I wish that all employers could be so enlightened and fortunately in our field, many are. I was pleased that Jenny Levine’s writing didn’t change when she got her job at ALA. I had wondered if it would change, but the things I’ve enjoyed most from her blog lately are her reports on the things that are going on internally at ALA. It gives me a fascinating glimpse into that world.

So I can understand why Jenny would be so frustrated by what Dorothea Salo wrote in the comments on a post on this blog that associated what Jenny was writing to ALA. Dorothea thinks that what Jenny wrote reflects on her employer, which happens to be the ALA. And Jenny pointed out to me that by my not saying anything against that view, I was actually condoning it. While I agree with Dorothea most of the time, and definitely appreciated her sticking up for me, this is an opinion I strongly disagree with and one that I only didn’t disagree with in the comments because it seemed off-topic. Jenny shouldn’t let up on me because she works for ALA. She shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells because of that. I never saw this as an employee of ALA versus a member of ALA. I saw it as Jenny and Meredith having a disagreement. Just as my comments should not reflect on my employer, hers should not either. It would be one thing if she wrote this on her blog and if her blog was an official ALA blog and listed as such on the site. Looking at ALA’s list of blogs, I see that The Shifted Librarian is not on there. I think when we are writing on a blog that is listed on our company’s Website, we do have to be careful, because then anything we say could be seen as being condoned by our employer. That does include Hectic Pace and Green Kangaroo (two excellent blogs that do ALA proud), but it should not include The Shifted Librarian. Not that Jenny’s blog wouldn’t reflect well on the ALA, but it shouldn’t reflect on the ALA.

I do not agree with Jenny that any comment someone writes on my blog that I leave on the site sends the message that I condone it, but I do agree that this one did deserve further comment. I do not delete comments, even if sometimes I want to forget about a particular exchange (like, umm… all of last week). It just seems somehow wrong to me; like revising history. Dorothea wrote what she did and I would neither ask her to retract it, nor would I delete it. Where would I stop with that? I disagreed with Jenny last week, but I never deleted any of her comments. Dorothea stated her opinion, not fact, and she is entitled to it. Her name is on the comment; not mine.

I don’t write much about politics on this blog, but I have to admit that this has gotten me kind of riled up. Vermont just isn’t the sort of place where people have really vile, manipulative, negative campaigns like this. Our elected representatives in the House and Senate are very accessible and very human. So that’s why I assume this sort of campaign will blow up in Sanders’ opponent’s face. At least I hope so. Bernie Sanders (whose campaign site is powered by Wordpress — HOT) is very well-loved in this state and he is someone who has always been against the war in Iraq and has always supported civil liberties and the intellectual freedom issues that most librarians care about.

So while I was rather annoyed that Bernie voted for DOPA, I understood that he probably did it because of the title of the bill and the timing. Perception is everything. It’s things like this that have our elected representatives voting the wrong way on really bad bills.

I especially enjoyed the ads about Bernie trying to ship foreign drug dealers to Vermont and his “anti-sportsman” votes that also happened to be anti-crime and pro-environment. How dumb does this guy think Vermonters are?

I hope Vermonters really show Rich Tarrant that negative campaigns like this will not be tolerated in our state. No matter where we live, we should demand intelligent debate, not pandering and ridiculous misrepresentations of the truth.

I Want you … to Drop DOPA!
Originally uploaded by davidking.

I haven’t written much about DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act), though I certainly made my opinions about social networking software clear in my megapost on the subject. I was appalled, but not surprised, by the overwhelming support and passage of the bill in the House. There were three things working in the bill’s favor: 1) the fact that most congressmen have probably never used social networking software, 2) the title of the bill — anyone who voted against that bill could easily be portrayed as someone who voted to protect sexual predators, and 3) the fact that it’s an election year and congressmen want to be seen as people who are protecting people’s kids from sexual predators. It doesn’t matter what the bill was about really; what mattered was what it was called and how most people (in an age of uncritical acceptance of sensationalist journalism) would construe a vote against a bill with that title.

However, I was rather surprised and disappointed that my congressman, Bernie Sanders, voted against it. Vermont’s representatives usually listen to our librarians on issues of intellectual freedom and privacy and tend to lean strongly to the left. Luckily it looks like good old Patrick Leahy is working to slow things down in the Senate. Nevertheless, contact your Senators and urge them to vote against DOPA. Seriously, please do. Given the way the bill defines social networking software, this legislation has the potential to block much more than MySpace and Facebook and to prevent public and school libraries from using many of the terrific online tools out there to serve and educate their patrons.

For more information on DOPA check out:

• The ALA Washington Office’s Fact Sheet
• DOPA Provides Too Little Guidance on Chat & Social Networking from Library Garden
• YALSA’s report on the positive aspects of social networking software.
• Opinion piece from Ars Technica
• Rory at Library Juice reprints the ALA Council’s recent Resolution in Support of Online Social Networks
• DOPA: Implications for School Libraries at the AASL Blog
• Michael Stephens’ excellent piece on the growing paranoia surrounding online social tools like Flickr and MySpace in the ALA TechSource Blog.

