These were some of the questions addressed at the “Legal Issues in Public Libraries Forum” at the American Library Association’s 2018 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits on Sunday. The session, sponsored by the Public Library Association, brought together lawyers and librarians for a frank, casual conversation on some of the most contentious issues popping up at … Continue reading Legal Issues
The toolkit fully revises and updates a previous workbook and now includes information for public and academic libraries in addition to school libraries. It is divided into four sections: an overview of why libraries need a selection policy; the basic components of a policy; reconsideration procedures and processes; and an appendix with a bibliography, core … Continue reading Protecting Your Pages with Policy
Some corporations, Ayala said, are laboriously setting up two different privacy systems, one for Europe and another for the US. However, the major players are unifying their rules to comply with the GDPR, “which is an indicator that European trends are starting to become global trends. Facebook and Google just rolled out new privacy centers … Continue reading The Future of Data Privacy
I had carefully planned out sessions that I wanted to get to today. It was a lovely mix of things that would have been helpful for my own particular niche library. However, when I went to check the meeting room for my first session of the day, I learned that it was not at the … Continue reading Finding Your Fun When the Schedule Explodes
The course also covers things you’re less likely to find in Libraryland on a regular basis: design thinking, user experience, interface design, accessibility, data science, visualization techniques, information assurance, and cybersecurity. As an exercise, I gave students several excerpts from the World Almanac, ranging from birthstones to home-run leaders to statistics on homeschooled students and … Continue reading Facts through Fresh Eyes
AL Associate Editor and host Phil Morehart talks with Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Freedom to Read Foundation, about privacy concerns that affect libraries. Next, Phil discusses the right to be forgotten—legislation that forces online search engines to remove personal information flagged by petitioners—with Jim Neal, university librarian emeritus … Continue reading Dewey Decibel Podcast: Protecting Our Privacy
The number of attendees was the highest in 10 years, spurred by the Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget that would eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that distributes federal funding to state library agencies and other grant programs. As ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels said in his opening statement … Continue reading Advocacy in Critical Times
American Libraries spoke to library tech leaders—members of the Library and Information Technology Association’s popular Top Tech Trends panel from the 2017 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—to get the apps, devices, software, and best practices that you can adopt for your library right now and in the near future. 1. Take patrons on a virtual tour … Continue reading Top Library Tech Trends
1–7 Dates in May that Choose Privacy Week is annually observed. 1939 Year that the American Library Association adopted its Bill of Rights, which affirms a commitment to privacy in its first iteration. 48 Number of US states (plus the District of Columbia) that protect the confidentiality of library users’ records by law. The remaining … Continue reading By the Numbers: Privacy
“The librarian profession cares a great deal about the public’s right to privacy, and this is a very serious erosion of that,” says Alison Macrina. Macrina is director of Library Freedom Project, an organization that educates librarians about privacy-related rights and tools. “It means that whatever ISP we use in the library is now privy … Continue reading How to Protect Patrons’ Digital Privacy
The day started with a plenary session with education innovators Jeffrey Martín of honorCode and Stephen Harmon of Georgia Tech Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U). Moderators Audrey Church, professor and coordinator of the school librarianship program of Longwood University and president of the American Association of School Librarians, and Ann Campion Riley, associate director … Continue reading Exploring Our Foundations in Times of Change
The problems of keeping student data private in an increasingly complex world of networked information and online tracking were addressed in a Monday morning session, “Student Privacy: The Big Picture on Big Data,” sponsored by the ALA Office of Government Relations and the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). The featured speaker was Elana Zeide, a privacy advocate, attorney and research fellow at New York University’s Information Law Institute.
