Virginia releases technology report

Reported by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency:

November 18, 2005 — The Secretary of Technology released 'Building a Digital Foundation: Reporting Back to the Commonwealth of Virginia' Monday. The report highlights accomplishments since 2002 to improve technology in the Commonwealth, increase technology-based economic development, and revolutionize service delivery to citizens.
Read the report. (PDF, 6.7mb)

Conference in Tunisia regarding administration of Internet

The United Nations World Summit on the Information Society was held November 16-18 in Tunisia. The objective was to discuss how to bring the Internet to developing nations, but that was overshadowed by a controversy over Internet governance.

Before the conference began, Information Week characterized this issue like this:

In the struggle over who owns the Internet, the United States currently holds all the supervision cards through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Washington doesn’t plan on relinquishing its authority, despite objections from the United Nations, the European Union and such countries as Brazil, China, Cuba and Iran, who have all said recently that they would like a bigger say.

Many editorial pages, like the New York Times, called for the US to retain control, explaining the importance of a single Internet, not "a balkanized Internet, where countries or regions set up their own Webs, leading to duplicate sites, confusion and a breakdown in the effectiveness of the global network." (Other Times story.)

Members of an academic group called the Internet Governance Project suggested a denationalization of ICANN, arguing that US oversight contributes nothing to the security and stability of the Domain Name System. Rather, it is the distributed nature of DNS that produces the real security. The policy paper, "Political Oversight of ICANN," can be downloaded from the group's website.

A last minute compromise allows ICANN to continue its work. But the Summit did acknowledge the need for more cooperation, and created the Internet Governance Forum to provide a platform for discussion. The issue is not settled, however; only delayed.

[Press release and more information]

Illinois Communities Allowed to Secede from Library Districts

Concerned that the measure would expand taxing authority in local districts, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed legislation in August which would allow communities to secede from library districts. But the Illinois Senate and House both voted to override the veto during their Fall Veto Sessions last week, and SB 847 now becomes law.

Google Makes Its First Public Domain Books Available Online

Last December, search giant Google reached an agreement with five libraries -- University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, The New York Public Library, and Oxford University -- to digitize their collections and make them available on the web. It seemed a natural fit, as Google's mission statement reads like a library mission statement: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." The Google Print project has been attacked by publishers and authors, who argue that the digitizing of these materials without express permission is a violation of copyright. Google maintains that the project is consistent with fair use and the other principles underlying copyright law. Publishers maintain that the law is clear: the burden is on Google to seek permission, not on publishers to deny permission.

Editorials in the library sphere have been ambivalent. While recognizing the tremendous advantages gained by full text searching and relevance ranking of text previously locked away within print, scholars and librarians are concerned about the "atomization" of text -- of information without context. Many are critical of the secrecy surrounding Google's agreements with the libraries, and they are suspicious of Google's profit motives.

The project marches on. Google is expected to resume scanning this month (they voluntarily put a moratorium on scanning for three months while negotiating with publishers), and it was announced that the full text of some public domain books is now online through Google Print. Microsoft has taken notice, and next year will launch the MSN Book Search service.

Bibliography

Kentucky "No Child Left Offline" Program

With the goal of closing the digital divide in his state, Kentucky Governer Ernie Fletcher announced the "No Child Left Offline" program. The state currently ranks 45th in residential computer use, and this project will help address that by providing 500 refurbished state surplus computers to 8th graders.

[From GovTech.]

Libraries Introducing Public to New Technology

A market research firm released a study on best practices in IT decision-making at major U.S. public libraries, including the Columbus Metropolitan Library. The key findings are outlined in this report from GovTech.net. They include:

• Libraries believe they can negotiate for subscription vendors individually as well as (or better than) a consortium. Public libraries lag academic libraries in consortium participation. The study recommends that more research is required to determine whether these perceptions are true.
  
• Public libraries are more advanced than small and medium-sized academic libraries in digitization projects.
• Electronic books are starting to make an impact on public library services.

With the public's appetite for Internet and database access appearing to be insatiable, libraries increasingly view themselves as places to introduce new technology. This is driven by an unusual combination of factors: free public Internet access combined with knowledgable tutors.