Library Juice 2:24 - Library Juice is now a book and a blog

Library Juice 2:24 - June 16, 1999 Contents: 1. PC Webopedia 2. Information Technology - Unintended Consequences 3. PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOREALISM 4. Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies 5. Technology and Culture (Journal) 6. Media, Culture and Technology (Journal) 7. _Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart_ 8. LITA experts identify trends to watch 9. Fred Stoss's comment on use of internet in academic libraries 10. raging against the library machinery - an info worker's rant 11. Culture, Class, and Cyberspace - Resource Compilation 12. Join Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 13. Telephone History Website Quotes for the week: .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value." -Carl Sagan .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "Man is not a machine... Although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in he way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the furture, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns." -Joseph Weizenbaum: .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "If you aren't scared, you just don't understand." - UUNet's internal catch-phrase, cited in: "Editorial: NGN - A Fancy Feast of Networking Ideas" Business Communications Review, Dec. 1998, p.6 UUNet was the first company to sell internet access commercially and is a leading isp for corporations. What they are scared of is the speed of change in the internet business and the speed of its effect on society, specifically the threat it might pose to their market dominance. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "Creating new forms of enlightenment" -Nortel Networks' internal slogan. Nortel Networks makes telecommunications and internet hardware for phone companies, paving the way for telephone connections as spotty as your internet connection. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory." -Neil Postman, "Informing Ourselves to Death" http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Criticisms/informing_ourselves_to_death.paper ____________________________________________________________________________ 1. PC Webopedia http://thetech.pcwebopedia.com/ Ever wonder what a Routing Switch is? How about CMOS or seek time? Look no further than the PC Webopedia. Provided by The Tech Museum of Innovation, this encyclopedia of computer terms contains over 4,000 entries. Users may search by keyword or browse within 25 categories. Terms are briefly but clearly explained, with links to related terms and, when possible, related Websites. [MD] >From the Internet Scout Report: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/ ____________________________________________________________________________ 2. Information Technology - Unintended Consequences Terry Link's link page at MSU http://www.lib.msu.edu/link/infotech.htm ____________________________________________________________________________ 3. PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOREALISM http://www.technorealism.org (You can go to the site to "sign on" to the principles and learn about the organization's conferences, etc.) 1. Technologies are not neutral. A great misconception of our time is the idea that technologies are completely free of bias -- that because they are inanimate artifacts, they don't promote certain kinds of behaviors over others. In truth, technologies come loaded with both intended and unintended social, political, and economic leanings. Every tool provides its users with a particular manner of seeing the world and specific ways of interacting with others. It is important for each of us to consider the biases of various technologies and to seek out those that reflect our values and aspirations. 2. The Internet is revolutionary, but not Utopian. The Net is an extraordinary communications tool that provides a range of new opportunities for people, communities, businesses, and government. Yet as cyberspace becomes more populated, it increasingly resembles society at large, in all its complexity. For every empowering or enlightening aspect of the wired life, there will also be dimensions that are malicious, perverse, or rather ordinary. 3. Government has an important role to play on the electronic frontier. Contrary to some claims, cyberspace is not formally a place or jurisdiction separate from Earth. While governments should respect the rules and customs that have arisen in cyberspace, and should not stifle this new world with inefficient regulation or censorship, it is foolish to say that the public has no sovereignty over what an errant citizen or fraudulent corporation does online. As the representative of the people and the guardian of democratic values, the state has the right and responsibility to help integrate cyberspace and conventional society. Technology standards and privacy issues, for example, are too important to be entrusted to the marketplace alone. Competing software firms have little interest in preserving the open standards that are essential to a fully functioning interactive network. Markets encourage innovation, but they do not necessarily insure the public interest. 4. Information is not knowledge. All around us, information is moving faster and becoming cheaper to acquire, and the benefits are manifest. That said, the proliferation of data is also a serious challenge, requiring new measures of human discipline and skepticism. We must not confuse the thrill of acquiring or distributing information quickly with the more daunting task of converting it into knowledge and wisdom. Regardless of how advanced our computers become, we should never use them as a substitute for our own basic cognitive skills of awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. 