Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Read some feeds!

Well, it's official. Stephen Abrams says it so it must be true: You need a Bloglines account.

Make your life easier if you're not using an aggregator. Sign up for Bloglines. It is free.

He goes on to say that there are other aggregators out there and in the comments there are some folks' suggestions: Sage for Firefox, Google Reader, and Netvibes.

But the main point here is that if you are not reading any blogs you will be left behind. As Stephen says that it is "part of my job to know what is going on." Guess what? It's pretty darn important to your job, too.

Furthermore, if you are going to keep up with the blogs that are important to you, you will want to use an RSS aggregator such as Bloglines to track them. I agree with Stephen: bookmarks are "sooo last century."

If you want to know what Bloglines is like, please visit this example Bloglines account that I have set up for teaching purposes. Also, there are some tutorial videos by Daniel Lee to help get you started.

Now, go get to reading!

// posted by The Gorn @ 3:15 PM 0 comments

Monday, December 04, 2006

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Michigan PL Suspends Internet Access After Porn Complaints
LibraryJournal.com
— November 30, 2006

On November 27, after Internet users were known to be persistently looking at pornography on three computer terminal reserved for adults, managers of the Mt. Clemens Public Library in suburban Detroit decided to suspend Internet access until a new policy is devised. "It's been a really difficult situation for us to manage," library director Donald Worrell said. The three terminals are situated in the middle of the library's main space, about 15 feet from the reference desk, and reconfiguring the library would be difficult because it was recently renovated. Around the beginning of November, Worrell said, "People who had never used the library for any other reasons were coming in strictly to access pornography, and in increasing numbers." Staff and patrons complained. "We have families and young children who come in the library. So we don't have a good solution about how to prevent families and young children from seeing these things," he told LJ.

Patrons who wish to log on must sign in with their first name; then they have a half-hour on the computer. While the library filters Internet access, patrons can ask for the filter to be turned off when they log on, as per a common interpretation of the Children's Internet Protection Act. "We don't mediate the computers. We have a small stuff," Worrell said. "I felt it reached the level that the only alternative was to shut down all the computers while we work with all our attorneys and the library board to revise and update our policies and procedures, within the law." The board will meet December 18. He said the library had not used privacy screens, but they are among the options under consideration. Patrons, he said, have displayed initial frustration with the policy change; "then they're understanding, though they want the computers back up." Two terminals remain in the children's section. The library serves a population of about 21,000.


Picturey goodness courtesy of Michael Stevens.

// posted by The Gorn @ 3:34 PM 0 comments

Basic Instinct to limit access to material

Here is a little disconcerting news from our friends up in Rogers, straight from the NWA Times:

Controversial film to remain on library shelf By Melissa Blakely
The Morning News

ROGERS -- The controversial 1992 film 'Basic Instinct' will remain a part of the collection of between 8,000 and 10,000 videos cataloged in the Rogers Public Library.

But the movie will now have a warning label to inform library patrons of its adult content.

The Rogers Library Board approved three motions Tuesday to keep the film 'Basic Instinct' on the library shelves, label the video case with an adult-content sticker and update the permission waivers that parental guardians must sign for new patrons under the age of 18.

Library patron Nieves Egelkraut asked the Library Board of Trustees in October to remove the film after she randomly checked it out and found it to be sexually graphic and violent.

"I really don't have an opinion on this," said Robert Finch, reference librarian for the Rogers Public Library. "My job is to find the films that have significant cultural impact."

Brice Wagner, a member of the board, suggested a new waiver that would require parental guardians of new patrons younger than age 18 either to allow or deny their child to see films with violence, nudity, sexual and derogatory language. The waiver would not require going backward and grandfathering in current patrons.

Currently, if a parent checks the box to allow a child to check out any material from the library, that means a child is not prevented from checking out any video or book in the library collection based upon a content criteria, said Judy Casey, library director.

Casey said, if a parent gives permission on a child's library card to check out any material, it's not up to the library to interfere with the parent's decision.

One suggestion was to give the film a rating of R because the film is the unrated director's cut, but the library cannot change its rating to an R since the Motion Picture Association of America gave it the NR rating, said Finch.

"I've never been sued by the MPAA, but a friend of mine was sued by the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and it was not a pretty experience," Finch said.

"I'm sure there are other movies out there that are equally graphic. She (Egelkraut) just hasn't picked them up yet," said Marsy Humphrey, Friends of the Library liaison.

The library is now doing more to let patrons know about the adult content films in the collection, said Casey.

Fast Facts

Basic Instinct

* An erotic thriller from 1992.

* Plot Outline: A police detective played by Michael Douglas is in charge of an investigation of a brutal murder in which a beautiful and seductive woman played by Sharon Stone could be involved.

* Grossed:

$118 million in the United States

$353 million Worldwide

* Rentals:

$53,000,000 in United States

* Future Airings: Basic Instinct the edited version will be shown Nov. 27 at 10:15 p.m. and Nov. 28 at 1 p.m. on American Movie Classic cable network.

Source: The Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2006/11/22/news/112206rzlibrarymovie.txt


// posted by The Gorn @ 3:25 PM 1 comments

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