ALA conducting new survey about librarians and privacy

For Immediate Release
Tue, 12/13/2011 – 15:50

Contact: Barbara Jones
Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF)

CHICAGO – The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) is inviting librarians and library workers across the country to participate in a survey that will measure librarians’ attitudes about privacy rights and protecting library users’ privacy.

The survey is available online, and takes only 15 minutes to complete. All responses are anonymous and confidential:

http://tinyurl.com/ALAprivacysurvey

The survey, which builds on an earlier 2008 survey assessing librarians’ attitudes about privacy both within and outside of the library, will provide important data that will help ALA assess the state of privacy in the United States and help guide OIF’s planning for “Privacy for All,” ALA’s ongoing campaign to engage librarians in public education and advocacy to advance privacy rights.  The survey will be available until March 1, 2012.

The study is funded by a generous grant from the Open Society Institute and is managed by Dr. Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies and co-director of its Center for Information Policy Research.

Barbara Jones, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, encouraged all librarians and library workers to take the survey.  “After three successful years working on Choose Privacy Week and related educational programs, it is essential that we test our assumptions for the remaining years of the grant,” she said.  “We want ‘Privacy for All’ to create models for programming and services that librarians can use for various constituencies and community groups.  We can’t do that without your opinions.”

The “Privacy for All” initiative features Choose Privacy Week, an annual event that encourages libraries and librarians to engage library users in a conversation about privacy; and a website, privacyrevolution.org, that provides access to privacy-related news, information and programming resources.  In 2011 – 2012, “Privacy for All” and Choose Privacy Week will be focused on the topic of government surveillance, with an emphasis on immigrant and refugee communities’ use of libraries and youth attitudes about privacy.

Visit www.privacyrevolution.org to learn more about Choose Privacy Week and the resources available to help libraries engage their users in a conversation on privacy.

Ethics of Secrecy

Call for Papers for Vol. 17 (07/2012)

• Deadline for extended abstracts: January 15, 2012
• Notification of acceptance to authors: February 29, 2012
• Deadline for full articles: May 1, 2012
• Deadline for revised articles: June 15, 2012
• Publication: July 2012

The concept of “secrecy” is bound up in a variety of aspects of information ethics, sometimes in con-flicting ways: respecting personal privacy and opposing undue surveillance ensures a certain level of secrecy in one’s personal life and activities; to ensure security and public safety, government secrecy is often justifiable; open records laws and whistleblower protections are meant to limit government secrecy and promote transparency; corporate trade secrets remain secret to protect investments and economic growth; the secrecy of our personal lives is increasingly shattered – and commodified – through social media or, to paint a black picture: the personal freedom to conceal and reveal information and thus even the concept of personal identity might be at stake.

This special issue will explore the complex nature of “secrecy” in our contemporary information society. The ethical exploration of secrecy must be renewed in the face of the multiple and shifting social, political and cultural contexts in which information and people flow.

We welcome papers analyzing ethical problems of online social networks such as:

• Privacy, reputation, and the secrecy of personal information
• Tensions between secrecy and transparency
• Corporate secrecy and the ethics of whistleblowing
• The value of secrecy in a social information ecosystem
• The ethics of secrecy across cultures and societies
• Secrecy, transparency, privacy: moral principles of democracy?
• Government secrecy and the ethics of WikiLeaks
• Privacy and secrecy in ethical and sociological discussion
• The “interplay” between secrecy and mass/social media
• Privacy and secrecy in the discussion of communication science
• …

Guest Editors:

Daniel Nagel
Attorney
BRP Renaud & Partner
Stuttgart, Germany
daniel.nagel@brp.de

Prof. Dr. Matthias Rath
Director, Research Center Youth – Media – Education
University of Education Ludwigsburg, Germany
fjmb@ph-ludwigsburg.de

Michael Zimmer, PhD
School of Information Studies
Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
zimmerm@wum.edu

Submission guideline:

Potential authors are requested to submit an extended abstract (for details see http://www.i-r-i- e.net/about_irie.htm) by December 31, 2011. Abstracts may be submitted in the native language of the author though an English translation of this abstract must be included if the chosen language is not English. IRIE will publish articles in English, French, German, Portuguese or Spanish. The author(s) of contributions in French, Portuguese, or Spanish must nominate at least two potential peer reviewers.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the guest editors.

Deadline for the final article (usually ca. 3,000 words or 20,000 characters including blanks) is May 1, 2012. All final articles must conform to the IRIE style sheet. All full submissions will be subject to peer review. Therefore the acceptance of an extended abstract does not imply the publication of the final text, unless the article has passed the peer review and revisions (if required) have been included in the text.