5. Wiring the schools will not save them. The problems with America's public schools -- disparate funding, social promotion, bloated class size, crumbling infrastructure, lack of standards -- have almost nothing to do with technology. Consequently, no amount of technology will lead to the educational revolution prophesied by President Clinton and others. The art of teaching cannot be replicated by computers, the Net, or by "distance learning." These tools can, of course, augment an already high-quality educational experience. But to rely on them as any sort of panacea would be a costly mistake. 6. Information wants to be protected. It's true that cyberspace and other recent developments are challenging our copyright laws and frameworks for protecting intellectual property. The answer, though, is not to scrap existing statutes and principles. Instead, we must update old laws and interpretations so that information receives roughly the same protection it did in the context of old media. The goal is the same: to give authors sufficient control over their work so that they have an incentive to create, while maintaining the right of the public to make fair use of that information. In neither context does information want "to be free." Rather, it needs to be protected. 7. The public owns the airwaves; the public should benefit from their use. The recent digital spectrum giveaway to broadcasters underscores the corrupt and inefficient misuse of public resources in the arena of technology. The citizenry should benefit and profit from the use of public frequencies, and should retain a portion of the spectrum for educational, cultural, and public access uses. We should demand more for private use of public property. 8. Understanding technology should be an essential component of global citizenship. In a world driven by the flow of information, the interfaces -- and the underlying code -- that make information visible are becoming enormously powerful social forces. Understanding their strengths and limitations, and even participating in the creation of better tools, should be an important part of being an involved citizen. These tools affect our lives as much as laws do, and we should subject them to a similar democratic scrutiny. ____________________________________________________________________________ 4. Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 00:11:56 -0500 (EST) From: resource center for cyberculture studies <rccs[at]otal.umd.edu> To: lishilde[at]ACSU.Buffalo.EDU Subject: Cyberculture Studies This is to announce the second anniversary of the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies, an online, not-for-profit organization devoted to the study of issues surrounding the Internet. RCCS is located at: <http://otal.umd.edu/~rccs> New additions include an extensive listing of academic conferences and symposia; an updated archive of university courses devoted to the Net and cyberculture; and one to two original, full length book reviews each month. Recently reviewed books include: * Stacy Horn, Cyberville: Clicks, Culture and the Creation of an Online Town; * Juan Luis Cebrian, La Red: Como Cambiaran Nuestras Vidas los Nuevos Medios de Comunicacion; * James J. O'Donnell, Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace; and * Llana Snyder, Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth. Contact: David Silver <rccs[at]otal.umd.edu> Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies American Studies, University of Maryland ____________________________________________________________________________ 5. Technology and Culture (Journal) Vance Bell wrote: From: vbell[at]dept.english.upenn.edu (Vance Bell) Subject: Technology and Culture Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 14:57:00 -0500 (EST) Technology and Culture http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/ ISSN 1097-3729 Technology and Culture is the foremost international vehicle for the scholarship of professional historians of technology and for the historical writing of scholars and professionals in a variety of neighboring desciplines. In addition to essays, eash issue features extensive book reviews as well as reviews of important new museum exhibitions. Published ny Johns Hopkins University Press quarterly. Contact: Editor-in-Chief: John Staudenmaier Email: john.stsj[at]bc.edu [From NewJour-L] ____________________________________________________________________________ 6. Media, Culture and Technology (Journal) Vance Bell wrote: From: vbell[at]dept.english.upenn.edu (Vance Bell) Subject: Media, Culture, and Technology Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:04:38 -0400 (EDT) Media, Culture and Technology http://www.kk.kau.se/mct/start.html M/C/T is a journal/e-zine concerned with Media, Culture and Technology. M/C/T is a new journal for a new medium for a new millenium. M/C/T encourages writing that challenges given assumptions about the information society. We seek to analyse, critique, probe and raise questions about the intersecting vectors of media, culture and technology. We invite our readers to join in the conversation and write for M/C/T. We encourage open hypertexts/ cybertexts. We are interested in publishing short, medium and full length articles, debates, reviews, multimedia, digital art, and just about anything that concerns media, culture and technology. We will publish 3 issues during 1999. We hope to increase that number in 