Budget Chief Questions Toronto Public Library Collections: Are we an international library?

In Toronto Star and http://libraryworkersunion.blogspot.com/

"The second mention was for something more substantial: councillor Paul Ainslie (Ward 43, Scarborough East) demanded an apology from budget chief Mike Del Grande (Ward 39, Scarborough-Agincourt) for his remarks in the Star this morning about the Toronto Public Library:

“Should the city library become a Blockbuster?” Del Grande said. “Is that what we should be doing? Is that our core program or is that program creep?”
In calling for a debate on library programming, the budget chair said he questions the library’s decision to stock non-English items.
“Are we an international library? What proportion of our budget should go for non-English movies and books, etc.? The argument would be made this is what makes the city great, but I would dare say our common language is English.”

Del Grande also suggested (in the Toronto Sun) that "every single library" has 100 copies of Pirates of the Caribbean 4. (Based on the TPL's web directory, I assume Del Grande means that the entire library system has 112 copies, almost all of which are currently out on loan.)

On the same shelf:

• Multicultural Acquisitions (The Acquisitions Librarian, Nos 9/10)
  Linda S Katz

• Diversity Resources - Accommodation, Tolerance and Coexistence

   

Blogger Blogs Redirecting To "blogrolling.com"

Thanks to a blogger help:

Why library websites don’t win awards

NB. Posted with permission from the author: Laura Solomon






On the same shelf:

Copying an Entire Article Without Permission - OK in Some Cases?

The blog post is continuously updated, last updated Mar 19th, 2012

Court Declares Newspaper Excerpt on Online Forum is Fair Use, Righthaven in Ruins

WebProNews, Chris Crum | March 22, 2011
Extract:

Judge Finds Full Article Copy to Be Fair Use

Last month, we asked whether full article-copying could be ruled as fair use. We now know the answer. Yes, it can.

Do you think duplicating an article in its entirety without permission is OK in some cases?...

Righthaven, a company whose business model relies on copyright lawsuits for newspapers, has essentially lost its second fair use case. The first one was over a partial article sampling, but this most recent one involved the copying of a full 33-paragraph article from the the Las Vegas Review Journal (with credit) by the Center for Intercultural Organizing, a ten-person Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit organization set up to preserve immigrant and refugee rights. The case has not been dismissed yet, but he judge presiding over it says he plans to. continue reading

New Hazards For Book Reviewers, by Steve Denning

From a Book Review to a Criminal Trial in France
By ADAM LIPTAK, The New York Times,
"In a little more than a week, a court in Paris will decide whether a law professor in New York committed criminal libel by publishing a book review."

Steve Denning, RETHINK - Forbes, Feb. 21 2011
EXTRACT:
In a bizarre story in The New York Times...

... Moreoever “France is an odd place to adjudicate a claim concerning a review written in English by a German professor of a book written in English by an author living in Israel. The book was, moreover, published by a Dutch firm. The review was published on a Web site in New York. True, Ms. Calvo-Goller is a French citizen. But still.”

What’s next? Students suing their teachers for poor grades? Commenters in Amazon being sued for their less-than-five-star reviews?
Continue reading

Fee for service or pay as you go to read NYT Newspaper

--this post will be updated as new reviews / criticism appears on fee-based access

A look at the trends in the market shows many options to charge fee for users. A sample of this in today's news is the following:

N.Y. Times tests website fees on Canadians, CBC News Posted: Mar 17, 2011 6:12 PM ET

New York Times to Put Up Paywall March 28

Game On: New York Times Unveils Digital Subscriptions