I was surprised by how much activity there was yesterday over SOPA/PIPA.

If you’ve been following along you’ll know that SOPA/PIPA are the House and Senate versions of a bill that has been proposed in order to manage the fact that there are a lot of websites that basically help you get copyrighted content for free. I’ve spoken previously about my opposition to this legislation and I made my site “go dark” thanks to a WordPress plugin, to register my displeasure. On MetaFilter we made an interstitial clickthrough page so that everyone coming to the site would see it and would be encouraged to contact their representatives if in the US, or other actions for non-US people. And I knew other sites were doing it, most notably Reddit, but I was surprised personally at just how big it got how quickly.

And by the time I called Patrick Leahy, the guy who was actually responsible for drafting PIPA, and his Montpelier office said they were having technical difficulties and to please call the Burlington office, I knew something was up. And I spoke to a staffer who clearly thought I was some sort of “Hey the internet sent me” person, telling me “It’s not like Google says it is” and seemed surprised though maybe not pleased when I went into the details of what my objections to the law were. And I used the internet like usual, except things weren’t usual. Wikipedia was dark (read this link for some laughs). Reddit was dark. BoingBoing was dark. Cheezeburger network and Craigslist had clickthroughs. Google did a custom logo. In fact I found it a little tough to predict which sites might go dark. The Syracuse iSchool had a very well done page. ALA hadn’t done anything in the morning but thanks to a little nudging, had a message of support up in the afternoon. The protest made the news. Here’s a quick roundup of some screenshots I made, in case you missed some or all of them. And, to bring this full circle, here’s Jon Stewart talking about how this sort of thing just might drive people back to the library.

Ultimately what is interesting to me is what happened. Several legislators changed their votes (check yours here). It was interesting seeing these roll in over Twitter before turning into more official sounding statements later in the day. At last count twenty senators announced opposition to the bill this week. Check this graphic. That, to me, is sort of a big deal.

I have friends working in the various Occupy X libraries. We don’t have a very big Occupy presence near me in Vermont and I was curious how things work there. Kristin Parker (@parkivist) is an anthropologist who received an MS (Simmons) with a concentration in archives management. She worked for twelve years managing the collections exhibits and archives at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and is now managing the art collection at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis. She’s a newish associate of the Boston Radical Reference Collective and is one of the people who has been organizing and staffing the A to Z (Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn) Library at Occupy Boston. I asked her a few questions over email. She writes…

“The A-Z Library is a partnership made up of the Boston Radical Reference Collective, the Progressive Librarians Guild of Simmons College and Metacomet Books of Plymouth, MA, run by John Ford who recognized a need for a durable setting for books at Dewey Square (the Occupy Boston site). He graciously installed a military tent and brought in a third of his own personal book collection. Other donations soon arrived through the librarians and members of the public. The library has been up and running for more than 2 weeks now. Every day we receive donations – it’s amazing. Books are organized according to subject, in plastic milk crates and wooden cranberry bog crates, for easy transporting and shifting. As described in the statement (link below): ‘The library aims to provide high-quality, accurate information to all interested parties. The collection contains material on topics such as political thought and social movements, activism, history, philosophy, religion, finance, consumerism, gender, race, as well as a large fiction section.’”

What your role is with the Occupy library in Boston and could you suggest a few links for people interested in the Occupy Library System generally?

Why I got involved – I love answering reference questions and I really enjoy working with the public. I’ve always admired the work of Radical Reference librarians and understand the importance of offering folks an alternative way to navigate resources and identify new ones. As an archivist: I remembered reading about the American Radicalism collection at Michigan State University, and how archivists sometimes have to be pro-active when it comes to documenting certain moments in history. I recognized pretty quickly watching the movement grow and definitely after my first visit to Dewey Square that this was an historic event and I wanted to attempt to capture activities at Occupy Boston in a way that would be useful for occupiers, visitors to the Square, and into the future.

We created a binder full of documents printed from the wikispaces (reference copies), that includes Occupy Boston’s statement of solidarity, the General Assembly Process for Consensus and other operational information. There are also copies of the GA minutes and other important documents from the various working groups. So, ideally, people can come to the library and get caught up on what’s what and hopefully the information is up-to-date, though things move quickly. We’ve also created an active archive bin that mimics the reference copies, aiming to document in print all records produced by the working groups etc, as well as a sampling of ephemera that might capture the day to day life at Dewey Square.

- Occupy Boston website announcing establishment of the library about a week before the GA [General Assembly] announcement:
- Occupy Boston Wiki, Library page where all documents are poured
- Radical Reference
- New York Times article on “tent libraries”

Have you taken the library concept/idea to the general assembly yet? Do you have to?

