Librarian's Rant

Well, I'm now getting Comment Spam. Dammit. If this doesn't calm down, I may have to disable comments for a while. I'll keep you posted. Too bad, cuz I like to hear from you...

Well, the CD's are on their way to us this week. Yee ha. The following press release was sent to Iowa librarians from our State Library, Mary Wegner. According to her email, it was "developed by the Attorney General's office in conjunction with the State Library" and went out today from the AG's office:

CDs Going to Iowa Libraries

CD distribution wraps up nationwide antitrust case, which also resulted in payment of almost $1.6 million to 113,000 Iowans in February.

Des Moines. Over 56,000 compact discs are now being delivered to 305 public and academic libraries in Iowa as a result of a nationwide antitrust case and settlement.

Iowa and other states had alleged that several large music distributor companies and music retail companies used illegal tactics to maintain artificially high retail prices for music CDs.

"We think the libraries are among the best places to send CDs in order to benefit the most possible Iowans," said Attorney General Tom Miller. "The case also resulted in distribution of almost $1.6 million last February to about 113,000 Iowans who filed a claim," he said.

"Most important, we think the action helped restore fair competition in a huge industry."

Iowa's total share of the national settlement is over 57,000 CDs. About 56,000 will go to 278 public libraries around the state and 27 college and university academic libraries. Libraries 'opted-in' in February if they chose to receive CDs under the settlement. About 1400 CDs also are going to nine facilities operated by the Iowa Braille & Sight Saving School and the Dept. of Human Services. Most of the CDs, about 84%, are going to the community public libraries.

Public libraries will receive a minimum of 100 CDs plus a proportion based on population served. The number will range from about 100-200 CDs each for 240 of the state's smaller public libraries, up to over 2,600 CDs for the Des Moines Public Library system, the largest in the state. The compact discs were slated to arrive in Iowa at the end of last week and into this week. CDs come from over 1950 titles and a very wide variety of artists and genres, including rock, classical, country, roots, jazz, blues, Latin, children's, soundtrack, and holiday.

"The CD distribution is a novel and we hope effective way to give some additional compensation to consumers for the harm caused by the antitrust violations the States alleged," Miller said. "We are very grateful to the State Library for working very hard on this project."

"Iowa libraries are very pleased to receive the CDs, especially during these tight budget times," said State Librarian Mary Wegner. "We know that Iowans will benefit from this program."

Background -- The Antitrust Case:

The lawsuit and settlement, which eventually included most states and territories, alleged that five large music distributors and three large music retailers entered into illegal conspiracies to raise the price of prerecorded music to consumers in the late 1990s. The suit alleged the unlawful scheme was designed primarily to stop some other retail outlets - such as Best Buy and Target - from offering recordings at discounted prices. States were led in the action by NY, FL, CA, and TX.

The music distributor defendants in the lawsuit were Bertelsmann Music Group, Inc.; EMI Music Distribution; Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Corporation; Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.; and Universal Music Group. The national retail chain defendants were Transworld Entertainment Corporation, Tower Records, and Musicland Stores Corporation (Sam
Goody.)

The States' lawsuit was filed in August 2000 and settled in September 2002. The Court approved the settlement in 2003, but unexpected appeals (not initiated by the States or defendants) delayed implementation of the financial payments to consumers and the CD
distribution.

Background -- Payments to Consumers, and CD distribution:

As part of the settlement, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved payments to consumers who filed claims, and distribution of CDs by the states. After appeals were concluded that delayed the case, the claims process for individual
consumers and the CD distribution were handled by a Court-approved Claims Administrator based in Minnesota.

The cash payment process culminated in February, when 113,882 Iowans received a check for $13.86 apiece. The total paid to Iowans was $1,578,404.52. About 3.5 million Americans received the $13.86 refund. Iowans filed over 3% of the claims filed nationwide, compared to the state's 1% share of the US population. Only ten much larger states received more in CD refunds. "Iowans filed for refunds at a faster clip than anywhere else in the nation," Miller said.

The CD distribution process was launched in February when public libraries, academic libraries and DHS facilities and the Braille & Sight Saving School chose whether or not to receive CDs at no cost. The CDs had been selected earlier by a committee of other states working with the music industry defendants. The number of CDs going to recipients was based on a minimum, and on population served. State officials asked the Claims Administrator, Rust Consulting of Faribault, MN, to prepare several distribution plans in order to reduce as much as possible the number of duplicate CD titles going to individual recipients.

More information:

For complete settlement documents and information, see the Settlement Administrator web site.

For this and previous news releases from the Iowa AG's Office (click on news releases and publications.) [URL imbeds mine]

Speaking of tees, I plan to use this one the next time I'm cruisin' the geek fests.

(last seen at the WizardWorld con in Chicago a couple weeks ago)

Thanks to Morgann for leading me to T-Shirt Hell and letting me find my new favorite political tee.

Seems Pete Coors (yes, that Coors) in Colorado said that being compared to John Kerry was worse than being compared to the Ku Klux Klan. Huh?

In response to this sort of thing MoveOn.org has a new web video (Windows Media) highlighting some of the Republican candidate nonsense like this. It's a bit disturbing. I'd really like to see some real (as opposed to lip-service) moderate Republicans (yes, they exist!) stand up to this nonsense. Sen. McCain has done a bit of this, but there needs to be more. The Republican party is being hijacked by a noisy few*. I can't believe their rhetoric is representative.

*(Whereas the Dems were hijacked by silence, but are finally climbing out of that hole).