2000, but that depends upon you! This journal has it's home (and server) at the Department of Media and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden. It is an initiative of the Communication: Media and Information Technology research group. Our current editorial board consists of, Robert Burnett, Managing Editor; Andreas Kitzmann, Text Editor; Steve Gibson, Multimedia Editor; and Peter Bergting, Art Editor. You can contact M/C/T in the following ways: By mail: M/C/T - Journal of Media, Culture and Technology Media and Communications Karlstad University S-65188 Sweden By e-mail: General Inquiries: Robert.Burnett[at]kau.se Article submissions: Andreas.Kitzmann[at]kau.se Multimedia submissions: Steve.Gibson[at]kau.se Art submissions or commentary on the web site: Peter.Bergting[at]kau.se We would like to acknowledge our sister journal, M/C out of the Media and Cultural Studies Centre, University of Queensland, Australia. We encourage you to check out M/C. http://english.uq.edu.au/mc/indexmain.html [From NewJour-L] ____________________________________________________________________________ 7. _Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart_ Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:11:09 -0400 From: librefed <librefed[at]kent.edu> Subject: FWD: Information Ecologies MIME-Version: 1.0 >===== Original Message From Dave Tyckoson <dave_tyckoson[at]csufresno.edu> ===== I want to make all of you aware of a new book that should be of interest. The book is titled "Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart" was written by two scientists, Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day, and was published by MIT Press in 1999. I wish that I could tell you that I discovered it through an exhaustive search of the literature on human-computer interaction, but in reality I just found it on the approval plan truck. This book discusses a variety of "information ecologies", or information environments in which we live and work. Examples include hospitals, schools, designers, and (of course) libraries. The authors spent time to observe how people working in these environments actually used information, much as a biologist would observe an animal in the wild. What they found is that librarians are a "Keystone Species" within the information ecology. Librarians play a key role not only for themselves, but are also a link around which other "species" (i.e., researchers) function. If the librarians disappear, other users of information will suffer. They provide some excellent examples (which I plan to use in my own work) on how librarians, particularly reference librarians, operate and why those librarians cannot be replaced by software. The authors focus on how librarians humanize technology for others while using it expertly themselves. I bring this up because as librarians our efforts are often ignored or misunderstood by those outside our profession. This work is important because it is highly complimentary and is written by researchers who have no vested interest in our field. All in all, it says a great deal about how we are (or at least how we should be) viewed from outside. Dave Tyckoson Head of Reference Henry Madden Library CSU-Fresno davety[at]csufresno.edu ____________________________________________________________________________ 8. LITA experts identify trends to watch FROM PUB_LIB listserv ---------- From: JackLSmith[at]aol.com[SMTP:JackLSmith[at]aol.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 9:14 PM I came across this web page I thought would be of interest - Jack Smith http://www.lita.org/committee/toptech/trendsmw99.htm Technology and library users: LITA experts identify trends to watch One of the top trends in technology for libraries is: you don't have to pay attention to all the trends! Ten experts who are members of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association, met for discussion in Philadelphia on January 31, 1999. They agreed that librarians have permission to ignore the "trends of the week" breathlessly and regularly announced in computer industry publicity. To see more thoughts on the idea of predicting the technology future please see Futurespeak: A Preface to Top Technology Trends in Libraries, an essay by LITA's Telecommunications Electronic Reviews' Editor, Tom Wilson. The discussion group assembled by LITA included Karen Coyle, Walt Crawford, Pat Earnest, Elizabeth Lane Lawley, Clifford Lynch, Roy Tennant, Carol Tenopir, Joan Frye Williams, Tom Wilson, and Milton Wolf. The experts stay informed about top trends by reading technology related publications, attending computer seminars/workshops, and networking with others in library and computer related fields. The LITA experts agree that the following trends are worth keeping an eye on. � TREND 1: Library users who are Web users, a growing group, expect customization, interactivity, and customer support. Approaches that are library-focused instead of user-focused will be increasingly irrelevant. The University of Washington's MyGateway and North Carolina State University's MyLibrary[at]NCState are examples of customized portals. � TREND 2: In dealing with electronic information resources, what librarians bring to the table is evaluative guidance. Comprehensive lists and catalogs aren't possible any more (if they ever were!), but librarians can help the overloaded information user by selecting, evaluating, and adapting features such as "people who liked this book also liked*." � TREND 3: It's time to put a human face on the virtual library. What's the crucial factor in the success of the nonvirtual library? The people who work there