A call for public comments to the US Copyright Office for the Orphan Works problem is here: http://www.orphanworks.org/ , a service of Public Knowledge . If you have ever had to search unsuccessfully for a copyright holder for an item one of your patrons is interested in using, you have experienced an 'orphan work'. A link for public comments at the US Copyright Office is here http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/index.html . Deadline for public comments is March 25, 2005. Let them hear your comments on a solution.

If your library is supporting handheld users, you may want to put this blog on your RSS reader: The Handheld Librarian http://www.handheldlib.blogspot.com . If you want to check out some readers to add your RSS feeds into, check out this page of suggestions for readers hosted by Blogspace: http://blogspace.com/rss/readers .

If you are a MLA member, please take this survey:

Don't miss out on your chance to participate in MLA's Leadership and
Management Section's Career Development Survey at
http://www.lms.mlanet.org/survey.html
We've received over 750 responses so far! But time is running out to
complete the survey, which ends on Monday, February 28th. If you
haven't already taken the 10-15 minute survey, why not pop in right
now?
There is a survey option here for absolutely everyone. If you're
aspiring to middle management, or a current middle manager we want to
hear from you! We also want to hear from upper management and
individuals who are not interested in pursuing management at all.
To complete the survey:
1. Link to: http://www.lms.mlanet.org/survey.html
2. Select the survey option that best reflects your current situation.
Please complete only 1 survey.
Approximate Survey Time: 15 minutes.
To learn more about MLA's Leadership and Management Section, visit our
website: http://www.lms.mlanet.org/
Thank you!
PDCAMM Task Force
MLA Leadership & Management Section

Here is a Christian Science Monitor article on the Wikipedia: http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2005/0211/p25s01-stin.html .

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is already alive and well in libraries, but using it to track humans is a relatively new issue. Here is a story about a school that implemented, then withdrew, a student tracking program based on RFID name tags: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5520 . Weak prediction here, but in the future we as user educators will probably keep attendance based on nametags and a reader over the computer lab door instead of relying on sign-in sheets.

If your library runs Windows XP on your machines, you may want to forward this notice to your system librarian and/or tech support: Ready or Not, Here Comes Windows XP SP2 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/21/1543243&tid=201&tid=128&tid=172&tid=185&tid=218 .

Great book on web design is mentioned in this recent review: http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/16/2058234&threshold=0&tid=95&tid=156&tid=6 . Carrie Bickner is the author, and her blog is here: http://www.roguelibrarian.com/index.html . More about the book, Web Design On a Shoestring, is here: http://www.roguelibrarian.com/shoestring/index.html , and here http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735713286/qid=1109021924/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7769119-5097505?v=glance&s=books , or you can subscribe and read it online at Safari http://safari.informit.com/?XmlId=0-7357-1328-6 . Yes, folks - the great advice in this book comes from a great librarian.

Share this with your patrons!
New Science.gov Service Delivers Science Information to Desktops
Alliance helps public stay "alert" to the latest science discoveries from 12 federal science agencies, introduces Science.gov Alert Service
Media Contact For immediate release
Cathey Daniels February 17, 2005
(865) 576-9539
danielsc@osti.gov
Science.gov, the "go to" Web portal for federal science information, now provides a free and convenient "Alert" service that delivers information about the most current science developments right to desktops each Monday.
Launched at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Feb. 17-21, 2005) in Washington, D.C., the Science.gov Alert Service provides weekly emails to those interested in science.
From the Science.gov homepage (http://www.science.gov), individuals can set up an account and let Science.gov do the searching for them. Each week, up to 25 relevant results from selected information sources will be sent to the subscriber's email account. Results are displayed in the Alert email and in a personalized Alert Archive, which stores six weeks of alerts results. In the Archive, past activity can be reviewed and Alert profiles edited.
Individuals can choose specific sources to monitor, or select the "All Sources" option. Science.gov drills down into hard-to-find research information collections, spanning more than 47 million pages of government R&D results. More than 1,700 government information resources and 30 databases on a wide variety of scientific topics are available - all in one place and searchable with just one search tool.
Since its launch in 2002, Science.gov, the science companion to FirstGov, has been the one-stop gateway to reliable federal science and technology information. Science.gov allows individuals to search for information based on subject, rather than by government agency.
Science.gov is made possible by the Science.gov Alliance, a collaboration of 12 federal agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services and the Interior, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Government Printing Office, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation, with support from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Here is a business seminar source that I recently learned about (and it is connected to the University of Nebraska!): NU Skills http://www.nuskills.unl.edu/ . A class that would be of particular interest to librarians is coming up next week: Presenting with Power (it should be the first class listed on this page https://nuskills.webex.com/nuskills/mywebex/default.php?Rnd8635=0.7188375822167214 ), and it only costs $39 ($45 if you register within 24 hours of the course time and date).

