia.bib.uia.mx)
          Celso Martinez Muncio (celsmtz[at]copitl.uam.mx)
          Martin Vera Cabanas (mvera69[at]yahoo.com) (afm[at]afmac.org.mx)
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13. Email Copyright Tutorial available free to ALA members

in February/March

http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon/alwn9002.html
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14. John Pateman letter calling for a democratization of IFLA


28 January 2000

Dear Editor (of IFLA Journal),

I welcome the debate on IFLA at LA Council and the calls for greater
involvement. I particularly welcome the additional funding "to help
people to get involved with IFLA's work over the next four years".
Yet, on the same page (LAR p76) it is stated that "priority for
financial assistance (to attend IFLA conferences) will be given to
Chair's or Secretaries of IFLA sections, members invited to give
papers and also to members of IFLA Section Standing Committees".

If you are not a member of the exclusive IFLA club how do you get in?
I have applied for assistance to attend IFLA conferences each year
since 1994 and have been rejected every times. This is despite my
public interest in international affairs, motions to LA AGM on South
Africa, Cuba etc.

I will be applying again to go to this year's IFLA conference in
Jerusalem, even though Palestinian Librarians that I have spoken to
are understandably angry about what they see as an insensitive and
naive political decision. It will effectively bar those unable to get
permits as well as Arab representatives from states that do not have
peace with Israel. Arab Library Associations have consequently
decided to hold an alternative conference.

Looking forward to 2002 when the IFLA conference will be held in
Glasgow, Information for Social Change has approached the organisers
to see if a programme for progressive library organisations can be
arranged. Something similar was hosted recently by the Social
Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association.
Anyone who is interested in helping me to organise a radical and
alternative programme for IFLA 2002 should contact me on 0181 545
3770.

Yours sincerely,


John Pateman
Head of Libraries & Heritage
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15. The Library as an Agency of Culture (call for papers)


( Apologies for cross-postings; recipients should feel free to forward
this message to listserves of other interested scholarly communities)


At the beginning of the 21st century there are more public libraries in the
United States than McDonald's restaurants. In 1998 Americans visited
libraries three times as often as they attended movie theatres.  That same
year more children participated in summer reading programs than Little
League baseball.  Although scholarship on libraries has told us much about
the user in the life of the library, it has told us considerably less about
the library in the life of the user.  How much do we really know about the
place of these ubiquitous institutions in American society and culture?
How should we analyze the role of libraries in the modern "information age"?

For the Summer, 2001, issue of AMERICAN STUDIES, we seek papers that
analyze the American library as an agency of culture.  We welcome papers
that bring new methodological, theoretical, geographic, and cultural
perspectives to the American library in its past and present forms, and
that evaluate in new ways the cultural agencies performed by libraries in
American life, including:

- concepts of the library
- libraries as contested sites for the production, storage, and
dissimination of "cultural capital" (private and public libraries, archives,
bookmobiles, the USIA, special collections, etc.)
- the social and psychological history of reading facilitated by libraries
- the material history of libraries (design, architecture, furniture,
impact of new technology, etc.)
- the library's interface with particular communities (prisons, hospitals,
churches, factories, etc.)
- the organization and sociology of knowledge (librarianship and the
professions, catalog and classification systems, etc.)
- the use and appropriation of libraries by particular populations (Asian,
Hispanic, African and Native Americans, children, homeless, immigrants,
workers, women, gays and lesbians, etc.)
- the representation of librarians in literature, film, television, the arts,
etc.


Submissions should:  conform to style conventions found in AMERICAN
STUDIES; not exceed 6,000 words (excluding endnotes); and be accompanied by
a 100-word abstract.  Authors are asked not to put their names on the
manuscript.  All inquires should be addressed to issue editors.

       DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION:  FEBRUARY 1, 2001.

