Leonard Downie Jr., The Washington Post ; The rebirth of local news depends on all of us
"Whenever they are asked, Americans say they want and depend on news coverage of their local communities. Its rebirth depends on them."
Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies, explored in the "Ethics of Data, Information, and Emerging Technologies" and "Intellectual Property and Open Movements" graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. -- Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Leonard Downie Jr., The Washington Post ; The rebirth of local news depends on all of us
"Whenever they are asked, Americans say they want and depend on news coverage of their local communities. Its rebirth depends on them."
Brewster Kahle, The Guardian; The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts
"he US library system, once the model for the world, is under assault from politicians, rightwing activists and corporate publishers. Book bans are at record levels, and libraries across the country are facing catastrophic budget cuts, a fate only narrowly avoided by New York City’s public libraries this summer. In a separate line of attack, library collections are being squeezed by draconian licensing deals, and even sued to stop lending digitized books.
This war on libraries – and on the traditional values of equal opportunity, universal education and cultural preservation they represent – directly contravenes the will of the majority in the United States. Polls reveal that public support for libraries is as strong as ever. But the profession of librarianship has become a hazardous one, because of the actions of a hostile minority. It’s time to reverse course."[Kip Currier: Unpublished Letter I sent to New York Times Editor on 10/2/23 re “The Enemies of Literature Are Winning” by Matthew Walther (Oct. 1, 2023).]
Nowhere in the author’s jeremiad does he address the two most important reasons for the continuing existence and relevance of Banned Books Week: providing readers with access to the broadest spectrum of information and including the voices of all, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ persons who have historically been absent from library collections. In the words of the late Banned Books Week co-founder and longtime intellectual freedom champion Judith Krug, “We have to serve the information needs of everybody.” Not some, but everyone.
Megan Bennett, American Libraries; LeVar Burton
The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times; America's Top Librarian on the Rise of Book Bans
"Public libraries around the country have become major battlegrounds for today’s culture wars. In 2022, the American Library Association noted a record 1,269 attempts at censorship — almost double the number recorded in 2021. Library events like drag story times and other children’s programming have also attracted protest. How should we understand these efforts to control what stories children can freely access?
Emily Drabinski is the president of the American Library Association and an associate professor at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She is steering an embattled organization at a moment when libraries — and librarians themselves — are increasingly under fire.
[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
This conversation unpacks the political and cultural anxieties fueling the attacks on libraries. The guest host Tressie McMillan Cottom discusses with Drabinski how libraries are a bulwark against the increasing class divides of American life, how the “small infrastructure” of the public library differs from big infrastructure like highways and bridges, how library classification systems can entrench the status quo, the parallels between political attacks on the library and the U.S. Postal Service, how censorship attempts fit in the broader landscape of anti-queer and anti-trans legislation and much more."
Nicole Brockbank, Angelina King , CBC; 'Empty shelves with absolutely no books': Students, parents question school board's library weeding process
"Weeding books by publication date raises concerns...
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR; Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust says history should make us uncomfortable
"Drew Gilpin Faust is known as a historian, a civil rights activist and the first woman president of Harvard — but she was groomed to become a proper Southern lady...
Faust's new memoir, Necessary Trouble, takes its name from a quote by the late Rep. John Lewis, who Faust knew and approved of using his words. The book is about growing up in Virginia and coming of age during a period of rapid social transformation...
On the mischaracterization of slavery included in Florida's new standards of Black history education, proposed under Gov. Ron DeSantis
It's preposterous and it's extremely distressing. It's a complete distortion of the past, which is undertaken in service of the present, of minimizing racial issues in the present by saying everything's been "just great" for four centuries. Slavery was not "just great." It was oppressive. It was cruel. It involved exploitation of every sort, physical violence, sexual exploitation. We know that we have pieces of paper where slave owners wrote it down. I did a biography of a South Carolina planter who recorded in detail what his mastery of slaves entailed. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of studies that show this...
On the notion that students shouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable about history
It's a betrayal of the commitment to truth and to fact. And it so undermines the ability of people in the present to understand who they are. How do we have history that's not uncomfortable? How do we have any kind of education that doesn't make you in some way uncomfortable? Education asks you to change. The headmistress of my girls school many years ago said to us, "Have the courage to be disturbed, to learn about the Holocaust and see what evil can mean, to learn about slavery and think about exploitation that is empowered by an ideology of race that we haven't entirely dismantled. Understand what people did in the past so that you can, in the present, better critique your own assumptions, your own blindnesses, and make a world that's a better world." If we don't acknowledge those realities, we are disempowered as human beings."
KATV ABC7 ; Saline County Quorum Court vote to pass ordinance, allows county judge to oversee county library board
"The Saline County Quorum Court voted to pass an ordinance in an 11 to 2 vote on Monday that gave county judge Matt Brumley authority over the county library board.
