Library Juice 5:6, February 14, 2002
Woah, it's Valentine's Day again.
Uh, Flirt with someone in your library today. (Don't worry that its
being Valentines Day would make it seem overly significant. That kind
of attitude will get you nowhere!)
Contents:
- URL Correction: 1947 film on being a librarian
- Black History Month resources from Librarians' Index to the Internet
- Cites & Insights - February 2002
- Washington's Governor Proposes Closing State Library to Save Money
- Angry Librarian
- The Shifted Librarian
- First Monday, Volume 7, Number 2
- Collection Development: Playboy in the Academic Library
- International Scholarly Communications Alliance (ISCA)
- SRRT Newsletter seeking book reviewers
- The WIPOUT Essay Contest
- Information Producers Initiative
- ALA President John W. Berry on WTO and GATS Concerns
- A Selection of Don Wood's recent postings to IFACTION
- Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award winner announced
- Special for Valentine's Day
Quote for the week:
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
-Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
Homepage of the week:Sushman Gupta
http://www.geocities.com/sushmajee/
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1. URL Correction: 1947 film on being a librarian
I gave URL's for this earlier that apparently didn't work. I think
I have it fixed now:
Librarian, The 1947
Producer: Holmes (Burton) Films, Inc.
Sponsor: Vocational Guidance Films, Inc.
Shows the work of different library personnel.
Descriptors: Occupations: Librarians
Run time: 10:08 Color/B&W: B&W Silent/Sound: Sd
Download: DiVX 4.11 00526.avi (33.5 MB)
http://ftp.archive.org/movies/divx/00526.avi
VCD 00526.mpg (106.8 MB)
http://ftp.archive.org/movies/vcd/00526.mpg
MPEG-2 00526.mpg (283.2 MB)
http://ftp.archive.org/movies/mpeg2/00526.mpg
Streaming (RealPlayer):
DSL/Cable
http://barbra-public.alexa.com:8080/ramgen/net/movie1/0/pub/movies/realbb/00526.rm
Dialup
http://barbra-public.alexa.com:8080/ramgen/net/movie1/0/pub/movies/reallb/00526.rm
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2. Black History Month resources from Librarians' Index to the Internet
SPECIAL EDITION: CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH
See this and many more resources linked at:
http://lii.org/bhmonth
This Special Edition presents 36 new resources added to lii.org in
honor of Black History Month. Some of these resources specifically
address African American history, while others provide new and useful
resources related to African Americans, Africa, and diversity.
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3. Cites & Insights - February 2002: Vol. 2 No. 3 (18 pages)
From Walt Crawford
Contents:
The Year Ahead (and Behind), II
Copyright Currents
Text-e: Monophone Comments on a Trilingual Conference
Trends and Quick Takes
The Good Stuff
PC Group Reviews (formerly "Review Watch")
http://cical.home.att.net
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4. Washington's Governor Proposes Closing State Library to Save Money
By Rebecca Lenzini, Infotoday
The governor's office in the state of Washington has proposed closing the
Washington State Library by this October. This move is part of an effort
to reduce overall state spending by more than $500 million to solve a $1.2
billion shortfall in the second year of Washington's biennial budget. The
budget problems are attributed to an $800 million reduction in revenue
caused by the recession and $400 million in additional spending related to
recent initiatives that have raised spending and cut taxes in the state.
--> http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb020211-1.htm
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5. Angry Librarian
Another weblog, technically, but in reality more of a journal. This is a
good place to find out about the life of a ... well this person doesn't
reveal too much information about him/herself, but it appears that he/she
is a library student. A strong interest in media and its effects is in
evidence. I'll be watching this site.
http://angrylibrarian.blogspot.com/
Link courtesey of New Breed Librarian.
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6. The Shifted Librarian
http://radio.weblogs.com/0100932/
This blog (Web log) addresses a wide range of
library-oriented topics--accessibility, PDAs
(personal digital assistants, or hand-held
computers), copyright, and more. Includes a list of
other library-oriented blogs. From techno-savvy
librarian Jenny Levine.
