· I saw this article on USA Today when I was looking though the technology section of their website. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-04-13-google-doubleclick_N.htm?csp=34 is the exact website, but you can find it by also searching the website for Google. The article discussed the notorious and quickly growing Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. DoubleClick helps large companies manage their advertising in a proficient way. Through this article I saw the other recent purchase of Google, which was YouTube. My opinion of Google expanding this fast is pure amazement. With income expanding, Google has turned to purchasing smaller companies in hopes of getting in on their growth and increasing popularity. Even though YouTube is better known by the youth around the world, DoubleClick is a better industry known business. With millions and millions of dollars being dumped into advertising by large companies, they are willing to drop a slightly smaller chunk of change on making sure their money is well used. I support Google’s expansion and think that it is brilliant for a company to use their income in a way that supports their expansion in the online industry.
· This article came up at the beginning of March pertaining to Sports Illustrated’s decision to withhold their swimsuit edition from all public, academic, and school libraries. I heard about this on SportsCenter first, and then followed up online at aol.com. You can find this small article at:
http://nfl.aolsportsblog.com/2007/03/08/sports-illustrated-withholds-swimsuit-issue-from-libraries/.
This article is short but discusses Sports Illustrated’s decision and the reason they made it. They said that “Over the course of time, we've received feedback from some of those institutions saying it wouldn't be an acceptable thing for them to have or to share with their constituents, and the decision was made that this was one way to hopefully alleviate that issue.". The president of the ALA responded by saying, “The policy decision by the publishers of Sports Illustrated to selectively deny this year’s 'swimsuit issue' to some of its paid subscribers is outrageous-patronizing and paternalistic in the extreme.” This is a very powerful response, but I believe that it is very true. Paying customers were not allowed the decision to accept or refuse the swimsuit edition, so therefore they are not receiving the same benefits as other subscribers to the magazine. I think it is outrageous that Sports Illustrated made this business decision within their own company, without discussing it with each paying subscriber. I know if I was a subscriber and they didn’t send me the issue for fear that I might complain, I would be very upset that they didn’t talk to me first. Now maybe that’s just my opinion, but I believe there should be some kind of response by the libraries.
· USA Today’s homepage provided me with this story on how libraries are starting to broaden their range of books for various cultures. This particular story concentrates specifically on the states of Minnesota and Ohio. Minnesota has seen an increase in their population of Hispanic, Somalis, and Hmong. This increase in immigration has left Minnesota with little or no ways of teaching these immigrants English. The article states that most have began to turn to the public libraries in hopes of improving their English and increasing their knowledge of their native lands. A library in Minnesota named the “Dodge Center”, just received “$15,000 federal grant for a bear-themed story times toolkit for Hispanic children.” I have mixed feelings about this, but overall I feel as if this is a good thing. These immigrants are coming to help the agricultural and meat-packing industries because there aren’t a large number of Americans willing to do these jobs. In return, I think it is a great idea to get the resources they need into local public libraries so they can better themselves not only in the English language, but in their overall knowledge. It is great to actually see immigrants who want to learn more and who are applying theirselves the best they can.
· I found this article through Blogger and saw that it dealt with some information technology. The easiest way to access this site would be to visit the Tech site within Yahoo. It’s the third article down. If it’s already moved the actual website is http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/11488. I found this very interesting because it told of easy ways for graduates to make their first website. The best thing about these ways is that they were very inexpensive. It mentions programs such as WebDwarf compared to the more expensive Dreamweaver program. They both do basically the same thing, but WebDwarf does so without taking a chunk out of your wallet. They go on to mention Blogger as a great and easy way to start a new website. I thought it was really cool considering we’ve been doing the same thing in class. I also think that it’s great that other people are beginning to look into ways to start their own website. It opens many doors that the average Joe may be missing out on.
· One topic that I have seen more coverage on in the news is Phishing. We have touched on phishing in class and I thought it was worth listening to these reports. It started out on the local CBS news station and eventually led me to another article on Yahoo. The local CBS station stated that “most people fall prey to scam because of their lack of knowledge” and innocence. This was also stated in the Yahoo article along with “visual deceptions, and inattention to detail.” Since most college students are on the internet several times during the course of their day, I thought it would be a great article to read and react to. There are several points in the article that tell a user how to recognize that they are on a safe site. Some of these are padlocks at the end of the address bar, or an “s” at the end of http. So a secure site could/should have https:// at the beginning. It continues by showing some examples of things you should look for in Phishing and tips to avoid falling into a trap. I think that this news was great and very informative. It provided me with some ways to recognize potential threats and allowed me to protect myself against future attempts.
