C&I Feedback Invitation 2: Censorware

See this post for background.

2. Censorware Chronicles ( appeared once this year, in September, although censorware was mentioned in two other issues.

I think this one’s a fait accompli–there just isn’t very much happening. The one lawsuit I’m currently aware of is against a library that’s failing to follow the post-Supreme Court CIPA (that is, not unblocking sites at an adult patron’s request), and thus really has no effect on CIPA. There’s the ongoing DoJ attempt to revive COPA, and that’s interesting, but others are covering that a lot better than I could.
Should I:

  1. Drop Censorware Chronicles altogether because my coverage isn’t going anywhere?
  2. Try to revive it–and if so, any suggestions for how I can actually add value?

That’s the question. Feel free to answer by attaching a comment or sending me email (waltcrawford at gmail.com).

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This work by Walt Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Cites & Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “C&I Feedback Invitation 2: Censorware”

  1. Seth Finkelstein says:
    November 29, 2006 at 9:42 am

    As they say in press conferences, “I’m glad you asked that question”

    “Censorware Chronicles” advice

  2. walt says:
    November 29, 2006 at 10:36 am

    Seth,

    Good response–although your commentary doesn’t really deal with #2: “How do I add value?” I know the answer for my big CIPA writeup back in the day; I’m a whole lot less sanguine about adding value in the future.

  3. Seth Finkelstein says:
    November 29, 2006 at 11:06 am

    Well, if I had a good answer for that, maybe I wouldn’t be a Z-lister.

  4. Dennie says:
    December 11, 2006 at 6:01 am

    Walt,

    first of all – C&I is the one publication I read every time. I’ll print it and then either read it during meetings or on the bus.

    Re censorware, feel free to drop this. I’d be more interested in copyright issues and licensing, as we (as librarians) get more and more involved in those matters… and it is very complicated (different copyright laws, different licensing conditions per publisher)…

    best regards,

    Dennie

  5. walt says:
    December 11, 2006 at 10:45 am

    Dennie,

    Thanks for the feedback.

    I don’t anticipate writing about licensing issues; there are experts in that field, and I’m definitely not one of them. It’s an area where I just don’t see myself adding value. Sorry.

    Additionally, there’s a straightforward conflict-of-interest issue in writing about licensing of databases, and always has been: RLG was, and OCLC is, a database publisher/distributor.