Wikileaks panel discussion at ACRL
Unfortunately, I won't be going to ACRL 2011 in Philadelphia next month. But I'd recommend that folks go to this session on Wikileaks and libraries. If anyone is going, we'd love it if you'd volunteer to send us a summary of the panel (which is confusingly listed under "Roundtables".
Session Title: Wikileaks, war, and the web: where do academic libraries fit? When Wikileaks released the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries it raised ethical questions for academic libraries. Join the discussion and help provide guidance to such questions as: What are libraries' responsibilities regarding leaked classified information? Should libraries link to leaked classified materials? How might Wikileaks be used in an instruction session? Date: 04/01/2011 Time: 8:30AM - 9:30AM Location: Roundtable 3 (Exhibit Hall A, Pennsylvania Convention Center)Continue reading
Commerce Department unveils a national broadband inventory map
The National Broadband Map is a tool to search, analyze and map broadband availability across the United States. Created and maintained by the NTIA, in collaboration with the FCC, and in partnership with 50 states, five territories and the District of Columbia. See also: Are You Being Served? National Broadband Map Going Live Today, By Chloe Albanesius, PC Magazine (February 17, 2011).
Users can search by address, view data on a map, or use other interactive tools to compare broadband across various geographies, such as states, counties or congressional districts. ..."The National Broadband Map shows there are still too many people and community institutions lacking the level of broadband service needed to fully participate in the Internet economy. We are pleased to see the increase in broadband adoption last year, particularly in light of the difficult economic environment, but a digital divide remains," [Larry] Strickling [assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)] said in a statement.Continue reading
GPO and LoC to collaborate on two projects to enhance digital access
Here's some good news on this stormy day (at least in NorCal). GPO and the Library of Congress are set to work together on better digital access for the historic [w:United States Statutes at Large] and the [w:United States Constitution]. Anyone want to add this to the the [w:Conan the Librarian] wikipedia page?
The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and the Library of Congress (LOC) recently received approval from the Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) to proceed on two collaborative efforts. One project involves the digitization of some of our nation's most important legal and legislative documents and the other involves enhanced public online access to the Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation (CONAN). The digitization project will include the public and private laws, and proposed constitutional amendments passed by Congress as published in the official Statutes at Large from 1951-2002. GPO and LOC will also work on digitizing official debates of Congress from the permanent volumes of the Congressional Record from 1873-1998. These laws and documents will be authenticated and available to the public on GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) and the Library of Congress’s THOMAS legislative information system. The other project will provide enhanced public online access to the Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation (CONAN), a Senate Document that analyzes Supreme Court cases relevant to the Constitution. The project involves creating an enhanced version of CONAN, where updates to the publication will be made available on FDsys as soon as they are prepared. In addition to more timely access to these updates, new online features will also be added, including greater ease of searching and authentication. GPO authenticates the documents on FDsys by digital signature and these authenticated documents are also available on the Library’s THOMAS system. This signature assures the public that the document has not been changed or altered since receipt by GPO. This digital signature, viewed through the GPO Seal of Authenticity, verifies the document’s integrity and authenticity.Continue reading
Conference: Common purpose for journalists and librarians
Beyond Books: News, Literacy, Democracy and Americas Libraries (BiblioNews) is a one-and-one-half-day convening April 6-7, 2011 at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., for journalists, librarians and citizens. This looks to be a really interesting conference! Please let us know if you are going and can blog about the event here. (Send mail to freegovinfo at gmail dot com )
For three centuries, in American towns large and small, two institutions have uniquely marked a commitment to participatory democracy, learning and open inquiry -- our libraries and our free press. Today, as their tools change, their common missions of civic engagement and information transparency converge. Economic and technology changes suggest an opportunity for collaboration among these two historic community information centers — one largely public, one largely private. How?Continue reading
The Googlization of Everything: Interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan
Siva Vaidhyanathan's new book, The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry), is out. He finds a lot to like about Google, but also raises lots of questions about it. Among other things, he proposes a sprawling effort by libraries and like-minded institutions that would essentially give Googlers a public option. He discusses his ideas in an interview in Inside Higher Ed.
- Google's Gadfly: new book explains how google has taken over knowledge and learning, interview of Siva Vaidhyanathan by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed (February 16, 2011)
[Google] has contributed to the steady commercialization of higher education and the erosion of standards of information quality. Google is not a problem because it allegedly weakens our faculties. It's a problem because Google bakes biases into its algorithms. And we fail to recognize that fact. Most of the recent changes in Google's search algorithms make Google much better for shopping and much worse for learning....The same service cannot serve wisdom and wealth equally well. Fundamentally, we must recognize that some things are too important to be entrusted to unaccountable private actors. The Human Knowledge Project would be a 50-year public, global plan to design, legislate for, enable, and fund a global digital library service to deliver the best information to the most people. It's as feasible as it is desirable. In other words, if we don't do it it's because we don't really want it.Continue reading