(Back in mid-August! )
Archive for July, 2005
No RFIDs at SF Public Library
The San Francisco Budget Committee axed funding for the implementation of RFIDs at the San Francisco Public Library. (Link to story).
This reminded me of an interesting post on the LITA Blog on an RFID presentation at ALA. One of the speakers was Berkely Public Library director, Jackie Griffith.
Griffith says that a bigger intellectual freedom issue is access to information. Many public schools in Berkeley lack media specialists and 30% of Berkleyans do not have a computer at home. If there is such a concern that library rfid tags may be used by the government to interfere with things people read then the real question is what the government is doing. Griffith says that RFID has allowed the Berkeley Public Library to reopen on Sundays and to return their book purchasing budget to near normal levels.
I am not an expert on RFIDs, but I don’t really think it’s fair to pit one intellectual freedom issue with another, in order to sweep the “less pressing” issue under the rug. And I think it may also be short sighted to say that the use of technology has allowed the library to save money (and reopen on Sundays). The RFID implementation doesn’t deal with the underlying issue of library underfunding and thus has only postponed budget problems that are sure to reappear in the near future, as well as privacy issues, if RFIDs turn out to be not as safe as they ought to be.
Forum on Privatization and the Public Domain
The Forum on Privatization and the Public Domain is a new website that, among other things,
provides documentation, resources and references on social, economic and legal aspects of patents, copyright and other monopoly rights and the broader issues of privatization and the public domain.
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Members can post relevant documents to the site. The Libraries section is currently empty… so go ahead, submit!
How my Library Done Good…
There seems to be a library success story meme going around. From Information Wants to Be Free, comes a very interesting idea: Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. It’s a wiki that aims to be
a one-stop-shop for great ideas for librarians. (…) If you’ve done something at your library that you consider a success, please write about it in the wiki or provide a link to outside coverage. If you have materials that would be helpful to other librarians, add them to the wiki. And if you know of a librarian or a library that is doing something great, feel free to include information about it or links to it. Basically, if you know of anything that might be useful to other librarians (including useful websites), this is the place to put it. I hope this wiki will be a venue where people can share ideas with one another and where librarians can learn to replicate the successes of other libraries.
And this morning, from the BCLA-IPC listserv, a link to a similar initiative set up by IFLA called «Libraries Succes Stories Database».
Within the framework of its activities for WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) and in order to contribute to the ongoing and long term presence of libraries in the world, IFLA has set up a database that aims to showcase the value of libraries to society as a whole.
Canadian Civil Society Consensus for WSIS
In May, a group of 200 people representing Canadian Civil Society, got together to propose a consensus statement for the World Summit on the Information Society (phase II is taking place in Tunis this fall). The statement can be found here. Here are some good excerpts:
On Free Speech:
Governments should not harass, threaten, or imprison individuals who exercise their fundamental right to freedom of expression. Individuals and organizations that defend human rights should have access to Summit activities, the right to speak, and unfettered access to the Internet.
As an aside, this is very interesting given that the Canadian government in June of this year denied an entry visa to “Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the Ethiopian government’s chief expert and its representative to the Montreal-based UN Convention on Biological Diversity”, preventing him from attending a vital Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety meeting in Montreal. (link)
On Open Access and Open Government:
The Canadian government through its policies, programs and the working principles of its bodies and agencies, should provide example of no-cost, open and usable access to data, information and knowledge, created through the use of public resources. This should include providing access to primary data, to knowledge repositories, and to archives and other sources, at no cost and providing the means to ensure effective and widely available use of these resources. (…)The Information Society should foster an environment of transparency and access among all levels of government, civil society and the public, including access to raw and geospatial framework data. It should ensure the preservation and fair, equitable, and culturally appropriate use of current and historical archival records and data, museum artefacts, public domain information, and printed and non-printed library materials. Raw data from statistical, health, environmental and mapping agencies should be made available at no cost to citizens, civil society organizations, and to primary and secondary schools for non-commercial research purposes.
On copyright:
intellectual property rights must balance the rights of creators with the rights of users. Copyright law must not create overly restrictive legal barriers to the fair use, access and copying of information.
On Open Source Software and Wireless Access:
Canadian Civil Society supports Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and innovative intellectual property initiatives, such as Creative Commons, that enable users to have free access to, and build upon, existing tools and creations.Participants consider that Canada’s position should be one that supports, encourages, and promotes the development, production, and distribution of free and open source software models at the international level.
Participants believe that to best take advantage of the potential of wireless technologies, Canada’s position, both at home and at international bodies, should reflect the fact that radio frequency spectrum is a global public good. International norms, regulations, and policies should be designed to respect it as such.
It think comments on the consensus can be sent here before July 18th..
Congressional Research Reports for the People
Forwarded to BCLA’s IPC listserv, a new website called Open CRS: Congressional Research Service Reports easily available online.
CRS produces detailed, nonpartisan research reports on issues ranging from climate change to next-generation wireless technology. Lawmakers rely on the reports to provide the factual basis on which they build their cases for new legislation.
Before Open CRS, the only way to get your hands on these public domain documents was to pay for them (!) or ask a member of Congress for them. The people behind Open CRS asked organizations and activists already archiving these reports to submit them to Open CRS.
Initial response has been astounding. In its first three days alone, after receiving only a handful of mentions in the press, Open CRS has had over 70,000 visitors download over 30,000 reports and has received over 300 reports that were not otherwise available online. These statistics show the pent up demand for this important resource.
(Link)
UPDATE: Oh yeah… and there are 2 RSS feeds!
ALA conference notables
I know this has made every listserv and LIS blog, but it’s worth mentionning again and again. The ALA council passed a resolution against the war in Iraq. It is wonderful news indeed, although, I think it’s over 2 years too late. The Librarians for Peace called for this type of resolution back in 2003:
One would think that the American Library Association (ALA) given an opportunity to express its opposition to what was declared to be imminent war, given an opportunity to protest at least the gross misallocation of the US’ own resources which this fantastically expensive war was known to entail, at a time when it was also known that our deficits were already skyrocketing and that our social, health and educational (including library) sectors were being savagely slashed, that - if not for moral reasons, for purely practical reasons - the American Library Association at its mid-winter 2003 conference in Philadelphia would have stood up and opposed the war.Instead its Council and Executive consciously refused to oppose the war against Iraq, refused to embrace even a tepid, least-common-denominator resolution, based on self-interest alone, created to allow it to ’say no to war’!
CopyrightAndYou 2005: the Low-Down
Hugh over at dosemagazine attended the Copyright and You conference, here in Montreal, with speaker Richard Stallman. He gives a good run down of the presentation and the panel discussion that took place afterwards. He also mentions that the audio version of the event should be available soon at indymedia.quebec.
Motorized Advocacy
From the NYLINE listserv:
The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles announced the availability of the new “Love Your Library” license plate at a press conference today. The plate features a library-related graphic and the tagline READ LEARN EXPLORE.
CLA conference presentations available
The CLA has set up a page with some of this year’s presentations. Some of the more interesting are:
- Librarians as Stewards of the Commons: There will be a video of this keynote speech.
- The USA PATRIOT Act and Personal Privacy for Canadians
- Connect and Reflect: Let’s Meet the Library Service and Program Needs of the Aboriginal Community!