LibrarianActivist.org

The Pew Research Center has given a good overview of the 2010 edition of the State of the News Media. Things that I found of interest in the Executive Summary include the following:

Roughly a third of the newsroom jobs in American newspapers in 2001 are now gone, and those cuts come particularly in specialty beats like science and the arts, suburban government and statehouse coverage. (p. 9)

This is particularly worrisome in consideration with the finding that “self-interested information providers are now growing rapidly”(p. 6):

As newsrooms get smaller, the range of non-journalistic players entering the information and news field is growing rapidly. The ranks include companies, think tanks, activists, government and partisans. Some are institutions frustrated by the shrinking space in conventional media and the absence of knowledgeable specialists to cover their subjects. Others are partisans and political interests trying to exploit a perceived opportunity in journalism’s contraction. There are varying degrees of transparency in these efforts about the financing and intentions. Some are quite clear. Others present themselves as purely journalistic and independent when in fact they are funded by political activists, yet only by digging and cross-referencing websites can the agenda and financing be divined. In an age where linking and aggregation are part of journalism, news organizations must decide how they want to interact with this growing cohort of self-interested information players. Will they pick up this material and disseminate it? Can they possibly police it? Can they afford to ignore it? The only certainty is that these new players are increasingly vying for the public’s and the media’s attention, and their resources, in contrast to that of traditional independent journalism, are growing. (p. 6-7)

With self-interested parties and media conglomerates defining what gets reported, the future of the media looks grim.

For me, the most alarming report was the following:

Perhaps the biggest news in media ownership in 2009 was the pending sale by General Electric and Vivendi of NBC Universal to the cable company Comcast. The sale includes NBC’s broadcast network, cable channels and company-owned local TV stations.

There should be a clear division between content provision and network provision because vertical integration of Internet Service Providers can only mean bad news for net neutrality. Self-interest will win out as Comcast will want to (and will be able to - since they own the network) provide easier, faster, and more ubiquitous access to their content.

To see vertical integration in action, check out Pew’s “Who Owns the News Media“.

Lisa Spieker, a librarian at Rasmussen College, won a Pathfinder Award a couple of weeks ago for her work on the college’s Diversity Committe, and her work to educate staff and students on campus via panels and open discussions about diversity.

The local newspaper in Minnesota, where the award was presented, quoted Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Board members as saying that “Lisa sets an air and expectation of tolerance and respect from staff and students [....] (She) has created a culture where people can ask questions, respect and be respected, and learn from each other.”

Awarded in Mankato, Minnesota, the Pathfinder Awards are intended to recognise people who or organisations that “exemplify the ideas of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

(Via).

A great story from Ars Technica looking at a new study out by the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) entitled: “Free to Invest: The Economic Benefits of Preserving Net Neutrality.” (pdf) The article summarizes IPI’s cost-benefit analysis this way:

Were the big ISPs allowed to offer priority access tiers, it would represent a siphoning of money from the Internet’s content sector to its infrastructure sector. Free to Invest’s cost-benefit analysis calls this transfer bad economics. Competition in the Internet content market is much stronger than it is in the market for broadband service, the report contends. (…) [A]bandoning net neutrality would transfer money from the most competitive parts of the Internet and actively reinvest it in the least competitive.

Every January 1st is Public Domain day, where copyright expires for thousands of works across the world — except in the United States, where decades of copyright extensions have eliminated public domain day for many years to come. Notable authors whose works will be in the public domain in Canada (where copyright is life + 50 years) and other countries (where copyright is life + 70 years) include author, singer, and songwriter Boris Vian, Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, Canadian inventor of basketball, James Naismith, and former Québec Premier Maurice Duplessis, one of Canada’s most repressive politicians, especially when it came to freedom of expression.

Connected to Public Domain day is a new celebration created, by Public Knowledge, called World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD). It will be a day of free talks in Washington, D.C. on such things as ACTA, emerging media, and participatory culture.

According to this post in BoingBoing, the Philadelphia Free Library System is shutting down. How can this be possible? From the library website:

Specifically, the following will take effect after the close of business, October 2, 2009:

• All branch and regional library programs, including programs for children and teens, after school programs, computer classes, and programs for adults, will be cancelled
• All Parkway Central Library programs, including children programs, programs to support small businesses and job seekers, computer classes and after school programs, will be cancelled. We are exploring the possibility of relocating the Philadelphia Author Series programs to other non-library facilities.
• All library visits to schools, day care centers, senior centers and other community centers will cease.
• All community meetings at our branch and regional libraries, and the Parkway Central Library, will be cancelled.
• All GED, ABE and ESL programs held at Free Library branches will be discontinued, students should contact their teacher to see if other arrangements are being made.

In addition, all library materials will be due on October 1, 2009. This will result in a diminishing borrowing period for books and other library materials, beginning September 11, 2009. No library materials will be able to be borrowed after September 30, 2009.

Even as we remain hopeful that the State Legislature will act and pass the enabling funding legislation, we wanted to notify all of our customers of this very possible outcome.