Category: access

Many Rhode Island library filters made less restrictive in response to ACLU report

Posted on by jessamyn

Remember that report the Rhode Island ACLU wrote about how libraries were overfiltering or erratically filtering the Internet access they were providing? The ACLU claimed that the libraries were blocking access to constitutionally protected material. The Rhode Island library consortium Cooperating Libraries Automated Network, which most RI public libraries belong to, has made its filtering policy less restrictive. Public library directors have been emailed instructions on how to turn off the Internet filters. The ACLU said in their press release that they are still monitoring the situation

[T]he ACLU is concerned that some libraries have independently chosen to block categories beyond CLAN’s minimum option. Four libraries reported such additional blocks on the ACLU’s most recent survey, while 18 libraries failed to respond to the survey, leaving the extent of over-blocking unclear. ACLU officials say that libraries that block these additional categories, which range from “gambling” to “illegal,” are creating a serious impediment to free speech.

TimesSelect and institutional access

Posted on by jessamyn

The NYTimes new Times Select service requires a fee for online access to op-eds, editorials and other online content. Home delivery subscribers get access to this content for free. Of course, I live far enough away that home delivery is not an option for me. So I inquired to see if I were a librarian, at a small library, [which I sort of am] if my patrons could use Times Select via my subscription. Answer: no. The same is true if you are a student at a university and get it delivered to your dorm. Of course librarians know that you can get access to the “select” content via Lexis Nexis anyhow, right? Princeton is at least one library lobbying the New York Times to allow some sort of access to content for Institutional subscribers. Perhaps your library should be another?

[Princeton’s] Firestone Library has already contacted the newspaper to determine if institutional access rates might be established for the Princeton campus, said Kevin Barry, head of the Social Science Reference Center.

“It is our intention to lobby hard for an educational institution arrangement,” he said. “I expect that our concern over how TimesSelect restrictions have upset daily patterns of reading key features and opinion pieces is shared by most academic libraries. I hope that those of us who represent the library and its community can prevail successfully upon The New York Times to find a way of opening up the website fully to institutional subscribers.”

directory of open access journals

Posted on by jessamyn

The Directory of Open Access Journals. Free. Full text. Scholarly and quality controlled. Multilingual. Of particular note to librarians are the 49 journals in library and information science. Which ones are on my reading list for today? IT&Society’s issues about the Digital Divide including A Multifaceted Model of the Digital Divide and An Overview: Approaches for ther Development of Basic IT Skills from The Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology.

fighting poverty @ your library, or outside it

Posted on by jessamyn

You may have seen the letter to the editor that Eli and I wrote talking about the restaurant review section of the conference issue of American Libraries. We said something to the effect that calling a place with entrees $20 and under “low priced” [with no lower option] seemed to miss the boat in terms of the budget that many librarians are working with. One of the reasons that another run for Council does not appeal to me is not only because of the cash involved in six trips in three years, but the fact that discussion of the high prices of Council participation on Council lists can be met with the response that maybe you shouldn’t be on Council until you can afford to be. Maybe they’re right and maybe they’re not, but the presumption itself raises my hackles.

That said, I’m not poor. I’ve got a job that pays, health insurance and rent that I can afford, almost no debt, and income potential from several sources. I own a house and I have a good education that, barring disaster, cements my ability to maintain these things. I have a support network in place that can help even if there is a disaster. Many other people are not so fortunate, and I work with them every day, most librarians do too. I talk about the ways that librarians can address social issues in fairly simple ways in many of my talks when I talk about the social implications of software choices. It’s a topic I bring up a lot.

A few resources that I’ve seen lately include Mary Minow’s webcast Library Services and the Homeless: A Legal Perspective with this supporting documentation from the Hunger Homelessness and Poverty Task force of SRRT Just a Little Understanding: A Social-Service Provider’s Perspective on Homeless Library Users. John from HHPTF pointed me towards this story today about the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library’s program putting computers directly into Horizon House a daytime homeless center in Indiannapolis. HHPTF blog has a bit more info.