Libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act

CRS report on the topic updated 02/03/2006

See also ALA on this issue.

The Justice Department addresses some of the concerns regarding Patriot Act & libraries at http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/subs/u_myths.htm

The CRS report USA Patriot Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 (02/21/2006) also contains information about the Act that pertains to libraries.

Census Scope

CensusScope, in its own words, "is an easy-to-use tool for investigating U.S. demographic trends, brought to you by the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) at the University of Michigan. With eye-catching graphics and exportable trend data, CensusScope is designed for both generalists and specialists."

City and county codes

The Seattle Public Library has compiled a page with links to city and county codes available for unrestricted searching on the World Wide Web.

Human Resources

An absurdity of the information age, and an extremely annoying one, is that the advance of information technology has rendered that handy old ploy for getting information from someone - calling them and asking for it - well nigh impossible. Fortunately, I'm not the only person who gets upset about this - the gethuman "free website is run by volunteers and is powered by over one million consumers who demand high quality phone support from the companies that they use." The gethuman database lists nearly 400 provides effective tips on how to break through the automatic phone systems to get to a real live human.

Sunshine Week

Although it had escaped my attention, this is Sunshine Week Al Tomkins of the Poynter Institute has compiled some resources for the occasion in his daily "Morning Meeting"column. Also relevant is today's ALA Public Library Briefcase on Finding and Using Public Records

National Atlas

National Atlas presents a vast collection of U.S. data in 12 different subject categories through maps.

World Public Opinion, PIPA and COPA

Here are some interesting public opinion sites: Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) monitors U.S. attitudes about domestic policies. PIPA, the Program on International Policy Attitudes, maintains the website "Americans and the World", which monitors American attitudes on global issues. In January 2006 PIPA also launched the World Public Opinion website to "increase understanding of public opinion in specific nations around the world as well as to elucidate the global patterns of world public opinion."

whichbook.net

Although IRCs are nowadays rarely asked to find somebody a good book, American Corner staffers and public library contacts might be interested to know about Whichbook. Whichbook tries to bring the reader and good book together by building a profile of desired characteristics on several continuums - e.g. happy-sad, funny-serious, conventional-unconventional, gentle-violent, optimistic-bleak, etc - essentially automating the procedure of a public librarian interrogating a prosepctive lender. The overarching idea, according to Whichbook: "Instead of starting from the overwhelming choice of books available, whichbook starts from the reader and enables each individual to build the elements of that elusive 'good read' we are all looking for but don't quite know how to define."

European Library

The national libraries of Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy-Florence, Italy-Rome, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia-Moscow, Russia-St.Peterburg, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Vatican City have joined forces in the European Library: "a portal which offers access to the combined resources (books, magazines, journals.... - both digital and non-digital) of the 43 national libraries of Europe. It offers free searching and delivers digital objects - some free, some priced."

PD and IIP, class dunces

www.expectmore.gov is an OMB website where the taxpayer can find out how USG programs are performing. Here's what they have to say about three programs that are close to our hearts, Public Diplomacy, IIP, and Global Educational and Cultural Exchanges:

1. "Public Diplomacy"
"These programs articulate the foreign policy objectives of the US and create an international environment receptive to US interests through exchanges, training and outreach activities. Public Diplomacy also provides US policy-makers with information about how the US and its actions are perceived abroad."

Our grade is not so good:

NOT PERFORMING
Results Not Demonstrated
A rating of Results Not Demonstrated (RND) indicates that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing.

* These programs have had difficulty measuring their impact, if they have been evaluated at all. Frequently there is anecdotal evidence that a program is achieving success but there is no formal data to support those claims.
* Few of the State Department public diplomacy programs link budget to performance.
* There is no broad overarching US Government public diplomacy strategy. Because of this lack of a plan, programs such as this one may not be the most effective both in the long and short term.

So how is IIP doing...?

2. International Information Programs
"These programs, products and services work to counteract negative perceptions of the U.S. and build understanding between the U.S. and international audiences. They deliver America's message to the international media, government officials, opinion leaders and the public in more than 140 countries in seven languages."

The grade?

NOT PERFORMING
Results Not Demonstrated
A rating of Results Not Demonstrated (RND) indicates that a program has not been able to develop acceptable performance goals or collect data to determine whether it is performing.

* International Information Programs are primarily reactive. The current structure and nature of the programs force staff and resources to be dedicated to events that have already taken place rather than planning new programs, ways to reach new audiences or being more proactive in their outreach activities and programming.
* The program has had difficulty setting measures in the past. The program recently developed new long and short term goals. However, measuring public diplomacy outcomes annually is challenging due to the long-term nature of opinion and behavior change.
* Public Diplomacy programs, including IIP, are not based on a broad overarching USG Public Diplomacy strategy and thus may not be the most effective both in the long and short term.


