TraLIS will be harvested in May

The National Library of New Zealand will be running its second harvest of the New Zealand internet from May 12th to 25th. As the National Library exists to preserve New Zealand's social and cultural history, this includes the Web. All internet sites with the .nz country code will be harvested. Other sites and blogs which have New Zealand content but which don't have the .nz code have to be nominated. Accordingly I have nominated this blog to be included.

The Library estimates that 130-140 million URLs will be captured. Click on the title to see more on the Web Harvest from the National Library website.

Beehive - Groser Welcomes Release of ACTA Negotiating Text

Beehive - Groser Welcomes Release of ACTA Negotiating Text

The text of the ACTA negotiations will be released tomorrow in the US Eastern STandard time.

Wellington Declaration

The Wellington Declaration which has arisen out of the PublicACTA Conference held on 10 April 2010, makes some important points for the business or international trade librarian/information specialist.  For example it says and I quote one only:

We recognise that the Internet has enabled creativity and innovation, the sharing of knowledge, citizen engagement and democracy, and is an engine of economic growth and opportunity.

Brenda Chawner has alerted the New Zealand library community to the Declaration on nz-libs and this morning LIANZA  has issued this statement:

LIANZA supports Wellington Declaration regarding trade agreement on copyright

LIANZA, the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa / Te Rau Herenga o Aotearoa, supports the points made in the Wellington Declaration (http://publicacta.org.nz/wellington-declaration/ ), which is addressed to the parties negotiating ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, meeting in Wellington this week.

LIANZA firmly believes that one of the principal purposes of copyright law is to encourage the dissemination and sharing of information, and is strongly opposed to any measures which inhibit these.

ACTA is a trade agreement being negotiated in secret.  LIANZA considers that any agreement relating to intellectual property should be negotiated openly and transparently, so that all potential stakeholders have input to the process. 

The Internet has become a vital tool for communication and dissemination of knowledge, and LIANZA believes that any measures, such as peremptory disconnection as envisaged in the now-abandoned section 92A of the New Zealand Copyright Act, that have potential to damage the open principles of the Internet should be avoided.

LIANZA also considers it is essential that exceptions currently included in copyright law, such as copying for research or private study, fair dealing, copying for educational purposes, and copying by libraries for library users and the users of other libraries, must be retained.

These and other exceptions are vital in maintaining an appropriate balance between encouraging creativity and protecting the rights of authors, publishers and other creators of literary, musical and artistic works, and providing for the needs of society to benefit from and make use of the ideas and knowledge incorporated within publications and other artistic works.   Maintenance of this balance is fundamental to good copyright law.

We recently had Richard Stallman in New Zealand and I posted about his talk in Levin (see below)

Op-Chart - How Green Is My iPad? - NYTimes.com

Op-Chart - How Green Is My iPad? - NYTimes.com

Here's a slant on iPads from the New York Times which I picked up off the nz-libs list.

Smartphones again - Love at First Touch

Ever since I attended the m-libraries workshop in January, I have been mulling over the potential benefits of a smartphone.   The December quarter issue of Exporter Magazine p.13 has an article by Mary McKinven in which she gets some feedback from users on the Blackberry versus the iPhone.  New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser uses a Blackberry!

Two of her key points were:

• the iPhone is simple to use and is like a personal assistant
• the Blackberry fits nicely into a suit jacket pocket

Well since then we have had the launch of iPad which from what i can gather it does not fit into a suit jacket pocket.   Has any one out there who reads this blog, bought an iPad?  Care to share your thoughts?   They  aren't available in New Zealand yet so any advice on how you are using your iPad, and how you are finding it  would be great.

The Internet in New Zealand 2009

The World Internet Project New Zealand Team has published its reports on The Internet in New Zealand 2009.   You can find the full report and an Executive Summary at the AUT website:

http://www.aut.ac.nz/research/research-institutes/icdc/projects/world-internet-project

As most of us are aware from the what is happening in our information services, the Internet is rated very highly as an information source.  In this report the Internet comes out on top as the most important information source in New Zealand in 2009:  65% rated the internet as important whereas libraries rated only 45% .  Libraries were less important than TVand newspapers.   I guess it highlights our role in making sure that the internet sources our clients use are the best!

The World site is to be found at: http://www.worldinternetproject.net/ so you can check reports for other countries.   It could be useful for the marketing department as well.

Export strategies

Export strategy documents are often hard to find especially on national governement websites.  Today I located one for a single industry: the Textile Industry in New Zealand. .  Therefore I thought it was worth sharing.   It includes a SWOT analysis and an implementation plan.  It doesn't include too many dates however and I can only conclude that because the website is current that the strategy is also current.

It is entitled Natural Fibre Export Strategy and you can find it at:

http://www.textilesnz.org.nz/sitedocs/keyactivities/marketdev.aspx

Your international trade department might find it useful!

By the way Happy Easter to all readers of this blog wherever you are!