j's scratchpad

The magazine Women’s Day and the American Library Association (ALA) are soliciting brief stories about how libraries have changed lives.

It’s probably no coincidence that this blog seems to get hit with comment spam near and during holidays. I stayed offline Monday as a treat to myself for President’s Day. Tuning in Tuesday morning, I find 30-something comment spams. Not a lot by any means, but enough to be annoying. I don’t want to have [...]

On their blog, Google explains why the didn’t like the Department of Justice subpoena. noticed on LISNews

U.S. President George W. Bush’s proposed budget supposedly includes $2 million in decreases to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–cuts that could lead to the ending of some library services. An EPA press release doesn’t mention the potential impact on its libraries. The press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) outlines the benefits of [...]

I’m giving up–at least momentarily–on my two main aggregators. One is a desktop client on my, well, desktop, which happens to be on a laptop that’s out of commission. The Manila aggregator attached to this blog hasn’t been working well for me for a while. It hasn’t updated in a few days. After another blogger [...]

One of the benefits to me not having a laptop right now and having a project on hold because of a vacationing coworker is that I can catch up on some of the things in my office that don’t require typing, like reading some of the magazines piled on my desk. The June 2004 (Yes, [...]

During Thursday’s blog meeting, one of our members gave us a tour of some cool Internet sites he’s found. Instead of rehashing them here, I’m just going to be lazy and tell you to follow the links from the Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog. The one particularly worth noting is Retrievr because its a(n) unique [...]

Issues surrounding the "great firewall of China" have been swirling in the news this week. The ResourceShelf has some great links. Addendum 2/20: Amanda Michel shares details aboutBerkman Center affiliates’ roles in advising the U.S. government about Internet filtering in China.

It seems a little odd to me to simply file my notes of Cory Doctorow’s talks in the Copyright Law department, but that’s really the best fit for his words, which spanned digital rights management (DRM), new technologies, and the music industry. One of the reasons I appreciate going to two of his talks is [...]

Upon learning about my computer’s latest problems, a friend suggested putting a donation button on my blog for a new machine. The idea cracked me up. In all honesty, I have two basic problems with it: I don’t think it’s right to ask you, my dearest readers, for money, especially to support my computer habit. [...]