Technology • Innovation • Publishing — Issue #214

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Important Items

Federal judge strikes down most of New York’s limits on the concealed carry of guns in public.

slate.com 
New York’s new concealed carry law is only the latest victim of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.

Trump, seeking Russian investigation-related classified documents last fall from archives, proposed a deal to advisers: tell archives he would trade the Mar-a-Lago documents he had for them

www.nytimes.com 
The former president exhibited a pattern of dissembling about the material he took from the White House, creating legal risk not just for himself but also some of his lawyers.

‘Disinformation Weekly’: How midterm newspapers are failing the electorate

www.cjr.org

Fake newspapers are turning up in Illinois letterboxes ahead of the midterms.

Call it data liberation day: Patients can now access all their health records digitally

www.statnews.com 
Under new federal rules, health care organizations must give patients unfettered access to their full health records in digital format.

President Biden signed an executive order reestablishing the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and proclaimed October 2022 National Arts and Humanities month

www.washingtonpost.com

The Future is Elastic!

rishad.substack.com

More wisdom bombs from ⁦@rishad

Innovation

Prescription video games to help w ADHD, COVID brain fog, and more — www.vox.com 
The future of video games is about more than just fun.

24 Hours in the Metaverse Version of Facebook — www.nytimes.com

Technology

AI-generated art from emerging products like Dall-e and Midjourney begs the question of what is creativity, what is art, who makes it, and who owns it— techonomy.com

New debunking website helps battle viral misinformation

mashable.com 
RumorGuard, created by the News Literacy Project, supplies readers with misinformation debunks as well as tools to learn about fact-checking and media literacy.

TikTok said to be launching live shopping in the US

techcrunch.com 
TikTok is talking with third-party companies to handle operations for launching a live shopping experience in the US

Now TikTok is copying Instagram with ‘Photo Mode’

www.engadget.com

The update allows TikTok users to share multiple still photos in a post, along with captions of up to 2,200 characters..

Shopify settles textbook publishers’ lawsuit over alleged piracy

www.reuters.com

E-commerce platform Shopify resolved a lawsuit with a group of publishers over alleged piracy and asked Virginia federal court to dismiss the case with prejudice. The publishers last year had asked the court for $2 million for each counterfeited trademark.

Spotify acquires firm that detects harmful content

www.reuters.com

Audio-streaming service Spotify Technology SA said it had acquired Kinzen, a firm that has helped it identify harmful content on the platform.

Twitter’s edit button is rolling out in the US for Twitter Blue subscribers

www.theverge.com

Twitter’s edit button will begin gradually rolling out the long-awaited feature to Twitter Blue subscribers in the US.

Fast Company website back after closing for 8 days due to hack

9to5mac.com

The drastic action was in response to an attack which saw obscene and racist alerts pushed to Apple News. The hackers said that unbelievably poor password security made multiple systems easy to access

How publishers can prevent cyberattacks after Fast Company’s hack

digiday.com 
Tech executives shared what publishers can do to prevent getting hacked and avoid cybersecurity breaches.

AI Data Laundering: How Academic and Nonprofit Researchers Shield Tech Companies from Accountability

waxy.org

RT @michellemanafy Academic researchers who compiled the Shutterstock dataset acknowledged the copyright implications. Meta is using those academic non-commercial datasets to train a model, presumably for future commercial use in their products. Weird, right?

Canada’s Online News Act will force Google and Facebook to pay out $329.2m a year, parliamentary report finds

pressgazette.co.uk

Publishing & Media

Where Is All the Book Data?

www.publicbooks.org

Since its launch in 2001, BookScan has grown in authority. All the major publishing houses now rely on BookScan data, as do many other publishing professionals and authors. But, as I found to my surprise, pretty much everybody else is explicitly banned from using BookScan data, including academics. The toxic combination of this data’s power in the industry and its secretive inaccessibility to those beyond the industry reveals a broader problem. If we want to understand the contemporary literary world, we need better book data. And we need this data to be free, open, and interoperable.

How TikTok is helping to diversify the publishing workforce

www.thebookseller.com 
TikTok is not only bringing the book trade writers, it’s providing a crucial new pipeline of diverse staff.

Ingram invests in NFT e-book company aiming to let readers ‘truly own digital books’ — www.thebookseller.com

Ingram Content Group is investing in Book.io, a company making ebooks available on the blockchain where they can be sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Using @IngramContent’s print-on-demand service, Lightning Source, @book_io will bundle NFT e-books with “bespoke printed physical books.” #NFTs

Find #MarginsBookstores

findmarginsbookstores.thewordfordiversity.org

RT @wordisdiversity Have you explored our interactive map to find your new favorite bookstore? Our map & database lists nearly 100 bookstores owned &/ managed by BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Disabled, and Neurodiverse booksellers. Comment w/ fav store or post a video about them. We’ll share #MarginsBookselling

Ageism in Publishing

www.thebookseller.com

Publishing is slowly working through its -isms, rightly yet belatedly self-flagellating over its lack of diversity of any kind. One -ism that is not being addressed, however, is ageism.