From Librarians' Index to the Internet - http://lii.org/
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7. First Monday, Volume 7, Number 2
February 4th 2002
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_2/
Continuities and Transformations: Challenges to Capturing Information
about the 'Information Society'
by Fred Gault and Susan A. McDaniel
Informational Value of Museum Web Sites
by V. Kravchyna and S. K. Hastings
Political Privacy and Online Politics: How E-Campaigning Threatens
Voter Privacy
by Christopher D. Hunter
Technological and Social Drivers of Change in the Online Music Industry
by Mark Fox
Monoculture Considered Harmful
by John S. Quarterman
What the Cultural Sector Can Learn from Enron
by Bernard F. Reilly, Jr.
Book Reviews
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8. Collection Development: Playboy in the Academic Library
Source: The Batallion 2/7/02 (Texas A&M University)
http://www.thebatt.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/02/07/3c623a7984909
This is not a new issue in the library world. The lead of the story reads,
"Partly funded by student fees, Playboy magazine is available to students
and any member of the community who purchases Sterling C. Evans Library
cards for themselves and their children." Also from the article, "The
current periodicals section of the Evans library contains magazines and
journals that enhance and relate to areas of student and faculty's research
and studies. For nearly 30 years, Playboy magazine has been included in
this collection, said Charles Gilreath, Evans' associate university
librarian for advanced studies...Gilreath stressed that the library's
collection of periodicals reflects the needs and interests of students,
staff and faculty. "A large academic library will have a large variety of
periodicals," he said.
See Also: "Students 'checking out' Playboy, Playgirl at Stanford"
(via UWire 10/14/01)
http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/95/61/01_7.html
(From Gary Price's ResourceShelf: http://resourceshelf.blogspot.com/ )
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9. International Scholarly Communications Alliance (ISCA)
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:35:47 -0500
From: Alison Buckholtz <alison[at]arl.org>
Reply-To: sparc-friends[at]arl.org
For Release on 6 February 2002
For more information:
Paul Ayris, University College London
+ 44 20 7679 7834
p.ayris[at]ucl.ac.uk
NEW INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS ALLIANCE ENGAGES ACADEMICS
IN BROADENING ACCESS TO RESEARCH
Facilitates Transformation of Knowledge Dissemination
Washington, DC -- Eight of the world's principal research library
organizations today announced the establishment of the International
Scholarly Communications Alliance (ISCA). The ISCA, an initiative of
research library associations in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan,
Hong Kong SAR, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States,
is an action-oriented global network that will collaborate with
scholars and publishers to establish equitable access to scholarly
and research publications.
The ISCA - whose members represent over 600 research libraries
worldwide - will engage in a series of activities that focus the
scholarly publishing process on the primary goals of the academic
research community, advancing the discovery of new knowledge and
facilitating its dissemination. Through sharing expertise on
scholarly communications issues, these organizations, whose total
library budgets equal over US$5 billion and which serve well over 11
million students and faculty, will be prepared to act as a unified
body in creating policies and taking actions that advance these goals.
Because the ISCA recognizes that both the publishing industry and the
research community are global, its members will concentrate on ways
to ensure open and affordable access to scholarship across national
boundaries. Its essential partnership will be with the
scholar-author, the key provider of the world's research.
Many scholar-authors have already become active partners with their
university library, playing a visible role in making research more
accessible. Both within faculty departments and in libraries, the
spiralling cost of journal literature (in particular research in
science, technology, and medicine) is a cause of concern. During the
past 15 years, serial unit cost increases have outpaced general
inflation in the economies of developed countries. This has resulted
in increased costs of 226 percent (U.S.) for universities and their
libraries and a reduction in their ability to deliver access to the
global knowledge base for their researchers.
As a body, ISCA will promote solutions which its members agree are
necessary, practical and viable approaches. Members will then
collaborate to develop, expand, and leverage initiatives to transform
the scholarly communications process, including strategic and
advocacy programs including but not limited to:
ß SPARC, the ARL-initiated effort to facilitate competition in
scientific communication through the creation of high-quality
alternatives to commercial titles, and SPARC Europe, recently
launched to provide a European operational arm for SPARC activities;
ß The establishment of institutional and discipline-based archives
that allow public access to content and employ the Open Archives
Metadata Harvesting Protocol.
