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Weekly News Digest
September 10, 2007 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

IFLA Receives Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grant

A representative from the Foundation said: "Our partnership with IFLA will help more public libraries provide free public access to computers and the Internet, which can provide people with opportunities to enhance their education, find jobs, build businesses, and exchange ideas with people around the world."

Established in 1927, IFLA currently has some 1600 members in 150 countries. Together, IFLA’s association and institutional members represent more than 500,000 librarians and library workers serving almost 2 billion registered library users worldwide. IFLA is an accredited nongovernmental organization with consultative status to the United Nations.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the U.S., it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett.

MyiLibrary Partners With Swets to Provide a Single Point of Access

MyiLibrary provides access to more than 70,000 ebooks, with content from more than 300 leading publishers. SwetsWise Subscriptions, the core focus of Swets’ SwetsWise portfolio, is a comprehensive service for the management and procurement of journals. Combining the functionality of MyiLibrary with SwetsWise Subscriptions is designed to create a powerful platform that enables organizations to manage their journal subscriptions and ebooks from a single interface.Source: Ingram Digital Group

Update on Net Neutrality: U.S. DOJ Warns the FCC to Be Wary

The DOJ filing stated: "The FCC should be highly skeptical of calls to substitute special economic regulation of the Internet for free and open competition enforced by the antitrust laws. Marketplace restrictions proposed by some proponents of ‘net neutrality’ could in fact prevent, rather than promote, optimal investment and innovation in the Internet, with significant negative effects for the economy and consumers."

The DOJ warned that "regulatory restraints can inefficiently skew investment, delay innovation, and diminish consumer welfare, and there is reason to believe that the kinds of broad marketplace restrictions proposed in the name of ‘neutrality’ would do just that with respect to the Internet."

(For background on the net neutrality issue, see the NewsBreak "Network Neutrality Under Challenge," by Wallace Koehler, at http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbReader.asp?ArticleId=15870. A number of library and educational organizations support net neutrality; the telephone and cable companies do not and would like the option to charge for higher levels of Internet service.)