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This article reports that open access to scholarly information is a hot-button issue that quickly triggers heated discussion, especially if the topic arises in a mixed group of librarians and publishers. Issues surrounding open access are important, and they deserve serious considerations. Serious considerations however, requires the recognition of certain legal and economic realities. In addressing them in this article, it will seem to some readers that the author is belaboring the obvious, but he thinks a careful treatment of these points is necessary, because while many in the library profession recognize them as self-evidently true, there are some who regard them as blasphemous. First, there is no such thing as free information. There is a second basic reality of the information economy that bears on the open-access question, and this one is more controversial than the first: Information is not a public good.

The article reports on the online curriculum at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) and Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science. This curriculum was designed to teach and inform about preservation in graduate schools. It covers preservation of cultural heritage organizations to the tasks of paper-based materials.

This article reports that nearly 300 librarians, library staff, and library and information science students from across the U.S. participated in the 2004 National Diversity in Libraries Conference, which was held on May 4-5, 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference featured two dozen presentations and roundtable discussions covering a wide range of subjects. The Southeastern Library Network, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, the Historically Black College and University Library Alliance, and the Association of Research Libraries co-hosted the conference. \