I’m home from ALA and trying to decompress. One thread of conversation at this conference was the notion that letting go of the “everything must be perfect” mindset might lead to more innovation and improvement in libraries. I think all the sessions I attended or presented included a mention of play and experience. Karen Coombs at our RUSA preconference said: “Question everything! And don’t worry about making mistakes..” in relation to planning, creating and implementing technology in libraries — and finding the time to do those things. Are we so caught up — like that unnamed librarian someone told me […]
Categories Advocacy
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READ Poster Originally uploaded by ISU Milner Library Jenny and I are at Illinois State University’s Milner Library teaching a 2 day Library 2.0 Hands On Exploration course. They have the coolest READ posters everywhere – including at their Flickr account. Check it out!
http://blatant.libraryjournal.com/blog/?p=22 John Berry reports on budget cuts for his home library: Our library is probably the most used public service in Stamford, except perhaps for garbage collection and streets. It is “touched” as one Board member put it, by more citizens than nearly any other city service. The Advocate, local daily paper didn’t even mention the library in its online report of the meeting. One of the two Republicans on the Board of Finance wanted to double the library budget cut, suggesting that the library make it up with private fund raising, and citing a nearby very affluent community as […]
synching a pda Originally uploaded by Meg Canada. Meg Canada interwiewed me for a YALS article the week. In the course of our IM discussion she mentioned a school she just visited in San Francisco that gives students PDAs and has sync station in the school. I found an older article about it here: http://www.pdastreet.com/articles/2001/8/2001-8-28-High-School-Using.html The other thing Meg told me about is they do not filter the computers there. They’ve adopted a commitment to “wise freedom.” One of the goals of the school is to educate students to achieve “personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.” I wonder […]
http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/internet/29138prs20070322.html “Technology evolves at an incredibly rapid pace, and our laws face the challenge of trying to keep up,” said ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Chris Hansen, who was lead counsel on the case. “Americans have the right to participate in the global conversation that happens online every moment of every day, and Congress does not have the right to censor that conversation.” Joan Walsh, editor in chief of Salon.com who was a plaintiff in the case, said that parents, not the government, should control children’s access to information and ideas. “Whether minors should read Salon is a question for their […]
Read my interview with Robert Doyle: http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/02/thoughtful-advocates-an-ala-techsource-interview-with-ilas-robert-doyle.html “If people were better informed about social networking sites and knew and used basic Internet safety tips, the cloud of fear may decline.”—Robert Doyle, Executive Director of the Illinois Library Association
I’m sitting in the student lounge at Simmons GSLIS withtwelve students at a meet-n-greet, and of course conversation has turned to the recent uproar about that award winning book some librarians are pulling off their shelves because of a certain anatomical reference. One of the students urged us to check out: http://www.gelfmagazine.com/gelflog/archives/youth_literature_is_filled_with_scrotums.php In both of my 701 sections this week we discussed this topic for over an hour.
For immediate release From: Robert P. Doyle Illinois Library Association phone: (312) 644-1896 fax: (312) 644-1899 e-mail: ila@ila.org http://www.ila.org Provide Senator Matt Murphy with Your Comments on Banning Social Networking Sites on Thursday, 22 February 2007 The Daily Herald reported today that Senator Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine) will host an online chat tomorrow night, Thursday, 22 February 2007, about Senate Bill (SB) 1682, which would ban social networking sites in public libraries and public schools. The proposal, which Murphy’s office claims is the only one in the nation that calls for a complete ban on these sites, has been a […]
Steve at Teach42 notes another, more sane bill introduced by an Illinois senator: http://www.teach42.com/2007/02/20/illinois-legislation-the-ugly-and-the-really-really-good/ I know Will says that he thinks things may get worse before they get better, but I did notice something while exploring the Illinois General Assembly website that gives me a little bit of hope. Matt Murphy wasn’t the only one to submit an bill to protect children from the internet that day. Senator Dan Kotowski also submitted an act, this one titled the Internet Safety Education Act. Sounds good already doesn’t it? It has the word Internet accompanied by ‘Safety’ and ‘Education’. Now, that doesn’t […]
http://libraryjournal.com/article/CA6417241.html While the Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly may not be too receptive to new social networking legislation proposed by freshman Republican Senator Matt Murphy, the bill may be the first in several state attempts to achieve the goals of the federal Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which passed the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. The Social Networking Website Prohibition Act would require public libraries to prohibit access to social networking web sites, including MySpace and many less controversial, on all publicly accessible computers, including those used by adults, and also would prohibit access by students in schools. […]