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Colin Steele

Google, copyright, and our future

Posted: 03 Feb 10 | Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig's lengthy article in the American magazine The New Republic has caused quite a stir in the internet community as he outlines the larger issue in the Google Book Search settlement and the dangerous precedent it sets for metered access to books and other cultural creations. |

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Sinomania

Posted: 29 Jan 10 | Perry Anderson in the January 28 issue of the London Review of Books examines the highly topical issue of China's relationship with the West. |

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Love and marriage, English-style

Posted: 20 Jan 10 | How long does the average marriage last? Amanda Vickery in the Times Literary Supplement finds out from Maureen Waller's history of "marital making and breaking", from the 15th to the 21st century - from Margaret Paston in 1465 to Heather Mills McCartney in 2008. |

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Can science explain religion?

Posted: 12 Jan 10 | In The Evolution of God, author Robert Wright surveys the history of religion and, more importantly, offers a new theory to explain why this history unfolded as it did. |

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How to write a love poem

Posted: 29 Dec 09 | Depending on its box-office success, it is likely that Bright Star will do for sales of Keats’s love poetry what Four Weddings and a Funeral did for W. H. Auden’s lip-trembler, Stop All the Clocks, according to The Times of London. |

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Christmas greetings

Posted: 22 Dec 09 | Thanks to all who read this blog and bibliophilic best wishes for 2010. Since Christmas and New Year's Eve may be the time for you to dance, we start with an article and video on Dr Dance from the Guardian. |

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How Google can give you fever

Posted: 15 Dec 09 | Do you suffer from "Cyberchondria", "the baseless fear and anxiety about common health symptoms due to Internet research, or 'Googling oneself into a state of absolute, clinical hysteria over every last pain, itch and strange freckle on your body'? Colin Steele investigates. |

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What's being killed off by the Net?

Posted: 08 Dec 09 | Read all about Austen and ailments, what books tell us about editing a newspaper, and 21 things that are being killed off by the internet - from memory, punctuality, listening to a whole album and spelling to airline tickets. |

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From mass mingling to maturialism

Posted: 30 Nov 09 | Forget the recession: the societal changes that will dominate 2010 were set in motion way before we temporarily stared into the abyss. Read on to learn about the ten crucial consumer trends of next year and more. |

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Best books of the decade

Posted: 23 Nov 09 | The Times of London has published a list of the 100 best books published in the noughties. Do you agree with their choice for number one? Probably not, but that's the whole beauty and challenge of lists. |

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100 best films of the decade

Posted: 17 Nov 09 | The 100 Best Films of the Decade have been suggested by the UK Times. |

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The right to choose

Posted: 09 Nov 09 | Author of the Discworld novels and Alzheimer's sufferer Sir Terry Pratchett has become a patron of the organisation Dignity in Dying. |

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Not a simple price war, but a fight over what you get to read

Posted: 02 Nov 09 | What's new for bookshops, publishing and libraries? E-books, e-bookreaders, digital textbooks, global developments in publishing, including the rise of supermarket sales in the UK and US and the learning processes and thus the reading habits of the Google generation. |

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Open web of books

Posted: 26 Oct 09 | Internet Archive unveils ambitious project called BookServer, allowing users to find, buy, or borrow digital books from sources all across the web. |

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New Jane Austen 'Emma' is a 'Corset Geek'

Posted: 19 Oct 09 | A new production of Emma is currently showing in the UK on the BBC - DVD will be available from Amazon at the end of November. |

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Talking About Detective Fiction

Posted: 15 Oct 09 | P D James' New Book 'Talking About Detective Fiction' will be available in Australia through Allen and Unwin in January and I do encourage all lovers of detective fiction and PD James to acquire it |

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Wikipedia: A ''Victim Of Its Own Success?''

Posted: 06 Oct 09 | There has been much discussion lately on the long term growth of Wikipedia and issues relating to the stresses on volunteer editors. |

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Thomas Keneally's Australian Reds

Posted: 29 Sep 09 | The People's Train lurches from event to event, and would benefit from more saturation in contemporary sources, says the TLS. |

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The Case for Books.

Posted: 21 Sep 09 | The book is not dead. In fact, the world is producing more books than ever before. |

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Steve Jobs Snipes at Amazon

Posted: 14 Sep 09 | Apple's chief executive says e-readers like the Kindle will "never be a big market". |

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Colin Steele is Emeritus Fellow at ANU, having been University Librarian 1980-2002. He has a long standing interest in books and communication issues. He believes that information provision and science fiction are rapidly merging.