Initial members of ISCA include: the Association of Japanese National
University Libraries (ANUL); the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL); the Canadian Association of Research Libraries/Association des
bibliothèques de recherche du Canada (CARL/ABRC); the Consortium of
University Research Libraries, U.K. (CURL); the Council of Australian
University Librarians (CAUL); the Council of New Zealand Librarians
(CONZUL); the Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeennes de Recherche
(LIBER), and the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee, Hong
Kong SAR, China (JULAC).
###
For Further Information:
ANUL/Syun Tutiya: tutiya[at]chiba-u.ac.jp
ARL/Mary Case: http://www.arl.org, marycase[at]arl.org
CAUL/Diane Costello: http://www.caul.edu.au, diane.costello[at]caul.edu.au
CARL/ABRC/Tim Mark: http:// www.carl-abrc.ca, carl[at]uottawa.ca
CURL/Paul Ayris: http://www.curl.ac.uk, p.ayris[at]ucl.ac.uk
CONZUL/Sue Pharo: http://www.conzul.ac.nz, s.pharo[at]waikato.ac.nz
LIBER/Elmar Mittler: http://www.kb.dk/liber,
mittler[at]mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de
JULAC/Colin Storey: http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/julac/, storey[at]cuhk.edu.hk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Alison Buckholtz, Associate Enterprise Director
SPARC--The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
21 Dupont Circle, Ste. 800
Washington, DC 20036 USA
Ph: 202 296 2296 x115 Fx: 202 872 0884
alison[at]arl.org http://www.arl.org/sparc
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10. SRRT Newsletter seeking book reviewers
SRRT Newsletter would like reviews of the books below, and others in the
future as they are received. If you have a background or specific interest
in either areas and previous experience reviewing (please specify), and
could send in a review by the first of April, please respond to:
Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, SRRT Newsletter Book Review Editor
(tolleyst[at]etsu.edu)
We are unable to pay reviewers, sorry. And if you're not interested in
reviewing either of these titles but have a flair for reviewing, please send
information about yourself so that I may contact you if I receive something
in your area of expertise. It would be great to have a slew of reviewers on
hand once all those books start rolling in.
Books for Review:
Confessions of a dope dealer/ Sheldon Norberg North Mountain Pub;
ISBN: 096762312X 2000
Fragments from Forests and Libraries : A Collection of Essays/ Valerio
Valeri (edited by Janet Hoskins) Carolina Academic Press; ISBN: 0890899797
2001
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11. The WIPOUT Essay Contest
http://www.wipout.net/home_eng.html
In March 2001, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
launched an international student essay competition. Students were asked to
submit essays with the title 'What does intellectual Property mean to you
in your daily life?'. It is obvious that WIPO are expecting a number of
self-congratulatory essays detailing the plentiful benefits of intellectual
property (IP). Anyone who writes an essay which says that IP means:
"I can't purchase anti-HIV drugs because of patent law" or,
"as a farmer, I can't get access to patent-protected seeds for planting"
or,"as a teacher, I can't distribute materials to my students due to
copyright restrictions"
is unlikely to win a prize from WIPO, no matter how well argued or valid
their essay was.
If there are enough people who want to write such essays, there should be
a place where they can submit them. And so we at Wipout have organised a
counter-essay contest. We are using the same title as the WIPO contest, but
we encourage slightly more critical responses to the question of how
intellectual property affects us all in our daily lives. This website is
the place where the essays will be posted. The essays received
so far are on the site. We shall also be awarding some prizes for essays,
though admittedly more modest than WIPO's. As part of this project, we are
also approaching several publishers and expect to publish a book containing
the winning entries, plus a selection of other essays.
The contest launched on 4 September 2001 and closes on 15 March 2002. The
winners will be announced on the 26 April 2002, the same day as the WIPO
contest and on 'World Intellectual Property Day'.
As we want to be as inclusive as possible, we have also set up a 'points
of view' page for those who would rather submit a short opinion piece
rather than a full length essay on the topic. A 'point of view' is a much
shorter contribution than an essay but are not eligible for a prize.
What this contest is not.