All submissions should be sent by email with “IRIE-Secrecy Submission” in the header to Michael Zimmer: zimmerm@uwm.edu

The School of Information Studies (SOIS) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) invites applications for a full-time tenure-track position in Information Studies at the rank of Assistant, Associate or Full Professor. The selected applicant will teach courses in the School’s graduate and, possibly, undergraduate programs. A PhD and MLIS (or comparable degree) are required as is demonstrated ability in research and teaching.

Applicants should have a strong background in information policy, including, but not limited to, ethical, cultural, technological or political issues as they relate to the information professions, systems, and infrastructures that make up our global information society.

Experience or demonstrated ability in design and delivery of courses in a variety of formats, including distance learning modes, is highly desirable. The Applicant should demonstrate the ability to teach in at least one of the core areas in the SOIS MLIS program and advanced graduate elective courses in her/his areas of expertise. Opportunities will also be available to teach in the School’s Bachelor of Science program in Information Science and Technology. The Applicant should be willing to work closely with doctoral students and to serve on dissertation committees. Experienced researcher a plus. Applicants who are eligible for a senior level appointment are especially encouraged to apply.

The preferred expected start date is January, 2012, and no later than August 2012.

For full details and to apply, visit the official posting here (position #2730).

My contribution to the discussion focuses on identifying some of the unique ethical dilemmas that youth face in their information-based environments, and how some of our current literacy standards help address some of those issues. More importantly, I suggest four new strategies to help achieve ethical literacy in youth:

• Talking and listening to youth
  • Discover their unique perspectives on privacy, property, information sharing & exchange
  • Need to shape ethical lessons & examples accordingly
• Ensure ethics are integrated into all literacy-related educational activities
  • Specifically address ethical questions related to each learning outcome
  • Add ethical components to computer literacy courses, information literacy sessions, special projects
• Reach youth through information technology
  • Engage the technology, don’t build fear of it
  • Create ways to teach ethics through the active use of Facebook, Wikipedia
• Turn all information interactions into “ethical teaching moments”
  • Game nights could include discussion of cheating
  • YouTube video contests could address copyright
  • Searching Google can present lessons on bias, free speech, censorship

The slides framing my contribution can be accessed below. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

As Ars Technica summarizes:

[At] the urging of Wisconsin’s state telecommunications association, Republican legislators have introduced an omnibus bill that would sever WiscNet from the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Division of Informational Technology, and bar it from taking any money from UW.

The proposed law even goes so far as to prohibit UW from taking National Telecommunications Information Agency (NTIA) broadband stimulus grants, or joining any entity that offers broadband to the general public.

These measures would force UW to return an estimated $39 million in such funds to Washington, DC, warned Tony Evers, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, last week. And they would force schools to turn to Badgernet, Wisconsin’s state wide-area-network, which depends heavily on AT&T as its primary vendor.

Today, individual members of the UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies community has joined the chorus of voices speaking out against this bill. A PDF of the letter is here, and the full text is below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Michael Zimmer, michael.zimmer@gmail.com

Dear members of the State Legislature:

As library and information science students, scholars, professionals, and educators, we are dedicated to maximizing and defending people’s free access to information and knowledge. Given this professional and ethical obligation, the undersigned individual members of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Studies community urge the removal of sections 23-26 in the currently pending UW System Budget Bill.

Advanced and affordable broadband Internet networking is critical to the success of students, researchers and industry statewide. Services such as WISCNET, and related consortial connectivity projects like Internet2 and EDUCAUSE, provide vital access to information for libraries, schools, historical societies, museums, hospitals and local municipalities across Wisconsin.

The “telecommunications” section of the legislation as proposed would severely limit broadband connectivity throughout the state of Wisconsin and would cut the networked information services various libraries and educational institutions provide to the citizens of the state of Wisconsin, such as Internet access, networking and collaboration, and online education and job training. It would also prohibit the UW System from being a member of Internet2 and other nonprofit consortia focusing on connectivity and information exchange, severely limiting state educators, researchers, and learners’ ability to participate in global, national and regional research and learning development in areas from Alzheimer’s prevention to astrophysics to child development.

The passage of sections 23-26 of the UW System Budget Bill would be devastating to the State. The undersigned individual members of the UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies community strongly urge the legislature to remove these sections form the bill, and to support WISCNET and other connectivity initiatives that provide vital access to information in support of the State’s educational and economic development.

