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The article outlines a series of events in 2005 ensuring that information switched its dominant format from analog to digital. Inspired by Project Gutenberg, Hugh McGuire created LibriVox, a project whereby volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain then transfer those recordings into MP3 files that are available for free on the www.librivox.org. Last November, the Library of Congress announced its creation of the World Digital Library, an online collection of rare books, manuscripts, and other materials that will be freely available for viewing by anyone, anywhere, with Internet access. Each of the events affects libraries in significant ways. From digitization projects to interlibrary loan and from electronic reserves to electronic books, copyright law is having an impact on librarianship.

Discusses the decision of Google.com to launch the Google Answers service. Comparison of the service with other experts-on-call services; Role of Google in the reference librarian business; Issue of accountability for correct answers; Success of reference librarians in providing answers to library users; Outlook for the Google service.

The article offers information on the Special Libraries Association (SLA) 2018 Annual Conference that was held in Baltimore, Maryland from June 9-13 featuring the participation of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Topics discussed include services from the Library of Congress (LC), library security and the role of the public in library administration.

The article focuses on the county public library cooperative at Pinellas County, Florida. The Pinellas Public Library Cooperative, which has evolved over time into an entity that provides coordination for activities, funding and marketing, now offers a library card that can be used at any library in the county. It features the Pinellas Automated Library System, which lets users browse or search through the collections of all 15 member libraries, select or reserve materials, and have them sent to a library convenient to them.

The article offers information on the results of the Pew Internet & American Life Project study which looked at how Americans use libraries and how libraries can better serve the one-third of the U.S. population with low internet access. Only 13 percent said they used the public library as a resource for finding information. The demographic signals that influence Internet use seem to be a factor in library use as well, with income having the reverse impact on library use from Internet use. The study found that Generation Y-ers are the most likely to turn to the library for help.

The article highlights articles published in various periodicals related to library science. In his article published in Computers in Libraries, Michael Sauers provides a framework for writing policies for public-access wireless networks. He provides the components of a policy set up by the Smoky Hill branch of the Arapahoe Library District in Colorado. In the March/April issue of Online, editor Marydee Ojala outlines the search capabilities of Google Book Search. In her article published in Searcher, Paula Berinstein addresses the central question that concerns information professionals: reliability.

This article focuses on the annual conference of the American Library Association in Orlando, Florida in June 2004. While many stood on line at the annual conference to buy librarian action figure dolls, which openly mock the standard iconography of librarians shushing their patrons, plenty also crowded into sessions that demonstrated the other side of a librarian's public image. Librarians have an undeserved reputation for timidity and being bookish and intellectual. They also have a well-deserved reputation for being stable, scholarly, and devoted to good causes. Good causes speckled the ALA agenda. There was the opening keynote by counter-terrorism adviser turned whistle-blower author Richard Clarke, which ended with a call to arms for librarians to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, followed by a standing ovation. He said: "Never in the history of counter-terrorism have I ever heard of any reason to go looking in library records. But having this provision in the Patriot Act has had a chilling effect on those who may use them. If we give up our civil rights and civil liberties to fight the jihadists, then they will have won."

Announces the release of Sirsi Digital Heritage Room, a product that allows libraries to preserve images and documents while increasing the availability of these materials to library users. Use of a single CollectionPak for the digitalization and presentation of images and documents; Searchability of metadata such as newspapers, journals, diaries, and photographs; How the product can store and retrieve multimedia formats such as WAV, MOV, and RealAudio.

Discusses the impact of multimedia computing on the Internet bandwidth requirements of United States libraries. Effect of the use of the downloading of MP3 music files from the Napster web site on bandwidth usage on university computer networks; Efforts to restrict Napster usage in order to maintain sufficient bandwidth for campus libraries; Need for libraries to ensure high-quality connectivity for Internet-based content.

The article focuses on Questia Online Library, an online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences. According to chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Harris, Questia's collection has 76, 000 books as well as 3 million articles from over 300 publishers. He adds that Questia ensures that all its content has multiuse licenses enabling users to have unlimited use of the books and articles in the collection regardless of how many other users are reading the same materials.

An interview with Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library (BL), is presented. She cites some of the renewed support shown by the community for the library. According to Brindley, BL particularly targets people who are being dismissed from firms that are downsizing. Brindley says she supports innovation as a way to keep libraries competitive and responsive to the needs of its users.