The Library was up and running about two weeks before it was announced at the GA: On Saturday October 22nd, representatives announced the Library Working Group at the GA and we received a lot of “sparkles” – hands with wiggling fingers, raised in the air, declaring their support and consensus. Here is what was read at the GA:

[we announce] “The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library” — aka the A to Z library.

We have chosen these two individuals because, in their own words:

‘To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.’ Howard Zinn

and ‘There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.’ Audre Lorde

And because as Zinn taught us, ‘Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.’

and Lorde reminds us, ‘Revolution is not a onetime event.’

And lastly, because we agree with Zinn that:

‘Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.’

and with Lorde that: ‘Without community, there is no liberation.’

We name the library at Occupy Boston The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library because Audre Lorde was an activist and a radical librarian and Howard Zinn was an activist with strong connections to Boston. From A to Z they give us inspiration, knowledge and power.

How much, if any, interaction has there been between the various Occupy libraries (can I do ILL?) and what sorts of interactions have you had with other non-Occupy libraries and librarians?

I’ve personally not observed any formal interaction with other libraries yet, though I think we’re all interested in one another’s Occupation activities – I know I read the facebook page for OWS library, for example. We get messages from visitors to the tent who tell us a bit about what OWS library is up to. OWS has an online catalog of books (we’ve opted not to catalog) that our online site will link to for visitor’s interest. We’re not quite ready for interlibrary loan :) . I wonder if there will be any sort of difference between collections at different occupations – that would be interesting to learn more about.

update: A number of us have been to OWS and are in touch with the librarians that are organizing the library there (many of us are in the same national group: Radical Reference Collective). There is a solidarity bus traveling to OWS soon – representatives from Boston working groups will meet their OWS counterparts and share information and updates.

What, to you, is the most important thing you and others have been doing in the A-Z Library?

The most important thing? I could poll the group and ask their opinion if you like? To me personally…hmmm. Helping visitors become oriented to activities at Occupy Boston, and to offer resources that will help fuel visitor’s interests in the movement and support their thinking. Dewey Square is a think tank, with ideas percolating around every corner/tent, and I hope the library offers a comfortable space in which to share and find ideas. It’s really amazing how many people come in through the tent, sigh, and say “Ah! A library! I LOVE libraries!” I think there’s something comforting and familiar about a library space – we are a village at Occupy Boston, a community, and I’ve always been of the mind that any town worth living in had to have a library. (I’m also heartened by the excitement people have for the printed word – there are no public computers at Occupy Boston as far as I can tell – though we have a laptop people can use to access and input to wikispaces – people are very content to walk away with a printed book tucked under their arm.)

What’s your favorite part of all of this, the library, the Occupy movement, whatever?

My favorite aspect is the diversity of people I’m privileged to meet (today I met an ex-airforce Russian linguist working on site, a fellow who works for a prison book program, a teenager writing a paper for school, and a psychic who predicted an earthquake would hit Boston). We have curiosity seekers and folks who really.need.info.now! The volunteers I’ve spoken with so far and I agree that we each seem to have a weepy moment every time we work, overwhelmed we are by the support and energy of everyone around us at Occupy Boston. It seems that, if one person tires, someone else swoops in and offers to take up the slack, and, in this way, we keep going, enthusiastically and determinedly. The energy draws you in and it’s difficult to leave at the end of your shift…

How many people work there, ballpark and do you guys have any real internal structure to speak of? Anecdotes to share about General Assembly?

This is a contact list of working groups. There are 30 members on our contact list and 12 of us on the roster to be on-site librarians so far, plus John Ford who lives on site 24-7. We are leaderless – we present ideas in our google group, weigh in, figure out. We set agendas weekly meetings in person. Each person brings their own interest or level of experience to contribute and we learn from one another.

People can watch examples of the general assembly on the occupy boston live stream and youtube. Check the GA schedule and perhaps folks can watch one live. They are really moving. Although GA’s occur most every night, the etiquette remains the same throughout the day, every day, during lectures/classes, etc. A good way to communicate within a group. Here’s the process and the hand signals. Here’s a recording I made of a GA after the October 11 arrests of 141 people at Dewey Square and some other exampleds (1, 2)

Do people have library cards or any sort of ID or is it all honor system stuff there? Is the place staffed 24/7?