The organisers of Wipout are not campaigning for the abolition of
intellectual property. We appreciate that there would be much less
worthwhile IP created without some form of incentive for individuals and
corporations. Many of the organising committee are authors and artists
themselves and so have some interest in there being some level of IP
protection. We are NOT against IP in itself. This essay contest is about
the current over-protection of IP. We are strongly opposed to the excessive
protection of IP and how it is accorded trumping power over other values
and social priorities such as access to medicines, to education, and to the
sharing of ideas and information.
Who has organised it?
The Wipout organisers are a group of volunteers from around the globe.
They include professors of IP, as well as other academics who are concerned
about how IP impinges upon their abilities to teach effectively. The
organising committee also includes artists and musicians who believe that
IP is a hindrance to creativity, as well as activists working in the fields
of HIV/AIDS, gene patenting and access for the visually impaired. We come
from a variety of different backgrounds but we share in common a concern
about how increasing IP protection has harmful affects on individuals'
lives. You can contact us from the website.
Wipout also has a long list of endorsers and sponsors. These individuals
and organisations are not necessarily part of the Wipout organising
committee but are willing to publicly endorse what we are trying to do. There
is a list of our endorsers on the website. If you want to be involved
as an endorser, or want to contribute to our prize fund, please see the
contacts page.
Why is this contest happening?
For two reasons. Firstly, and most simply, it is important for people to
be aware that excessive IP protection can be extremely damaging to human
endeavour. At present, any discussion about IP is dominated by big
businesses who seek to continually expand and prolong IP protection at the
expense of the public interest. WIPO's own essay contest is an example of
rights holders attempting to show the benefits of IP without concern for
how damaging it can be.
Secondly, the contest is an attempt to show how many areas of life are
underpinned by IP regulations. There are currently a lot of people working
in a lot of different fields who realise how IP affects their own area of
interest but may not realise how it affects others in similar ways. By
encouraging contributions from all walks of life, we hope that people may
begin to realise that many of the problems that they face through IP are
similar to those faced by others.
What's the point of it?
Following what we just said above, there are two reasons why we think this
contest is important. The first is that we believe it is vitally important
to challenge the hegemony of IP rights holders by creating a space for
those excluded from IP discussion to have their say. This contest is an
opportunity for voices from the Southern hemisphere, as well as the unheard
voices of the North, to be heard.
Secondly, it is an attempt to bring people together. IP is not a very
exciting topic, and the vast majority of people know little about it. But
the issues that IP affects are exciting and extremely important: issues
such as access for visually impaired people, the sacking of whistleblowers,
the invasion of civil liberties as a result of America's Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) or the looting of the South for Multinational profits.
There have been a number of issues recently that have resulted in public
awareness and dissatisfaction about IP such as Napster, the 'No Logo'
movement, the arrest of Dmitri Sklyarov or the legal cases over affordable
HIV drugs in South Africa. We want to build on that dissatisfaction, get
people to realise their shared interests and hopefully create a voice
against the over-protection of IP so loud that it cannot be ignored.
This is a great idea! What can I do to be involved?
Well, the most important thing is to SUBMIT AN ESSAY! Details of how to
submit essays or points of view, as well as contest rules, are on this
page. Also, tell your friends, colleagues and students about this contest
and get them to write essays or points of view to the contest. You can
publicise the contest by downloading a small version of our contest poster
and putting it up in a prominent position. Get people involved and give
them an opportunity to tell the world how intellectual property really
affects them in their daily life.
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12. Information Producers Initiative
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 02:12:29 -0500
From: Seth Johnson <seth.johnson[at]realmeasures.dyndns.org>
To: rory[at]libr.org
Rory:
I thought you would likely find the following initiative of
interest:
Seth Johnson
Committee for Independent Technology
I am starting a project called the Information Producers
Initiative.
I have pasted a draft of a basic position paper below. It
is a very general foundation on which specific policy
positions are meant to be based.
I am specifically interested in obtaining any information
regarding other initiatives that might be similar to this,
and what's been tried and what happened to these
initiatives.
I have set up a list for people who are interested in these
matters. Subscription is by sending an email saying
"subscribe C-FIT_Community" to
ListServ[at]realmeasures.dyndns.org. The list archives are at:
http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/C-FIT%20Archives
Forward this message freely as you wish.
