podcasting, more

Posted on by jessamyn

Damn you Greg Schwartz, for making me listen to your podcast to see what you had to say about me! Fascinating stuff, though once again I would have rather read it quickly than listened to it slowly. Greg on the other hand, probably liked getting to talk rather than type for a change. Plus, he has a mellifluous voice, so it was a painless and rewarding eleven minute intro to the podcast world, thanks Greg. I wonder if my “Why I don’t listen to podcasts.” pronouncements sound like my friends when they tell me they just don’t use RSS, or me when I explain why I don’t TiVo. There are two parts to these arguments I think

1) I don’t need the new technology to improve the experience I have [“I read blogs pages by page, who needs RSS?” or “I have an answering machine who needs voicemail?”] versus the subtly different

2) what the new technology brings me is something I don’t feel that I need in the first place [“I don’t need a cell phone.”, or “I don’t need an MP3 player.”].

There’s more room to move and convince in the first kind of argument than in the second. As for my personal choices, I have an answering machine, MP3 player, RSS reader and no cell phone, all pretty much intentionally.

This has more to do with technology adoption generally than podcasting in specific. Greg makes some really good points about the strengths of getting your news and/or new music this way. If you listen to a lot of radio, you should look into podcasting. The radio I listen to here has my traffic reports, weather updates and the status of the parking garage demolition. I’m sure over time I’ll be refining my “why I am not listening to your podcast” line like many people greet me with the “why I am not reading your blog” line but right now my answer is “I’m waiting for the local podcasters” Tell me if you find them.

snapshot of Vermont’s broadband saturation

Posted on by jessamyn

A sidenote to the podcast talk: if you want to participate in podcasting, you’ll probably also want to have broadband since Greg’s 11 minute podcast is about 5MB. This got me thinking about the digital divide again, and how it relates to new technologies. One of the things I love about RSS is that it actually saves me bandwidth because I’m not loading a lot of formatting and ancillary web page fluff that I’m not interested in [for the truly lovely sites, I’ll still go look at the pages, natch]. The content to bandwidth ratio is high. I only got cable modem recently in Vermont and my house up North still has dial-up. There is one ISP there with a local number and they don’t even have have a web page. It’s a different world. My options there are dial-up, satellite broadband, or nothing.

As of mid-2003 17% of Vermont households had broadband. I’m sure that number has shot up, but how high? I’ve been reading through the Vermont Telecommunications Plan from the end of 2004, and it’s fascinating stuff. 66% of Vermonters surveyed in late 2003, early 2004 had Internet access at home. Of them, roughly 25% use cable or DSL with the rest on dial-up, WebTV or other workarounds.. So… a little quick math… and we’ve got about 15% of Vermonters who have cable Internet or DSL. I’m sure this number has also increased, but how high? That’s about 100,000 people more or less. Want to know why it isn’t higher? Check out these two graphs I pulled from the report, paraphrased “Why I haven’t used the Internet recently” and “Why we’re not getting faster Internet at work” What does a library, or a librarian do about this?

DOJ vs ALA, a legal look at the USAPA

Posted on by jessamyn

More heavy USAPA reading that is worth reading in its entirety “Baseless Hysteria”: The Controversy between the Department of Justice and the American Library Association over the USA PATRIOT Act [big pdf] from this month’s Law Library Journal. The article outlines the back-and-forth that happened between the US DoJ and the American Library Association primarily during September 2003. You may recall some of these anecdotes were linked here, some of them I hadn’t even read until now, particularly this chestnut by Ashcroft in paragraph 34-35.

Rather than simply reporting the facts about the use of the Act with respect to library records, as he had with all the facts regarding the successes of antiterrorism efforts, Ashcroft continued to ridicule his opponents. His speech on September 18 went on to say: “And wouldn’t you know it. So prying are we, so overheated is our passion to know the reading habits of Americans that we have used this authority exactly . . . never. . . . And so the charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air. Built on misrepresentation. Supported by unfounded fear. Held aloft by hysteria.”…. Since participation in the events scheduled for the twenty-city tour was by invitation only, and Ashcroft appears to have tailored his remarks for these selected audiences, it is unlikely we will know what was actually said. The fact that the sarcasm and ridicule were scripted is, however, disturbing and beneath the professional conduct one would expect of the attorneygeneral of the United States.

The author’s ultimate conclusion is not the “rah rah librarians” cry that we’re used to hearing. She includes some thoughtful reflection on how the ALA could have put a diferent spin on their official reaction and follow-up to the AGs remarks, and how this could have been an opportunity, perhaps, for law enforcement and librarians to work together to understand each other. While I’m not sure I agree with her conclusions — there is some well-placed mistrust between librarians and law enforcement that can’t be smoothed over without having both sides understand the concerns and mandates of the other — the article makes for worthwhile fact-filled reading that will enhance anyone’s understanding of the USAPA.

It is unfortunate that the debate between the attorney general and Carla Hayden was so narrowly focused on the struggle of the ALAto wrest information from the government about the use of the USA PATRIOT Act in libraries. Managed in a less reactionary manner, the debate could have been an opportunity to have a broader discussion about how, in this age of rapidly changing technology, librarians are not book babysitters but rather information managers in institutions that have become information centers for their communities. The discussion could have been an opportunity for law enforcement to educate librarians on the process of criminal and foreign intelligence investigations, and for both librarians and law enforcement officials to find ways to work together for mutual safety and the protection of civil rights. Simply put, this failure to communicate facts and ideas instead of emotional barbs precluded the exchange of meaningful information. [thanks jack]

new us archivist

Posted on by jessamyn

Without too much fanfare, Allen Weinstein became the Ninth Archivist of the United States last week. You might recall that the society of American Archivists expressed serious reservation with the process that brought Weinstein’s name to the table though they stopped short of opposing his appointment. More over at Daily Kos. It will be interesting to see what happens during his tenure.

[outgoing US Archivist] Carlin was dismissed right before Bush 41’s papers were to become available to the public under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act; this seems unlikely to be a coincidence. As someone working in a number of archives, I know from experience that it is VERY easy for an archivist to drag his/her feet on making a collection accessible; especially for a collection as massive as the files of a President’s Office, the archivist really has to want to release the files to get them out on time. Bush 43, as evidenced by his executive order earlier in his term extending restrictions on presidential papers, does not want this; in light of what appears to be an obviously political appointment, it will remain to be seen whether Dr. Weinstein will want it, or will be able to want it.

web tools enhance library web sites

Posted on by jessamyn

Aaron details more on what he is doing with Flickr at his library. Since part of my job over my last six weeks at the library is to make the web site maintainable by other staff, I’ve been looking for ways of simplifying and streamlining web updating processes. I installed WordPress so even though my library doesn’t have a blog yet — we’re still getting staff on email, everything in due time — they do have a simple web interface for editing and uploading new content. Flickr will automatically crop photos to 75×75, among other sizes, so I built that size image into our home page. Flickr gives people easy URLs for uploaded images and has even simpler ways of showing revolving images on a non-blog site via a badge system they concocted. Did I mention that it’s free for basic users? I don’t own Flickr stock or anything, I’m just always really happy to see clean usable tools that are feature-rich enough for me and yet easy enough to use and understand for my Mom or the folks from work.