access

The Information Commons: A public Policy Report

Past ALA President Nancy Kranich has authored a document for the Free Expression Policy Project about the information commons movement. Well worth reading, though I’m sure the word “sex” in the URL will get it banned at any library using filtering software.

” the public’s right to know is to be protected in today’s world, citizens must have optimal opportunities to acquire and exchange information. The stakes are high, for as the Supreme Court noted years ago, American democracy requires ‘the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.'” [sethf]

deaf peopel can make phone calls @ your library

Posted on 04Jun04 by jessamyn

As you’ve seen me write a zillion times, I pretty much don’t review web sites or web apps that aren’t library specific, but I helped a patron use this one in my library yesterday and it’s worth people knowing about. IP-relay.com is a web site put out by MCI that allows deaf and hearing impaired people a web interface to gain access to a relay operator. They type into a chat-like java applet and a specially trained operator then speaks what they type over the phone to whomever they call. There is an extra cool feature where using a video phone people can converse using sign language. A patron can sign to a video phone [for many deaf people this is their first language and English is second] and a relay operator will translate their signs into spoken English. For more information on deaf telecommunication hurdles in the US, I recommend reading A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell by Harry Lang.

a different kind of bookmobile

Posted on 07May04 by jessamyn

Bookmobiles bring books to people who stay in one place, but how do you get books to people who move around? The award winning Mobile Library Travellers Project tries to do just that. [thanks owen]

you know what I think about this…

Posted on 28Apr04 by jessamyn

The more documents are classified by our own government, the less The People have access to the information they need in order to be part of a functioning democracy. No wonder Bush & Co. want to replace the National Archivist with one of their own.

The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a division of the National Archives, has released its report for fiscal year 2003, and it confirms what we’ve suspected: The government is classifying information at a staggering, sharply increasing rate. During the year, 14,228,020 documents were classified. This is an increase of 25% over last year.

letter writing for prisoners

Posted on 22Apr0404Mar05 by jessamyn

Karen Schneider and others have launched a NLW campaign to assist the imprisoned Cuban dissidents. This is one of the first approaches to this issue that I have seen that focuses on the plight of the prisoners themselves and doesn’t make their librarianness [or lack thereof] the central issue. You can work on this project and not have to listen to a lot of polemic vitriol against ALA, you can just help. If you want to work for reform within the US Government and the Helms-Burton Act, this may not be for you. Check out their Freadom Project. Nice going, team.