In crucial vote this week, the European Union advanced a controversial copyright reform proposal. What’s a stake? A good report in The Verge puts it this way: “Critics said the vote heralded the death of the internet, while supporters congratulated themselves for saving the livelihoods of starving artists and giving U.S. tech giants a poke in the eye.”
But both sides agree on one thing: despite the vote to advance the Copyright Directive, the process is far from over. The battle now moves behind closed doors, with the next vote likely to come in early 2019—which gives both sides, and more crucially, the public, a chance to advocate for or against the measure.
In a statement, International Publishers Association president Michiel Kolman, said the vote recognized “the value of Europe’s creative industries,” and “reinforces the underlying principle of copyright that creators and publishers deserve fair financial reward for their work.”
Meanwhile, in an editorial on the Electronic Frontier Foundation blog, author Cory Doctorow, a staunch opponent of the legislation, said the “vote not only makes life harder for creators, handing a larger share of their incomes to Big Content and Big Tech, it makes life harder for all of us.”
Reaction is still pouring in, which Gary Price at InfoDocket is diligently compiling.
Reserve Reading
The National Book Foundation this week announced its longlists for the 2018 National Book Awards. The five finalists in each category will be named on October 10, and the winner will be announced at a ceremony in New York City on November 14.
Lisa Peet at Library Journal reports that ICE (The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) has asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Records to sign off on the destruction of detainee records in 11 item categories—including accounts of solitary confinement, assault, sexual abuse, and investigations into deaths in ICE custody.
Good luck to you, Business Day, the latest publication to predict the world will soon no longer need libraries or librarians. They give you until 2030.
You have to love a publication called Fine Books & Collections—and their series Bright Young Librarians. This week’s entry features Rachel Cole, Public Services Librarian at Northwestern University’s Transportation Library in Evanston, Illinois.
Also in Illinois, residents of Elgin, get ready. The Daily Herald reports that you’re getting a Bookmobile! The plan is to launch it April 10 (which is National Bookmobile Day).
And yes, National Bookmobile Day is a thing.
Spectrum News has a piece on the contentious debate in Woodstock, N.Y. over whether to renovate or build a new library.
Meanwhile, The New York Times has an article on the luxury condos that are replacing a popular library branch in Brooklyn.
Will Denver be the latest city to eliminate library fines? The Denver Post reports that’s part of the proposal in the city’s latest budget proposal.
From Publishers Weekly, more on how (if not why) department store Target has been removing certain terms from online book descriptions, including LGBTQ terms, and the word "Nazi."