Managing Digital Assets: A primer for library and information technology administrators
This CLIR workshop took place on Feb 4-6, 2005. The speaker notes, presentations, and reading list are now available online at http://www.clir.org/activities/registration/feb05_managing.html .

The Pew Research Center has published an online reference book that can be downloaded by chapter or as a complete volume at: Trends 2005 http://pewresearch.org/trends/ .
Chapters (pdf) include:
The American Public: Opinions and Values in a 51%-48% Nation
Religion & Public Life: A Faith-Based Partisan Divide
Media: More Voices, Less Credibility
Internet: The Mainstreaming of Online Life
Hispanics: A People in Motion
The States: Policy Innovation Amid Fiscal Constraint
Global Opinion: The Spread of Anti-Americanism

Just stop and think a moment on how our work and personal lives have been changed by the Internet! A recent report from the Pew & Internet Life Project details the changes that have happened over the last decade:
A Decade of Adoption: How the Internet Has Woven Itself Into American Life
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/148/report_display.asp

From a great librarian on the Medwebmasters list, Patricia F. Anderson:
----------------
I stumbled on this and love the idea of 'digital environmentalists'.
Another concept word I see linked with this is 'copyfight' or
'copyfighter(s)'.
The bottom line seems to be to apply environmentalism concepts of
preservation and stewardship and a shared environment in the digital
realm. This is seem to especially touch on intellectual property laws
(just as natural environmentalism touches on physical property laws).
I thought several of you on this list might also enjoy
it. FYI!
BookForum (Feb/Mar 2005): Righting Copyright - Fair use and "Digital
Environmentalism" / by Robert S. Boynton:
http://www.bookforum.com/boynton.html
What Boynton says actually has its roots in international library
policies.
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA):
IFLA Position on Copyright in the Digital Environment:
http://www.ifla.org/V/press/copydig.htm
Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR): Authenticity in a
Digital Environment: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub92/pub92.pdf
Society of American Archivists (SAA): Copyright, Archival Institutions and
the Digital Environment:
http://www.archivists.org/statements/stmt-copyright-arch.asp
And other places. :-)
Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER),
Department of Information Science, City University (London): SCHOLARLY
COMMUNICATION IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT: WHAT DO AUTHORS WANT? Findings
of an international survey of author opinion: project report Ian
Rowlands, Dave Nicholas and Paul Huntingdon, 18 March 2004:
http://www.publishers.org.uk/paweb/paweb.nsf/0/b93e724b16fbc7f880256ea9003b77ae/$FILE/ciber-pa-report.pdf
Institute for Information Law (IVIR): The Future of Levies in a Digital
Environment: http://www.ivir.nl/publications/other/DRM&levies-report.pdf
---------------

Spring 2005 – Copyrightlaws.com offering online
courses on "Managing Copyright Issues", "U.S.
Copyright Law", "Digital Licensing, and "Canadian and
International Copyright Law" --
Need to learn more about copyright law and licensing
but never seem to have the time to attend a course or
read an entire book on the topic? Let these practical
online courses guide you through the "copyright maze"
to provide you with a strong understanding of
copyright basics and managing your copyright and
licensing issues.
These are 8 week courses, comprising 16 lessons, which
are e-mailed directly to you. (Digital Licensing is 9
weeks, with 27 e-lessons.) To make sure you’re paying
attention, there is a quiz following each lesson.
Further information and registration is at
http://www.acteva.com/go/copyright ,
http://copyrightlaws.com , or e-mail
seminars@copyrightlaws.com
Sincerely,
Amritha
amritha@copyrightlaws.com

Will copyright kill the blog? Information Week has a story for any fellow bloggers out there:
The Weblog Question (Jan 31, 2005) http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=35OKXRKT1IFACQSNDBESKHA?articleID=59100462

If you serve Public Health professionals or students, here is an article of interest to you:

B. Lynn Whitener, Virginia V. Van Horne, and Anne K. Gauthier
Health Services Research Tools for Public Health Professionals
Am J Public Health 2005 95: 204-207.

Thanks to Kris Alpi (PHHA-LIB mailing list) for the citation!

Library renovation story from North Carolina State University Libraries: http://technicianonline.com/story.php?id=010918

Did you ever watch Desk Set ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050307/ ) and figure that computers will never replace librarians? A news item that broke in yesterday's USA TODAY might be of interest to you: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-02-01-chasing-ai_x.htm . Would we still be needed if our researchers had a desk-top that read the available ejournal literature and helped identify relevant articles? What do we do that could not be easily replicated by machines, anyway?

MSN announced its new Search yesterday, and now the question in Forbes is "which search engine is best?" http://www.forbes.com/technology/2005/02/02/cx_js_0202polldujour.html . I think it may be time for librarians to start writing those letters (to editors, to bosses, open letters to patrons, etc.) in an effort to educate folks on how to evaluate search engines and search results. We already include tips on using search engines in our general library classes at my library. Let me know how you introduce your library or Internet use classes to these concepts, please.