Umbrella's gathering of the clans

Umbrella. A strange name for a conference, until you realise that the last two letters are the intials of the Library Association, which used to run the event before it merged with the Institute of Information Professionals, to form CILIP.

The conference and exhibition is to be held at the University of Hatfield - a reasonably quick train ride from London - from 28th to 30th June. If you can go for only one day, Friday probably offers the best value in terms of the number of activities and the likelihood of meeting up with like-minded professionals.

The conference programme is split into nine streams: Workforce Development; Leadership/Management; Customers/clients; e-Content; Law/ethics; Communication; Research and evidence based practice; Information literacy; and Technology. Detailed proceedings are available as a pdf file.

Prices for the event itself start at £94 for the short days. Overnight accommodation is on campus and represents good value for money at £39 for bed and breakfast. Social events, both formal and informal have been arranged around the main exhibition and conference.

CILIP, naturally, is very excited about the event. It reckons it will be the biggest Umbrella yet although records show that, in terms of visitors, the 2001 event was about 30 percent bigger than this year's expected 1,000 delegates. Perhaps 'biggest' refers to the exhibit area.

John Woolley, the managing director of CILIP Enterprises has bravely started a blog in order to kick start some conversations. If you want to put in your two penn'orth, it seems you'll have to register  before your contributions will be published.

See you there on the Friday.

Alistair Darling is FoI risk and needs peer review

Freedom of Information campaigner, author and journalist Heather Brooke is, understandably getting hot under the collar regarding the recently tabled changes to the Freedom of Information Act and its latest development, the Trade Secretary claiming the Act is placing "good government at risk".

Alistair Darling, the Labour Trade Secretary has, according to reports in Scottish newspapers written to the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs detailing his concerns. Brooke describes the story in the Scotsman as something she would expect to see in a Kenyan or Nigerian newspaper, but not here in the UK. "Politicians are fighting off demands for the introduction of a Freedom of Information Act," she says of Kenya and Nigeria, although the same can now be said of our own Mother of Parliaments.

The Scotsman quotes Darling's letter as stating, "“If we are to live under constant threat of publication, this will prevent MPs from expressing their views frankly when writing to a minister. We need urgent advice on what the position is.” Brooke responds, "Politicians as delicate creatures frightened to speak in public? As if!"

Juxtaposing the intensive scrutiny that scientific information receives compared to politics, Brooke very cleverly shows what risks society would be placed under if scientific research information was treated in the same way as policy forming is. "Some one could determine (in secret) that his snake oil was the best solution to a problem (treating polio, for example) based on findings that only he and his minions could access. No data would be published so no one could challenge legitimacy."

Brooke states that this is exactly how Parliament works and argues, "It is only by debating the relative facts and merits of an issue that a superior solution can be found."

It looks like we're being evil, but we're not

I've just stumbled across this little gem from John Batelle's blog. The EU is, quite rightly, worried about Google's data retention policies, and advisers to the regulators have been murmuring that Google 'might' be doing something a bit naughty. The company has received a letter asking for an explanation of its policies. Aside from the fact that plenty of other companies are doing - or thinking of doing - a similar thing, it's an interesting development. Not one to have Google reaching for the parachutes just yet, you understand.

However, Batelle points to an opinion piece in the FT as a partial response from Google. Now, if this is the main thrust of Google's line, it may be time to get out the marshmallows on sticks, and work out where you put the sparklers after last year's fireworks night.

Essentially, Google's argument boils down to this: We need the data to give a good service, people can use the service pretty anonymously, and it's early days yet, so, like, bear with us, alright? We're busy doing some really cool stuff here at the Googleplex.

Just like the argument that says that installing more surveillance cameras improves our quality of life, this op-ed neatly sidesteps the central question: Is what Google is doing right?

Damage to 300-year-old diary mean some serious questions need to be asked at the British Library

The British Library hasn’t had the best of months, what with The Times revealing that a 300 year old diary entrusted into the libraries care had suffered severe damage.

The diary of a prominent Jacobite rebel, Thomas Tyldesley, was given to the British Library for safekeeping in 1994. But since then, someone had spilt oil across the pages and cut off its original leather front cover. It emerged later the diary had taken additional damage from damp, mould and mildew.

When initially questioned by the newspaper, the British Library told them “the diary had “suffered accidental damage” insisting it was an “isolated incident”. Helen Shenton, the library’s head of collection care, also told The Times, “The book had been kept in safe storage in a protective box and it was not until the book was opened that the stains were discovered.” Furthermore they said the diary’s cover had been removed as part of a rebinding service offered by the library, up until 2000.

However, anomalies into the libraries account began to emerge. To start with, only British Library staff had access to the book, the oil itself was found on the inside pages only, suggesting that the diary must have been opened at the time of the spillage. Even more damning is that it was later revealed the damage happened after 2002, so the diary cover couldn’t have been removed for rebinding, as the service had not been available for two years. If the book had been kept in a protective box, where did the mould and damp come from?