Signed,

(Signees are writing in their personal capacity, not as representatives of UW-Milwaukee or the School of Information Studies. Titles and affiliations are for identification purposes only, and imply no institutional endorsements.)

• Liza Barry-Kessler, Doctoral Student
• Edward Benoit III, Doctoral Student
• Katie Blank, Assoc. Special Librarian
• Dave Bloom, Researcher
• Raina Bloom, Lecturer
• Amy Cooper Cary, Director, Archival Studies Program
• Karen Davies, Assistant Professor
• Alexandra Dimitroff, Associate Professor
• Melodie Fox, Doctoral Student
• Thomas Haigh, Associate Professor
• Rebecca Hall, Web Development & Marketing Coordinator
• Catherine Hansen, Lecturer & Director, Professional Development Institute
• Anthony Hoffmann, Doctoral Student
• Adam Hudson, Lecturer
• Jessica Hutchings, Graduate Advisor
• Dick Kawooya, Senior Lecturer
• Margaret Kipp, Assistant Professor
• Sharon Lake, Graduate Advisor
• Joyce M. Latham, Assistant Professor, Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research, Coordinator, Public Library Leadership Program
• Peter J Lor, Visiting Professor
• Marta Magnuson, Doctoral Student
• Jeremy Mauger, Doctoral Student
• Steven Miller, Senior Lecturer
• Robert Nunez, Web Developer & Graduate Student
• Wihelm Peekhaus, Post-doctoral Research Associate
• Nick Proferes, Doctoral Student
• Angela Sadowsky, Undergraduate Advisor
• Betsy Schoeller, Lecturer & Distance Education Coordinator
• Jim Schultz, Information Technology Specialist & Graduate Student
• James Sweetland, Professor Emeritus
• Gabriella Tato, Marketing Media Assistant
• Thomas D. Walker, Associate Professor
• Mary Wepking, Senior Lecturer & School Library Media Coordinator
• Bonnie Withers, Lecturer
• Iris Xie, Professor
• Chad Zahrt, Assistant Dean
• Michael Zimmer, Assistant Professor & Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research

 

 

I presented a paper co-written with three of my esteemed colleagues, Johannes Britz, Peter Lor, and Shana Ponelis, titled “From Codification to Actualization: Applying Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to an Information-Based Rights Framework.” In this work-in-progress, we use Sen’s capability approach to reveal how personal, social, and environmental factors shape individuals’ capabilities to capitalize on their access to information and knowledge, and conclude by suggesting that information rights advocates must turn their focus from simply promoting access to fostering capabilities, which in turn will truly empower individuals to exercise and actualize their basic information rights.

All the papers and comments at this event were stimulating, but one talk in particular grabbed my attention. David Cullier, an associate professor in the School of Journalism at UofA, presented “Freedom of Information Gazebos: The Ethical Imperative for News-Library Town Squares in the Digital Age to Preserve the Communal Right to Know”, where he called on public libraries to take on a slightly new role in their communities.

Concerned that the shrinking of local news rooms and resulting lack of reporting of local news and government activities, Cullier called on libraries to be more proactive in the gathering and sharing of public records and other government information — to become freedom of information gazebos. He points out that:

Most communities have libraries, serving as a focal point for information important to citizens, often providing physical space for discussion, forums, and community meetings. Libraries are staffed by professionals expert in finding and disseminating information for citizens. Libraries also are embedded with a culture of information freedom.

To serve as true freedom of information gazebos, Cullier suggests, libraries would need to make several important changes in their culture and organizational composition. Libraries would need to be more aggressive in seeking information, actively filing freedom of information requests, and litigating for access to public records when necessary.

Local librarians should also engage in reporting and synthesizing government activities, such as attending a city council meeting, summarizing it online and posting the minutes and supporting documents. Cullier even suggested that MLIS programs should include journalism training, and libraries could even hire the reporters being laid off by newsrooms to perform this important function.

Most importantly, libraries would have to be granted greater independence from local governments, and protections would be necessary to protect libraries from retaliation, both in budgetary cuts or outright firings.

These are not modest proposals, but I really like the direction of Cullier’s thinking. Groups of activist-minded librarians, like Radical Reference, have embarked on similar efforts, but a call for more structural change in the nature of the library profession and institution might be just what is needed to help libraries maintain their central role in providing access to information.