Send ONE copy of the manuscript to EACH  of the issue editors:

Wayne A. Wiegand, Professor             Thomas August, Assistant Professor
School of Library and Info. Studies     Dept. of English, 207 Lind Hall
University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Minnesota
Madison, WI  53706                      Minneapolis, MN  55455
wwiegand[at]facstaff.wisc.edu              augst002[at]tc.umn.edu

       and TWO copies and a COMPUTER DISK COPY to:

               Editors, AMERICAN STUDIES
               2120 Wescoe Hall
               University of Kansas
               Lawrence, Kansas  66045
               amerstud[at]ukans.edu

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16. LIBER: REVISTA DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA


INFORMA A LA COMUNIDAD BIBLIOTECARIA DE LA PUBLICACION DE NUEVO NUMERO.


NUEVA EPOCA, VOLUMEN 1. NUMERO 3, SEPTIEMBRE-DICIEMBRE 1999

CONTENIDO


EDITORIAL

ARTICULOS

IMPACTO DE LOS RESULTADOS DE LA CONGRUENCIA EXTERNA EN EL CURRICULUM DE LA
ESCUELA DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA E INFORMACION DE LA UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE SAN
LUIS POTOSI
ROSA MARIA MARTINEZ RIDER

EL PAPEL DE LA BIBLIOTECA EN LA CONSERVACION DE LA TRADICION ORAL
ARIEL RODRIGUEZ GARCIA

NOTAS

LOS BIBLITOECARIOS EN NEZAHUALCOYOTL: ENCUENTRO
ANA LILIA FIGUEROA SANCHEZ, MARIA CONCEPCION LOERA ROSADO, ARTURO ORTIZ
NEGRETE

"FUENTES DE INFORMACION EN CIENIAS SOCIALES Y HUMANIDADES" PRESENTACION
DEL LIBRO DEL MTRO. ARIO GARZA MERCADO.
ADOLFO MIR ARAUJO, JOSE LUIS MENDEZ


ENTREVISTA

ENTREVISTA A LOS ESTUDIANTES MEXICANOS DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA QUE ASISTIERON
A LA CONFERENCIA ANUAL DE LA TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 1999


SERVICIOS BIBLIOTECARIOS Y DE INFORMACION

BIBLOTECA DEL INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES SOCIALES


RESE#AS

BIBLOTECA DIGITAL Y ORDEN DOCUMENTAL
RAMIRO LAFUENTE LOPEZ

LAS HUMANIDADES EN WEB Y EN CD-ROM
ELSA BARBERENA BLASQUEZ, ARACELI NOGUEZ ORTIZ


NOTICIAS
EVENTOS


Para informes de la revista enviar correO electronico a:
liber[at]servidor.unam.mx

Asimismo los invitamos a que envien sus colaboraciones a nuestro correo
electronico U oficinas.

Atentamente

JUAN JOSE CALVA GONZALEZ
EDITOR GENERAL
LIBER REVISTA DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA

ASOCIACION MEXICANA DE BIBLIOTECARIOS, A.C.
Angel Urraza 817-A
Col. Del Valle
03100 Mexico, D.F.
tel. 575 33 96
tel. fax. 575 11 35

e-mail: liber[at]servidor.unam.mx
http://www.ambac.org.mx/Publicaciones/liber/liber.htm

LIBER REVISTA DE BIBLIOTECOLOGIA es de distribucion gratuita para los
socios de AMBAC (vigentes).
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17. LAURENTIUS 3/99

Contents (English translation in brackets):

RAFAEL CAPURRO:
- Ethische Perspektiven bibliothekarischen Handelns (S. 121) (Ethical
perspectives on the dealings of librarians)

- FAIFE fuer ungehinderten Zugang zur Information und Menschenrechte in
Kuba ... (S. 122) (FAIFE for unlimited access to information and human
rights in Cuba)

- ... und im Iran (S. 124) (and in Iran)

- Verbrechen beim Schreiben (S. 124) (Crimes during writing)

- Meiningen/Karlsruhe: Staatsanwalt gegen Comic-Verleger (S. 126) (State
prosecutor versus comics-opublisher)

RAIMUND DEHMLOW:
- Nazi-Raubkunst in deutschen Bibliotheken - endlich ein Thema!? (S. 128)
(Nazi-spoils in German libraries - at last an issue!)

