Who are the Blog People?

ALA President-elect Michael Gorman’s strange op-ed where he trashes bloggers is raising eyebrows all around the LIS community.

It is obvious that the Blog People read what they want to read rather than what is in front of them and judge me to be wrong on the basis of what they think rather than what I actually wrote. Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs. In that case, their rejection of my view is quite understandable.

Gorman’s thrown down the guantlet against bloggers. One wonders just how much foresight Gorman has to put something as controversial as this down on the record, especially at the beginning of his term.

ibiblio in 40 – 50 words

We’ve been working on describing ibiblio in 50 words or less.
Here’s what we came up with most recently:

ibiblio, which began as sunsite.unc.edu in 1992, is an information commons and contributor-run digital library. Originally a way to share and support all kinds of free software, ibiblio also hosts over 1500 non-software related sharing projects on almost every conceivable subject and handles over 12 million requests/day.

Help us out! Add your suggestions are comments here.

Stealing vs. Infringing

Did you see this post over at BoingBoing yesterday? A very interesting comparison of stealing vs. infringing, exposing just how ridiculous copyright law is. Here’s a little snippet…

Summary

Stealing Infringing
Absolute
Minimum
$0
no jail
$4,400
Absolute
Maximum
$100,000
1 year jail
$3,400,000
1 year jail
lawyer fees and costs
Real World
Example
Winona Ryder*:
$2,700 fine
$6,355 restitution
$1,000 court cost
3 years probation
An Average RIAA settlement**:
$14,875

Blog Together – Feb 12 and more

The Triangle Bloggers Conference has grown to over 120 registered
participants including representatives from local and regional presses.

Three Blogger Events are coming your way in the next week. Triangle Bloggers Conference in Murphey Hall (Saturday 2/12), Dan Gillmor talk in Carroll Hall (Monday 2/14) and in Greensboro Dave Winer at the News and Record (Wednesday 2/9). Details and links below.

Triangle Bloggers Conference
Saturday, February 12
9 a.m. – noon:30 (and beyond) Murphey Hall 116
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Learn more

Dan Gillmor public talk
We the Media: Grassroots Journalism for the People, by the People
Monday February 14, 3:30
Freedom Forum Conference Center
Carroll Hall, UNC
Learn more

Dave Winer, community journalism discussion
Wednesday February 9, 7 p.m.
200 East Market St., Greensboro
Learn more

Inventory of TV Guests During Inauguration Coverage

No room for progressives on cable news inauguration coverage

Media Matters for America inventoried all guests who appeared on FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC during the channels’ January 20 inauguration coverage. Between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Republican and conservative guests and commentators outnumbered Democrats and progressives 17 to 6 on FOX, 10 to 1 on CNN …, and 13 to 2 on MSNBC.