Ten Stories That Shaped 2024

According to ChatGTP, below are the main themes of this year’s library headlines (using Library Link of the Day as the source):

  1. Library Governance and Legislation:
    Highlighting state legislation targeting librarians, legal battles in Alabama and Idaho, and the impact of controversial policies leading to resignations and job losses among library staff.
  2. Censorship and Book Bans:
    Widespread attempts to ban books, especially those with LGBTQ+ themes or diverse characters, coupled with legal challenges and legislative measures against censorship.
  3. Technological Advances and Digital Challenges:
    The role of AI in libraries, the migration from physical to digital collections, and the associated risks like data breaches and digital repository reliability.
  4. AI and Its Ethical Implications:
    Ethical and legal challenges surrounding generative AI, including copyright issues, quality concerns of AI-generated content, and its impact on traditional publishing.
  5. Libraries and Societal Conflicts:
    Ongoing conflicts between public libraries and various societal or government entities, involving censorship debates and clashes over controversial content.
  6. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism:
    Issues of plagiarism and academic integrity, emphasized by the rise of AI-generated content and legal disputes over improper citation practices.
  7. The Role of Libraries in Modern Society:
    Libraries’ evolving roles in education, digital equity, community health, and their function as safe havens and spaces for mental health advocacy.
  8. Cultural Impacts:
    The cultural significance of libraries and the publishing industry, including notable lawsuits, the role of book fairs, and the societal importance of accessible literature.
  9. Crisis and Advocacy:
    Libraries and librarians facing job losses, threats, underfunding, and advocacy efforts highlighting their resilience and resistance against these pressures.
  10. Educational and Community Services:
    Libraries adapting to meet educational needs, offering health and wellness classes, acting as community centers, and serving broader societal purposes in the face of various challenges.

What was your favorite story of 2024?

December 15, 2024 by AI Censorship Libraries Stories Of The Year

Peak Iowa: History’s most prolific book bandit is an Ottumwa man. Librarians helped bring him down.

“Organized crime” usually refers to illegal activity as a collaborative enterprise, involving large networks of people and undertaken for profit or power. That’s too damned bad, really, because there is no better turn of phrase to lean on when discussing the wild work of the Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief.

The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home — wall to wall, floor to ceiling, in hallways, closets and bathrooms. But the FBI didn’t walk into a scene from Hoarders, says a 2023 article from Creighton University. The stolen goods were carefully arranged, primarily geographically.

December 5, 2024 by Books

The Scorekeepers: Orchestra Librarians and Their Work

Before every San Francisco Symphony concert, you%u2019ll see a black-clad figure distributing folders on the musicians%u2019 stands. Most of the time, that%u2019s Margo Kieser, the orchestra%u2019s principal librarian and holder of the Nancy and Charles Geschke Chair. Although you%u2019ll never see Kieser or one of SFS%u2019s assistant librarians performing onstage, they%u2019re absolutely crucial to the smooth functioning of the orchestra.

The Scorekeepers: Orchestra Librarians and Their Work

December 5, 2024 by Librarians

AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably

As AI-generated text continues to evolve, distinguishing it from human-authored content has become increasingly difficult. This study examined whether non-expert readers could reliably differentiate between AI-generated poems and those written by well-known human poets. We conducted two experiments with non-expert poetry readers and found that participants performed below chance levels in identifying AI-generated poems (46.6% accuracy, %u03C72(1, N%u2009=%u200916,340)%u2009=%u200975.13, p%u2009<%u20090.0001). Notably, participants were more likely to judge AI-generated poems as human-authored than actual human-authored poems (%u03C72(2, N%u2009=%u200916,340)%u2009=%u2009247.04, p%u2009<%u20090.0001). We found that AI-generated poems were rated more favorably in qualities such as rhythm and beauty, and that this contributed to their mistaken identification as human-authored. Our findings suggest that participants employed shared yet flawed heuristics to differentiate AI from human poetry: the simplicity of AI-generated poems may be easier for non-experts to understand, leading them to prefer AI-generated poetry and misinterpret the complexity of human poems as incoherence generated by AI.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76900-1

December 3, 2024 by AI

Navigating State Consumer Privacy Laws and Compliance Challenges

Are You Ready for The Latest U.S. State Consumer Privacy Laws?

Nineteen states have followed the lead of California and passed consumer privacy laws. Three went into effect this year and eight will become effective in 2025. The remainder become effective in 2026. Charts at the end of this post track effective dates (see Table 1) and applicability thresholds (see Table 2). While there are many similar aspects to these laws, they also diverge from each other in material ways, creating a compliance challenge for organizations. In addition, there are other privacy laws pertaining specifically to consumer health data,[1] laws specific to children’s and minors’ personal data and not part of a comprehensive consumer privacy law,[2] AI-specific laws,[3] or laws, including part of overall consumer privacy laws, regulating data brokers[4] that enterprises need to consider.

December 2, 2024 by Legal Issues Privacy

Why does the name ‘David Mayer’ crash ChatGPT? Digital privacy requests may be at fault

Users of the conversational AI platform ChatGPT discovered an interesting phenomenon over the weekend: the popular chatbot refuses to answer questions if asked about a %u201CDavid Mayer.%u201D Asking it to do so causes it to freeze up instantly. Conspiracy theories ensued %u2014 but a more ordinary reason may be at the heart of this strange behavior.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/02/why-does-the-name-david-mayer-crash-chatgpt-digital-privacy-requests-may-be-at-fault/?guccounter=1

December 2, 2024 by Internet

Senate ENR Committee approves funding for Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is still under construction with the completion set for 2026. This week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved legislation to support the preservation and displays of materials at the library.

https://www.kfyrtv.com/2024/11/20/senate-enr-committee-approves-funding-theodore-roosevelt-presidential-library/

December 2, 2024 by Presidential Libraries

The Philly Free Library’s Author Events Series: What really happened?

Behind the scenes of the Free Library’s Author Events resignations and rebirthThe walkout and subsequent firing of Author Events staff this year was the result of a decades-long, murky relationship between the library and its foundation – but not the end of the program.

The short answer is the Free Library Foundation’s new executive director, Monique Moore Pryor, arrived in the stacks in 2023 with new ideas for fundraising and plans to expand Author Events beyond Parkway Central, with an emphasis that included neighborhood collaborations and not just cocktail party-worthy events. And as often happens when organizations bring in new management, the old guard — in this case, the former Author Events team led by 24-year Free Library Foundation veteran Andy Kahan — clashed with the new boss.

December 2, 2024 by Public Libraries

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