Here's a surprise though, and food for thought; Educational and Cultural exchanges, a subset of public diplomacy, and the results of which are surely as intangible and hard to measure as for PD and IIP, gets the highest possible rating. (I guess what distinguishes Exchanges from IIP and the rest of PD is that it is not burdened with the more challenging tasks of articulating U.S. policies in a positive way and counteracting negative perceptions of the U.S.) :

3. Global Educational and Cultural Exchanges
Performing
Effective (with three stars)

Global Educational and Cultural Exchanges has the following objective::
This program manages exchange programs that help increase mutual understanding and respect by promoting personal, professional, and institutional ties between private citizens and organizations in the United States and abroad, as well as by presenting US history, society, art and culture to overseas audiences.

PERFORMING
Effective
This is the highest rating a program can achieve. Programs rated Effective set ambitious goals, achieve results, are well-managed and improve efficiency.

* These programs are managed effectively and reach designated targets. Each program has a specific population, gender or location-specific audience they are trying to reach. For example, the State Department is reaching out youth in the Muslim World and women through their Partnerships for Learning and Youth Exchange and Study Programs.
* Educational and Cultural Affairs at State Department use performance data and tools to make management decisions. They are now focused on meeting with staff regularly and have adapted tracking systems to better monitor and evaluate ongoing activities.
* There is no broad overarching US Government public diplomacy strategy that would include programs such as this one. Because of this lack of a broader strategy, programs such as this one may not be the most effective both in the short and long term.

Website Tips

www.websitetips.com has all kinds of website-related information: "provides CSS, HTML, and XHTML tutorials, graphics tutorials, articles, tips, information and resources to build or improve your Web site presence."

onesense

onesense allows you to create flash messages with background and color. Lot's of fun, probably a good idea to turn on the money-meter before you begin. And very useful - for example, you could use it as a tool for generating interesting article alert mailings and such. The Flash message arrives scrambled, looking like the one below...the recipient is asked, "Got the sense" and can choose either "Not yet, let me continue!" or "Yes, verify now" - the latter unscrambles the words, even if he/she was bluffing! Here's an example:
http://www.onesens.com/go2.cfm?varid=727

The Money Meter

Ever wonder how much your time is worth, or why others don't? Find out with the money-meter. As the clock runs, the dollars accumulate in one cent increments. Very useful when you're trying to convince your boss that your time could be better spent. It also tells you what the average American worker is making in the same amount of time, which is very humbling (though I guess some people might find it flattering...)

NPR replaces VOA

According to a New York Times story, the Broadcasting Board of Governors is determined to terminate Voice of America's presence in Berlin and shift efforts to programming projects in local languages in the Middle East (this would seem to fit nicely with Secretary Rice's transformational diplomacy concept). The slot vacated by VOA will reportedly be filled by NPR, which wants to establish itself as a public broadcaster. An NPR spokesman said that letters and emails from foreign listeners suggest the change will be welcomed: "They prefer programming with "no artifice, no hidden sales pitch and no slanting to sell a point of view," he said. They also enjoy the opportunity to eavesdrop on America's frank conversations with itself, he added."

The Diversity of Muslims in the United States: Views as Americans

This is an interesting report published by the Senior Program Officer in the Religion and Peacemaking program at the United States Institute of Peace. This report analyzes ways Muslims in the U.S. understand their roles as Americans in combating terrorism and their unique contributions toward conflict prevention and peacemaking. "The assimilation and integration of American Muslims has effectively enabled the flourishing of dozens of national and regional organizations to work in areas of civil rights, human rights, interfaith dialogue, education, charity, public diplomacy, political activism, and other religious and secular activities. Despite the post 9/11 scrutiny of the Muslim community, American Muslim groups have devised sophisticated grassroots campaigns on counter-terrorism and anti-extremist ideology".

Congressional Research Service controversy

The Federation of American Scientists, in its Secrecy News newsletter dated February 9, reported on a dispute currently roiling the Congressional Research Service over recent reports that were deemed critical of White House policy, featuring the CRS expert on the separation of powers, Louis Fisher.
The report can be accessed at the following URL:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2006/02/020906.html
It also includes links to further reports in the Wall Street Journal and UPI.

Think tank blog from the Washington Post

A useful blog resource on the latest reports and news from the world of the Washington think tanks is "Think Tank Town." This blog, authored by Ron Nessen and hosted by the Washington Post, cannot compare with the remarkably comprehensive 'Docuticker' at the Resourceshelf site, but features interesting papers and projects: recently highlighted topics include the growing political gap between the military and academia, and reactions to the FY 2007 budget.
You can access it at:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thinktanktown/
It is updated regularly.

Black History Month resource

Researchbuzz advises that for the month of February, Black History Month, Ancestry.com is granting free access to its African American Research Center, a collection of historical records providing information on African Americans. It's available at http://www.ancestry.com/aahistory

Saddam Hussein Trial

The library of Congress Law Library has a website devoted to the Saddam Hussein trial. About the site: "This website is intended to provide the viewer with essential information related to the relevant trials...In addition to viewers in general, the following of the development of the trial of Saddam Hussein, which started in October 2005, may be of special interest to legal scholars of international criminal law and the seekers of universal justice."

listible

Listible has lists of useful things, categorized by topic....Firefox extension, GTD tools (get things done), social bookmarking sites, online storage services, etc. etc.