The text below is also available at:
http://RealMeasures.dyndns.org/C-FIT
Thanks for your help,
Seth Johnson
Committee for Independent Technology
seth.johnson[at]realmeasures.dyndns.org
The Information Producers Initiative
A Project of the Committee for Independent Technology
The Committee for Independent Technology holds that a proper
consideration of information-related public policy must
focus on what the state of technology means for all
citizens.
We believe that a well-founded understanding of the
condition in which citizens presently find themselves as a
result of information technology, should focus on one
fundamental principle.
This principle is that information is used to produce new
information. To put another cast on the same point,
information that is accessible in whatever form has never
merely served the purpose of consumption. This may seem to
be an obvious point, but when it is considered in light of
the new modes of public access that have developed, and the
flexible means of using information that are now at hand,
one sees that this principle is more important now than it
may ever have seemed to be before.
In the past, only specific groups of people, engaged in
specific types of activities, had their interests assessed
in terms of their capacity as information producers. The
public at large has been treated as mere consumers of
information in many areas, with public policy reflecting
this tendency.
Now, however, we all have the capacity to participate in the
development of human knowledge, on a reasonably equal
footing with all other citizens, because of the forms of
access to the public sphere that are now available, and to
the forms of information that may be found there, by means
of public communications networks such as the Internet.
This puts us all in an entirely new position with respect to
our abilities to access, manipulate and produce information.
We may now manipulate information in a profoundly flexible
way. We may quickly access any work that is available
electronically on public communications networks. We may,
with great facility, decompose any digitized work into
component parts. We may manipulate, analyze, synthesize,
select and combine the conclusions, observations, discrete
facts, ideas, images, musical passages, binary bits and
other elements of any information in digital form. We may
efficiently produce useful, meaningful and creative
expressive works on the basis of this flexible access to
information.
But perhaps the most far-reaching way in which information
technology affects our condition as citizens, is in the fact
that we may all now distribute our information products to
the public at large in a powerful and convenient manner that
obviates the need to rely on publishers and other
intermediaries who have traditionally provided public access
to information producers.
We must no longer allow our rights in the area of the access
to and use of information and information technology, to be
regarded merely as rights of consumption. All citizens must
assure that policy makers no longer treat their interests in
information merely with respect to their capacity as
consumers. We must advocate for and guard our broader
interests as information producers in equal standing in the
public sphere, possessing essential powers and rights in the
access, use and communication of information.
The Committee for Independent Technology seeks to assure
that the rights and capabilities of all citizens are not
undermined through public policies that restrict the
ordinary exercise of their rights to access and produce
information by flexible means.
--
[CC] Counter-copyright:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html
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13. ALA President John W. Berry on WTO and GATS Concerns
[ALACOUN:7001] WTO and GATS Concerns
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:38:03 -0600
From: "John W. Berry" <jberry[at]psinet.com>
To: ALA Council List <alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org>
Council Colleagues:
I want to reassure all of you that I take the complex and legalistic
issues that surround the World Trade Organization - WTO itself, the
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and the Agreement on
Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS
Agreement) - very seriously. We cannot afford to be asleep at the
wheel again as we were in 1999 before the Seattle WTO meetings.
Besides the normal complexity of global trade agreements and the
issues of how our country itself handles its role in negotiating for
the U.S., a greater challenge is the secrecy which surrounds the
decision-making process. We must be vigilant in monitoring events
which could have a profound impact on 'public goods' including
education and libraries. We must also assure that we are good
citizens in the international information community.
I've pasted in below the section on this issue from the full written
report to the Council at Midwinter of Nancy R. John, chair of the
International Relations Committee:
"WTO. On September 25, 2001, ALA President John W. Berry asked the
International Relations Committee to discuss the IFLA Position on The
World Trade Organization at the 2002 Midwinter Meeting and to make a
status report to Council at one of the meetings in New Orleans. The
IRC IFLA Subcommittee met with ALA Washington Office Staff, the
chairs of the Committee on Legislation and the OITP Advisory
Committee, and the Secretary General of IFLA during this conference.
