LISNews: Librarian News

Steve Fesenmaier writes "Several recent events have made me write this essay. First there was Attorney General Ashcroft's direct attack on the American Library Association and librarians in general, calling them hysterical about the effects of the Patriot Act. If Ashcroft had bothered to actually talk to a few librarians personally, he would have discovered that very, very few were actually shredding their records and going bonkers about the Patriot Act. -- Read More

The new ALA website has a Communication
Preferences section that deserves close attention from
current and future ALA members. The decisions being
made at ALA could affect your privacy and set
troublesome precedents for the way your personal
information is used. ALA\'s new communications
preferences page will have a default setting of \"opt-out\"
forcing members who do not want their personal
information sold to mailing list to log in to change it. An
\"opt out\" setting means that your personal information
is considered available for marketing and mailing list
purposes unless you opt out. With an \"opt in\" setting
members must specifically request to have their name
and information used for such purposes. Privacy
advocates support \"opt in\". -- Read More

Peter writes "Take a bow all you public librarians. This Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial points out the value of Milwaukee public libraries and is probably true of most of the country.

"When, as a young man, Benjamin Franklin organized a private library association in Philadelphia, the idea was to make more books accessible to those who wanted to broaden their horizons in pursuit of their particular American dreams." "

First off, let me start by saying I’m not particularly worried about getting SARS in Toronto. My chances for hangover are far greater than catching a fairly well-contained respiratory disease. What has concerned me, though, is the less-than-complete job of sharing information about the situation by ALA. I don’t envy the Executive Board one bit. This is a monster conference, planned for years, and a sorely needed bit of fellowship during one of the worst budget crises in decades. To have canceled or relocated the conference would have been a nightmare, financially and logistically, not only for ALA, but for Toronto, conference attendees and presenters, and exhibitors. With yesterday\'s spike in cases, the WHO is again taking a hard look at Toronto, deciding today to not issue another travel advisory. -- Read More