Libraries: The War on Terror's New Front?

"Officials from libraries across the nation report that the FBI is visiting libraries and checking the reading records of people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks or having links to terrorists, according to the Associated Press."

How cool is this - Library Stuff is the current Fox News Blog of the Week! Congratulations, Steven!!

For my selfish self, Steven saves me the time of doing a summary of current news stories about how the FBI is making full use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly check the reading records of library patrons and bookstore customers. Librarians are forbidden to notify the patron, the media, or even the American Library Association. If you're as concerned about this as masukomi is (she's considering no longer checking anything out from Boston Public Library), you can find out more at ALA's FBI in Your Library site.

Your Guide to Open Government

" 'What does it mean to have an 'open government?' How can you use public records? Why is it important that meetings of public officials remain open to the public?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with the help of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, hopes that these Web pages will help answer those questions.

But more importantly, we hope the information will help promote and continue discussion of our nation’s First Amendment to the U.S. constitution. The First Amendment, which celebrates its 211th anniversary this year, is the foundation for the freedoms that uniquely distinguish our democracy.

On these pages you’ll find recent news stories from Pennsylvania and around the country that deal with issues of open government. You’ll see how citizens like you have used open records to help them accomplish their goals.'

LS Thoughts - Most of the articles are based in Pennsylvania, but worth a look. This type of project would be very useful on a national, rather then local, scale." [Library Stuff]

This looks like a great resource, but the glaring omission is the lack of any reference, pointer, or even mention of Pennsylvania libraries and the resources they offer!

Warchalking

"Okay so here is the first draft of a warchalking symbol card. Having not very much experience of war-walking or war-driving, I'm really looking to others for suggestion as what would be useful to represent in the warchalking symbology. Hopefully we can get the card to V1.0 pretty quickly and start chalking up the city!

I'm going to talk to some folk tommorrow and try and get the discussion going at "PRIVATE REVERIES, PUBLIC SPACES" and hopefully, DIS2002.

You can download:
A PDF of the card to print out and use [31k]
An EPS of the card to download and improve [800k]"

First Picture

"Ben gets the inaugural warchalking pic - he's chalked up his kynance mews access point, and damn - it looks good even though I say so myself...

[click the picture for a bigger version, 74k]

He's also written a little piece over at his O'Reilly blog, which explains why warchalking your town or city is a good idea much better than I ever could."

This meme is really rolling right now, but I think it has staying power if enough folks hop on board, especially libraries. If your library is providing public WiFi access, put up a rune! If you're not and you're at a public library, look at this phenomenon and realize how you could contribute to it, the benefits to the public, and the benefits for you!

You can also read the comments about this over at Slashdot.

Will sends along a special excerpt from The Broadband Difference: How Online Americans’ Behavior Changes with High-speed Internet Connections at Home (PDF):

"In sum, emailing and information searching are most popular among broadbanders. This is not too surprising, since most Americans view the Internet as an information resource like a library. When asked what the Internet is like, 51% of all Americans in the Pew Internet Project's March 2002 survey likened it to a library and no other alternative metaphor such as 'meeting place' or 'shopping mall' comes close to that symbol of what the Internet is."

But you don't look like a librarian!

"Thought: Set the bot with security such that it will only give certain answers to people that you have on a list. For example, you would have it set to tell a close friend where you were, or give out your cell number in case they had lost it, but it would not hand this out to complete strangers. It could also pester you with reminders form your appointment book, or to do list, or even take short messages from your friends (if they knew the keywords to get it started).

Example:

Friend: hey! Where is Jane?
AIMbot: (checks name against list of trusted folks) Jane is on her way to work.
Friend: Leave Message?
AIMbot: Handjive? (checking for the password to alow this functionality)
Friend: Annabobanna
AIMbot: Go ahead.
Friend: Meet you at Phil's restaurant after work, 6ish, k?
AIMbot:...
AIMbot:...
AImbot:... Will that be all?
Friend: Yup, later!
AIMbot:Goodbye

Then, when the user goes online later, the bot lets them know that there are messages waiting. Since AIMbot only records messages from people that you allow, and if you want, only form those who know the password (as above)." [Ryan Greene's Radio Weblog]

Ryan pushes back on my post about rolling our own library bots. His scenario would be particularly interesting if the bot could interact with the copy of Outlook running on your PC. Then it could tell your friend that you're already busy that night but could suggest tomorrow night.

For libraries, it'd be great if a patron could query a registration database for programs, especially those with limited seating. For example, a person could register this way, find out if they're registered, get an IM reminder, or cancel a registration. You should be able to query the calendar for specific events, too (for example, type in "book club" and find out when the next discussion is and what title they're reading). If you could send vCalendar entries through IM, one click would add an event to your calendar.

Book-Club Smarts in a Nutshell: Get Notes

" 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' was a blockbuster book, spawning blockbuster sequels and a blockbuster movie. Next month, it will achieve that mark of a true classic: the publishers of SparkNotes, a CliffsNotes knockoff, will publish a study guide — also known as a cheat sheet — to the tale of the little boy with the lightning-bolt scar....

Moving far beyond "Macbeth" and 'he Mayor of Casterbridge,' Cliffs and a new generation of competitors are now racing to be the first to publish notes to contemporary titles like 'All the Pretty Horses,' 'Snow Falling on Cedars,' 'Angela's Ashes' and 'Cold Mountain.'

The new selections reflect a change in the kind of books being taught in high school and college literature classes. But they also reveal a new kind of Cliffs user. The guides are now being produced for people who want to brush up before their book club, keep up in conversations with colleagues or at cocktail parties, or read the book — at least, some version of it — before they see the movie." [New York Times, via jardinblu]

Are any libraries buying these? I'll have to sample a few catalogs and see.

It's interesting to watch a web-based product go to print, especially when the stuff online is free. You can also purchase full ebook versions of some titles from Barnes & Noble. They come in Adobe Acrobat PDF or Microsoft Reader flavors, and in a nice change of pace, they're fully printable and you can take them to go on your PDA. Maybe they'll start showing up on file sharing networks. I wonder if they'll go audio, too, and partner with a company like Audible.

I hope the entertainment industry is watching this. I'll bet revenue at SparkNotes will go up, not down. Unlike the numbers at the record labels.

Roll Your Own IM-bot

"WiredBots: simple toolkits for making AIM and MSN Messenger IM bots." [Boing Boing]

This is too damn cool! If I was only a programmer, I would play around with it and create a library bot that patrons could query for bestseller lists, library hours, and eventually OPAC & database queries. Anybody else want to try until that day when pigs fly?

Alternatively, maybe Andy B. could provide some assistance on this one....