They recommended to the IRC that we take no specific action with
regard to the statement itself. However, the conversation did
identify a number of issues that need to be addressed: how IFLA
policy statements are forwarded to appropriate ALA units in a timely
fashion, how issues of interest to multiple policy units are handled,
and how ALA offices, other than the IRO, interact with IFLA. The IRC
will continue to monitor WTO development. The Committee on
Legislation will be responsible for the content and negotiations with
the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Trade delegation, but the
IRC will be responsible for assuring that U.S. activities are
reported promptly to IFLA, and that IFLA's interests are communicated
to ALA units. Improved communication about and with IFLA will be a
continuing topic for action. The IFLA Subcommittee is looking for
ways to enhance U.S. involvement and influence."
Post ALA Midwinter Meeting activities
The ALA Washington Office, IFLA, the IRC and the COL are working
through the process to get ALA's position reviewed and balanced as
appropriate in terms of ALA member feelings and expertise, IFLA, and
the efforts of a number of other library associations around the
world (especially, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) and
Norway's library association).
Since the Midwinter Meeting, Robert Oakley, Georgetown University Law
Center and U.S. representative to IFLA's Committee on Copyright and
Other Legal Matters (CLM), has visited the ALA Washington Office and
met with Rick Weingarten and Miriam Nesbit - they tell us that they
are all 'on the same page.'
The IRC is closely 'minding the gap' between ALA and 'outside the
U.S.' positions and the IRC will meet with Professor Oakley at the
Annual Conference in Atlanta.
The Committee on Legislation (COL) is reviewing ALA's position and
strategy in terms of the USTR and the U.S. trade delegation. They are
receiving regular updates on the progress of ALA discussions with the
USTR. The COL is likely to meet with Mr. Oakley in Atlanta as well.
So the issues of the WTO, GATS and TRIPS are far from quiet - it is
very much on all of our minds these days. The ALA Washington Office,
COL and IRC will be briefing me regularly on their progress on these
most important issues.
As a heads-up, my May president's column in American Libraries will
deal with these issues.
John W. Berry
ALA President
....................
Ed. note: In response to this, a SRRT member wrote, "It looks like we
are making some progress." Sam Trosow replied with the following:
[SRRTAC-L:7630] Re: Fwd: [ALACOUN:7001] WTO and GATS Concerns
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 16:13:11 -0500
From: "Samuel E. Trosow" [vCard]
To: SRRT Action Council
Reply to: srrtac-l[at]ala.org
Some progress, but not really a whole lot. This statement is different
from the the latest pronouncement from the Washington Office (as stated
in their piece in the December American Libraries), which still stands,
notwithstanding the below reassurance. That article takes a position that
this whole area is much less of a problem, and it directly criticizes the
approach taken by Fiona Hunt and others in Canada and within the SRRT.
That article promotes the view that WTO-GATS is not a big issue that
warrants immediate grassroots work, but instead that our experts in
Washington have things well under control. I'm still very bothered by the
tone of that article, its criticism of Fiona's work, and the way it
tries to marginalize those who have been at the center of this issue. All
in all, its a disempowering approach to advocacy work. These fine
reassurances aside, and at the very least, I'd like to see the claims
made in the article clarified if not retracted.
Sam Trosow
University of Western Ontario
-------------
Councilor Monika Antonelli, whose concerns John W. Berry were addressing
with this email, replied to it with a good question: "Does this mean that
we will be seeing a detailed report soon on the possible effects GATS may
have on US libraries?" We need such a report, and it's not clear that the
ALA Washington Office, Berry's good intentions notwithstanding, is doing
very much. It may be productive for ALA members to contact the Washington
Office with their concerns about that GATS. Contacts are listed at:
http://www.ala.org/washoff/about.html
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14. A Selection of Don Wood's recent postings to IFACTION
-----
Bush Makes Justice Papers Secret
http://dailynews.netscape.com/mynsnews/story.tmpl?&cat=50700&id=200112140849000192839
"'This is the beginning of a real constitutional confrontation,'' said
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. 'I think they ran into the wrong chairman,
the wrong committee and maybe the wrong Congress.'''
-----
Threats to Civil Liberties Post-September 11
http://www.aclu.org/news/2001/n121401b.html
"Almost immediately after September 11, speculation and conjecture about
curtailing civil liberties began to appear in our national conversation.
