Tag: libraries

EPA Libraries coming back… sort of

Posted on by jessamyn

Via resourceshelf, this account of the Memorandum of Agreement that was the result of arbitration between the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 and the EPA. Please see the linked documents for information from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on why the EPAs compliance — which they termed “grudging” — was not acceptable to EPA library workers.

“Even as many collections remain in crates, EPA has decided to micromanage what is left,” [PEER Director Carol] Goldberg added, noting that the agency has still not accounted for many of the library holdings it had removed. “Professional librarians should be making these management decisions, not political appointees.”

Privacy Revolution – not quite live-blogging

Posted on by jessamyn

I enjoyed the panel presentation. Jenny Levine and Kate Sheehan were both there blogging along with me. It was fun to keep an eye on twitter/chat/email and still pay enough attention to manage to ask a few questions and just learn things. Here is a slightly edited version of what I was writing during the event. My apologies of the lateness of this post. As I was heading home my own local library where I am a sometimes employee was dealing with their own privacy and law enforcement issue. Tough stuff. Click through for details, didn’t want to put this all on the front page. Continue reading “Privacy Revolution – not quite live-blogging”

do people even know you have wifi?

Posted on by jessamyn

I was explaining to a drop-in time student today the difference between dial-up and broadband and satellite internet and wifi. She is buying a laptop. Her first computer. She is 83 years old. She is also probably going to be my future landlady. I said that even though she was in a place with no telephone, she could go to the public library with her laptop and get online pretty easily. All the little public libraries in my area have free wifi, and in most cases it’s the only place in town to get it. MaintainIT linked to a good set of sites where libraries (or anyone) can advertise their wifi for free. People zooming through town will know they can get online with their laptops at your library. Neat.

“needing the stupid things” Luc Sante on the book collection that devoured his life

Posted on by jessamyn

Luc Sante is profiled in the Wall Street Journal talking about his book collection and its relationship to his space and his sanity. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned this, but I have a whole house that just sort of holds on to my books. The real explanation of why me and my books don’t live together anymore is longer and more complicated but let me just say that I know exactly where Luc is coming from and this article delights me. Don’t miss the sidebar history of private libraries.

I would very much miss books as material objects were they to disappear. The tactility of books assists my memory, for one thing. I can’t remember the quote I’m searching for, or maybe even the title of the work that contains it, but I can remember that the book is green, that the margins are unusually wide, and that the quote lies two-thirds of the way down a right-hand page. If books all appear as nearly identical digital readouts, my memory will be impoverished. And packaging is of huge importance, too — the books I read because I liked their covers usually did not disappoint. In the world of books, all is contingency and serendipity. Books are much more than container vessels for ideas. They are very nearly living things, or at least are more than the sum of their parts.