LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

If you ever wanted concrete proof that the "Don't share my information with other companies" and "Stop emailing me" options on a web site are often useless, it's here. It's impossible to know which companies share data and which don't, but registering with the "do not share my e-mail" option ticked didn't appear to reduce spam in any way. Some of the bloggers reported a drop in the amount of spam they were receiving on a day-to-day basis when they unsubscribed from certain services, but the trend is not particularly strong.

E-mail and other electronic communications have dramatically changed the contemporary legal landscape. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the cost of a lawsuit today can come from sorting through e-mails and other electronic documents to determine which ones are relevant to the case.
Story @ NPR.

Make It Stop! Crushed by Too Many E-Mails: e-mail is at risk of killing its own usefulness. Daily e-mail volume is now at 210 billion a day worldwide and increasing, according to The Radicati Group, a market research firm.

The burden of managing all that e-mail has prompted a backlash. One extreme reaction is "e-mail bankruptcy," where users throw up their hands and erase their entire inboxes. Many admit the distraction makes it near impossible to get work done, or even socialize normally.

I recently discovered Xobni ("inbox" backwards), a tool that seems like it might have a particular appeal for librarians. Xobni is a sidebar that works with Outlook and offers analytics, searching, email organization, a social networking method of organization and more.

The Washington Post: With a test, Web sites let people in and keep out computers set to unleash spam attacks. Now, computers are cracking the code.

One From NetworkWorld.com A report issued today the Government Accountability Office said that while of the four agencies it reviewed e-mail policies generally contained required elements, but about half of the senior officials were not following these policies and were instead maintaining their e-mail messages within their e-mail accounts, where records cannot be efficiently searched, are not accessible to others who might need the information in the records, and are at increased risk of loss.

I was just reading a post on PUBLIB and noticed a pattern, I think that a particular author "does" email. That got me thinking, is email part of working for most people now, or is it still something that needs to be done separately? For me it's like eating, or breathing even. My email program is always running, there is no "doing" email, it's just always on. Email is not a distinct part of my day, it's how many reference questions come in while I'm at work, and it's how all support requests come in for LISHost. Email isn't something that can be put off until I have free time, it's how work begins. Because of LISHost I can't go more than an hour or two without at least checking on email, the servers and support requests; ever. While I know I'm probably an extreme example, even during a regular workday I wonder if people still "do" email. 5 years ago when I worked in a huge academic library I was surprised so many people would block out time special time to "do" the email.

So I'm curious, do you "do" email? How do you handle it? Do you "do" your feed reader or twitter or something else?

The 2008 Annual Google Communications Intelligence Report: At the end of 2007, Google conducted an annual online survey of messaging professionals. Providing insight into the major communications trends in the past year as well as the pressing issues and concerns for the coming one, this survey is the result of 575 global interviews with CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs in large, multinational enterprises as well as small organizations. This report summarizes the key findings of the survey, including detailed statistical analysis of the key trends in business communications in 2007 and how these trends translate into priorities for business communications professionals in the year ahead. Following the summary of the research findings, the report touches on Google’s expectations for the coming year as well as defines some best practices in business communication to help organizations address the expected challenges in the industry in 2008.

There's a treasure-trove of computer-generated communications sitting out there amongst business, government and significant people that is not available to historians and biographers. There is no way to access, manage and use it. So, what's the problem? Apparently, it's the future. Without these digital communications, generations who follow will lose opportunities for valuable insight and understanding as to the who, what, why and how of our lives, says Peter Gottlieb, State Archivist of Wisconsin. The Rest Of The Story.

First spam felony conviction upheld: no free speech to spam: Virginia's Supreme Court on Friday upheld the first US felony conviction for spamming. The spammer will serve nine years in prison for sending what authorities believe to be millions of messages over a two-month period in 2003.
Jeremy Jaynes is the man who will make history. A Raleigh, North Carolina, resident who made Spamhaus' top 10 list of spammers, Jaynes was arrested in 2003 even before the CAN SPAM act was passed by Congress. Jaynes was convicted in 2005, but his lawyers appealed the conviction. This past Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld that conviction, but the vote was a narrow 4-3.