LibrarianActivist.org

To add on to Sabina’s earlier post … now that Siobhan Stevenson’s call for keeping the public domain in public libraries has cracked into the public domain itself through First Monday, it’s time to talk turkey.

First, let me wax poetic for a moment and say that isn’t it great to be a part of a profession that shares information amongst each other, just because we want to? It will never cease to warm my heart. Second, our commitment to information sharing means that private interests from Gates and vendors alike, with their prepackaged sales pitches and honourary Harvard degrees, can’t measure up to the library community’s capacity to educate and inform the public, critically. It’s what we do.

That said, when terms such as Free and Open Source Software and Community Informatics arrive on the scene, they may not make the best first impression. FOSS and CI at first seem like brash guests at the party. They talk over your head, interrupt and confuse the humble and loyal guests, eat too much finger food and then question your menu choices, all while being nervy enough to recommend a better place for you to get your veggies.

Humph. So much for an invite back. However, if techie terms such as these crash the party again and continue to be so obtuse and unreachable, I urge you to see past their initial lack of manners and see them as the bold and renegade newcomers that they are, and simply in need of a guiding hand from some of the more experienced kids on the block. (And hey, they’ve got a solid point when it comes to buying more organic and locally grown food.)

If I were to have a standing list of block party invitees to mentor these newcomers into our midst, who would be on it? First, I’d make it a potluck. Second, I’d invite the ppl with whom FOSS and CI are already good friends and regularly exchange recipes.

The usual suspects are of course:

Jessamyn West. Pimp your Firefox. Watch a video on installing Ubuntu. Make friends with Wikipedia.

Sarah Houghton-Jan. Too many ideas to mention.

Aaron Schmidt . Great blog title, appreciated the Gmail Greasemonkey tip.

Erica Olson. Another great blog title, probably helped me stay in library school at a moment of weakness. Includes some in your face techie goodness.

The Team at Lifehacker. (Still getting acquainted).

Casey Bisson. From whom there is recommended reading: Open Source Software and Libraries; LTR 43.3

And for a few Canadian based suspects

Richard Akerman - Science Library Pad.

Dean Giustini - Open Medicine.

Jeff Trzeciak and Amanda Etches-Johnson, both at McMaster University, conducting reference interviews through Second Life and using an Endeca powered catalogue. added June 13.07

… this list is a work in progress. Any suggestions?

-PC-

Britain’s biggest specialist book chain, Waterstone’s, asked its 5,000 staff to name their favourite five books written since 1982, the date Waterstone’s opened its first store. The list features the cream, both male and female, of the modern international literary world of the last quarter of a century - from Umberto Eco and Bill Bryson to Robert Harris and Ian McEwan, from Margaret Atwood and Jung Chang to Zadie Smith and Zoe Heller.

- JH

I don’t post every petition I come across on here but this one is from a solid organization and it looks like it has some potential to at least get a legitimate hearing from top decision makers. So why not add your name to support this message?

—
Dear friend,

This Thursday, the environment ministers from the G8, the world’s biggest contributors to climate change, will be meeting in Germany. The outcome of this meeting is crucial to world’s response to global warming.

Avaaz.org has been invited to attend this meeting to present our climate change petition. A strong voice for action could help set the agenda for the G8. To help seize this opportunity, click below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

The G8 is a summit of world leaders from the “Group of 8″ largest economies. Together, these countries account for 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions–the gasses that cause climate change. The full G8 summit is coming in June, but the agenda and outcome of this type of high-profile event is usually set far in advance–at meetings like the one this Thursday.

This year, the president of the G8 is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, is in charge of the ministers meeting Thursday. And at 4 pm on March 15th, we have a personal meeting with Mr. Gabriel to present our petition for binding emissions targets to stop catastrophic climate change.

Merkel has indicated an interest in making climate change a top priority. With a significant global petition, we can make the case that the world is ready for aggressive leadership on climate change–and pave the way for truly historic commitments at the G8 summit this June.

It’s a rare opportunity to have a global impact. Add your voice to the petition now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

50,000 people from 131 countries have already demanded action. Our goal is to reach 100,000. Please sign the petition, forward this email to friends and family, and post the link on your blog–we only have a few days to make this statement count.

If we add our voices together, now, 2007 can become the year we took the first step to save the world.

With hope,

Ricken, David, Iain, Lee-Sean, Galit, Graziela, and the rest of the Avaaz.org team

Working Together is an innovative project attempting to overcome social barriers for marginalized people in Canada’s libraries. Right now, Working Together exists as a pilot project in four Canadian cities - Vancouver, Regina, Toronto and Halifax as well as a CLA interest group “Libraries in Communities”. The new Working Together web site has lots of information, an overview of best practices in this area as well as a discussion board.

Here’s the official announcement:

Hello all,

Annette DeFaveri
National Coordinator, WTP

(via CLA mailing list)

- JH

This will surely be fantastic if you can ”attend”:

Thursday, Nov. 23rd 3-4pm ET (12-1pm PT)
Community Development in a Library Context
with Annette DeFaveri - 1 hour AUDIO CONFERENCE

Libraries need to be connected to their communities if they are to survive and grow. Community Development means connecting, consulting, and working collaboratively with community members to understand the needs of the community and to inform the direction of library work and policies. Community Development is an energizing and vitalizing approach for librarians who want to build and strengthen their community connections in order to build strong and relevant libraries for the future.

Recognize the key elements necessary for understanding Community Development as it is applied in a library setting. Focus on practical applications of Community Development for developing programs and services, for reaching socially excluded communities, for turning infrequent users into regular users, and for identifying those systemic barriers that keep the library from being truly accessible to all.

More on the community development approach to librarianship in a July post from this blog. Annette’s a kicker and none who participate in this audio conference will be disappointed. To register, run to the Education Institute calendar. Registration is $54 for library association (CLA or one of the provincial library associations) members, $74 for non-members. If that’s too much, please join the “Communities and Libraries” Interest Group of the CLA. If you’re still a doubter, please read Annette’s “The Culture of Comfort” article on Information for Social Change.

-SIO