This section discusses various articles from the June 2007 issues of "Computer in Libraries" (CIL) and "Searcher." The "Train Employees and Officials to Be Ready for Privacy Challenges" article by Joan E. Bernstein in CIL focuses on handling a criminal investigation of a library patron. In "Mash It Up: Remixing the Information Superhighway" in "Searcher," Miguel Ramos and Dawn Gauthier examine the ways and means that mashups have spread out across so many Internet-access roads. The author stated that she is going to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The article reports that NoveList, a division of EBSCO Publishing, has launched the NextReads e-mail newsletter service in May 2006. This subscription-based e-mail readers' advisory and library marketing service provides libraries with more than 20 customizable subject and genre-specific title lists that focus on customer demand for fiction and nonfiction.

The article reports on the Miles Conrad Lecture delivered during the annual meeting of the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services in Pennsylvania in February 2006. The Miles Conrad lecturer for 2006 was Carol Tenopir, a professor at the School of Information Sciences of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She identified the principles for building and maintaining bridges of information between libraries and information providers and their users. One of the principles is the importance of gaining a deeper knowledge about users, why they need information and how to help them make their work better.

This article deals with the announcement by SirsiDynix Corp. regarding the availability of its next-generation library user interface, the Sirsi Enterprise Portal Solution.

This article reports on the partnership of Amigos Library Services and The Digital Network to explore the application of datacasting technology to benefit libraries and library patrons. Datacasting enables the movement of large digital files and associated digital support flies to multiple locations simultaneously. Having access to datacasting will allow libraries to bring robust digital content from other libraries or institutions to patrons and to move their own content to other locations.

This article offers pieces of advice for information professionals and librarians who are interested in strong user loyalty, dominant brand recognition and new revenue streams. End users usually start out with a question as big as a football field and end up expressing satisfaction with an answer that is as small as a ping-pong table. Their stated satisfaction will gratify the public relations departments, but only a full answer will earn users' undying loyalty and endless return business. And only a policy of persistence in pursuing answers will give an organization the insights into user needs that should drive strategic planning, content licensing, research and development, and mergers and acquisitions operations. Still, wen it comes to delivering answers, the end user must be offered guides to the best material. The search process itself should become visible. A system that offers an expert-system-search assistance service will win the gratitude of those who do and the respect of the those who do not need it. People will pay for perceived value. Not everyone, not every time. Nut enough time to make a nice piece of change. In particular, folks will pay for information that improves their health, business, careers, and lives.

Offers advice about how libraries can monitor the use of their Web sites. Insight that can be gained by examining server and patron data; Log files that are automatically produced; Software products that perform detailed analysis of Web server logs; Use patterns that are understood by manually reading through the file; Recommendation that libraries make their Web sites more dynamic by setting up communication channels with users, such as a Web form or mail link for comments and suggestions; Database application logs; Advice that librarians continually monitor usage data in order to understand how visitors interact with available resources.

Reports that the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has released 'Privacy Guidelines for Electronic Resources Vendors.' Idea that library consortia should influence the practices of the vendor community of information services; Privacy concerns of users of ICOLC's member libraries; Acceptable practices in products and services for libraries.

Reports that Sagebrush Corp. has released PatronPorter for Spectrum, a program to convert library patron data so it may be imported to Winnebago Spectrum. Release of UCheck, a self-checkout program; Features of the software; Uses of the software by libraries.

Reports that OCLC has announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded it a three-year grant to build a Web-based public access computing portal for public libraries and other organizations that provide open access to information. Design of the portal; Areas served by content; Benefits of this portal to librarians.

Reports that Kanawha County Public Library (KCPL) in West Virginia has installed SIRSI Corp.'s iBistro system to provide its users with a complete electronic library. Statement by KCPL that iBistro will enable them to offer users the same personalized services via the Internet as they do in their library; Ability of users to access iBistro from any computer with a Web browser.

Reports on the release of SIRSI Corp.'s iBistro Internet-access portal for library users. Internet-searching services featured on the iBistro web site; Details of iBistro's user interface and utilization of library catalog records; Benefits of the service for library users.

Reports on the partnership between publisher RockHill Communications and MARC Link Retrospective Conversion. Details of their collaboration on the creation of electronic library products WEB FEET MARC Records and WEB FEET ONLINE; Impact of the products on Internet access for library users.

Forecasts the growth of wireless information sector. CNET News.com stories predicting the increased demand for wireless phones and information appliances compared to computers; Emergence of the Wireless Application Protocol format to make library databases available to end users; Potential conversion of some library applications to wireless; Ways to access the wireless online public access catalog.

Reports that in 1999 the New York Public Library (NYPL) received $6.5 million in discounts on $8.3 million in telecommunications, Internet and equipment expenses through a federal education rate (e-rate) program. How the e-rate program was created as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996; How the discounts will provide the library the opportunity to improve its computer networks and Internet access; Contact information for the NYPL.