OCLC joins LOCKSS Alliance

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 22 June 2006: OCLC has joined more than 90 libraries from around the world that participate in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Alliance, a library membership consortium and active user community that provides open-source archiving software as a means to build digital collections.

LOCKSS is a low-maintenance mechanism for collecting, storing and providing long-term access to a library's own local copy of authorized content.
http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200629.htm

For more about LOCKSS: http://www.lockss.org/lockss/Home

Publication opportunity for library school students

If you have any library school students working at your library, please pass this information along:

LIBRARY STUDENT JOURNAL, ISSN 1931-6100, CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
http://www.librarystudentjournal.com

Library Student Journal is an international open access journal edited
by students at the University at Buffalo, online at
http://www.librarystudentjournal.com. We are dedicated to publishing
the best scholarly papers from Library and Information Science students
worldwide and to fostering community dialogue between students,
practitioners and faculty. Papers submitted to LSJ will focus on any
area of the LIS field, will discuss topics of current concern to LIS
students or will examine the effective education of future LIS
professionals. LSJ is now accepting manuscripts submitted to the
following sections of the journal:

Articles: peer-reviewed scholarly papers based on original research or
literature surveys that advance the subject with original ideas

Essays: non-reviewed papers of an informational or personal nature

Reviews: unsolicited reviews of books currently being used in an LIS
course or Websites of interest to LIS students; or solicited reviews of
newly published and forthcoming LIS books

Editorials: longer opinion pieces on a topic of current concern to the field

Letters: short opinion pieces and responses to previously published items

Please refer to the submission guidelines at
http://informatics.buffalo.edu/org/lsj/submissions.html before
submitting; improperly submitted manuscripts may be returned without
consideration.

Some of the most exciting ideas in the field are coming from the student
ranks and I hope we can increase the impact of student research. If you
have nothing to submit, please visit us to read your colleagues' papers,
take part in the LSJ Community Forum or read the editors' blog. And
please feel free to email us with any questions to the address below.

This information received from:

Eli Guinnee
editor, Library Student Journal
lis-lsj@buffalo.edu
http://www.librarystudentjournal.com

Google Introduces a Government Search Site

Google Introduces a Government Search Site

On June 15th Google announced Google U.S. Government Search ( at http://usgov.google.com). This site is designed to offer a single location for searching across U.S. government information, and for keeping up-to-date on government news. It includes U.S. federal, state, and local sites with domains such as .gov and .mil as well as select government sites with .com, .us, and .edu domains (e.g., .usps.com, .ca.us, and ndu.edu). It also includes news from other sites like WashingtonPost.com.

(Another interesting fact: as of this January, the government’s own search site, FirstGov.gov, is now powered by MSN Search and Vivísimo.)

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9001212

Beehive and new Public Internet Channel

This site might be useful for anyone serving low-income students and/or ESL students. The Beehive at http://www.thebeehive.org/
is a online resource created by a nonprofit organization to help low-income people find basic information about education, child care, jobs, immigration issues, etc. It is is written at a 5th grade reading level, and that could be especially useful to persons new to this country who are just learning to speak basic English. It also can be translated directly to Spanish, and the interface can be customized to a particular state, if desired.

The same non-profit has also announced recently that is plans to to raise $20 million to start a new project called the Public Internet Channel.

http://philanthropy.com/news/article/797/charity-creates-public-interest-site

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060702283.html

Internet Companies Asked to Retain Records

from: "U.S. Wants Internet Companies to Keep Web-Surfing Records"
by SAUL HANSELL and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 2, 2006
NY TIMES


"The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so."

...

"The department proposed that the records be retained for as long as two years. Most Internet companies discard such records after a few weeks or months.In its current proposal, the department appears to be trying to determine whether Internet companies will voluntarily agree to keep certain information or if it will need to seek legislation to require them to do so.

...

"At the meeting with privacy experts yesterday, Justice Department officials focused on wanting to retain the records for use in child pornography and terrorism investigations. But they also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session."