- Grundsaetze der Washingtoner Konferenz in Bezug auf Kunstwerke, die von
den Nazis beschlagnahmt wurden (S. 128) (Principles of the Washington
Conference concerning works of art seized by the Nazis)

JANUSZ DUNIN-HORKAWICZ:
- Deutsch-polnische Bibliothekskontakte (S. 137) (German-Polish Library
contacts)

IRMELA ROSCHMANN-STELTENKAMP:
Broadening horizons and gaining experiences - Anglo-German co-operation in
librarianship (S. 140)

JÜRGEN FREYTAG:
- Japanisches (bibliothekarisches) Allerlei (Teil 2) (S. 144) (Japanese
potpurri)

- Die Bibliothek verbrannt - Christel Neudeck berichtet aus dem Kosovo (S.
152) (Library burnt down - C.N. reports from Kosovo)

- Deutsche Exilliteratur: in Argentinien gerettet (S. 153) (German
literature in exile: saved in Argentina)

- Woanders gelesen: "Ein Sonnenstrahl" (S. 154) (Read elsewhere: "A ray of
sunshine")

HORST GEBAUER:
- Schatzkammern: Die Reichsstaedtische Bibliothek in Lindau (S. 156)
Treasure chambers: The Lindau Town Library)

ROSWITHA HOGE:
- Nach einem Jahr: die Berufsausbildung zum/zur Fachangestellten für
Medien- und Informationsdienste (S. 157) After one year: professional
training for assistent in the media and information service

CLAUS BERNET:
- Der Mausklick zurück ins “Mittelater"? Literatursuche in der
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (S. 161) (Via mouse-click back to the "Middle
Ages"? Literature search  at the Berlin State Library)

LAURENTIUSTRAENEN (Tears of Saint Laurence)
Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Landbauwissenschaften (ZBL), Bonn, kuenftig
keine Blaue Liste-Einrichtung mehr (S. 166) (Central Library for the
Agrarian Sciences, Bonn, in future no longer a blue list institution) © Von
Guetersloh bis Riesa: "Synergieeffekte" im Kommen (S. 166) (From Guetersloh
to Riesa: Synergy-effect developing) © Gotha: "Experten" fuer Teilung der
Bibliothek (S. 166) (Gotha: "Experts" for division of library) © HEIDI: ein
Opfer von y2k (S. 167) (HEIDI: a victim of y2k) © Ladenpreisbindung laengst
aufgehoben? (S. 167) (Legal price protection stopped a long time ago?) ©
Guinea-Bissau: Keine Hilfe erwünscht? (S. 167) (Guinea-Bissau: no help
wanted?) © Hugh Brock Library in Zambia gegruendet (S. 168) (Hugh Brock
Library founded in Zambia) © SOS in Nanterre (S. 168) © Von wegen "Wir
koennen nicht anders" (S. 169) (Re.:"We can't help it")

PRO CAPTU LECTORIS, HABENT SUA FATA LIBELLI - BUCHBESPRECHUNG (Book Review)
Spaete Nachlese, aber noch nicht zu spaet (NORBERT COBABUS) (S. 169)
(Second Selection, late, but not too late) © Aus einem anderen Blickwinkel
(FRIEDHILDE KRAUSE) (S. 172) ((From a different perspective)

WECHSELFAELLE DES LEBENS (Vicissitudes of life)
RENATE GOLLMITZ:
- Taetige Buecherliebe. Zum 90. Geburtstag von Horst Kunze am 22. September
1999 (S. 177) (Actice love of books. On the 90th birthday of H.K. on 22
September 1999)

For more information see:
http://www.germany.net/teilnehmer/100/115158/laurent.htm

Raimund Dehmlow - Kirchroeder Str. 44F - D-30625 Hannover
Tel./Fax: ++49/5115353374
E-Mail: mailto:dehmlow[at]okay.net
http://www.germany.net/teilnehmer/100/115158/rdehmlow.htm
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18. Etoys Finally Drops Lawsuit, Pays Court Costs


January 26, 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

   Contact: mailto:etoyfund[at]rtmark.com
   More information: http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html,
     http://rtmark.com/etoy/, http://toywar.com, http://rtmark.com/shell,
     http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/buzz.pl?sku=1012690&store=et (Nazi toy)