Before that court made its final vote after a third reading, the public provided their final comments in hopes of steering the decision one way or the other...
According to the ordinance, prior to the adoption of any rules, policies, procedures, or regulations under article seven, the board shall submit the proposals to the Saline County judge for viewing.
It also states that the board shall have the final authority to adopt or amend any rules, policies, procedures, or regulations subject to all applicable state and local laws."
David Streitfeld, The New York Times; The Dream Was Universal Access to Knowledge. The Result Was a Fiasco.
"In the middle of this mess are writers, whose job is to produce the books that contain much of the world’s best information. Despite that central role, they are largely powerless — a familiar position for most writers. Emotions are running high...
It’s rarely this nasty, but free vs. expensive is a struggle that plays out continuously against all forms of media and entertainment. Neither side has the upper hand forever, even if it sometimes seems it might.
“The more information is free, the more opportunities for it to be collected, refined, packaged and made expensive,” said Stewart Brand, the technology visionary who first developed the formulation. “The more it is expensive, the more workarounds to make it free. It’s a paradox. Each side makes the other true.”"
Olivia Empson, The Guardian; ‘Knowledge is power’: new app helps US teens read books banned in school
"A recent PEN America study found that the bans were most prevalent this year in Florida, Texas, Utah, Missouri and South Carolina.
Consistently, these bans target materials written by and about people of color or LGBTQ+ individuals, and even though a 2022 poll found that 70% of parents oppose them, they are continuing at a rapid rate.
Now the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is trying to fight back. It recently launched the Banned Book Program, granting free nationwide access to books restricted in schools or libraries.
It functions through GPS-based geo-targeting; by typing in your zip code, you are shown the complete list of titles prohibited in your area. Once you download the Palace e-reader app, these books are available to download.
“Saying ‘Just to go to the library’ is no longer a stable alternative to having these books in schools,” Jen said. “Some kids don’t have supportive parents or live near public transport. The DPLA has created a resource that will benefit so many.”"
John Lubbock, Daisy Steinhardt and Max Colbert, Index on Censorship: A Voice for the Persecuted; Saudi LGBTQ refugees live in fear of being kidnapped
"A note from the authors: The piece published below was originally written for and pitched to Vice World News, who wanted exclusive publishing rights for it. Subsequently, the piece was delayed for weeks on end, while the editorial staff informed us that this was because the publication maintained a team in Saudi Arabia and they were worried about safety.
We were concerned privately that this could amount to a case of catch-and-kill, so asked to be released from the contract to find another publisher. We were then told from a senior executive that they still wanted to publish the piece, and that it would be out within the next two weeks following this discussion. After this period, we were let go from our contract, with the piece not being published and with no more concrete update as to the precise nature of the problem. Following that, the story behind our piece was among those picked up by the Guardian, as part of an investigation into a pattern of behaviour at Vice with regards to Saudi Arabia.
The resulting noise created by the publication of the Guardian article helped us make the connections and get enough attention to be able to help place this important piece instead with Index on Censorship...
These incidents contradict Saudi Arabia’s efforts to present itself as more progressive to the outside world, including by relaxing female guardianship laws and allowing women to drive. The Saudi tourism authority recently updated its website to claim that LGBTQ travellers would be welcome to visit the country."
Jemimah Steinfeld , The Guardian; Vice blocked an article criticising Saudi Arabia. This is why we published it instead
"If you want proof Saudi Arabia is trying to improve its reputation, visit the website of the Saudi Tourism Authority. There you will find the Q&A section has recently been updated to state that LGBTQ visitors to the country are welcome. This from a country that executed five men for same-sex relationships just four years ago. The hubris is astonishing. And yet to directly challenge those contradictions isn’t easy, something John Lubbock, Daisy Steinhardt and Max Colbert recently learned.
As reported by the Guardian on Tuesday, the journalists had co-written an article for Vice World News, which looked at how LGBTQ Saudis face threats from their families and state authorities. It was commissioned after Vice signed a partnership deal with the MBC Group, a media company controlled by the Saudi government. The article’s publication was first delayed and eventually spiked. The reason given? To protect staff at Vice’s offices in Riyadh."
Tim Adams, The Guardian ; Paying the price of truth: Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov won’t be silenced by Putin
"Smartphone footage of this event from April 2022 is the opening scene of a documentary film about the life of Muratov, which will be shown on Channel 4 at 10pm on Monday night. The film is called The Price of Truth, and if you were ever in doubt about the human cost of publishing factual news in a time of war and repression, then Muratov’s career establishes it in frank detail.
I spoke to Muratov last week, by Zoom in the office of the newspaper he has edited for 30 years, Novaya Gazeta, standard bearer for the glasnost and perestroika of its founding patron, Mikhail Gorbachev. None of those years have been without challenge and trauma. The photographs of six Novaya Gazeta journalists murdered in the course of their work are on the wall above Muratov’s desk. But even so, he suggested to me, this last year has been the worst.
