Slashdot Mirror

The librarian Jessamyn West has had a similar idea for years.

Which is the exact name and link that the article credits with the original idea. I remembered that, too, and it took me a second to remember that that was about the Patriot Act, too.

The librarian Jessamyn West has had a similar idea for years.

Read Soul of a New Machine about a team at Data General developing a computer to compete with the brand new VAX computer. Similar stategy of getting group of young engineers to work long hours on a project.

One of my favorite things about that book is that it's where I first heard of "Mushroom Management".

Tom West: "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow."

Of course, his kid is awesome as well.

A) Because KOS is a far left hate mongering propaganda site? You didn't know this?

B) No they were not. The ORIGINAL source has totally denied the story.

"there appears to be no truth to the claim made by the commenter, and no further documentation or support for this has turned up."
http://www.librarian.net/stax/2366/sarah-palin-vp-nominee/

But I guess what people like you helped DEFAME and HURT someones character. Your responsible for that. Your character is now damaged.

C) Puuulease.

Sounds like they're helping students obey the law.. for the duration of the probe.

Heck, they could even send out a reminder that university policy forbade illegal filesharing. Or, make like the librarians ( http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html ) and say something like, "The RIAA has not asked us to monitor your traffic this month." (as a big sign on the campus IT building, or somesuch). Some months, it might be removed ....

This librarian can program, although it was never a passion. Her father, OTOH is the famous engineer/programmer and infamous manager Tom West. She is also a free speech activist who devised a Patriot Act FBI visit alert system for libraries.

This librarian can program, although it was never a passion. Her father, OTOH is the famous engineer/programmer and infamous manager Tom West. She is also a free speech activist who devised a Patriot Act FBI visit alert system for libraries.

You should all take a look at the following page:
https://www.ala.org/ala/oif/basics/basicrelatedlin ks/radicalbutton.htm
with more details at:
http://www.librarian.net/stax/1575
The gist is that the parent is right on. We should learn from our librarians how to be better protectors of our civil liberties.
JGG

Wouldn't it be cool if ePaper had a built in Web Browser? Then you'd be able to connect to the Internet via wireless. Then I'd be able to go visit library purchased subscription databases to do research from full text databases or read an eBook. oh wait, how I'm supposed to type on this thing? that's still a ways off. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves about virtual that or superhighway this. We're so totally far from having everything online and everyone being online. We forget as techies how about 3/4 of the US, much less the world could give a rat's ass about the hype. Now that's the digital divide. Jessamyn nailed it on the head. http://www.librarian.net/stax/1496 ePaper has potential for many applications, but there's a reason why they're going for adverts first. $$$, not something that has a use. --librarian. free. information

Here are a few leading library blogs
http://librarian.net
http://librarystuff.net
http://lisnews.com
http://libr.org/juice
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/index.html

a collaborative blog, a guide to problematical library use
http://GuideToProblematicalLibraryUse.buzzword.com

Of interest, at Boston Public Library some BPLers are unable or unwilling to use plain ASCII text when sending email, when replying to reference desk enquiries from BPLusers!

"The piece (LJ, February 15th 2005) was intended to be satirical, though I am certainly no fan of "blogs," having an old fashioned belief that, if one wishes to air one's views and be taken seriously, one should go through the publishing/editing process." - Michael Gorman

Some comments from librarian bloggers to this piece include this, this, this this, and this ... we're not all like Gorman in our views.

A few links to librarian blogger responses:

Free Range Librarian
librarian.net -- "blog people say "ugh" to Michael Gorman"

After the fact, Micheal apparently has claimed that he was being satirical, in which case he didn't write the article very well. Gotta add more smileys, I guess...

I was *hoping* someone would get around to using these signs. (And hoping no one would *need* to.)

... in China, where there are no guaranteed freedoms, surveillance will be in situ, but here in the Land of the Free we guarantee the freedom of access but encourage surreptitious surveillance?

Not sure which is more unhealthy, but I can tell which is more honest.

When the laws get you down, find ways to work with them.

Of note: Five technically legal signs for your library.

The worst part of this new legislation is the associated gag order. If the FBI does come to your library, your librarian is forbidden by law to tell you or anyone else that they have been there, or what they did. If they installed surveillance equipment on the computers, they can't tell you. If they asked for the list of the last 50 books you or everyone who uses the library checked out or purchased, they can't tell you. The same is true for bookstore owners and employees. The USAPA creates an entirely new class of prosecutable criminal: librarians who tell the truth.

The worst part of this new legislation is the associated gag order. If the FBI does come to your library, your librarian is forbidden by law to tell you or anyone else that they have been there, or what they did. If they installed surveillance equipment on the computers, they can't tell you. If they asked for the list of the last 50 books you or everyone who uses the library checked out or purchased, they can't tell you. The same is true for bookstore owners and employees. The USAPA creates an entirely new class of prosecutable criminal: librarians who tell the truth.

Go there. Follow links. They seem to have a pretty solid community. Maybe wandering around their pages and links for a while will get you some ideas. Getting people to participate in a new/quiet public forum is hard.

This situation has been approaching for a while now.

What will the ALA, librarians, and book publishers around the world say, what insanely stupid legislation will they lobby to enact, when people begin to creating legitimate electronic duplicates of books and other printed material under their fair use rights?

I'll tell you what. The DMCA. All over again. And worse. Applied to literature, rather than music. You heard it here first.

But one thing still puzzles me. Typically, librarians are super cool people, full of common-sense, against stupid legislation like that of internet censorship. (See also one of my most favorite 'sites on the net.) I wonder what the reaction to electronification of information will be of the level-headed, pro-freedom librarians of the world. Will it be librarians vs. publishers and the ALA, side-by-side with programmers and technophiles vs. the MPAA and RIAA?

What needs to happen is a complete and total revolution and upheaval in the way we think about intellectual "property" and copyright law. But that will, of course, never happen in our corporate-ruled capitalist soceity.

I think it's time to pay a visit, and hit the information desk. It's been way too long since I visited the local library.

I'm about as libertarian as they come. I find filters noxious for both technical and moral reasons, and see no possible excuse for their use with adults in libraries*. But for schoolchildren there are issues that need to be raised.
1) There are sites that simply have no educational value. What possible reason could a child have for looking at Danni's hotbox?
2) They can prevent bait-and-switch sites, or even accidental typing. To wit, whitehouse.com and hotboy.com - a teacher cannot monitor everybody in a lab at the same time, and I'd hate to have to explain to a 4th grader why there's a site like hotboy- and he/she would be old enough to be curious.
A teenager looking up items at a school where I worked was terribly traumatized when a site advertising support for sexual abuse issues turned out be really selling porn involving rape fantasies.
3) There is no way you're going to be able to convince a school board not to have filtering. Period. If the issue comes up, you will have to have it, regardless of cost. If anybody has examples to the contrary, I'd love to hear of them.

Bearing all these things in mind, and bearing in mind that having such a plugin for Apache or Squid could further the use of open source software, a project similar to dmoz needs to be started. This one could err on the side of not filtering stuff, too. This issue is too important to leave to the vagaries of corporatism.

*Although the comment, I think i saw it on www.librarian.net, to the effect of a librarian saying that she drew the line on free speech when a patron next to her was viewing bestiality websites, does make a point about the unfortunate (but necessary) price of free speech.