LibrarianInBlack

Chinese censorship and journalist prisoner

Today is an Amnesty International rallying day for human rights.  I found out about it through a Facebook promotion: Bloggers Unite for Human Rights.  The topic that I, as a blogger, would like to highlight is the continued censorship in China, particularly internet censorship.  The filtering, blocking, and state monitoring of ideas is offensive to me as a librarian, and if you feel the same way then you may want to read about the imprisonment of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist. 

I invite you to sign an Amnesty International action asking Yahoo lobby the Chinese government for the release Shi Tao, who was imprisoned for sending an email (through Yahoo) about his beliefs about the Communist Party to the a recipient in the U.S.  Yahoo provided the Chinese government with information (his confidential emails) that lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and Amnesty International has classified the Shi Tao as a Prisoner of Conscience.  You can read more about the issue of Chinese censorship on the AI website.

Amnesty International provides an online action center where you can express your opinion on human rights issues to government officials and other people in positions of power.

Evaluating a Web Design

Jacob Gube, at Six Revisions, has put out a list of Six Incredibly Useful Tools for Evaluating a Web Design.  As our library is getting ready for a redesign ourselves, this is a handy list of tools to check out.  Measuring what the current site is doing wrong is important to making the next site do it right.

via Darlene Fichter

Reference desk blog success story

Stephen Francoeur writes about his library's successful long-term reference staff blog with content like technical support alerts and resolutions, resource suggestions, training tips, reference question Q&A, and more.  The blog, Reference at the Newman Library (at Baruch College), has been around since 2004 (hard core!) and averages a dozen posts a week.  A great example of how blogs can be used as internal communication tools quite successfully.

Libraries engaging with local bloggers

David Lee King writes about some thoughts he has after reading a blog post and listening to a PLA presentation that touched on engaging with local blogs in your own community.  He lists some ways that library staff can be proactively interactive with these users (or potential users, as the case may be). 

I have long promoted engagement with local blogs as an excellent online outreach technique.  It can be as time consuming as you want it to be - monitor one or monitor fifty.  It's up to you.  And don't limit yourself to just blogs--monitor local Google groups and continuing education discussion boards.  There are lots of ways for your local users to interact. 

Building on what David wrote, some of the tips I typically give are:

• Observe for a while: see what people say, what they do, what the tone of the site is like.
• Be authentic: don't write as an institution, write as a real live human being.
• Don't intrude: you don't want to come off as an infiltrating or heavy-handed pain in the rear.
• Identify yourself: make sure people know you're from the library.
• Show what you know: talk about library and non-library resources and services when it's appropriate.

There are also many tools you can use to find these local blogs:

• Blogs by City
• Frappr
• FeedMap
• Blogdigger local
• Metroblogging
• feedmap

Library Use of E-books study

The Primary Research Group has published the 2008/2009 edition of Library Use of E-books. You can read some of the key findings on their website, but the full study costs $75.  From their description of the study:

Data in the report is based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e-book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter-library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e-books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers.

found via Peter Scott's Library Blog

Call for all libraries to stop supporting digital rights management

DefectiveByDesign.org, a campaign from the Free Software Foundation, protested outside of the Boston Public Library for offering digital content with digital rights management attached to it.  They then expanded that complaint to all libraries, asking library users to sign letters and send them to their local libraries.  You can view a copy of the letter here.

I applaud their efforts, but the sad reality is that any subscription eContent that any library offers, except for a few select DRM-free Overdrive titles, will have DRM attached to it.   I agree with the DBD tagline that "books should not expire," but until there is much more of a push by all end-users, not just those of libraries, I don't see that changing.  And libraries will be left with the choice of offering DRM-laden eContent or offering no eContent at all.

video of Clay Shirky @ Web 2.0 Expo

Check out this inspiring video of Clay Shirky at the San Francisco Web 2.0 Expo.  I felt better about what I do for a living instantly :)

What would make your work easier?

Michael Stephens Lee LeBlanc recently wrote a thought-provoking post on Tame the Web, asking us all a question with its title: What would make the work you do easier?  As he admits in his introduction, "This is a whole can of worms."  He posts anonymous responses from several people who talk about some of the common time-wasters and work-impediments to library work: inefficient procedures, silo-ed information, unexpected IT upgrades, and endless meetings.  They also talk about what would help: creative coworkers, competent leadership, more training, etc. 

I second Michael's encouragement to take a moment, stop, and think about those things that are barriers and then follow up with some hard thinking about what could remove them. 

I always keep a "stuff I'd like to change" list, and go back to it when I have the needed go-gettery attitude and want to feel like I'm making a difference.  Most of these things are changeable to a point, but just require some thoughtful planning as to procedure and a people-centered political approach.  Gah...politics.  My least favorite part of the job.  But when you want to change something, knowing how to walk over those hot coals is necessary, as is knowing how to get other people to follow you.

So stop, think about three things that would make your own work easier (usually starting with something that's wrong and what the "right way" would be), and write them down.  Come back to them another day, one at a time, and think about how you can get from where you are to where you want to be.  That, my friends, is how the world gets better.

Pixelated Posey Necklace

Here's a good gift for the necklace-wearing tech-lover in your life: the Pixelated Posey.  Doesn't it just make you smile?   The necklace was available at ModCloth, but they are all sold out.  I hate to taunt you with something you can't have right away, but this was just too cool.  Keep an eye out though--I have a feeling it will be returning.

found via Popgadget

Ergo: information literacy website

The State Library of Victoria (Australia) has a new information literacy site for students and teachers at the high school level: Ergo.   The site offers some great resources that anyone could use:

• research, essay, and study skills guides
• history pathfinders with numerous State Library digitized resources
• video author, artist, and historian interviews
• teacher and student resources and learning guides

I encourage anyone engaged in info lit teaching to take a look and see what kind of information you can gather.  And, if nothing else, it's a good pointer to the Library's impressive digitized collections.

found via Stephen's Lighthouse