It has been quite a couple of months since my last post, and I suppose the best I can say right now is that my fears that were outlined in Stand, Fight, Resist have only amplified. Fascism is no longer a theoretical threat, it is real and it is working systematically to tear down the checks and balances of our republic, from an open and free press to judicial oversight of legislative and executive overreach. In the midst of all of this, I have never been prouder to be a librarian, to watch the profession react (sometimes poorly, but react all the same) to these political times. I’ve been doing what I can as a citizen to communicate to my elected representatives how important their choices are, and what they might mean for our collective future. I’m also looking for opportunities to write and present on privacy and information security for libraries and librarians, trying to help where my particular set of knowledge and skills may.
As a librarian and technologist, I’m doing several thing over the next few months that I wanted to mention here…if you are attending any of these events, please let me know!
I’m incredibly excited to be a part of this event, which is being hosted by the MIT Media Lab and the Neiman Foundation for Journalism. From their website:
MisinfoCon is a community of people focused on the challenge of misinformation and what can be done to address it. The gathering seeks to strengthen the trustworthiness of information across the entire news ecosystem: journalism, platform, community, verification, fact checking and reader experience.
Bringing together participants from different backgrounds to lead discussions and develop and test product prototypes, our goal is to connect leaders and develop actionable steps on how the various sectors can work together.
This is obviously somewhere where I think librarians have enormous knowledge and potential to make a difference. I often find that, unfortunately, journalists and policy makers don’t think about librarians in this capacity, but I’ll be there flying the librarian flag high. I hope others are there to help me in that quest.
March 5-10th – Special Libraries Association, Arabian Gulf Chapter Conference, Manama, Bahrain
http://slaagc.com/
I am very excited about the opportunity to meet and speak with librarians from the Middle East, as it is a part of the world where I have very little personal knowledge of their challenges and opportunities. At the same time, the last couple of weeks have made me extremely cautious of international travel…especially to a Muslim-majority country. Not because I am concerned about my safety there, or that I have worries about Islam, but because of the recent actions of my own country relating to re-entry into the United States. Reports of highly-improper questioning, requests for social media information (including passwords), and seemingly arbitrary delays and overly-aggressive confrontations with DHS officers have all made me carefully consider what I am comfortable with on those fronts. And I’m a white male American, cis-presenting and everything…I am, as Scalzi pointed out, playing this game on easy mode. I cannot imagine the difficulties and considerations that must go into this sort of travel if I were not.
I will be participating in the Next Library conference, as a part of a panel on Smart Libraries. It will be the European debut of Measure the Future, and I am very excited to be a part of it. I’ve spent most of the last 2 years thinking about and working on the development of sensor-based metrics that give librarians much better ideas of usage and attention in their spaces. I can’t wait to meet and learn from the amazing librarians in Aarhus.
There are a couple of open possibilities in April and May, but those aren’t quite nailed down yet, including maybe a couple of online “Personal Information Security” classes that I’m hoping to offer very soon. If you’re interested in that, watch this space.
