Hi. An update on my ALA status for anyone who is curious. I was invited to serve on the Membership Committee of ALA which sounded good to me. I found out that I had been appointed to this committee when I found myself subscribed to the email list without my knowledge or permission. Judging by the responses from other people who got signed on — along the lines of “why am I on this list?” — I wasn’t the only one who found this an odd tactic. Upon further investigation, I discovered that I was on the committee as a “virtual member” or an e-member. This is usually a position reserved for people who can’t make conferences where a lot of the committee work occurs. E-members can’t vote. Since I do make conferences and in fact have to make conferences, I was curious as to why I had been assigned a non-voting position on the committee [though I have my suspicions, ALA is rarely as nefarious as I suspect they are being]. I asked around a bit and a few people mentioned that I was a virtual member because I’m good with computers and technology, which was an interesting non-answer but I think translated into “nobody knows.” After some discussion with other councilors, I decided to resign from that committee [too late to keep my name from being printed in the handbook as a member] and took a position with the Committee on Membership Meetings, a newish committee instead. Sorry there are no links to what I am talking about, I can’t bear to use the ALA web site search engine one more time.
Author: jessamyn
government legislation concerning access to information
Put your reading caps on if you care about access to government information. The Government Reform Committee Minority Office [i.e. the Democrats] have published a big chunky report entitled “Secrecy in the Bush Administration” Covering topics ranging from FOIA to the expansion of “national security” and “sensitive information” classifications to the administration’s reluctance or refusal to provide Congress with information necessary to their research and committee work. The ALA is mentioned on page 67, the USA PATRIOT Act on page seven.
For example, the National Security Archive is an independent research institute and library located at George Washington University, which collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through FOIA. As of early 2004, the National Security Archive had over 300 outstanding FOIA requests submitted in 2001, for which the government had provided no substantive response. [secrecy news]
unintended consequences for econtent
The law of unintended consequences, applied to electronic content and how it works for and against information professionals.
he creative info pro will look at any new information resource and think about how to hack, er, repurpose it for other uses. I use the search functionality of the Wayback Machine to track the emergence of a catch phrase or hot-button issue over time. eBay is a great source for images of virtually any object, as well as a way to find old (but often still useful) textbooks. And some of the Whois domain name registries can be used to glean information on emerging customer dissatisfaction by locating what are delicately called “sucks sites,” since many of the domain names are some form of ThisCompanySucks.com. [lisnews]
is that a bookmark in your pocket or are you just trying to take over this plane?
Special ed teacher handcuffed at airport when bookmark is confused with concealed weapon. [thanks bjorn]
You do remember libraries, don’t you?
What if your search engine really worked like a librarian does?
If only the search engine could stop after a few tries and say, “hey, I’m guessing that you’re looking for something like…” You know, just like any reasonably bright librarian might. (You do remember libraries, don’t you?) Yeah, it’d probably freak some people out, but what if it actually was helpful? [thanks hanan]