and serve the user! What do libraries emphasize on their Web sites? Resources, collections, facts * with no human guidance or presence! On many library Web sites, the user is hard-pressed to identify the staff, whose names, if they're there, are five levels down. The human factor is still important. � TREND 4: Why reinvent the wheel? Co-opt existing technologies that haven't been used in libraries, and take advantage of cooperative efforts in information access. Libraries can afford less and less wasteful inefficiency and duplication of effort. You can't catalog the Web yourself; instead, tune in to OCLC's Project CORC or the ISAAC Network. And those folks in the fast food industry with the telephone headphones * why aren't we all using those in customer support? � TREND 5: The isolated scholar is out there, and she wants your resources! That widespread distribution tool, the Web, is making library resources available to more people than ever before and blurring the lines between audiences. The farmer online from Two Egg, Florida might be just as interested in your one-of-a-kind research material as a graduate student is. Who are you going to serve on the worldwide network and how? � TREND 6: Authentication and rights management: who has the right to use this, but not that, and how much will they be charged? And is that document the real thing? The World Wide Web allows more access by more people to more connected information than ever before in history, but documents and identities are also more malleable than ever before. Libraries are going to have an increasing interest in verifying that you are who you say you are, you do have the right to access this resource, and the resources you are receiving are authentic. � TREND 7:Don't run aground on submerging technologies! Often just as important to libraries as emerging technologies are submerging technologies. For example, you need to be planning now to migrate away from CD-ROM and toward the Web as a delivery mechanism for index, abstract, and full text databases. LITA president Barbra B. Higginbotham noted, "LITA is the preeminent professional organization in this country for librarians working in the fields of systems and information technology. Our members, and the library field as a whole, look to LITA for guidance about both their professional present and future. Our 1999 LITA National Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina, to be held November 5-7, will include programming that expands on many of the trends these LITA leaders have identified, better equipping LITA members for the 21st century." ____________________________________________________________________________ 9. Fred Stoss's comment on use of internet in academic libraries Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 14:21:12 -0500 (EST) From: Frederick W Stoss <fstoss[at]acsu.buffalo.edu> To: "Dorothy M. Broderick" <dbroderick[at]erols.com> cc: member-forum[at]ala1.ala.org Subject: Re: More than information MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: member-forum[at]ala.org Sender: owner-member-forum[at]ala.org Dorothy, You raise an excellent point. I imagine a day not in the too-distant future when teaching and research faculty are going to get VERY concerned that their students have lost all contact with the literatures of their respective major (and minor) courses of studies. The number of students who feeling "if it is not on the Internet it is not worth examining" is alarming. I have known situations where a graduate student refused use of health statistics in a CDC handbook and newsletter because they could not be cut-and-pasted into a spread sheet or table text. I know of students using online, bibliographic services that provide full-text access and restricting their searches only to full-text articles and the shortest ones.Trying to convince an undergraduate student that the information they need is in a book much more readily than spending hours scouring the 'Net for junk is a realty. I think it would be possible to count on one hand the number of students using the print version of an abstracting or indexing service for which we have an online equivalent. Part of our jobs as librarians is trying to convince students that everything they need is NOT on the Internet or the World Wide Web. Making that presentation a lively discussion that stimulates students' interests and desires to explore the literature of their disciplines is the greater challenge. Working with faculty (to have them assign a project requiring students to read a series of classic papers) can be fruitful. The good old printed word is still a viable commodity! Pogo that lovable cartoon character summed up the situation (when commenting from a fox hole during a war in Viet Nam), "I think we have met the enemy and it is us!" Fred Stoss ____________________________________________________________________________ 10. raging against the library machinery - an info worker's rant Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:40:12 -0800 From: Chuck0 <chuck[at]tao.ca> Organization: Mid-Atlantic Infoshop X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: librarians[at]tao.ca Subject: No War but Information War: raging against the library machinery Sender: owner-librarians[at]tao.ca Precedence: bulk Interesting rant from the KASPAHRASTER web site. http://www.teleport.com/~jaheriot/kr.htm Chuck0 ============= NO WAR BUT INFORMATION WAR by P. Cloak The library I work in is very modern -- it is the modern virtual electronic library. It is the tower of information babel in all its banal stupid soul-destroying lack of splendour. There are about