Bookmobile day 11 Revisited
Our bookmobile trip is over and we are back to our respective day jobs. However, there are still some stories we couldn't leave behind so we'll be posting a few more items over the next few days. Here's the first one:
Our visit to the Hoopa library on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was unforgettable. We drove from Arcata to Hoopa around 8:30 in the morning. The weather was just about to turn to fall so we could feel a crispness in the air as the sun shone through the pine and cedar trees. The road (Rtes 299 and then 96) to Hoopa is incrediblly beautiful.
The library was small but well organized. Despite it being early morning, quite a few community members gathered at the library to see the bookmobile or to use the library. We could tell the community was tightly-knit because everyone knew each other and no one was a stranger to them.
One of our bookmobilista speils has been that anyone can download anay of the hundreds of thousands of books (the goal is 1 million!) free of charge; we thought that was universally a good meassge. However, Several Hoopa community members mentioned that not many people in the valley had computers and those that do have uneven internet access at best via the phone line. The library has 4 computers with DSL but the librarian mentioned that the internet connection was spotty and so she recommended that users get a magazine to read while waiting for larger files to download. As we've said previously, the digital divide is unfortunately alive in rural communities across the US. So a digital bookmobile was not the optimum solution for this community.
Regardless of their level of access to the information highway, in Hoopa the library IS at the center of their community and the community knew and cherished that -- that's the dream of every librarian! We interviewed several community members about what they thought was the role of the library in their community. Ms. Hayley Hott gave a particularly passionate response (see below).
Many librarians are struggling to know about the community that they serve, but we felt that this library was truly a success story. It might not be the largest collection or have an abundance of facilities, but it is loved and highly-used by everyone in the valley.
Continue readingDatabase of News Stories Based on FOIA
The Sunshine in Government Initiative has a new database of news articles and stories that are based on documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests:
Read more about the database and how to search it here:
- The FOIA Files: Stories that FOIA Made Possible
Countless media outlets, government watchdog groups and individual Americans have used the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain important information on how -- and how well -- their government operates, knowledge that is crucial to a well-functioning democracy.- Systemic failures keep two million veterans & widows from benefits owed them.
- Military tells next of kin one story about combat deaths, documents tell another.
- $1.2 billion & 6 years not enough to start up anti-terror data mining.
The Sunshine in Government Initiative is a coalition of media groups committed to promoting policies that ensure the government is accessible, accountable and open.
Continue readingCLIR Seeks Public Comment on White Paper
Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization By Oya Rieger
CLIR Seeks Public Comment on White Paper: Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) seeks public comment on a white paper examining preservation issues relevant to large-scale digitization projects such as those being done by Google, Microsoft, and the Open Content Alliance. The paper, Preservation in the Age of Large-Scale Digitization, was written by Oya Rieger, Interim Assistant University Librarian for Digital Library and Information Technologies at Cornell University Library. It is available at http://www.clir.org/activities/details/mdpres.html.
The paper identifies issues that will influence the availability and usability, over time, of the digital books being created by large-scale digitizing projects, and considers the relationship of these new resources to our print collections. It concludes with a set of recommendations for rethinking a preservation strategy.
In issuing this paper, CLIR aims to stimulate discussion among stakeholders and to generate productive thinking about collaborative approaches to enduring access. To this end, CLIR invites those who submit comments to indicate whether they would like their comments posted publicly on our Web site. CLIR will make public only those comments accompanied by permission to post (let us know if the comments are to be anonymous or signed), and all such comments will be moderated. Comments received without permission to post will be shared only with CLIR staff and the author.
Public comment is sought through Friday, October 5. Please address comments to Kathlin Smith (ksmith@clir.org). CLIR will issue a final print and electronic report later this fall.
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Bookmobile day 12: Home
Our 2 week bookmobile trip has finally wrapped up with our last stops today in Willits and Ukiah (both in Mendocino county). We just got home to San Francisco. We are not able to write all our thoughts but we can tell for sure it was truly fun and learning experience.
We learned about the crucial roles that libraries play in rural communities. For many communities, the library is not just a place where you can check out books; it is the social, cultural and educational hub and more. People come to the library to join writing and knitting groups, book club, to fill out resumes and apply for jobs, submit their taxes, surf the Web, and on and on. It's been great to visit those 11 libraries over the last 2 weeks to see in person the central role that libraries play in their communities -- despite the budget cuts, staff shortages, lack of tech support, knowledge and infrastructure. Academic libraries could learn a lot about building and sustaining communities simply from observing small, rural libraries.
We'll write more tomorrow, and will post more flickr images as soon as we get a new camera cable (which I lost somewhere between Blue Lake and Willits :-) ).
Continue readingWorld Law Bulletin now available
Thanks to Steven Aftergood, the World Law Bulletin is now available.
For its own peculiar reasons, the Law Library [of the Library of Congress] has declined to make this serial available to the public....
But now a collection of back issues of World Law Bulletin, dating from October 2000 to March 2006, has become publicly available through alternate channels.
"World Law Bulletin", Secrecy News, September 10, 2007.
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