LibrarianActivist.org

Scribd is a new site attempting to be the “YouTube of documents.” It currently accepts .doc, .ppt, .txt, .pdf, .xls, .ps, .lit, .cia and .nhl file formats (just seeing if you’re paying attention on those last two!)

Right now, the site seems to be a mix of pirated e-books (there’s that YouTube connection!) and documents of the type your mom might forward to you by e-mail.

But it definitely has potential as an information sharing medium. As one commenter in the TechCrunch story says: “It’ll be interesting to see what kind of content becomes popular. Term papers? Government documents? Porn? All of the above?” If YouTube is the guide, “all of the above” is probably the most likely. (Er, except porn. YouTube doesn’t allow that. Uhm, at least that’s what a friend told me.)

Like YouTube, Scripd allows embedding of any documents. Here’s one called “18 Tricks To Teach Your Body.”

- JH

This week is Freedom to Read Weekf in Canada. I’ve been a bit remiss in posting relevant information here, even as I’ve been doing a daily post on the topic over on my personal blog which could’ve been easily cross-posted here. (Next year!)

But I do have something that I wanted to cross-post on both sites to close out the week: the results of the CLA’s Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom’s web survey titled “Tracking Challenged Resources in Canadian Libraries” (PDF) for the year 2006.

This report doesn’t include every instance of book challenges in Canada last year but does give a good overview of some of the types of materials that get challenged, the reasons why and the response of and/or actions taken by the reporting library.

Thanks to Toni Samek, who is chair of that committee, for permission to post this document.

- JH