a dozen computers used to search at least ten dozen databases in the reference section where I work, and dozens of different brands of database searching software. September is the start of the Fall semester, and so there is always a full house of brand new people hunched in their seats peering at the screens, who have never used the particular search language in front of them, ever before. And, this is the telling point, can't convert the knowledge they've gained from using other databases to using this database. They look at me, embarrassed, baffled, "I used the computers at my last library," they protest, "but this one is different." You said it, kids. All of them are different. Well, different for you maybe, but all too repetitious for me. Welcome to what used to be reference service but what is now become the remedial computer training lab from shit out of hell. After eight hours of this, having 'helped' about a hundred people, all you want to do is get falling-down drunk. After one week, you want to step in front of a bus. Not that I blame the students, fear not -- a good part of my anger is on their behalf. It's the proliferation of hundreds of database search languages that's insane. It is a full-time job for library staff to keep on top of dozens of different search languages, let alone expect the newbies to master two of them for their first assignment. Two is the bare minimum though - one for a periodical index, and one for a library catalogue. The students, rightly, can't understand this. Why isn't it all the same they ask over and over. Why indeed - why different search interfaces for SilverPlatter, BRS, FirstSearch, Wilsondisc, Ovid, Dialog, BRS, Lexis/Nexis, Carl Uncover and more, plus a half dozen individual things like NTDB or HAPI cdroms and a half-dozen different idiosyncratic online library catalogs, just to cover your local libraries? And we haven't even got to stuff like web searching, or gopher, or all the other internet tools that may be necessary depending on the research project. All search languages are doing roughly the same thing. But unless you are familiar with database systems, you would never know this to look at their infinite superficial variety. When the assholes who write a database search language get ready to pick a truncation symbol, for example, they evidently first look around very thoroughly to make absolutely certain it is unique in the universe. God forbid there would be any convention for people to fall back on. I shudder to think how much of my burned-out brain is devoted to trivia like remembering truncation symbols! Asterisks, colons, hache marks, dollar signs, plus signs, on and on and on. Yet this illustrates why the students are forever clamouring for my help. (and it is also why I understand too well why tech support people want to scream at people to read the fucking screens!) The brave new electronic library _barely_ works smoothly when the students are smart and ready and have that detail-oriented aptitude for mind-numbing clerical trivia that is the central theme of the computer age. But not all students have that aptitude, and not all students at this school are even 100% literate, such is the blind lust for head-count in today's money-hungry university. And not all of the smart and literate students came from well-endowed high schools or middle-class homes that had computers. I wish I had a dollar for every time a student typed the letter 'f' and then the number '2' when I pointed to the instruction on the screen to press F2; I could retire last year. Man, I tell ya, it is frightening sometimes. Sometimes I raise my head and look around and get the same final feeling I get when driving on the freeway -- this is bad news today and it's headed nowhere. It's not just the Haves and Have-nots, the Cans and Can'ts that worry me. It's the mental pollution of all that bogus detail and trivia, the way we must bring ourselves down to the level of an obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive meticulous little info-accountant. I think we are all going to end up with mechanical brains like robots. Yes/no? ____________________________________________________________________________ 11. Culture, Class, and Cyberspace - Resource Compilation Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 03:04:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Art McGee <amcgee[at]igc.org> X-Sender: amcgee[at]igc To: media-l[at]tao.ca Subject: [10/14/1998]: Culture, Class, and Cyberspace MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-media-l[at]tao.ca Precedence: bulk Reply-To: media-l[at]tao.ca [The date in the subject indicates the last time this list was updated] Greetings, I don't agree with all the conclusions, but listed below are some very interesting and important resources, dealing with the intersection of ethnicity, culture, class, poverty, computers, and cyberspace. Even if you're busy, please be sure to at least browse them. If you have a web page, and you agree that these links are important, please do me a favor and add them to a section on your site. Thank you. By the way, many of the links lead to original material, not the summarized articles with similar titles that you may have read in a newspaper or magazine. --- [Ethnicity and Culture Section] The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: African American Critical Theory and Cyberculture <http://www.kalital.com/Text/Writing/Whitenes.html> Cultural Uses of New, Networked Internet Information and Communication Technologies: Implications for US Latino Identities <http://sunsite.unc.edu/jlillie/thesis.html> Bridging the Digital Divide: