LibraryTrax

From all of us in Library Development Services at the South Carolina State Library, we thank you for making 2007 one of the best ever! Season’s Greetings to you all.

Still looking for that perfect gift for hard-to-buy-for librarian in your life?  Want something neat to hang on your office wall?  How about the Mildly Attractive Men of SLIS at the University of South Carolina 2008 Calendar?

The calendar features a “different guybrarian each month.  One for every taste!”  All the photos are of male graduate students in the School of Library and Information Science at USC.  Proceeds of the calendar will be used to send students to the World Library and Information Congress in Quebec, August 2008. 

Calendars are $12.00 + $1.00 shipping, and can be purchased on the LISSA website or on Ebay.  I ordered mine today!

From American Libraries Direct…..

Impact of Revised Child Porn Legislation on Libraries Uncertain

The House approved a bill December 4 that expands an existing law penalizing internet service providers that knowingly fail to report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children images passing along an ISP’s network of child pornography or child sexual exploitation. The Securing Adolescents from Exploitation-Online (SAFE) Act of 2007 (H.R. 3791), sponsored by Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Tex.), passed by a vote of 409–2 and increases the maximum fines from $100,000 to $300,000.

Privacy advocate Declan McCullagh said in a December 5 CNet news report that a broad interpretation of the legislation could affect libraries that provide wireless access, as well as social networking sites and e-mail service providers. Trevor Kincaid, a spokesperson for Rep. Lampson, responded in a subsequent posting that the intent of the act was to “stop the trafficking of child pornography on the internet without dissolving civil rights.”

The legislation as proposed does not require service providers to “monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider,” a clause that is carried over from the existing act (U.S. Code Title 42, Section 13032).

ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Deputy Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone told American Libraries, “Library advocates need to monitor this legislation to see that nothing critical gets added or amended. While on the surface these changes do not seem threatening, a $300,000 fine, triggered by a third party, can lead to extremely serious consequences.”

Posted December 14, 2007.

John Rice, educator, author, and speaker specializing in educational technology and instructional gaming has put out his Top 10 List of free educational games on his blog, Educational Games Research.

He writes:  “The main reason for inclusion in the top 10 was the impact a game had on the educational gaming field. “

He’s included the learning objectives, the host URL’s, and notes on each game.  To be included, the game had to be free and preferably available on the web.

Check out the list. 

Kathy Sheppard showed me this new service called Paperspine. By joining Paperspine you can borrow books for a monthly fee. There are no overdue fines, you keep the books as long as you need to. Monthly subscription rates run from $9.95 and up and they have 150,000 titles. The library community should watch and see if Paperspine catches on with the general public.

The local ABC affiliate in Phoenix has an online video story about Paperspine here. Seattle blogger John Cook has a posting about Paperspine here.