Social Software &

Intellectual Freedom

Jessamyn West
librarian.net/talks/mla2009

"A social networking site is an online location where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects them to other users. What is a library's responsibility towards their workers and patrons as they venture into the world of social software?"

Slides

• Social Software Slides - PDF , Keynote format, PowerPoint format

Links Mentioned

• Wikipedia: list of social software & list of social networking websites
• origins of "get laid or get paid"
• Temple Grandin on why the search feels so good.
• Milgram's small world experiment
• Intellectual freedom, defined: ALA Intellectual Freedom Q&A
• Stats: facebook, ranking of social sites, more social media stats (pdf)
• Privacy policies: Facebook, MySpace, Flickr
• policy sidebar: opt in vs. opt out (facebook knows what you did last summer)
• Horror stories: my parents joined facebook.
• ALA: guidelines on intellectual freedom and privacy.
• Tools & prvacy implications: OPAC sample policy, email sample policy, IM sample policy, Google toolbar privacy "notice"
• Privacy audits: brief description, what SFPL did, Karen Coyle's presentations
• Recombining data leads to things we may not have thought of: AOL mess, pdf about tracking conflict of interest, Guys with iPhones (link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK)
• Laws: constitution - privacy expectation (more), COPPA (more) - minors, HIPAA, state library privacy laws
• what needs nailing down: Sample privacy policy. To explain: data collection, sharing, retention
  
• Three types of data: personal (PII), relational/transactional, behavioral (more)
• Policies: UC privacy policy pages and other library examples including library social software policies
• Barack Obama library photo

Other People's Presentations

• MySpace Social Networking and Its Impact on Library Services - PALINET/John Houser (ppt)
• Privacy and User-Generated Content - Lauren Gelman

Further Reading

• Further reading: Social Software in Libraries by Meredith Farkas, Pew Report: Social Networking and Teens, Does what happens in Facebook stay in Facebook - viral YouTube video, solid info
• Organizations: EPIC, PRC, Stanford CIS privacy category

Jessamyn West is a community technology librarian in Vermont and the editor of the weblog librarian.net. She teaches email classes for seniors, builds tiny websites for tiny libraries and advocates for sensible technology use for everyone. IM her at iamthebestartist.