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it
was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in
response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without
further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had
represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the
company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark
initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further
down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share,
after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new
community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of
1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys'
earnings announcement on Thursday. Yesterday, just in time, eToys
formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase
that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has
also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses
incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark
spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations
typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce
corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the
Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible,
or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes
other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an
Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just
as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists,
so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't
belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See
http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and
http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple
error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement.
"But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got
them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with
prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles,
but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a
total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be
retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion
board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund
pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people
of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a
reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the
Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their
anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and
further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises
(http://www.etoys.com/cgi-bin/buzz.pl?sku=1012690&store=et) could lead
to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example."

Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys
investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could
convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should
have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its
stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous--
as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for
the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue
in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called
the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to
playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to
predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence,"
Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4
billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful
lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would
likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page
containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against
corporate managements (http://rtmark.com/etoysclassaction.html).

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement.
"'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury
it--but this will always be there when you search for information on
eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can
never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by
http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the
platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the
slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will
not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS
entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains,
illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29
injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See
http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal
behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE (see also http://rtmark.com/etoyline.html)

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group
etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for
the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys
obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at
www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To
obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing
customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to
violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor
featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of
means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70%
decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day
as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN
reported (http://cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/9912/17/mlld.00.html), and
prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the
organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist
anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards
and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors
responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see
a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss
to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on
consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys
management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its
lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists
were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected
from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks,
it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal
concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate
ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps
startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further
attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its
quarterly earnings, eToys yesterday--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to
be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com
on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs
and other expenses.


RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the
widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and
elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for
"sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds"
in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people
come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not
normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an
exception.
_____________________________________________________________________________top


19. Burnt out guy at the library

Gray hair, pale, bony face
wears the same gray coat and gray hat every day
"Excuse me Miss, is the library open?"
"Yes, Sir, the door's open.
The library's open. Just walk in."
"Thank you Miss, thank you."
He babbles a word salad
moving his mouth
like he's chewing gum
Blackened teeth
stammer his requests
"Japan 1941 World War II Dimond Branch"
Every day the same old thing
the same old books
He xeroxes war photos from years ago
burnt out guy
frozen in time
What the hell happened to him?
stockpiling history
like obsolete cruise missiles
He places a bony hand on the countertop
fingernails long and yellow
chewing his words like well-worn gum
his jaw is slack
he has a knack
for reeling you in
to his needs.
No, I don't wanna eat hamburgers with you
after the library closes
I can barely unfold
your wrinkled up bills
exchanging them
for the silver coins
you will drop
in the slot
printing and printing
your war photos of long ago.

-Giovanna Capone

Some of Ms. Capone's poetry is anthologized in _Unsettling America:
An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry_
Maria M. Gillan, Jennifer Gillan, & Marua Mazziotti Gillan, editors
Paperback - 406 pages (November 1994),
Penguin USA (Paper); ISBN: 014023778X
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20. FishBase [.zip]

http://www.fishbase.org/

Subtitled "A Global Information System on Fishes," this site does
indeed seem to offer everything you ever wanted to know about fishes.
The heart of the site is two databases, FishBase and LarvalBase, the
first containing information on over 23,000 species (91,000 common
names), 41,000 synonyms, 18,000 pictures, and 17,000 references; the
latter featuring 400 species, 500 pictures, and 700 references. Both
databases can be keyword searched or browsed by common name or
scientific name. Entries include family, order, class, English name,
distribution, biology, environment, climate zone, and additional
information. Entries also offer a number of links for more
species-specific data such as synonyms, countries, key facts,
pictures, FAO areas, spawning, reproduction, predators, diet
composition, and more. The search page for each database features a
searchable glossary and reference database, and information by topic.
In addition, the main FishBase page offers downloads, a Fish Forum, a
biodiversity quiz, and a link to the expanded LarvalBase at the
University of Kiel. [MD]

> From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2000.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
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