The people at Locus magazine gave Cory Doctorow a regular column. No surprise, then, to find that he’s used the first one to throw a firecracker into the punchbowl. Continue reading “Technology Giveth, Technology Taketh Away”

As the DRM wars heat up, and the rise of peer-to-peer sharing shows little sign of stopping (despite ineffective and draconian litigation against children and people who don’t even own computers), the smarter computer games companies are looking at new ways to monetise their products. Continue reading “Product placement”

The European Commission have been holding their first summit on digital libraries. From PhysOrg.com:

“Our goal is to make Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage available to all European citizens and researchers for their studies, work or leisure. With its immense expertise and knowledge, this group can make an essential contribution to the European digital library,” said Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.

This is a subject close to my heart in many ways. As I am sure I have mentioned before, I am a book junkie. I love books; I couldn’t imagine life without them, fact or fiction, whatever – books are great things. I am also a library employee, and it is plain to see (from the inside at least) that as an industry we are somewhat flat on our arses thanks to a lack of funding from the government. Falling rates of use have been met with cuts in funding, creating a vicious spiral of decline. Libraries desperately need to modernise and move with the times… Continue reading “Digital libraries”

As a library employee and lover of books, I’ve been following the ongoing ‘upload-the-books’ debate as closely as I have been able to, given time restrictions (y’know, full time employment, feeding myself, my online writing jobs and, of course, this here blog). Continue reading “Publisher decides to pre-empt Google book scan project”