· Everyone knows librarians are important to both education and society as a whole, but this article that I found on the American Library Association’s (ALA) website was very interesting and good news for all Librarians.
The “Librarian Incentive to Boost Recruitment and Retention in Areas of Need (LIBRARIAN) Act of 2007 was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1121) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 1877).” This quote, directly from the ALA website, shows how important Librarians are to society and shows that people recognize this. As the title of the bill states, this act was introduced in hopes boosting recruitment in the field by offering the Perkins loan forgiveness, which is kind of confusing to me, but to most Librarians is probably a known term and offers somewhat of financial help to librarians whos salary is not on a level playing field as the importance of their job. Even though I found this article on a random tangent, I am very glad that I read it because it opened my eyes to the importance of Librarians. I am supportive of this act because I think the jobs salary pertains a lot to the library you work at, but regardless, it is an important job to society and one that needs to be more recognized.
http://www.ala.org//
· One of the latest articles that I found interesting was about China’s attempt to censor the internet. I found this article on MSNBC’s homepage under the Technology heading. Chinese President Hu Jintao is hoping to censor the internet in a way that would rid it of any “unhealthy” material. In 2006 alone, China’s internet users grew by some 23 percent. Their internet market is one of the most booming in the world and is obviously attracting a lot of attention from many large internet companies. The article goes on to explain how China censors its internet in a way that allows users only to see the type of information that the Communist led China wants them to. This is where my problem with the system comes in. China isn’t trying to just censor “bad” material, but any material that contains opinions, probably those against the Communist party or any sites that may prove to be discrediting to anything dealing with China. Therefore they are just giving these internet users a type of “tunnel vision.” By tunnel vision I mean showing these users exactly what they want them to see and nothing more. I could agree with censoring of disturbing material, but not this type of censorship.
· With National Library week coming to an end (April 15-27), I found an article on the American Library Association’s website dealing with this special week. To find this article you can go to ALA’s website, and scroll down. You will see the link to the article,“Communities ‘Come together @ your library’ to celebratethe changing role of libraries.” This week was based on becoming more like popular hang out spots but with the slight difference of being free. If you go to any internet café or Barnes and Noble type store, you will often have to pay for any of their services that you use. With Libraries, you get most of these same resources for free. The article also states that “almost 1.8 billion visitors checked out more than 2 billion items last year.” This is a very impressive figure for libraries, and lets society as a whole know how important libraries are. Before I came to college I hardly ever would visit a library unless required by a class. After attending college and realizing how great they are, I’m sure that I will begin to use them more in my life, in and out of school. I also believe that the word is getting out as to the resources that libraries offer. Like I said earlier, many people pay for the services that the library can offer for free. The information contained in a library can usually be counted on for its integrity more than something you may find in Barnes and Nobles. This is a great week for the nation, and does a great job of getting the word out as to the importance and usefulness of libraries.
· I found an article pertaining to Google buying YouTube by searching Yahoo for “Google buys YouTube” after reading about the purchase through the article that is covered in the news story on DoubleClick. The article I found is through a website named ars technica. The actual page can be found at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061009-7942.html. The writers report that Google purchased the famous YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion in stock. Most people would be wonder why they would purchase it in stock instead of cash, but it has many advantages to cash. I agree with the move to purchase with stock instead of actual cash. It was a better move for YouTube because the income is tax-free. It is an advantage for Google because the value of their stock can always increase, bringing them more income. Both parties felt that this was a very good deal feeling that it would help both companies expand rapidly.
· I couldn’t help but write about this article after touching on a previous article in which Sports Illustrated had failed to mail an estimated 21,000 institutions the Swimsuit Edition of their monthly magazine. After a statement from ALA president, Leslie Burger, Time Inc. rethought their decision and apologized for making the decision within the company instead of giving the institutions an opportunity to make this decision for their selves. The library then thanked Time Inc. by saying, “The ALA is pleased that Time Inc. reconsidered its position regarding this matter… we appreciate that Time Inc. supports ALA's efforts to protect library users' ability to judge the material for themselves." I felt like this was a good move on both sides. The statement first released by Mrs. Burger was very well spoken and to the point. Upon reading this statement I’m sure that Time Inc. saw ALA’s side and admitted their mistake.
If anyone is interested in reading more about this event, they can visit the ALA website at ala.org, and can look under the archives for March.
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