[SLA-SF] Intersect Alert, October 15, 2006

Sun Oct 15 20:26:55 PDT 2006

Freedom of Information

New Department of Justice Freedom of Information Act Guide

"As announced earlier through FOIA Post, the Office of Information and Privacy is planning to publish the 2006 edition of the Department of Justice's Freedom of Information Act Guide next month. The 2006 edition of the FOIA Guide is scheduled to be published through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) in November, with a delivery date most likely in December."

http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2006foiapost13.htm

The 2004 edition is currently available at http://www.usdoj.gov/04foia/foi-act.htm.

"The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act: Background, Overview, and Implementation Issues" (pdf), October 6, 2006

"This report summarizes the legislative history and key provisions of P.L. 109-282 (S. 2590), compares it to H.R. 5060, and discusses challenges that are associated with implementing the new law's proposed database and that may prove to be areas for future congressional oversight. This report will be updated as events warrant."

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL33680.pdf

Orwellian

Embattled librarian resigns

"Embattled borough librarian Michele Reutty, under fire for refusing to give borough police circulation records without a subpoena this spring, has resigned. She has accepted a job as director of the Oakland Public Library."

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDAxMzgz

Patriot Act Challenge Allowed to Proceed

"Almost three years after initial arguments were presented, a federal judge in Detroit has refused the government's request to dismiss a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act. The lawsuit, filed July 30, 2003, was the first legal challenge to the controversial antiterrorism act passed by Congress after the September 11 attacks."

http://www.ala.org/al_onlineTemplate.cfm?Section=october2006a&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=139746

Intellectual Freedom

Bio-funders back the Open Access publishing

"Biomedical funders strongly support open access (OA) publishing, according to a survey by an OA publisher. A poll by open access publisher BioMed Central found that 31 of the 33 funding agencies that responded to a survey of 75 international biomedical funding bodies confirmed they were willing to fund the processing charges for OA publishing."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2166177/bio-funders-back-oa-route

Intellectual Property Issues

Publishers wary on Google archives

"Content providers have given a guarded response to Google's latest toe in their waters - a news archive search."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2165963/publishers-wary-google-archives

BL demands overhaul of intellectual property law

"Microsoft and Google have joined forces with the British Library in calling on the government to radically overhaul the intellectual property (IP) law."

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2165934/bl-demands-overhaul

Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan

"Publishers are starting to report an uptick in sales from Google Inc.'s online program that lets readers peek inside books, two years after the launch of its controversial plan to digitally scan everything in print. Google has been enlisting publishers to voluntarily submit their books so that Web searchers can more easily find titles related to their interests, but some fear the project could lead to piracy or exploitation of their copyrighted content. "Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers," said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press."

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-10-06T125540Z_01_L06708070_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-GOOGLE-BOOKS.xml

Google to Subpoena Yahoo, Microsoft on Book Scanning

"Google Inc. will subpoena information from Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. to help fight copyright lawsuits over its book-scanning project. Google, the world's most-used search engine, is seeking information on rival projects by the companies, including book lists, costs, estimated sales, dealings with publishers and possible benefit or harm to copyright owners, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in New York."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=amfuMLMq__H8

University joins Google library project

"The University of Wisconsin has agreed to take part in Google's bid to scan book collections of the world's great libraries, joining a second wave of backers for the controversial project, the two organizations said late on Wednesday. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Google plan to provide access to hundreds of thousands of public and historical materials from the UW-Madison libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library, they said."

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6125226.html

Public Policy

EPA Scientists Losing Access to Journals - Cuts in Subscription Budgets Take Scientific Journals and Eco-News Offline

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is sharply reducing the number of technical journals and environmental publications to which its employees will have online access, according to agency e-mails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This loss of online access compounds the effect of agency library closures, meaning that affected employees may not have access to either a hard copy or an electronic version of publications."

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=763

Note an all EPA employee memo dated 9/10/2006 from CIO Linda A. Travers states: 

"EPA is in the process of implementing a new library plan to make environmental information more accessible to employees, researchers and the general public. As part of our efforts, the Agency is posting physical library collections on-line and enhancing electronic library services. At present, more than 15,000 journals and publications are available on-line and Agency documents can be obtained via interlibrary loans."

http://www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_9_10_electronic_access.pdf

Status report on EPA library closings and ALA efforts to reverse decision

"This status report on the EPA library closings and ALA's work to reverse the decision was prepared by Lynne Bradley, Director of our Office of Government Relations."

http://lp-web.ala.org:8000/guest/archives/ALACOUN/log0610/msg00042.html

"Knowledge Will Forever Govern: A Vision Statement for Federal Depository Libraries in the 21st Century" is now available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/council/dlcvision092906.pdf.

"The Depository Library Council has finalized it vision document, - "Knowledge Will Forever Govern: A Vision Statement for Federal Depository Libraries in the 21st Century".  The document represents the collaborative efforts and talents of four Council classes (2006 through 2009) and the many volunteers that helped with the draft statement issued in April 2006."

http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0610b&L=govdoc-l&T=0&P=3636

Congress Imposes Limits on Sensitive Security Information

"Congress adopted legislation that limits the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to withhold so-called "sensitive security information" (SSI), which is a category of restricted information related to transportation security. The 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations Act would, among other things, require "the release of certain SSI information that is three years old unless the Secretary makes a written determination that identifies a rational reason why the information must remain SSI." The measure was signed into law by the President on October 4."

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/10/congress_imposes_limits_on_sen.html

International Outlook

China Unblocks Wikipedia

"The online interactive reference site Wikipedia announced Tuesday that the site had apparently been made accessible in China, after being blocked for just over a year by the country's government. Wikipedia reported on its site that it had received word from multiple users in the country on Chinese-forums.com that the site had been restored, as first pointed out by the Flumesday blog on Tuesday. The most recent blocking was the third such outage reported by Wikipedia."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/online/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003251388

Singapore to offer free wireless service from 2007

"Tech-savvy Singapore will offer free wireless broadband service in public areas from next year, the government said. The program will increase the number of wireless hotspots from 900 currently to 5,000 over two years, allowing Singaporeans wireless connectivity beyond homes, offices and schools where the service is currently available, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said in a statement late Tuesday."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11102006/323/singapore-offer-free-wireless-service-2007.html

Canadian High court upholds key copyright decision

"Data bases compiled by newspapers and other publishers cannot simply reproduce freelance work without the specific agreement of writers, photographers and illustrators, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled this morning. The ruling was a partial victory for writer Heather Robertson, who launched a class action suit in 1996 against The Globe and Mail and its then-owner - Thomson Corporation - for copyright infringement."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061012.wsupcourt1012/BNStory/National/home

Internet Access

Warning over 'broken up' internet 

"The internet could one day be broken up into separate networks around the world, a leading light in the development of the net has warned. Nitin Desai, chair of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), set up by the UN, warned that concerns over the net's future could lead to separation."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6037345.stm

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.exo.net/pipermail/sla-sf/attachments/20061015/33f5ad02/attachment-0001.html