as I live a few more questions

They're Baaaack...

Today was the first day of classes and this multicultural welcome sign greeted them.

Student tasered at UCLA library for not having his ID card!

This YouTube video is very unsettling.  According to eyewitness reports, the student in question already had his backpack on and was heading for the exits when he was accosted by UCLA Police, tasered, and then, unable to get back on his feet, was tasered multiple times, in front of a crowd of incredulous students.  Someone had the presence of mind to pull out his video cellphone and record the incident.

Here's a link to the campus newspaper account of the story.

Here's what the Los Angeles Times had to say:

The latest in a recent spate of cellphone videos documenting questionable arrest tactics surfaced Wednesday, this one showing a UCLA police officer using a Taser to stun a student who allegedly refused to leave the campus library.

Grainy video of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library was broadcast Wednesday on TV news and the Internet, prompting a review of the officers' actions and outrage among students at the Westwood campus.

The footage showed the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, falling to the ground and crying out in pain as officers stunned him.

According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there.

Campus officials said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students' safety.

When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.

After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave "multiple times," according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.

"He continued to refuse," the statement said. "As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building."

Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling "Get off me" several times.

"Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance," police said. "The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser."

Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor.

The video shows Tabatabainejad yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," the Daily Bruin reported, adding he used a profanity.

"It was beyond grotesque," said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it."

Campus police confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned "multiple" times.

By then, Remesnitsky said, a crowd of 50 or 60 had gathered and were shouting at the officers to stop and demanding their names and badge numbers.

Remesnitsky said officers told him to leave or he would be Tasered.

(Amanda Covarrubias and Stuart Silverstein, 'A Third Incident, A New Video', Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2006)

UPDATE 12:45 P.M.: And here's the inevitable Metafilter discussion thread.

read more | digg story

Library Quote Of The Day

From the days of Sumerian clay tablets till now, humans have “published” at least 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 movies, 3 million videos, TV shows and short films and 100 billion public Web pages. All this material is currently contained in all the libraries and archives of the world. When fully digitized, the whole lot could be compressed (at current technological rates) onto 50 petabyte hard disks. Today you need a building about the size of a small-town library to house 50 petabytes. With tomorrow’s technology, it will all fit onto your iPod. When that happens, the library of all libraries will ride in your purse or wallet—if it doesn’t plug directly into your brain with thin white cords. Some people alive today are surely hoping that they die before such things happen, and others, mostly the young, want to know what’s taking so long. (Could we get it up and running by next week? They have a history project due.)

(source of quote: Kelly, Kevin.  "Scan This Book!", New York Times Magazine, May 14, 2006, p. 44)

"a Bacchanalian festival of semantic anarchy"

Peter Morville writes about the impact of the Internet upon the traditional definition of Authority. Article is well worth a read:

In the good old days, not so long ago, in the context of the written word, authority was a term used primarily by librarians as a criteria of evaluation. Along with accuracy, objectivity, and currency, we judged source authority. Who is the author? Who is the publisher? What are their individual and institutional qualifications and reputations? Have the contents been edited and refereed? Is this an authoritative source?

But then, authority was appropriated by the Technorati mob, where it swiftly lost definition in a tangled tag soup of popularity, power, trust, credibility, and relevance. These words were tossed around indiscriminately in a Bacchanalian festival of semantic anarchy.

Definitely a column to watch.

Yahoo! Joins Google in Scanning Library Collections

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3rd:

Yahoo Works With 2 Academic Libraries and Other Archives on Project to Digitize Collections

Another search engine company has joined with academic libraries to digitize large collections of books to make them easily searchable online. Yahoo Inc. has teamed up with the University of California, the University of Toronto, and several archives and technology companies on a project that could potentially bring the complete texts of millions of volumes into digital form.

Yahoo officials say that the project is not a response to Google's partnership with five major research libraries to scan millions of books, and that some planning for the Yahoo project was under way before Google announced its plans last December.

The new archive is called the Open Content Alliance, and it was conceived in part by Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library. The archive will be doing much of the actual scanning for the project, using a process it has developed in recent years. Libraries involved in the project can have their books scanned by the Internet Archive for 10 cents per page, which leaders of the project say is far below the standard price of scanning.

Other participants in the project are Adobe, the European Archive, the National Archives of England, O'Reilly Media, and Hewlett Packard Labs. The project hopes to attract other libraries and other partners, however, as well as more financial support.

With Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive involved in Yahoo!'s initiative, this automatically makes it one to watch. Interesting times ahead.

Illuminated Manuscripts: Le Moyen âge en lumière

I've come across a gorgeous website about mediaeval illuminated manuscripts (a love of mine for quite some time).  Check it out:

Le Moyen âge en lumière: les trésors des bibliothèques de France
The Illuminated Middle Ages: Mediaeval Treasures from French Libraries

Yup... I was missed.

Yup... I was missed.
Originally uploaded by Quiplash.

The state of my inboxes when I came into work this morning at eight:

You know you were away on vacation too long...

Locked out
Originally uploaded by Quiplash.

...when you return and you've forgotten your password... eventually the network thinks you're a hacker and gives you this message. Then I had to get the network admin to bail me out. Everything's fixed now, but boy did I feel stupid.

"Bar Opens in Library, Circulation Triples"

Some of the headlines:


RFID Implants: The New Library Card: Speedier
service! The Maricopa County Public Library, AZ, has begun a pilot
program that implants an RFID chip--loaded with personal
information--into patron foreheads.

Marketing Your Library 101: Staff laid off? Books sold? Here's how to get the most money for that empty building.

Bar Opens in Library, Circulation Triples

...As Far As I Can Roam.

Now I'm at the furthest possible corner from the wireless access point and the repeaters; there's several walls and concrete pillars between me and them. Signal strength has gone from "good" to "very low". But it still seems to be working O.K. In fact, I would say it's working better than the wireless network last night at the café.

And I have just got to get a picture of the wireless access point set-up; it's located in the Law Library Rare Book Room, and the juxtaposition of old and new technology is startling.

Anyways, now that I've seen it in action, I'm looking forward to having it soon in my library.