The real impact of #BookTok on library circulation

www.booknetcanada.ca

How are #BookTok-trending titles performing at Canadian libraries?

Zelensky to appear virtually at Frankfurt Book Fair — www.thebookseller.com 
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is to appear at Frankfurt Book Fair this year, speaking to delegates via videolink.

Wiley Plans to Restore Access to Approximately 1,380 E-Book Titles Removed from ProQuest Platform

www.infodocket.com

New audiobook platforms are launched to rival Amazon’s Audible

www.theguardian.com 
Spiracle will feature titles from independent presses, while last month, Spotify also began offering audiobooks to US customers

Book bans target nonwhite authors and characters — www.ajc.com 
The campaign to portray public education as a liberal training camp has conjured a new and unlikely villain — school librarians.

Book bans raise the question: Have we forgotten what a library is for?

www.washingtonpost.com

HT @EveryLibrary Librarians aren’t trying to force children to read books their parents don’t like. Their job is to uphold access to information for all.

Libraries Across the US Are Receiving Violent Threats — www.vice.com

Librarians and patrons believe the threats were part of a coordinated effort to limit information access, and come amidst a recent wave of book bans.

Hate groups stir up book controversy + shift school boards

frankstrong.medium.com

Who Are The Groups Banning Books Near You?

bookriot.com

Florida teacher wants review of over 100 books discussing sexual, political and LGTBQ+ topics

www.wkrg.com

HT @PENamerica The Department Chair of English at Northview High School in Escambia County is calling for the school board to evaluate more than 100 books that she says contain explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity and political pushes.

Book banning in schools and libraries gains momentum

www.cbsnews.com

A library in Michigan could close after the town voted to defund it over a handful of LGBTQ+ books that some deem inappropriate.

In Walla Walla, efforts continue to remove books from public school libraries — www.union-bulletin.com

A WA student reacted to book challenges at her school by organizing fellow students. The books remain in the collection & students donated extra money they raised to the public library. #UniteAgainstBookBans

Resources & Opportunities

Let’s Connect! Fall Outdoor *In-Person* Celebration

womensmediagroup.org

@WMG_NYC Members: Monday, 10/10 is the last day to register for the IRL Fall Party. Hope to see you there! Also, bring a brand-new book appropriate for kids 0–12 for a WMG group donation to @PajamaProgram

A Virtual Celebration of the Targaryen Dynasty — sites.prh.com

RT @randomhouse Join us on 10/24 for a conversation with @GRRMspeakingas he discusses all things Targaryen! There will be an audience Q&A, videos from HBO’s House of the Dragon, and more! #teamPRH

2022 Festival Schedule — Latinx Kidlit Book Festival — www.latinxkidlitbookfestival.com

MT @diversebooks The virtual @LatinxKidLitBF is this week from 10/13 to 10/14! Full schedule: http://ow.ly/ytkf50L3QHn

Also, applications for the Latinx Book Creators School Visit Fund are OPEN thru 12/15/22 — apply for virtual visits from Latinx authors & illustrators: http://ow.ly/Lmth50L3QHo #teamPRH

How to Get Into Publishing — www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Here are tips from Penguin Random House to help navigate the process of finding a job in the publishing world. #teamPRH

The Art & Business of Author Platform

www.eventcreate.com

HT @MaggieSimsAuthr Master Class by @JaneFriedman just in time for NaNo! Open to everyone, and great for all genres. Please re-share. #WritingCommunity #writersofinstagram @Austin_RWA

JAWS Health Journalism Fellowship — JAWS

jaws.org

RT @womenjournos Apply today for JAWS Health Journalism Fellowship Application in partnership with @commonwealthfnd — unique opportunity to emerging and early career journalists. Deadline: 5 p.m. ET, Nov. 7.

NYPL’s Special Edition Spider-Man Library Card Coming October 11 — www.nypl.org

MT @nypl This fall, discover your inner Super Hero at the Library! Beginning 10/11, visit any NYPL branch for a limited-edition library card featuring the world’s favorite web-slinger — and lifelong New Yorker — Spider-Man. Apply for an #AmazingLibraryCard today!

Download 586 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art — www.openculture.com

HT @eBookEvangelist

NYC Women’s Fund Cycle 4 Info Session: Overview

www.youtube.com

The NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre provides grants to encourage and support the creation of digital, film, music, and television.

Tink’s Podcast Hotline ☎️ — twitter.com

MT @tinkmediaco Hello? Podcasts? Are you there? If you’ve ever wanted a hotline where you could hear podcast recommendations and leave some of your own, then today’s the day that dream comes true! ✨ Introducing ✨ ☎️ Tink’s Podcast Hotline ☎️

Freelance Writing Direct Podcast — open.spotify.com

Podcast on freelance writing from @EstelleSErasmus