Michael Zimmer.org

I have been charged with convening a panel for the Information Ethics special interest group of ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education), to be held at its 2011 annual conference.
I’ve decided to focus on how LIS scholars and professionals need to place renewed focus on providing information ethics education across various contexts. We must move beyond just implementing information ethics within LIS curricula, and find innovative ways to incorporate it into elementary and secondary schools, public & school libraries, homes and community centers, as well as within popular …

Anthony Hoffmann, a UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies PhD student, has posted an excellent analysis of the Twitter-Library of Congress deal, in 4 parts, at his blog Sex, Drugs & Intellectual Freedom:

Part I: Intro and Privacy Roundup: Hoffmann discusses how the LoC acquisition of the public Twitter archive “directly confronts a number of unresolved (and hotly contested) practical and conceptual issues concerning privacy today”.
Part II: Digital Divides and the Cultural Record: Hoffmann critiques the oft-repeated rhetoric that the Twitter archive represents the collective thoughts and utterances of “ordinary people”, …

If you have an interest in information ethics, access to knowledge, capacity building, and the African continent, please join us for the “Teaching Information Ethics in Africa – Current Status, Opportunities, and Challenges” conference at the University of Botswana on September 6-7, 2010.
This event is the third of a series of conferences focusing on information ethics in Africa. The first, “African Information Ethics Conference: Ethical Challenges in the Information Age” convened in 2007, was the first ever African conference on information ethics. This was followed in 2009 by “The Workshop …

From May 2 through May 8, 2010, libraries across the nation will celebrate Choose Privacy Week for the first time. This American Library Association campaign invites library professionals, users, and friends into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The UWM School of Information Studies and UWM Libraries have joined together to provide a venue for local librarians, information professionals, and patrons to discuss the emerging privacy and ethical challenges for libraries in the new “2.0” era, titled:
Emerging Privacy and Ethical Challenges for Libraries in the 2.0 …

This weekend I’m attending the 4th Access to Knowledge conference, A2K4: Access to Knowledge and Human Rights, hosted by the Yale Information Society Project (see my original post on the conference here).

With the help of the UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies, I organized a workshop on “Identifying Challenges and Opportunities foran African Information Ethics”, featuring Johannes Britz (School of Information Studies, UW-Milwaukee), Rafael Capurro (International Center for Information Ethics, and School of Information Studies, UW-Milwaukee) and Dennis Ocholla (University of Zululand), along with a very engaged group of conference participants.

The Yale Information Society Project has announced the 4th Access to Knowledge conference: A2K4: Access to Knowledge and Human Rights. The event will be held at Yale Law School on February 12-13, 2010, hosted by the Information Society Project, in collaboration with an extensive list of organizing partners, including UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies.
The two-day conference will feature plenary panels as well as breakout sessions of working groups organized around specific issue areas, including a workshop I have organized on “Identifying Challenges and Opportunities for an African Information Ethics”.

On Tuesday, a group of librarians and information professions will be holding a panel discussion on “The Challenges of Implementing Library 2.0 Services” at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).
On the Challenges of Implementing Library 2.0 Services
ASIS&T 2009 Annual Meeting
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 3:30pm PST
Today, many libraries are at a crossroads: several of the services they have traditionally provided within their walls are increasingly made available online, often by non-library, commercial entities. For example, Web search engines provide easy access to millions of …

I’m pleased to announce that Dr. Rafael Capurro, an international expert in information ethics, is joining the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies as a Distinguished Researcher. Dr. Capurro’s focus on intercultural information ethics — as well as his sense of humor — will be a welcome addition to our growing team of researchers.
From the press release:
As founder and director of the International Center for Information Ethics, Dr. Capurro is world-renowned for his work in ethics and information policy. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Düsseldorf University, a …

On the heels of Open Access Day at UW-Milwaukee, held as part of the first international Open Access Week, it was announced that the UWM Libraries has successfully negotiated a contract with the Elsevier publishing company that will provide increased access to scholarly journals and reduce costs to UWM.
From the announcement sent by Rita Cheng, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs:
Library patrons will have access to ScienceDirect, a database providing access to 2,000 full text peer-reviewed journals, with content going back to 1995, published by Elsevier and its partners.   …

Next week, October 19 – 23, 2009, will mark the first international Open Access Week, celebrating the international movement working to “throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge.” Encouraging the unrestricted sharing of scholarly and scientific research, the Open Access movement is gaining ever more momentum around the world as growing numbers of research funders, faculties, and libraries are committed to making research available free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access …

The West Bend library controversy continues to escalate….with calls for book burning and growing national exposure (and, unfortunately, ridicule).
Here’s the (abridged) history and escalation: [Updated on 6/19/09 to include ABC News coverage, and 7/22/09 to include CNN]
02/15/2009: Ginny Maziarka, who blogs at WISSUP, files a formal complaint with the West Bend Community Memorial Library regarding the presence of LGBTQ-themed books in the library’s young adult section. In her words: “Children as young as 11 years old have free access to propaganda-type reading material (I hesitate to call it literature, thanks) …

The West Bend Community Memorial Library board held a public meeting this evening to consider the request from the “West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries” that the library remove books they consider to be “obscene” or “child pornography” from a section of the library designated “Young Adults.” (Background can be found here and here, and note that while four of the library board members were denied reappointment by the West Bend city council, they remain in their seats until replacements are nominated and approved, which has yet to happen.)
After listening …

Just a quick note that registration is still open for the “The Ethics of Information Organization“ conference hosted by the Center for Information Policy Research and the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Ethics of Information Organization
http://www.cipr.uwm.edu/ioethics.html
May 22-23, 2009
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Information organization (IO), like other major functions of the information profession, faces many ethical challenges. In the IO literature, ethical concerns have been raised with regard to, for example, the role of national and international IO standards, providing subject access to information, deprofessionalization and outsourcing of IO, education of …

The controversy over the status of various GLBTQ-themed books (and now, apparently, any “sexually explicit” books) in the young adult section at the West Bend Library has taken a turn for the worse. The city’s common council voted against reappointing four members of the library board over disapproval of their actions (or non-actions) regarding the desire to reclassify and restrict access to these library materials. As one news account reports:
The West Bend Common Council, upset over the handling of a citizen call to restrict sexually-explicit books in the listing recommended …

In recent weeks, two citizens of West Bend, Wisconsin have petitioned the West Bend Community Memorial Library to remove gay-themed books from a section designated “Young Adults,” arguing the books should be reclassified and placed in a restricted area requiring parental approval prior to being released to a minor. They further demand that the books be labeled with a warning about their content, arguing that they are obscene and pornographic.
Some of the books in question include:

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky (MTV Books, a division of …