National PATRIOT Act call-in Day

Posted on by jessamyn

It’s a bit of a stunt, but ALA Council is doing a National [USA] PATRIOT Act call-in day at 10 am CST today. All Councilors are going to turn on their cell phones and call their legislators to ask them to

  1. Include language in Section 215 to require a statement of fact linking the person whose records are sought to a terrorism investigation.
  2. Include language to allow a Section 215 recipient to post a meaningful challenge to the FISA court order.
  3. Include language allowing a section 505 recipieint to post a meaningful challenge to a National Security Letter.

Of course, when I’ve been calling my representative, I’ve been going beyond this and expressing grave reservations about Section 215 specifically and other parts of the USA APTRIOT Act generally (specifically concerning wiretaps and electronic communication generally), but this language appears designed to be something that everyone on Council can get behind. So, if you’re free in a few hours, go find your representative and pick up the phone.

Vermont Libraries I have known, the visiting continues

Posted on by jessamyn

I am linking alll the libraries I visit this year under the visit06 tag. Here are two more.

The Hartness Library System at Vermont technical College – I am a frequent user of this library. It has the best collection of any of the libraries for the stuff I like to read — wonky non-fiction mostly — and it’s right by the pool where I swim. There have been few times that I’ve had to do something at the circulation desk where I wasn’t greeted by the puzzled face of a desk worker trying unsuccessfully to do something. I’m not sure what OPAC they use, but it seems to be complicated. They have no overdue fees which means when I’m not at the pool I sometimes keep books late. The last time I brought a book back quite late, I asked if I could renew it even though it was over a month overdue. The librarian — who had been called out to help with the OPAC because the nice lady at the desk couldn’t figure out how to check the book back in and then check it out again — asked me, while holding the book, “Well, how long do you think you’ll need it?” A legit question I guess, but I was really just asking about the renewal policy, I’m sure they had a policy. However, since it’s a small-town library, social concerns like how long I needed the book came into play. This is the good news and the bad news. I said I didn’t know, it was just a pleasure book anyhow, and decided just to put the book back on the shelf and come back for it another day. When I came back the next day, I checked the tag in the back – no one had checked the book out in six years besides me.

Tunbridge Public Library – I help this library out with computer things as part of my job. They have no web site. When I asked if they’d like me to make them a web site they said no, not really. They use dial-up and have a network so that four computers in the library can share it. There is no broadband service available in their town except for satellite which is prohibitively expensive. I sat around and we talked about teaching some basic email, digital pictures, and shopping online classes in the Spring. The librarian wanted some help with her email, she’d been getting email from Amazon about her account and it was confusing her. We looked at the email — a phishing scam which was what I suspected — and I showed her how to look at the web address in an email, and then mouseover it to see if it matched the web address in the browser status bar. I then showed her how to read a web address backwards, to start with the top-level domain to see where an email is really from, like checking caller ID to see what state someone is calling from. This was met with appreciative and happy exclamations and I got to drive home feeling like I’d really helped someone, just by telling them what i know about computers.

xtreme bookmobile @ DC Public

Posted on by jessamyn

The DC library system is rolling out its Xtreme Mobile library as a stopgap measure while they get new library facilities opened in places in the District with no library service. It’s a neat idea, but is providing a little bit of a library going to slow up plans to get a real library to those areas?

Saccocio [head of the Friends of Tenley Library Association] believes a 32-foot bus can never replace everything that a library building provides.

“This bus, it’s just sort of insignificant. It’s very little service here that’s being offered to a neighborhood. It’s very insufficient,” she said.

Saccocio and other library volunteers worry that the continued stopgaps — the bus and the temporary storefront libraries — will delay the reconstruction of libraries that closed a year ago in Anacostia, Shaw, Benning and Tenleytown.

The bookmobile goes to five locations once a week for a maximum visit of 4 1/4 hours and a minimum of 1 3/4 hours at a time. So, in the least-visited area, that’s only seven hours of library services a month. You can see what the hours are at the rest of the DC Public system here. [thanks dsdlc]