Category Archives: information activist

As many of you have seen posts at Boing Boing and Librarian by Day the push from HarperCollins to allow only so many checkouts on Overdrive before the book is deleted is an outrage.  Libraries have been weary of licensing content for some time, and this is exactly why.  So we are being punished if patrons actually want to read your material?

Do you plan to treat us the same way with physically materials?  Do you think you will show up at my library and take a book that has circulated 26 times away from me?

Not only is this outrageous, but I’m to the point where I can’t take it from these publishers anymore.  With the closure of retail booksellers, I wonder if publishers realize how much they depend on libraries to support their bottom line?

I know this much, I am now boycotting HarperCollins.  I hope that both librarians, readers, and hopefully even libraries will boycott as well.  You want to take your books away from me?  Fine, but I hope you realize that I have no desire to buy them now in the first place.

Moreover, I am listening to the advice of Cory Doctorow when he says “And that’s why libraries should just stop buying DRM media for their collections. Period. It’s unsafe at any speed.”

I haven’t had much time to chime in on the Wikileaks issue but due to a shout-out from the In the Library with a Lead Pipe blog, I feel some reflection is in order.  As the post states:

believe a richer intellectual and historical record that is fuller and more accurate is in itself intrinsically good, and gives people the tools to make intelligent decisions.” While librarians don’t handle classified government documents on a daily basis, there’s a clear connection between the philosophy of WikiLeaks and that of our libraries. Information creates a knowledgeable citizenry, and a knowledgeable citizenry makes better choices.

Yes!  Philosophically we believe that barriers to information should be removed, that censorship is wrong, and that open access is valuable.

Libraries have, for many decades, embraced unfettered and uncensored access to information.  However, we also uphold the values of intellectual property and copyright.  These documents are the intellectual property of the respective institutions.  So we have values, ethics, and codes that are at odds with each other.

What is one to believe?  Do you place the access to information above the intellectual property rights?  I will let you decide.  But consider this, do we remove all secondary materials that are in violation of intellectual property?  By that I mean if a newspaper were to publish a classified document would we or the Library of Congress remove the newspaper?

The two issues, for me, are transparency and a national library.  The transparency of the government is a necessity in our current society.  Perhaps the really issue is why does the government, of the people, refuse to be open to those very same people?  The Library of Congress’ move to restrict access to the site is shamefully, and reminds us that the Library of Congress is not our national library.  One day, perhaps, we will have a national library, but until then, we have no national librarian to speak for the people.