All honor system :) . We do have a check out process (visitors write title of book and date checked out on index card), and we ask folks to bring books back when they’re done. It is most important to get the information out there as far as I’m concerned, rather than get too too hung up on who is borrowing what and for how long. There are several valued books that we’ve nominated for reference only that do not leave the library – such as the Occupy Boston documents binder, or a particular edition of Howard Zinn’s People’s History for example (though we have multiple copies of that to circulate, courtesy of a man who read of the Boston library in the NYT).

We’re not staffed 24/7 but for several hours a day though that would be awesome – mainly evenings during week, afternoons on weekends so far. John is there pretty much all the time since he lives there. But we want to give him some relief!

Anything else you’d like to add?

This project is a recent endeavor so things will change and grow – keep checking back! I want to mention how grateful I am to be able to participate in this process and for the passion and hard work of fellow librarians!

Information Today outlines what is happening in the state of Kansas as they contemplate moving away from OverDrive with content that their 2005 contract says that they actually purchased. A really fascinating story. Budler admits that OverDrive isn’t the villain here, but that she needs to advocate for her libraries which means getting a better deal for them than OverDrive was able to offer.

What we do know is that the US Government has indicted Aaron Swartz [who you may know around the internet for any number of things] for, apparently and allegedly, downloading 4mil articles from JSTOR without (I think?) the proper credentials. Aaron turned himself in. At issue are many points of JSTORs terms of service and what sort of access is given to guests of the university. As Aaron is a net activist, I’m certain this is some level of intentional move on his part, I’m quite curious to see where it goes.

Update: JSTORs official statement, Wired article with more details

“The way you talk about the [digital divide] changes people’s view of who is responsible for resolving it…. This issue has been around for years, but its meaning is in constant flux and is manipulated by political agendas.”

I’ve switched some of the tools I use for keeping current over the past few months. I’m finding that I use RSS less and less for keeping up on blogs and rely more on Twitter lists and searches to sort of keep my hand in. I also read a lot of print material still [some of my best "things to think about" things are still coming from the pages of Library Journal and Computers in Libraries magazines] and am trying to keep to my book-a-week plan for 2011. Oddly I also get news from seemingly random places like other people’s facebook walls and I made a little image-milkshake over on a site called MLKSHK. You might like it.

I have a standing search for “digital divide” on Twitter that just auto-updates itself onto my desktop via TweetDeck. The thing that is so interesting about this, to me, is how often the term gets used and for how many different things. This morning there are discussions about the digital divide and gender, how the EU is trying to narrow the digital divide (referring to access to broadband) and a report about how switching to online social services in the UK would adversely affect people who are digitally divided already, mostly talking about seniors.

Which leads me to the paper I read recently which was really pretty intersting and on topic: Who’s Responsible for the Digital Divide? Public Perceptions and Policy Implications (pdf) It’s not long, you can read it, but the upshot is that depending how we define the digital divide, we will develop different strategies to “solve” the problem. This is not just hypothesized in the paper but addressed scientifically. So if the problem is lack of compturs, we throw computers at the problem. If the problem is broadband, we work on network infrastructure. If the problem is education we design sites like DigitalLiteracy.gov and then wonder why a website isn’t teaching people how to use computers. Tricky stuff, endlessly fascinating, thorny problem.

Orphan works are works that are in-copyright but do not have a contactable copyright holder. They’re tricky and annoying as far as reuse goes because while technically they’re not re-usable without permission, how do you get permission? People have discussed this problem at length, but The University of Michigan’s Copyright office — the people who are working on the copyright review management system — are trying to do something about it. They launched a project to try to track down and identify the rights holders of orphan works created between 1923-1963 in the HathiTrust Digital Library. In doing so, they hope to get a general idea of the scope of the problem and at the same time develop best practices for identifying orphan works. They might also help HT make more of their content available as its copyright status is determined.

Members of the public enjoy unrestricted access to all reports of the Congressional Research Service, according to the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James H. Billington.

“Though CRS has no direct public mission, at present the public has unfettered access to the full inventory of CRS Reports for the Congress at no cost through the office of any Member or committee,” he wrote in an April 4 letter (pdf) to Amy Bennett of Openthegovernment.org.

Unfortunately, that assertion is quite wrong. The public does not have access to the full inventory of CRS Reports. There is not even a public index of CRS reports that would enable people to request specific reports by title.

