Tag: ala

freedom: the powerful and the powerless

Posted on by jessamyn

I think Sarah said it best when she posted about Michael Gorman’s latest piece [pdf] in American Libraries: Michael Gorman alienates and divides our profession. More in the comments over at Library Crunch, Free Range Librarian, and See Also….

The whole thing depresses me, honestly. I’ve respected Michael’s politics historically, and I voted for him for ALA President and for that I apologize. I’m beginning to realize just how important tone can be, in myself and in others. I don’t care how good people’s politics are, if they can’t at least make an effort to discuss things with me as if I were worth talking to, I worry about their ability to lead and inspire others who aren’t already on board with their ideas. This affected my choices for Council this year, as much as I respect Greg McClay’s honest attempt to change ALA from within and as much as I like talking to him personally, the tone of his posts makes me question his ability to bridge-build with people who don’t share his beliefs. I have similar feelings about current Councilors on both sides of the spectrum, it may be true that they feel the same way about me, some of them certainly seem to.

However, with Greg and myself and other people with blogs, it stands to reason that we’ll let more of ourselves shine through. You have the choice to read or not to read. I’m not the boss of you. In fact, due to my position on Council, my readers are more the boss of me than vice versa in some sort of quirky aggregate way. One would think, then, that being “the boss” of ALA — though as we all know it’s pretty tough to get anything done with a one year term — you’d pay special attention to the fact that you represent everyone. Maybe I think this because I exist in a constant state of performance anxiety: I want to do well on Council, on this blog, in my talks, at my job, in my relationship, in my town. I can’t imagine it being otherwise. Who doesn’t want to Do Good? Who doesn’t want to Fix the Problem(s)?

If I was the boss of you, I would want you to be happy. I don’t understand how it’s supposed to work otherwise.

project vote smart and libraries

Posted on by jessamyn

If you’re a library that is getting a strange letter from Project Vote Smart talking about lack of support from ALA, please read these messages from ALA President Michael Gorman and ALA Executive Director Keith Fiels. Upshot, they claim they are forced to “…no longer provide materials to libraries because they had tried for five months, unsuccessfully, to get a letter of endorsement from ALA leadership.” Gorman: “I have never received a request for an endorsement.” Fiels: “[I]t was never clear to me from based on the conversations with Ms. Buscaglia what exactly she needed from ALA or that the funding for the project depended on a letter from the President. Of course we would have provided a letter of support.” I can’t imagine what happened here.

RFID best practices

Posted on by jessamyn

The American Library Association was one of many companies and public interest groups that helped create a set of best practices for RFID. They include these three general principles about RFID, as it relates to privacy:

Technology Neutrality: RFID technology in and of itself does not impose threats to privacy. Rather privacy breaches occur when RFID, like any technology, is deployed in a way that is not consistent with responsible information management practices that foster sound privacy protection.

Privacy and Security as Primary Design Requirements: Users of RFID technology should address the privacy and security issues as part of its initial design. Rather than retrofitting RFID systems to respond to privacy and security issues, it is much preferable that privacy and security should be designed in from the beginning.

Consumer Transparency: There should be no secret RFID tags or readers. Use of RFID technology should be as transparent as possible, and consumers should know about the implementation and use of any RFID technology (including tags, readers and storage of PII) as they engage in any transaction that utilizes an RFID system. At the same time, it is important to recognize that notice alone does not mitigate all concerns about privacy. Notice alone does not, for example, justify any inappropriate data collection or sharing, and/or the failure to deploy appropriate security measures. Notice must be supplemented by thoughtful, robust implementation of responsible information practices.

ALA Election Finals

Posted on by jessamyn

The ALA elections are over. 14,441 people voted. The new ALA President Elect is Loriene Roy. The dues increase passed by a fairly close margin. The new incoming Councilors At Large are Rosie L. Albritton, Cassandra G. Barnett, Beth E. Bingham, Carolyn Sue Brodie, Kate Ann Corby, Bob R. Diaz, Heidi W. Dolamore, David L. Easterbrook, Ann Dutton Ewbank, Amy Gonzalez Ferguson, Nancy Fredericks, Carolyn P. Giambra, Michael A. Golrick, Michael Gutierrez, Rochelle L. Hartman, Beth K. Hill, Dora T. Ho, Patricia M. Hogan, Dennis J. LeLoup, Ginny B. Moore, Andrea M. Morrison, Ria Elizabeth Newhouse, Nancy C. Pack , Jo Ann Pinder, Ellen M. Riordan, Larry Romans, Frances R. Roscello, Mark C. Rosenzweig, Gail A. Schlachter, Barbara Silverman, Margie J. Thomas, Shixing Wen and Nancy P. Zimmerman. More election results are on this page and Michael has the numbers for the At Large Councilor votes.

PATRIOT Watch: “but for the gag” US government declines to pursue gag order appeal

Posted on by jessamyn

The US Government has abandoned its pursuit of an appeal to a struck-down gag order against the Connecticut librarian who had received a demand for library records by the FBI. In short, the gag order is lifted and this is good news.

The case, Doe vs Gonzales, concerned a librarian who was served with a National Security Letter (NSL). The librarian [identified as George Christian in other newspapers], who appears to already have been an outspoken advocate of intellectual freedom, objected to the gag order [biggish pdf, a few screenshots here] disallowing him from speaking to his own library, the CT Library Assocation or the American Library Association about this issue. He argues that the gag order prevented him from creating effective policies should such a thing happen again, and prevented him from educating other libraries about the existence and specifics of NSLs.