Joint LLAW/SLA Meeting
Information Ethics & WikiLeaks

When: Thursday, April 14, 2011
Where: Swig (Roasting Room), Milwaukee WI
Speaker: Professor Michael Zimmer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor & Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research UW- Milwaukee

5:30 p.m. Reception
6:00 p.m. LLAW 4th Quarterly Meeting
6:15 p.m. Dinner followed by Presentation by Professor Michael Zimmer, UWM

Please RSVP by Tues., April 5, 2011

Two ways to register:
If you belong to both LLAW & SLA, please only register with one organization.

• Online:
  Register yourself, or multiple registrants online. When applying online, you can pay with a credit card or Paypal account, or choose to pay by check.
• By Mail:
  Download a registration form to register by mail.

UPDATE: The event was great fun, and I’ve posted my slides below:

Interfaces on Trial 2.0
By Jonathan Band and Masanobu Katoh
March 2011
ISBN-10: 0-262-01500-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01500-4

We live in an interoperable world. Computer hardware and software products from different manufacturers can exchange data within local networks and around the world using the Internet. The competition enabled by this compatibility between devices has led to fast-paced innovation and prices low enough to allow ordinary users to command extraordinary computing capacity.

In Interfaces on Trial 2.0, Jonathan Band and Masanobu Katoh investigate an often overlooked factor in the development of today’s interoperabilty: the evolution of copyright law. Because software is copyrightable, copyright law determines the rules for competition in the information technology industry. This book–a follow-up to Band and Katoh’s successful 1995 book Interfaces on Trial–examines the debates surrounding the use of copyright law to prevent competition and interoperability in the global software industry in the last fifteen years.

Band and Katoh are longtime advocates for interoperable devices but present a reasoned view of contentious issues related to interoperability issues in the United States, the European Union, and the Pacific Rim[. They discuss such topics as the protectability of interface specifications, the permissibility of reverse engineering (and legislative and executive endorsement of pro-interoperability case law), the interoperability exception to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the interoperability cases decided under it, the enforceability of contractural restrictions on reverse engineering;] and recent legal developments affecting the future of interoperability, including those related to open source-software and software patents.

About the Authors

Jonathan Band is an attorney who has written more than 100 articles on intellectual property and the Internet. He is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Law Center.

Masanobu Katoh is the former head of the Law and Intellectual Property Unit of Fujitsu Limited, a global information technology company based in Japan.

You can purchase it at Amazon and other sellers, and also download a open access copy at MIT Press.

Clearly, I’m not the only person engaged in such work here at UW-M (see the Center for Information Policy Research and other faculty research at the School of Information Studies, as well as related activities within the Center for 21st Century Studies, for example), but it is nice to have our focus area recognized.

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 media, video games, and the Internet.

See the call for participation below, and please submit a proposal if you want to join this conversation.

Call for Participation
ALISE 2011 Information Ethics SIG panel discussion
San Diego, CA, January 2011

Innovations in Teaching Information Ethics Across Contexts

:: Submission deadline: July 28, 2010 ::

In keeping with the 2011 ALISE conference theme of “Competitiveness and Innovation,” the Information Ethics SIG invites submissions to participate in a panel discussion to highlight innovations and new approaches for teaching information ethics across multiple contexts.

While recent Information Ethics SIG activities have focused on innovative ways to integrate information ethics across LIS curricula, the 2011 panel discussion will broaden this scope to include multiple educational contexts and opportunities, ranging from elementary/secondary education, university & professional environs, public & school libraries, within homes and community centers, or through popular media, gaming and the Internet.

Possible topics for this panel discussion include:

• What innovative educational tools and methods are being used for teaching information ethics across various contexts?
• How can information ethics be introduced in elementary through secondary education curricula?
• What place does information ethics have within broader “21st Century Skills” or “S.T.E.M.” educational initiatives?
• What topics in information ethics (i.e., privacy, netiquette, intellectual property, plagiarism, information literacy, etc.) are most appropriate to introduce within specific educational contexts?
• How can popular media, video games, and the Internet be leveraged to foster information ethics awareness and education?
• How can information ethics be established within general requirements for undergraduate education?
• What role do parents and non-traditional teachers play in educating youth about information ethics?
• How are LIS scholars and professionals providing information ethics education across various contexts? What contexts are underserved, and how can we target them?

We envision this panel discussion to take the form of a guided conversation, featuring 4-6 selected speakers addressing relevant topics, complemented by a robust exchange of ideas with the audience members.

Interested participants are invited to submit a 300-word abstract of their intended contribution to Michael Zimmer (zimmerm@uwm.edu) by July 28, 2010. A full proposal will be submitted to ALISE on July 30, 2010.