If you find this sort of thing totally fascinating, please familiarize yourself with the work that OpenCRS is doing and see if there is a way you can help them. Just look at all this good stuff. [freegovinfo]

This year SXSW got the audio up from the panels very quickly. This panel isn’t mostly me, it’s mostly my two co-panelists Fiona Morgan and Justin Grimes talking about the other non-library issues surrounding how and why people can or can’t get access to broadband internet. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, you might like it. The panel went well, was well attended and started a lot of conversations that I think still need to be happening. I myself was without decent internet here at home for the past week since I got back from SXSW (I switched ISPs and had some in-between time where I “only” had access via my iphone and local wifi including, yes, the library) and it changed my life patterns more than I even thought it would. Interesting times.

Here are the slides (mine and Fiona’s and the text of my talk) and here is the panel page on the SXSW page which has the audio link after the blurb.

“There is, for instance, a simple, spooky sense in which the Internet is just a loud and unlimited library in which we now live—as if one went to sleep every night in the college stacks, surrounded by pamphlets and polemics and possibilities. There is the sociology section, the science section, old sheet music and menus, and you can go to the periodicals room anytime and read old issues of the New Statesman. (And you can whisper loudly to a friend in the next carrel to get the hockey scores.) To see that that is so is at least to drain some of the melodrama from the subject. It is odd and new to be living in the library; but there isn’t anything odd and new about the library.”

“Hundreds of the most popular federal tax forms and publications are available for download from IRS.gov for sight impaired individuals. These products range from talking tax forms to Braille formats, and are accessible using screen reading software, refreshable Braille displays and voice recognition software. Click on the links below to download these forms and publications:

Download Accessible Tax Forms (Braille and Text Formats)
Download Accessible Tax Publications (Braille and Text Formats)
Download Accessible Talking Tax Forms

Download Tax Instructions (Large Print Format)
Download Tax Publications (Large Print Format)

The IRS also offers customer service assistance for persons who are deaf or who have hearing disabilities. People with TTY equipment may call 800-829-4059, which is a toll-free number, for assistance.

People who are unable to complete their tax return because of a physical disability may get assistance from an IRS office, or through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA) sponsored by the IRS. Taxpayers can find a nearby location by calling 1-800-906-9887 or checking the partial list on the IRS’s website.

Publication 907, Tax Highlights for Persons with Disabilities, explains the tax implications of certain disability benefits and other issues, and is available at IRS.gov.

Visit www.IRS.gov and click on the word “accessibility” for help and information.

Doing a quick autofilter on the DoL’s list shows 183 public libraries in the state of Vermont. Ten have dial-up internet access. Thirteen have nothing. Seventy-five libraries have no wireless internet access. It’s possible I’m reading the statistics wrong, but this is fewer libraries with internet than in 2009. I sure hope I am reading the charts wrong.

Dial-up user Val Houde knows this as well as anybody. After moving here four years ago, the 51-year-old mother of four took a correspondence course for medical transcription, hoping to work from home. She plunked down $800, took the course, then found out the software wasn’t compatible with dial-up Internet, the only kind available to her.

Selling items on eBay, watching videos, playing games online? Forget it. The connection from her home computer is so slow, her online life is one of delays, degraded quality, and “buffering’’ warning messages. So she waits until the day a provider extends broadband to her house.

Disabled folks have less internet access than non-disabled people. The access they do have is often more challenging because of poorly-understood or -implemented website accessibility features. I encourage you to comment, especially if you work in a publicly-funded library. Direct link to the proposed changes: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability: Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities and Public Accommodations

In any case, their new report Pew Internet Social Isolation and New Technology is my second lengthy read for today. Be sure to read the interesting side note The GSS Controversy in which they consider that using the verb “discuss” to refer to people communicating with others may have eliminated non-talking options form people’s minds [i.e. texting and emailing].

Some have worried that internet use limits people’s participation in their local communities, but we find that most internet activities have little or a positive relationship to local activity. For instance, internet users are as likely as anyone else to visit with their neighbors in person. Cell phone users, those who use the internet frequently at work, and bloggers are more likely to belong to a local voluntary association, such as a youth group or a charitable organization.

Good reading for a snowy weekday: Some Skepticism About Search Neutrality.

Search neutrality gets one thing very right: Search is about user autonomy. A good search engine is more exquisitely sensitive to a user’s interests than any other communications technology. Search helps her find whatever she wants, whatever she needs to live a self-directed life. It turns passive media recipients into active seekers and participants. If search did not exist, then for the sake of human freedom it would be necessary to invent it. Search neutrality properly seeks to make sure that search is living up to its liberating potential.

Having asked the right question—are structural forces thwarting search’s ability to promote user autonomy?—search neutrality advocates give answers concerned with protecting websites rather than users. With disturbing frequency, though, websites are not users’ friends. Sometimes they are, but often, the websites want visitors, and will be willing to do what it takes to grab them.