“All non-state media [including his paper] has been closed,” he says. “Hundreds of thousands of web pages have been blocked.” Government propaganda, he suggests, spreads “like radiation” into every home. “There is no one to control power in Russia, and our society hasn’t understood that yet.”"
JIM HEINTZ, AP; Russia shuts down human rights group that preserved the legacy of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov
"Separate Russian courts on Friday ordered the liquidation of a human rights organization that preserved the legacy of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and the arrest of a prominent election monitor, in the latest moves in a widespread crackdown on dissent.
Sakharov, who died in 1989, was a key figure in developing the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb program but later become renowned for his activism in promoting human rights and freedom of conscience. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1975 but was not allowed to travel to Norway to receive it. In 1980 he was sent into internal exile, which lasted six years.
The organization founded in his honor operated the Sakharov Center museum and archives in Moscow. Authorities declared it a “foreign agent” in 2014 and this year ordered the eviction of the center from its premises."
Jeremy W. Peters , The New York Times; Report on Anti-Gay Slur Could Put Local News Site Out of Business
"Some First Amendment advocates said the playbook was relatively easy to replicate: A public official unhappy with the coverage sues, creating crushing costs for an outlet."
ALTHEA LEGASPI, Rolling Stone; Record Labels File $412 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Internet Archive
"UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol, and other record labels filed a copyright lawsuit on Friday against Internet Archive, founder Brewster Kahle, and others over the organization’s “Great 78 Project,” accusing them of behaving as an “illegal record store.” The suit lists 2,749 pre-1972 musical works available via Internet Archive by late artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby, among others.
The suit, which was filed in federal court and reviewed by Rolling Stone, claims the Internet Archive’s “Great 78 Project” — launched by Internet Archive as a community project for “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records,” according to its blog — has violated copyright laws. By “transferring copies of those files to members of the public, Internet Archive has reproduced and distributed without authorization Plaintiffs’ protected sound recordings,” the suit alleges.
The nonprofit Internet Archive began in 1996, stating its mission is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.” It purports to be a digital library that provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Its “Great 78 Project” follows suit; the community project dedicates itself to “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records” per a post about the project. It provides free access to “over 400,000 recordings” as Internet Archive estimates in its post."
American Libraries; ALA Announces Steps to Support LGBTQIA+ Library Workers
"Recognizing the urgency to address and combat discriminatory practices targeting library workers within the LGBTQIA+ community, ALA is taking proactive steps to support and protect LGBTQIA+ library workers:
1. Establishing a task force: ALA has created a task force composed of experts and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive strategy for addressing and tracking retaliatory employment cases against LGBTQIA+ library workers.
2. Developing a supportive communications plan: The task force will work to formulate a communications plan that highlights the resources and support available from ALA, specifically tailored to the needs of the LGBTQIA+ library worker community.
Libraries are essential spaces for all people to safely explore and access information about the world around them. It is crucial to create safe work environments for LGBTQIA+ library workers, where they can continue their invaluable work in facilitating learning, discovery, and understanding for library users."
Laura Meckler, The Washington Post; Florida schools drop AP Psychology after state says it violates the law
"Large school districts across Florida are dropping plans to offer Advanced Placement Psychology, heeding a warning from state officials that the course’s discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity violates state law...
The conflict stems from Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed by opponents as the “don’t say gay” bill, which outlaws classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. In April, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Education Department expanded the prohibition to include all grades. Teachers who violate the ban could see their teaching licenses suspended or revoked.
The AP Psychology course asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” The College Board said this element of the class had been present since the course was launched in 1993. Florida schools have offered the class every year since then, an official said.
It’s just one in a string of curriculum and book battles raging across Florida as the state seeks to limit student exposure to certain lessons around race and gender...
On Friday, after meeting with superintendents, Diaz wrote them to say he was not banning or even discouraging schools from offering the AP Psychology course. He had told them the same thing a day earlier, while also cautioning against violating state law."
Claire Woodcock , Library Journal; Inside The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy
"Most libraries don’t own their own ebooks. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to LJ readers, yet it’s a statement that continues to confound elected officials and administrators who get an astounding amount of say in how much money public and academic libraries are allotted.
This is one of the reasons I, along with my coauthors Sarah Lamdan, Michael Weinberg, and Jason Schultz at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at New York University (NYU) Law, published our recent report, The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy: How Publishers and Platforms Have Reshaped the Way We Read in the Digital Age. In nearly 60 pages, this report takes a hard look at how license agreements dictate what consumers—both individual and institutional—get to do with their digital book collections."
Marcelino Benito, KHOU11; Montgomery County votes to restrict access to certain books at public libraries
"Commissioners Court ultimately voted to restrict "explicit" or "objectionable" material in public libraries from anyone under 18. That restriction includes LGBTQ-themed books."