Some frequent conference-goers develop pet peeves–high registration fees, mediocre convention center food, the vagaries of air travel, etc. My pet peeve is more pedestrian.

I am always grateful when the registration staff at a conference can accommodate my request for one of those simple plastic sleeve badge holders that pins or clips to one's clothing. I appreciate the objections some have to piercing certain fabrics and how lanyards serve their preference. But I appreciate even more being able to read others badges.

Pin-on badge

Lanyard badge

I am one of the many who sometimes takes advantage of Wi-Fi in coffee shops and other public spaces. It can be a less distracting place to think and work than the office. When I really need to concentrate on something, I put on noise canceling headphones. Rarely, however, am I doing anything requiring that intensity. Over time I have overheard conversations that in the past would probably not have occurred in these public places. Why, I wonder do, people feel comfortable having these conversations in the rather close quarters of a coffee shop? Is it because through their experience in using social networking Web sites they have developed a loose notion of privacy? Is it because this space seems more like a workplace than a third place?

The August 1 Chronicle of Higher Education reported that “Cambridge University Press announced this week that it would pulp all unsold copies of the 2006 book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, in response to a libel claim filed in England by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker. The book suggests that businesses and charities associated with Mr. Mahfouz financed terrorism in Sudan and elsewhere during the 1990s.” CUP also “also promised to contact university libraries worldwide and ask them to remove the book from their shelves.”

OCLC shows that approximately 325 libraries report owning a copy of the book. OCLC also includes records for electronic versions from Overdrive and NetLibrary. One wonders how successful CUP's recall effort will be and hopes it will be an abysmal failure. This incident hasn't generated so much interest that copies are being offered for sale on eBay.

I am sure that this email I received today from Loida A. Garcia-Febo has had wide distribution. It deserves the widest possible distribution. Please share this information with your colleagues. Consider submitting your name to be a candidate for the ALA Council. Serving on Council gives ALA members a unique view of the organization, including some of its foibles.

The ALA 2008 Nominating Committee is soliciting nominees to run on the 2008 spring ballot for Councilor-at-large. The Councilors-at-large will serve three-year terms, beginning after the 2008 ALA Annual Conference and ending at the adjournment of the 2011 Annual Conference. Members who wish to make nominations should submit the followingi nformation:
nominee name
present position
institution
address
telephone
fax
and e-mail address.

To encourage diversity and leadership development, the Committee will refrain from nominating current Councilors for election to another term. However, the Committee encourages all current Councilors who wish to continue their service to the Association to file as petition candidates. Petitions will be available from Lois Ann Gregory-Wood, Council Secretariat, ALA, 50 E. Huron, Chicago, IL 60611, Email: lgregory@ala.org, or during the 2008 Midwinter Meeting. Petitions require 25 signatures of current ALA members.

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Sen. Harry M. Reid ( D-NV), the U.S. Senate's majority leader, yesterday backed away from his intent to introduce an amendment to the Higher Education Act, currently under consideration for reauthorization. His proposed amendment would have imposed special burdens on a small number of colleges and universities, deemed by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America to be the worst “enablers” of questionable P2P downloading. The amendment would have required these 25 institutions to “review their antipiracy tactics and to make plans to adopt 'a technology-based deterrent' to peer-to-peer file sharing.”

Higher education lobbyists succeeded in heading this off. One of their arguments was that technology alone cannot resolve this issue. Nor can the higher education community address it alone. Nevertheless, the music and film industries seem intent on drafting American higher education as their copyright cops. All of us in higher education have a responsibility to teach our students proper respect for intellectual property, including an understanding of their fair use rights. We do not, however, have a responsibility to the RIAA and the MPAA to hold our fingers in a dike while they cling to increasingly untenable business models. The recording and movie industries need to take stock of the realities of the current technological landscape, the evolving culture, and a growing social and artistic movement they cannot contain. If they do this rather than insist that academe save them from change, maybe they will come up with some ideas and strategies that will allow them to continue to generate revenue at the same time they acknowledge and foster the creativity of mash-up culture. But I wouldn't bet on that happening before the dike bursts.