The best quote I’ve read on the subject comes from Christopher Harris at Infomancy, “Filter a website, and you protect a student for a day. Educate students about online safety in a real world environment, and you protect your child for a lifetime.”

1. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
2. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao by Mao Zedong
4. The Kinsey Report by Alfred Kinsey
5. Democracy and Education by John Dewey
6. Das Kapital by Karl Marx
7. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
8. The Course of Positive Philosophy by Auguste Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil by Freidrich Nietzsche
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes

Ok, the first three are no-brainers for a conservative rag, but Democracy and Education? That’s just kooky. Do these people really believe that teaching students critical thinking skills is a bad thing? You really must read the commentary under each choice, because it is definitely the most amusing part. I have a hard time taking anything seriously that includes the phrase “Evil Empire”.

Some of the honorable mentions are interesting as well. Here’s a selection:

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Basically any book that questions capitalism, religion, a woman’s place in society, sexual mores, or advocates the role of science, social welfare programs, and consumer and environmental safety controls is considered harmful. Are people really that afraid of debate?

I guess I could never think of a book, in and of itself, as harmful. I’ve read most of those books and I have not started a workers revolution or killed anyone. I’ve also read Robert Nozick, F. A. Hayek, John Locke, Adam Smith and other authors who are loved by conservatives. While they have influenced my thinking, they have by no means made me a conservative — just a more informed human being. Most of these books (both the “harmful” ones and books by those authors I’ve just mentioned) are read in colleges around the world by people who end up becoming leaders in their fields. Reading things that promote different viewpoints encourages critical thinking and helps people to determine what their own views on these subjects are. People who think of books as harmful really don’t want people to think. They don’t believe that people can be trusted to make up their own mind about things. It’s an idea they have in common with the same totalitarian regimes they hated so much.

This contentious relationship with the Bill of Rights is not just apparent in high schools. Take for instance the Nippersink Library in Illinois, whose Board voted to remove the ALA guidelines regarding intellectual freedom from their policy manual. The library had dealt with a challenged movie, Happiness (a controversial film that portrays a pedophile without completely villainizing him) , by not allowing it to be taken out by children without parental permission. Because the ALA guidlines (I assume the Library Bill of Rights) was a part of their policy manual, they couldn’t get rid of the film altogether. So the Library Board voted to get rid of the ALA guidelines, stating that they’re too liberal. Apparently they’re not the only ones who feels that way, as evidenced in this editorial from the Northwest Herald in Illinois:

The association is an absolutist on intellectual freedom and First Amendment rights. It believes that they cover one and all, regardless of age or content. It is an extremist position that stirs controversy.

Extremist? Okay… Silly me to think that upholding the First Amendment was being patriotic. Now I see that I, and other librarians, are being extremist. Why bother having something so inconvenient in a library policy manual? Much better to just let a bunch of biased people decide what does or does not belong in the library. Much better to have the moral majority in control of collection development. I’d certainly love it if I could be the arbiter of what is worth having in the library and what is not, but I have a feeling that romance novel-reading patrons and those who don’t like reading subtitles would not be thrilled with my choices. That’s why we have a Library Bill of Rights in the first place — to ensure that there are library materials that represent everyone’s interests and tastes and that no one person or group of people can decide what is suitable.

The political climate in America has become so contentious and so nasty. Anyone who disagrees with the views of the moral majority is unpatriotic or doesn’t care about the welfare of children or is a communist. And anyone who disagrees with the liberals is an idiot or a bigot. There’s no intelligent debate, just name calling (and that goes for many “liberals” too). Even in Congress, it’s the left versus the right, and there are so few examples of true cooperation or bipartisanship anymore. We’re just so polarized, and that makes it more likely that the people in power (the conservatives) are going to do what’s good for them and not what’s good for the country.

I read an interesting article by Frank Rich in the New York Times, about how Clint Eastwood, a Republican, has been painted by the Right as a communist due to his recently released film, Million Dollar Baby. I won’t spoil the movie, but I’ll just say that it touches on a certain theme that the Christian Right is not fond of (though it also touches on several other themes that are a favorite of the Right). Eastwood defends his film and discusses how the political climate has changed in recent years:

“Maybe I’m getting to the age when I’m starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now,” he adds. “You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot – both on the right and the left.” His own politics defy neat categorization. He’s supported Democrats (including Gray Davis in the pre-Schwarzenegger era) as well as Republicans, professes the libertarian creed of “less government” and “was never a big enthusiast for going to Iraq but never spoke against it once the troops were there.” In other words, he’s in the same middle as most Americans. “I vote for what I like,” he says. “I’m not a loyalist to any party. I’m only a loyalist to the country.” That’s no longer good enough, apparently, for those who feel an election victory has empowered them to enforce a strict doctrine of political and spiritual correctness.