While we at the American Civil Liberties Union feel as strongly as anyone
that the perpetrators of these monstrous crimes must be brought to justice,
we also feel that America's freedom - the very essence of our national
character - must be protected as we respond to the threat of terrorism
within our borders. Americans can be both safe and free."
-----
Washington School Board Blocks Militant Sites
http://www.ala.org/alonline/news/2001/011231.html#bainbridge
"The Bainbridge (Wash.) school board has added the category of
"militant/extremist" to the stop-list of nudity, sexually explicit, and
"gross depiction" sites that Cyber Patrol already bars from student
computers."
-----
Do We Fear Freedom? Our rights are not abstract
http://www5.law.com/lawcom/displayid.cfm?statename=DC&docnum=102784&table=news&flag=full
"The war against terrorism is a war to preserve freedom, we are told. The
president explained that the terrorists 'hate us for our freedoms -- our
freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and
assemble and disagree with each other.'"
"But even as he spoke, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was rounding up
an undisclosed number of people for indeterminate periods of detention, and
the attorney general has refused to release any substantive
information on the practices . . . . If irony is not dead, it surely is on
life support."
-----
Manifesto 2000 for a culture of Peace and Non-violence
http://www3.unesco.org/manifesto2000/uk/uk_manifeste.htm
Including:
"Defend freedom of expression and cultural diversity, giving preference
always to dialogue and listening without engaging in fanaticism, defamation
and the rejection of others"
-----
2002 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award
http://www.pen.org/freedom/noacall2002.htm
"Nominations are sought for the 2002 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment
Award. The award, $25,000 and a limited-edition artwork, is presented
each spring to a U.S. resident who has fought courageously, despite
adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of
expression as it applies to the written word. Those who have been
nominated in the past include writers, publishers, journalists, editors,
booksellers, schoolteachers, and librarians."
-----
Kidspeak
http://www.kidspeakonline.org/
"Where kids speak up for free speech."
-----
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human
beings." (German: ""Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man
am Ende auch Menschen.")*Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor
(1821)
Book Burning
http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bookburning.html
Bonfire of Liberties: Censorship of the Humanities
http://www.humanities-interactive.org/literature/bonfire/
He who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe
http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/exhibits/bannedbooks/bannedbooks.html
-----
"Know Your Rights!"
http://www.aclu.org/features/f010202a.html
"On the heels of a new Justice Department plan to interview thousands of
men from Middle Eastern countries, the American Civil Liberties Union
today released a pamphlet that offers guidance in seven languages --
including Arabic, Hindi and Spanish -- on what to do when stopped by law
enforcement."
-----
The ALA IFC Reports to the ALA Council from 1999 to 2002 Midwinter
Meeting in New Orleans is available online at
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ifcreports.html
-----
Silenced voices: Tohti Tunyaz
http://www.dfn.org/news/china/silenced-tohti.htm
"His only proven "crime" appears to be that of obtaining and copying
part of a 50-year-old document for his research with the help of a
qualified librarian."
-----
End Misogyny!
http://www.endmisogyny.com/sarah_jones.htm
More on Sarah Jones and her censored song "Your Revolution."
-----
The FTRF Report to Council, 2002 Midwinter Meeting, is available online
at
http://www.ftrf.org/ftrfreports.html
-----
NO WRITTEN INTELLIGENCE REPORTS TO CONGRESS, SAYS BUSH
http://w3.trib.com/FACT/1st.lev.morebushsecrecy.html
"Step by step, the Bush administration is marching this nation toward
an imperial presidency -- a presidency with unchecked power. And
Congress has shown neither the resolve, nor the gumption to block the
dangerous road President Bush has taken."
-----
Privaterra
http://privaterra.cpsr.org/
"Privaterra helps protect human rights workers by providing privacy and
security technology and support. By keeping their information and
communications private, they can protect those they are working to help,
while staying safer themselves."
-----
More sites found blocked by Cyber Patrol (January 2002)
"Some of these mistakes can be explained by human error (e.g. blocking
Anthonyhowell.org as a pornographic site because it contains artistic
nudity); others appear to be unattributable to human error (e.g.
blocking Adoption Links Worldwide as a pornographic site). Cyber Patrol
describes the process by which their blocked-site list is put together,
as "a combination of automated tools, human researchers, and spidering
technologies". Their Web site used to claim that every site blocked by
their
product was first viewed by an employee, but that claim no longer
appears on their Web page. (Ever since Cyber Patrol was first sold,
sites that no human reviewer could have considered "offensive", such as
the ones below, have been regularly found to be blocked by Cyber Patrol.