Last week, The Des Moines Register ran an article--not a letter to the editor, mind--reporting on how a "Republican activist" and former Iowan called Senator Kerry a "traitor" and a "Benedict Arnold" for reporting to Congress after returning from Vietnam. The guy quoted from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (?) claims Kerry fabricated everything he said before Congress, and yet Col. Day does admit that these things did happen. Huh? First, they need to get their story straight. Second, calling someone a traitor is no small thing. Third, this is just bad journalism, all round. Three Bush supporters quoted, but only one Kerry supporter? And little or no context given?

And are none of these veterans noticing that Pres. Bush has cut their benefits and made thousands of vets ineligible? I know that Vietnam is a hot topic still for those who lived through it, but there are so many more important things to be talking about right now. However, very few of them make Bush look good (the economy, health care, even the fight against terrorism). Oh, yeah, and Bush is coming back to Des Moines again tomorrow. He's here all the time now--welcome to a swing state! I can only hope that some of the many veterans who think he's doing a piss-poor job come out and let him know that. Of course, with 'free speech zones', it's unlikely he'll ever know about it. Is this what they fought for?

(Coincidentally, I met Gene Thorson, who served with Kerry in Vietnam and is the only supporter quoted in the article, at a Women for Kerry dinner on Thursday, just before this came out. He's given up a lot of this last year to stump for Kerry with veterans groups, who have been largely supportive.)

Addendum: Looks like there's a petition/letter urging the Bush campaign to admit its ties to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and/or condemn their tactics. Unlikely to happen, but it never hurts to ask, I guess.

Supposedly, this entry won first prize in the Phillips Digital Arts Festival. Wait for the web page to load and then pass your mouse over the image a few times. Finally, leave the mouse over the nose of the image.

Thanks Dan.

Two days back from vacation, and I still can't find it within myself to rant on anything serious (there's just too much!), so I'll leave you this Friday afternoon with more weird fun, courtesy of my friend Peter: Dante's Inferno Test.

My favorites among the True/False questions:

• Hammering away on scandals is a good way to damage those with whom you disagree politically. True/False


• A pimp is a good thing to be. True/False

As for me? Well, I'll be joining many of my buddies in the Third Level. A quick game of Apples to Apples anyone?

The wretched King Minos has decided your fate. His tale wraps around his body 3 times.
The sweet light no longer strikes against your eyes. Your shade has been banished to... the Third Level of Hell!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the third circle, you find yourself amidst eternal rain, maledict, cold, and heavy. The gluttons are punished here, lying in the filthy mixture of shadows and of putrid water. Because you consumed in excess, you meet your fate beneath the cold, dirty rain, amidst the other souls that there lay unhappily in the stinking mud. Cerebus, a canine monster cruel and uncouth with his three heads and red eyes, dwells in this level. He growls and tears at the damned with his teeth and claws.

Have a good weekend! Don't forget to sin!

More fun from The Daily Show (the only real fake news I believe...), here's the Scandal Generator.

Thanks Akeisha for the daily fun.

Back from vacation, but desperately trying to get an article done, so for your eddification and amusement, I give you this.

Thanks to Amy W. on the Chatty list for reminding me of this one.

Loyal readers, The Librarian's Rant is going offline (except for intermittent steam-letting) for the next 12 days or so. I need a vacation. Badly. I'm off in a few hours, first to Chicago for Wizard World with some library friends, then to northern climes for some R&R. Enjoy your August!

Incidentally, this is also my annual attempt to miss the insanity and crowds that are the Iowa State Fair. I'll miss only the corn dogs (mmm...corn dogs!).

Lookee, more robots in the library. (Also see previous post.)

I expect to be replaced within the decade [sarcasm off].

Via LISNews.

Happy Friday the 13th everybody!

Seems a fourth-grader who loves her library is having a garage sale to help out the budget shortfalls at her local library. Awww. And yet also...how sad. Tax cuts for the rich, garage sales for the library. Yeah, that makes sense...

This article is a bit disturbing, but nonetheless intriguing. Seems they're looking at the actual storage required to store 'all the world's knowledge' (whatever that means) and how one would go about searching within that pool:

Next-generation search tools to refine results
August 9, 2004, 4:00 AM PDT
By Michael Kanellos

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The vast corpus of human knowledge could soon be published on the Internet. The problem now is how to wade through it.

Although search engines have greatly enhanced access to information, and storage technology has made it cheap to digitize nearly everything, search tools need to be refined to make it easier to digest information or conduct queries. That was the word from researchers and speakers at the New Paradigms for Using Computers Conference, held at IBM's Almaden research lab here last week.

...About 100 million different books have been published in history, Kahle said, citing estimates from professor Raj Reddy at Carnegie Mellon University. About 28 million sit in the Library of Congress. On average, a book can be condensed to a megabyte in Microsoft Word. Thus, the books in the Library of Congress could fit into a 28-terabyte storage system.

"For the cost of a house, you could have the Library of Congress," Reddy said, adding that mass book-scanning projects are currently under way in India and China.

This of course begs several questions: Do we really want the LOC? On a practical note, are they all using the same scanning parameters and technology. When you 'scan', unless you're using sophisticated OCR, are you making image files, which can be huge, or "Word documents" (which is a terror all unto itself, btw)? Even if you're using good OCR and you're making text files (Word or otherwise), are you retaining the original font and typeface, which in the history of printing have been part and parcel of the book reading experience? I know that many digital projects around the world are working on these questions.

As the article points out, searching for all this wonderful knowledge is a bit tricky. No kidding--we (librarians) have been saying that for some decades now! And they seem to gloss over the copyright and legal issues. Nonetheless, it's an intruguing (though hardly new) idea. Will it happen in my lifetime? Hard to say. I'm already astounded at what is available through, for instance, OAIster at my alma mater, UMich. So there is hope.