Eastwood is one of the last few free-thinkers in this country — a man who votes with his conscience rather than based on the party affiliation of the candidate. During the whole presidential election insanity, I got a lot of calls from various liberal groups asking me to go door-to-door for Kerry. Their whole argument was that they wanted to get Bush out of the White House. They said nothing about Kerry being great or being the best guy for the job. I wasn’t willing to go door-to-door to tell people to vote against one candidate by voting for the other. Is that supposed to inspire anyone? It’s that kind of narrow-mindedness on both sides — this red state/blue state mentality — that is tearing our country apart.

I wish I had some words of wisdom about all this. I know I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent, but I think all of this is connected in some way to how our nation and our political system is changing. And I really don’t know what we can do about it. I wish that people would take a lesson from Eastwood and be true to your values, not to a party. Keep an open mind. Respect what the other side has to say and try to work with them, not against them. Remember that this country was built upon the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, and that they should be upheld in all spheres of American life. The government is supposed to be the voice for the entire population, not just those in the red states. And the library is supposed to represent all of the community, not just its most vocal members.

Ok… I’ll get off my soap box now.

By the way, if you’re wondering where you’ve heard of State Senator Kevin Murray before, he’s the politician who also made it illegal to send any media file in California anonymously. Despite the questionable basis for such a law (and the fact that it probably violates other laws concerning privacy — especially with respect to children), it appears that Murray doesn’t really care about the facts of the situation, but just that folks in the entertainment industry are happy with all the laws he’s passed in their favor. Anyway, based on my reading of the actual proposal, it would also threaten to put anyone who has written FTP software and possibly even web browsers in jail. Maybe his next law will simply outlaw the internet, and force us all to watch broadcast content instead. That would really help, wouldn’t it?

Ahh… dare to dream! If you’d like to read the bill, it’s here. I have never understood people and organizations who employ the same strategy again and again, even when it fails every time. It’s like, “if it doesn’t work once, keep doing the same thing but do it harder!” Or, to quote The Simpsons “‘There’s three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way.’” “‘Isn’t that the wrong way?’” “‘Yeah, but faster!’” The recording and motion picture industries don’t want to look at alternative economic models or look at how they can make file sharing work in their favor. They just want to keep trying to block people from doing it, using the courts and the legislature as their hired guns. And it just doesn’t work.

No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.

Well, this sounds like something that would come from the completely delusional heads of Microsoft. If you don’t like something, call it communist. Open Source is anti-American. Critiquing current intellectual property laws is communist. Unfortunately, calling someone a “communist” doesn’t really have the bite it did 50 years ago. techdirt offered a little economics lesson as an antidote to Gates’ “brilliant” synthesis of intellectual property law:

Intellectual property laws are often artificial barriers in the marketplace to forcefully limit supply and increase the price of something over what the market values it at. That sounds a lot more like the centrally planned economies that are usually called “communist.” Those who are looking to free up the content are simply saying let’s see what the market can do when these products are freed from those government mandated barriers. History has shown that the increased efficiency usually broadens the market and offers new opportunities to make money (for example, by bundling…). So, while I certainly don’t think that those who believe high intellectual property barriers are necessary are “communist,” I do think they’re being quite shortsighted in their economic analysis. And, while Bill Gates is obviously much richer than I’ll ever be, much of that success came from the benefits Microsoft received from their use of “free” products (whether authorized or unauthorized) that helped build lock-in and establish Microsoft as the dominant platform in the market. To turn around and call that same behavior in others “communist” is simply wrong.

Lawrence Lessig and the folks at Boing Boing were equally disgusted and amused by Gates’ red-baiting, and on both pages you can see the new CopyLeft Communist flag.

If you find the subject interesting, Jessamyn also pointed us to some good related resources this week: Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians (again by Peter Suber) and How and Why To Free All Refereed Research From Access- and Impact-Barriers Online, Now (from HEP Libraries Webzine).

Here is the story from Library Journal.

Securing clearance rights to archival footage is a growing problem for independent filmmakers — and documentary filmmakers in particular. Filmmakers must pay for the rights to use every song, photograph or video clip included in the film. Since many documentary films are made with small budgets, filmmakers often can only afford to buy rights for a limited amount of time. That leaves many filmmakers essentially renting footage, and rendering their work unusable after a certain number of years unless they can find more funding to clear the rights again.

With funding for documentaries (which often have great educational value) being so poor, filmmakers are unable to make as good a movie as they’d like because of the high cost of licensing. Or they have to limit the ability for people to view their movie by only buying the rights to the historical footage for a limited time. Most documentarians don’t have the funding of a Ken Burns. Personally, I thought the idea of intellectual property laws was to protect and encourage creativity. Here we have a situation where creativity and education are stifled because of intellectual property laws. Sadly it is only one of many similar examples. People associated with the film, thought to be the best on the subject, are trying to secure grant funding to buy the rights to all of the footage (at a cost of approximately $500,000), and believe that they may be able to get the series on TV by 2006. But how many documentaries of tremendous historical and educational value will never be seen again because of the high cost of licensing intellectual property?