The Impact of Race on Computer Access and Internet Use <http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/papers/race/science.html> What it Means to be Black in Cyberspace <http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/cz/identity/blakCMC.html> Cyborg Diaspora: Virtual Imagined Community <http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~radhik/sanov.html> Race In/For Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet <http://acorn.grove.iup.edu/en/workdays/Nakamura.html> American Emissaries to Africa: >From John Barlow via James Bond to James Baldwin and Back <http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive/1292.html> What Color is the Net? <http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/97/11/index2a.html> WIRED 3.12: Idees Fortes - Race in Cyberspace? <http://www.wired.com/wired/3.12/departments/berger.if.html> Book Review: The African-American Resource Guide to the Internet <http://www.otal.umd.edu/~rccs/books/battle.html> Black Pioneers of the Internet <http://www.delphi.com/blackpioneers/> Forsaken Geographies: Cyberspace and the New World 'Other' <http://eng.hss.cmu.edu/internet/oguibe/> <http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/madrid.htm> On Digital 'Third Worlds': An interview with Olu Oguibe <http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/springer.htm> The Virtual Barrio [at] The Other Frontier (or the Chicano inerneta) <http://www.telefonica.es/fat/egomez.html> Cultural Survival Quarterly: The Internet and Indigenous Communities <http://www.cs.org/csq/csqinternet.html> Nils Zurawskis' Ethnicity and Culture in Cyberspace Papers <http://www.uni-muenster.de/Soziologie/Home/zurawski/papers.html> Buying into the Computer Age: A Look at Hispanic Families <http://www.cgu.edu/inst/aw1-1.html> [The next link is to some comments I made a few years ago] AFROAM-L Archives - February 1995: Race, Ethnicity, Culture, and Cyberspace <http://www.afrinet.net/~hallh/afrotalk/afrofeb95/0796.html> [Lastly, a link to a resource page that contains general and gender-based papers on net sociology/identity] The Media and Communication Studies Site Resource Page for Gender, Ethnicity & Class: Social and Personal Identity <http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/gender05.html> --- [Class and Poverty Section] Possible Roles for Electronic Community Networks and Participatory Development Strategies in Access Programs for Poor Neighborhoods <http://www.unc.edu/~jlillie/310.html> High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology <http://web.mit.edu/sap/www/high-low/> Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age <http://www.benton.org/Library/Low-Income/> Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/> Impact of CTCnet Affiliates: Findings from a National Survey of Users of Community Technology Centers <http://www.ctcnet.org/impact98.htm> Cybersociology Magazine: Issue 3 - Digital Third Worlds <http://members.aol.com/Cybersoc/issue3.html> --- [Definitive Quote Section] Lastly, in case you're wondering why I even bothered to put this list together, one of my "white" colleagues said it better than I ever could: "We're resisting the tired-but-still-commonly-accepted idea that the virtual world provides a somehow "level" playing field, in which race, gender, [and] culture(s) no longer matter. We think that such ideas are based on the false notion that there's a normative white male middle-class culture to which all folks can gain access, now that the barriers imposed by the physical body have been miraculously removed. We want [to see] essays, articles, and examples of work which show that the "politics of identity" is alive and well on the internet, and that instead of regressing to a sort of Eisenhowerian procession of the bland leading the bland, there are people out there using electronic technology to emphasize and celebrate and motivate and defend their own communities and cultural ideals." "There's been a lot of talk (mostly by white men) about the "liberating" potential of the internet and of virtual spaces. What they usually mean is a liberation *from* the body, to some kind of higher plane. But we're interested in how folks whose bodies are usually threatened by the power structure (nonwhite folks, women, poor people, queer folks) are using the internet as a platform for making themselves more visible (a liberation *of* the body), and how that connects to other contemporary activist movements." Kali Tal Lecturer, University of Arizona --- ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Arthur McGee (Staff) <amcgee[at]igc.org> | | Institute for Global Communications <http://www.igc.org/> | | Voice: +1-310-515-BYTE Fax: +1-415-561-6101 | | PeaceNet * EcoNet * ConflictNet * WomensNet * LaborNet | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | "Connecting the People Who Are Changing the World" | ------------------------------------------------------------------ New Yorker Cartoon (Internet Savvy Dog): "On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog." Art McGee (Internet Ignorant Dog added to cartoon): "What's wrong with being a dog?" ____________________________________________________________________________ 12. Join Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility If you are not already a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, we'd like to invite you to join. https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html What do you get? You get a chance to become active in one of the most dynamic organizations working for cyber rights and the socially responsible use of computers. AS A MEMBER OF CPSR, YOU