Distraught owner and descendent of the diarist, Peter J. Tyldesley told the newspaper “there are sections which are completely destroyed, sections where the entire text block has disappeared into a smeary mess’ ‘I thought the British Library was the safest place for it. How wrong I was.”

The diary itself contained almost daily entries for three years, beginning in 1712. Thomas Tyldesley wrote about the Jacobite cause his family were engaged in and the run up to a rebellion in 1715.

Since the original article and press release, the library have reissued their official statement recognising that not quite all of the facts were in place and have since met with Peter J. Tyldesley to reaffirm expenses will be met, and an attempt to restore the damage to the diary will be taken on by the library.

As far as ascertaining what actually happened, investigations are ongoing but it will leave library staff with a nasty taste in the mouth, especially if it emerges that a deliberate act of vandalism occurred, the implication for the safety of items in other collections will prove worrying.   

Plastic Logic: eBooks you really can take anywhere?

How do you prefer to read stuff?

Most of us would prefer to hold a newspaper, a book or a magazine, rather than stare at a computer screen. Resolution, colour and refresh frequency may have improved, but they still glare at us and are hopeless in bright sunlight.

A number of ePaper products are already on the market and they overcome some of the computer screen problems by using electronic ink (e-Ink). Dark and light molecules are forced to the surface by an electrical charge. Once set, they remain in place until a fresh charge is applied. Just like printed paper, these displays require only ambient light to be readable.

Unfortunately, the present crop of readers are either small, heavy, rigid or all three. This is caused by the need to protect the conventional backplane electronics which sit on a glass-like silicon substrate. They may also have a glass screen protecting the surface of the 'paper'.

If computer industry eminence grise, Hermann Hauser, has his way, this is soon to change. He's backed Plastic Logic since 2000, when it was first spun out of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.

The company has found a way to print electronics onto plastic instead of silicon. Blending this technology with electronic ink, the company has come up with something which is lighter and more flexible than current displays although, at the moment, it's probably more like stiffish card than paper.

It still needs a compartment to hold the battery, controllers and some conventional electronics. In all the prototype shots, this runs along one edge. However, it is definitely lighter, larger, thinner and more flexible than anything we've seen to date. And a battery will last for up to 3,000 page 'turns'.

This week saw the foundation stone laid for Plastic Logic's factory near Dresden airport. It expects to be in production next year, producing a million displays of up to 10" diagonal with up to 150 pixels per inch and up to 16 levels of grey. The company has already experimented with larger sizes and higher resolutions, which bodes well for the future.

Don't be evil? Are you sure?

It looks like The Indy has fired another broadside at Google over privacy concerns. In an admission that won't shock too many people, Eric Schmidt told a conference yesterday that the company's intention was to enable users to "ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'" There's some lovely wording in the article, not least the wonderful second paragraph suggesting Google has 'revealed details of how it intends to organise and control the world's information.'

It would be a bit of a laughable stitch-up job - if there wasn't a big chunk of truth to it. It's been said so many times before that it's hackneyed, but Google is in danger of becoming evil by mistake.

It's not just Google, either. Microsoft is playing around with way of identifying us as we surf (downloading YouTube video of Top Gear? Checking the footie scores? You're probably an office worker in his mid 30s with a health problem.) Danny Hillis is also keen on the idea of jolly big databases of everything.

Google embark on project to digitise nearly a million Indian scholarly works

An estimated 800,000 books and manuscripts held at India’s esteemed University of Mysore are to be digitised by search engine colossus Google. One of the rarest treasures due for scanning is the “Arthasastra” a series of books on political thought and strategy which dates from around the fourth century BC.

University vice chancellor, J. Shashidhara Prasad explained that that the library was embarking on the digitisation partnership to “restore and preserve this cultural heritage for effective dissemination of knowledge.”

Google continues unabated in its attempts to digitise the world’s books and printed materials, despite trying to fend off multiple threats of legal action and criticism from angry copyright holders. Although Prasad confirmed the search engine organisation were keen to push the initiative, saying; “Google has offered to digitise these manuscripts as well as 700,000 other books free of cost. Google chief, Eric Schmidt, has already interacted with us and is ready to provide us expertise, software and even manpower.”

Naturally Google get something in return and can expect, “to link freely to the digitised materials once the necessary patenting of the information is completed” said Prasad.

The project is in a similar vein to Microsoft’s current partnership with the British Library in digitising scholarly works. A respected institute, the University of Mysore was the first of its kind in India’s Karnataka state, founded in 1916 by then Maharaja of Mysore, Sri Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, it is affiliated with 122 colleges and educates nearly 55,000 students who range from graduates to post-graduate and researchers.