Michael Zimmer.org

As part of the strategic process of changing the name of the UW-M School of Information Studies undergraduate program from a B.S. in Information Resources to a B.S. in Information Science & Technology, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about marketing messages to best communicate what our major is, what value our graduate add, and how we can be differentiated from other programs (such as computer science or MIS).
One thing I try to instill on my students is how the role of an information professional is to …

I have a summer research opportunity for an incoming UW-Milwaukee freshman interested in libraries, Web 2.0, and information ethics and policy.
The Office of Undergraduate Research is again sponsoring the UR@UWM Summer Research program. Selected students are invited to campus for four weeks during the summer (July 12-August 6) to engage in cutting edge research with leading UWM faculty. Students will spend 20-30 hours a week in their research mentors’ lab settings, as well as meet twice weekly with the other summer researchers for …

The Special Interest Group on International Information Issues (SIG-III) of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) is pleased to announce its eleventh competition for papers to be submitted for the 2010 Annual Meeting, which will take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 22-27, 2010. (http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM10/am10cfp.html)
Building from the overall conference theme, the theme for this year’s paper contest is: “Navigating Streams in a Global Information Ecosystem“.
Papers could discuss issues, policies and case studies on specific aspects of the theme from a global and/or international perspective. Topics include, but are …

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 …

For its principled stance regarding the recent controversy over certain Young Adult books, the West Bend Community Memorial Library has been awarded the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From the press release:
The faculty voted overwhelmingly to give this year’s award to the West Bend Library for its steadfast advocacy on behalf of intellectual …

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 …

Today is the start of Banned Books Week 2009, the 28th annual celebration of the freedom to choose what we read, as well as the freedom to select from a full array of possibilities.
Hundreds of books are challenged in schools and libraries in the United States each year. Here’s a great map of challenges from 2007-2009, although I’m sure it under-represents the nature of the problem, as most challenges are never reported. (Note the West Bend library controversy is marked on the map.)
According to the American Library Association, there …

In the wake of the ongoing controversy over select Young Adult books at the West Bend Community Memorial Library, the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the Wisconsin Library Association has named Director Michael Tyree and Young Adult Librarian Kristin Pekoll, along with the other staff, members of the Library Board, supportive community members (especially blogger/organizer Maria Hanrahan), as winners of the 2009 Wisconsin ProQuest Intellectual Freedom Award.
The announcement can be found in the latest WLA newsletter (p. 11, authored by Elizabeth Buchanan and myself), and includes the following praise:
Our colleagues …

I shared my thoughts on privacy and the Google Book Settlement at the “Google Books Settlement and the Future of Information Access” conference organized by the UC-Berkeley School of Information. My remarks focused on my desire to trust Google when they say they’re “thinking hard” about these issues and promise to “protect readers’ privacy rights”, while noting their track record is reason enough to cause us some pause, which is why we’re pushing so hard as advocates on these vital concerns.

[Note: please be sure to read the comments with responses from Google's Alexander Macgillivray]
Joris van Hoboken recently brought this section of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement to my attention:
Section 3.7(e) Google’s Exclusion of Books
Google may, at its discretion, exclude particular Books from one or more Display Uses for editorial or non-editorial reasons. However, Google’s right to exclude Books for editorial reasons (i.e., not for quality, user experience, legal or other non-editorial reasons) is an issue of great sensitivity to Plaintiffs and Google.  Accordingly, because Plaintiffs, Google and the …

Amazon has remotely removed copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from user’s Kindles while crediting their accounts, indicating that the books were improperly added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have the rights to them. More than just an eBook reader, the Kindle represents the latest cog in Amazon’s large-scale infrastructure of intellectual surveillance.

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 …

I’ve written frequently about how the shift from accessing information in offline spaces to online spaces has particular privacy implications. For example, strikingly different privacy norms and expectations emerge when comparing information-seeking activities in libraries vs. bookstores vs. Google Book Search.
Today, Fred Stutzman revealed a particularly troublesome example of how relying on the “My Library” feature of Google Book Search might mean you have even less privacy with regard to your online intellectual endeavors:
I was shocked to find out that saving a book to your library requires that the book …

Hannah Yale, and art student here at UW-Milwaukee, has created an amazing gurellia art project, in collaboration with the UWM Library, called “The Original Google Project.” Here’s the description from its Facebook page:
This project was designed as a collaboration with the UWM Library as an awareness effort for the use of library resources over questionable and unreliable internet sources. The project was inspired by my own google.com research during which I stumbled (as I always do) upon someone trying to get their homework done on yahooanswers.com.
I just felt like screaming …