LibraryLaw Blog

Hooray - I figured out how to use tags instead of categories in this blog

As I suspected, it's much easier and more flexible.  So if any of you are looking for new posts based on categories, you may not find them. Use the technorati tags at the bottom of a post instead. If it works like I think it will, I'll probably stop using categories altogether.

Update: It looks as if users who click on a technorati tag below will get everyone in the world's posts with those tags. That's useful, but it would be nice to have an option to limit it to this blog, the way flickr does.  Well, there's always the search button in the blog...

Webcast Tues July 11th Collection Policies that Stave Off Lawsuits (noon Pacific time)

California library folks are invited to view an Infopeople webcast (free) from noon til 1 p.m. on Tues July 11th.  This is a follow up to the Law for Librarians conference held last April by the American Library Association.

Collection Policies that Stave Off Lawsuits http://infopeople.org/training/webcasts/07-11-06/

Do you and your library's front line staff know what to do when a patron says that a book should be taken off the shelves or put behind the counter? Are your procedures for responding to patron challenges clear and up-to-date? When was the last time your library's collection development policy was revised? In this webcast you'll learn essential guidelines for handling patron complaints appropriately and avoiding lawsuits against the library - and yourself!

Library folks outside of California are welcome to view it as an archive after July 11th.

Forthcoming webcasts are at http://infopeople.org/training/webcasts/index.php  Feel free to contact me with great ideas/sources as I work on the topics of Internet, CIPA and sexual harassment, labels and rating systems, youth access and age-based policies, privacy issues, and religious issues in libraries.

California Library Association and ACLU join to sponsor Sept 8 showing of Beyond the Patriot Act

This post is from David Dodd, California Library Association (CLA) Intellectual Freedom chair...

August 29, 2005

Dear CLA Member,

A newly unsealed federal lawsuit confirms the FBI has used controversial Patriot Act powers to demand records from an organization that possesses a wide array of sensitive information about library patrons, including information about Internet usage and reading materials borrowed by library patrons.

The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking an emergency court order to lift a heavy FBI gag order on the lawsuit, so that its client--an ALA member--can participate in the public debate.  That debate will heat up in days, as Congress prepares to reauthorize or amend the Patriot Act in September.

Because of the importance of this issue to libraries and their patrons, the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the California Library Association is partnering with the ACLU to encourage all CLA members to host a public event about the Patriot Act.  We are making immediately available to all member libraries a DVD copy of Beyond the Patriot Act, the first episode of The ACLU Freedom Files, a new TV series from producer Robert Greenwald (Unconstitutional, Outfoxed).

Beyond the Patriot Act is 30-minute program designed to reveal how civil liberties affect real people everyday. It features stirring accounts of current cases, as well as well-known actors, activists and comedians.  All the necessary resources for a succesful event--publicity tools, invitations, event agendas, Patriot Act talking points--are also available.

If you schedule your event on Thursday September 8, you and your patrons can join in an 8:30 p.m. national conference call with Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, to learn the most up-to-date news about this important new lawsuit and the status of Patriot Act legislation. The call will take place after the satellite TV premiere of Beyond the Patriot Act.

To participate in this national happening, and order your DVD contact the ACLU's distribution partner at [email protected], or call (415) 553-2841.

Help protect the First Amendment and our American tradition of intellectual freedom.

David Dodd
Chair, Intellectual Freedom Committee
California Library Association

California Library Association Intellectual Freedom News

Yesterday the California Library Association -Intellectual Freedom committee met at the San Rafael Public Library and decided to:

1) Set up a blog corner at the LibraryLaw Blog, under the subject tag "California Library Association Intellectual Freedom News." This is its first post.

2) Extend the deadline for nominations for the Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award until Friday August 26th.  Send nominations to David Dodd, committee chair.  Please nominate someone who has made a difference for free speech in California libraries.

3) Discussed issues to present at the November conference such as:

a) the federal government depository library program's growing tendency to hire private companies to package public domain data and sell it.  This information is put on the web, but passworded and only available for free through official depository libraries

b) RFID - the need for the technology to have a "kill and revive" feature so that the chips can be turned off when books leave the library, and turned back on when they return

c) the tension between anti-spam legislation and free speech

d) open source software for filtering so that libraries know what stop lists are being used

e) use of library community rooms for religious services