The company's claims of 100% human review may have finally been simply
removed from the site.)"
-----
Questions and Answers on Privacy and Confidentiality
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/privacyqanda.html
"The IFC is developing this Q&A to answer questions raised in comments
to date on the draft Interpetation on privacy. This Q&A is a
work-in-progress; these questions and answers will be further developed
and expanded as more comments are received. Please check back
frequently."
See also
Draft Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights on Privacy
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/draftprivacyinterpretation.html
-----
Would these people be considered terrorists in Utah?
http://www.kwru.org/updates/utahbill100.html
"A person is guilty of commercial terrorism if he enters or remains
unlawfully on the premises or in a building of any business with the
intent to interfere with the employees,customers, personnel, or
operations of a business."
-----
The CIPA trial has been allotted 9 days: the week of March 25 and Monday
through Thursday the following week.
See
CIPA
http://www.ala.org/cipa/
-----
Goodbye Digital Democracy
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12281
"The future of our entire media and communications system, including the
Internet, is now literally up for grabs," argues Jeff Chester in this
must-read interview.
________________________
Don Wood
Program Officer/Communications
American Library Association
Office for Intellectual Freedom
50 East Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611
1-800-545-2433, ext. 4225
Fax: 312-280-4227
dwood[at]ala.org
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/
http://www.ala.org/cipa/cipalegalfund.html
intellectual freedom [at] your library
Free People Read Freely®
"Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek
and receive information from all points of view without restriction.
It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which
any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.
Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and
disseminate ideas."--Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q & A
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/intellectualfreedomandcensorship.html
________________________________________________________________________top
15. Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award winner announced
For Immediate Release
February 7, 2002
Contact: Larra Clark or Paige Wasson
312-280-5043/4393
E-mail: pio[at]ala.org
Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award winner announced
Marjorie Heins, author of "Not in Front of the Children: Indecency,
Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth," is the 2002 winner of the Eli
M. Oboler Memorial Award.
Presented by the American Library Association (ALA) Intellectual
Freedom Round Table (IFRT), the Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, named for
the extensively published Idaho University librarian known as a
"champion of intellectual freedom who demanded the dismantling of all
barriers to freedom of expression," is presented for the best published
work in the area of intellectual freedom. The award consists of a
citation and $500.
"The committee is very pleased to present Marjorie Heins with this
award for 'Not in Front of the Children' (Hill & Wang Pub., 2001), an
excellent analysis of current trends to censor books and other media in
the name of 'protecting minors' that we are facing in the United States
today," Oboler Award Committee Chair Joan Beam said.
"Heins' book is extensively researched and a pleasure to read. Her
writing style is most approachable, her examples are clearly relevant,
and her argument is well presented," said Beam. "The rights of minors
for free expression are constantly being thwarted by those seeking to
protect them from what they perceive as harmful materials. In addition,
Heins shows how access to information is thus limited to all, adults and
minors alike."
Heins, a First Amendment lawyer and director of The Free Expression
Policy Project, a project of the National Coalition Against Censorship,
said, "I wanted to write a book that would put the whole legal history
and cultural politics of youth-censorship in perspective, from attacks
on detective comics in the 1950s to Internet filters and v-chips today.
I can't imagine a greater honor for my book than to be recognized by
America's librarians as having made a contribution to intellectual
freedom."
For the first time, the Oboler Award Committee has chosen an Honor Book
from among the nominees. Beam said the committee has named "The
Unwanted Gaze," by Jeffrey Rosen as its first Honor Book, for Rosen's
major contribution to the literature on the subject of all U.S.
citizens' right to privacy.
The award will be presented on Saturday, June 15, at 1:30 p.m., during
the IFRT program at the ALA Annual Conference in Atlanta.
For more information, see the award Web site at
www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/oboler_a.html.
-30-
________________________________________________________________________top
16. Special for Valentine's Day
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/~GroupZ/LOVE/
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