HAVE ALMOST UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITY TO GET INVOLVED AND MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN. Unlike many socially-conscious organizations, the work of CPSR is not carried out by a centralized staff. In this organization members take the active role. Our members write articles, factsheets, web pages, journals and books; speak at conferences and legislative meetings; speak to the press; meet locally to socialize and put on events; and talk to students about the need to consider the impact of technology on their world. "SOUNDS GOOD. HOW DO I GET STARTED?" JOIN COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY! https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html ****************************************************** PROGRAM AREAS CPSR's areas of activity are developed by, and depend on, the interests of members. Take a look at http://www.cpsr.org/program/. "HOW DO WE DO THINGS?" WORKING GROUPS Working Groups focus on specific program areas to produce fact sheets, press releases, and other tools that help members and others understand the issues. Much of the Working Groups' activities take place over email discussion lists. Check out http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/workgrps.html. EXPERTS CPSR maintains a list of "experts" -- members who can speak to the press or to the public on specific issues. If there's an area of computing in which you are an expert,let the office know. CHAPTERS CPSR has chapters throughout the United States http://www.cpsr.org/chapters/chapters.html. If you would like to form a new chapter, send a message you would like sent to round-up local members to cpsr[at]cpsr.org. CPSR WWW PAGES CPSR welcomes member volunteers to publish and update our website. CPSR NEWSLETTER CPSR Newsletters are guest edited and written largely by CPSR members. See http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters CPSR CONFERENCES CPSR conferences are organized and led by CPSR members. The next conference will be in the San Francisco Bay Area in early October '99. CPSR COMMITTEES Members can join committees that make recommendations to the board. The committees are: CPSR Annual Conference '99 Committees Organizational Development Committee (including membership and chapters) Program Committee (including working groups) Fundraising Committee Publications Committee Committees usually conduct their work online. THE CPSR BOARD CPSR is currently accepting nominations from members to the Board of Directors. For more information see http://www.cpsr.org/issues/elections99.htm ****************************************************** Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, your host of CPSR-ANNOUNCE, would like subscribers, who are not current dues-paying members, to join CPSR to support our work financially, get involved in the organization, and become active computer professionals. If you are unsure of your membership status, please write to cpsr[at]cpsr.org. TO JOIN: Use the secure online form at https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html OR Print and send the form below by postal mail to CPSR, PO Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302 USA CPSR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP FORM Name ___________________________________ Address __________________________________ City/State/Zip ______________________________ Work Phone _______________________________ Email ____________________________________ Company _________________________________ Type of Work ______________________________ CPSR CHAPTERS o Acadiana o Austin o Berkeley o Boston o Chicago o Denver-Boulder o Georgia o Los Angeles o Madison o Maine o Michigan o Milwaukee o Minnesota o New Haven o Loyola/New Orleans o New York o Palo Alto o Philadelphia o Pittsburgh o Portland o San Diego o Santa Cruz o Seattle o Washington, D.C. INTERESTS o The Internet o Privacy & Civil Liberties o Participatory Design/Workplace o Working in the Industry o Community Networks o Women in Computing o Weapons & Peace o Intellectual Property o Information Technology in Education o Ethical Issues in Information Technology o International Issues CPSR MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES o $ 75 Regular Member (receive a CPSR gift) o $ 50 Basic Member o $ 200 Supporting Member (CPSR gift) o $ 1,000 Life Member (CPSR gift) o $ 20 Student/Low-income Member o $ 50 Library/Institutional *Add $15 for postage if living outside U.S. Additional tax-deductible contribution: o $ 50 o $ 75 o $ 100 o $ 250 o $ 500 PAYMENT METHOD: Check made out to CPSR or Visa/Mastercard # ___________________________________ Expiration Date: ________ Amount: $ _________ Return to: CPSR, P.O. Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302 USA > -- Susan Evoy * Deputy Director http://www.cpsr.org/ Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 * Palo Alto * CA * 94302 Phone: (650) 322-3778 * Fax: (650) 322-4748 * Email: evoy[at]cpsr.org Donations online: https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html Melissa Riley Librarian, San Francisco Public Library (for identification purposes) 1721 Cedar Street Berkeley CA 94703 510 524-2155 FAX 524-5938 ____________________________________________________________________________ 13. Telephone History Website http://www.cybercom.com/~chuck/phones.html ____________________________________________________________________________ L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://libr.org/Juice/ | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited by Rory Litwin. 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