Google News

After a mere three years, Google News is rushing headlong out of beta. A new feature recommends "personalized" news on the basis of previous searches. Apropos our listserv discussion regarding the challenge of producing early-morning hardcopy newsclips for visitors etc., Google News presents a relatively graphic-free "suitable for cut and paste" list of news items if you select the text version option on the far right side of the screen. Each item leads with only the first sentence of the story, but that's often enough. More about the out of beta version here

New FirstGov

I happened by FirstGov yesterday, not realizing - until reading Gary Price's review today - that big changes underlie the new look. Read all about it at searchenginewatch

www.24eyes.com

With www.24eyes.com you can present RSS newsfeeds in however many windows (called "widgets") you care to arrange on the page. You can define the newsfeeds by selecting from dropdowns, by specifying an rss-feed url, or by searching for rss feeds by topic or provider (e.g. "state department"). You can also create a feed search; for example, by searching for"public diplomacy" in Google News, you've created an RSS feed for occurrences of those search terms that you can channel into one of your www.24eys.com windows. Finally, you're supposed to be able to publish your page and/or make it available to others, but I couldn't get either of those features to work (I've sent them a message about it...)

Government Secrecy

This article by Laura Gordon-Murnane appears in the January 2006 issue of Information Today. It's a current and extensive compilation of resources on the government secrecy issue.

Senate site

The Senate website has an attractive new look...

More on del.icio.us

Del.icio.us has been acquired by Yahoo, which perhaps is an indication that it may be around for a while. If you still haven't gotten started with this tool, "The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users" is a short and to-the-point guide to what it can do and how you can use it.

Library 2.0

Library 2.0 is a term that is much batted about the internet these days, perhaps as a natural follow-up to Web 2.0 Walt Crawford has devoted an entire issue of his "Cites & Insights" to surveying who has been saying what about it. Even if you find endless discussions about library and librarian identity dull, this is a useful catalog of who - and which blogs - are considered seminal in the N.American library community.

State of the Media 2005 report

Project for Excellence in Journalism (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism) has released the 2005 State of the Media report. Among the highlights of the year cited in the introduction: "the blossoming of citizen blogs, the emergence of a major new news source edited entirely by computers (Google News), and both triumph (exposing the Abu Ghraib prison scandal) and failure (Memogate) for one of the TV networks. Customization, and with it fragmentation, reached new levels."

NewspaperArchive.com and Martin Luther King

NewspaperArchive.com's Martin Luther King archive provides free access to thousands of original newspaper articles about Martin Luther King. A great MLK Day/Black History Month resource for teachers/students.

Passport photo service

ePassportPhoto is a free service that enables users to create regulation-size passport photos from home-taken digital photos. If you don't have a printer, epassportphoto.com will mail you prints for a fee (that's what's in it for them...) It appears to be a legitimate site, with a reference link to travel.state.gov's photoguide. Although DOS could not openly promote a commercial service like this, it's something the Amcit/passport section might like to know about...?

MIT Audits the Conventional Wisdom

Audits of the Conventional Wisdom from MIT's Center for International Studies "tours the horizon of conventional wisdoms that animate U.S. foreign policy, and put them to the test of data and history" (chosen as "site of the month" in the December 2005 issue of Foreign Service Journal)

Human Security Report

The first Human Security Report documents a dramatic, but largely unknown, decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuse over the past decade. Published by Oxford University Press, the Report argues that the single most compelling explanation for these changes is found in the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of the Cold War. For more information see Human Security Gateway.

CRS Report. The Google Book Search Project

CRS Report. The Google Book Search Project: Is Online Indexing a Fair Use Under Copyright Law?

Summary:
Google, Inc. is digitally scanning the collections of several prominent libraries inorder to create a vast searchable database of literary works. Copyright holders who havenot authorized and object to the digitization have filed suit against the company. Thisreport provides background on the pending litigation. It will be updated as judicialdevelopments warrant.

Full text...

Openomy

Openomy lets you store up to one gigabyte of files on the net free of charge.

10x10

10x10 is kind of a neat way of presenting the news, though I'm not sure how useful. The companion site, justcurio.us, is certainly useless - unless as a useful lesson in the pitfalls of so-called "architecture of participation."

Law Blogs

Law seems to be a field that is particularly well-represented in the blogosphere (e.g. bespacific, scotusblog, legalreader, to name but three), and www.blawg.org is a useful directory of legal and law-related blogs.

article about folksonomies

At the new blog Infotangle, there's an excellent overview of social bookmarking, folksonomies, and other Web 2.0 phenomena in the article "The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User Based Tagging"

Currently in Congress December 1-15, 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's Library webpage: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Highlights: Defense spending bill, PATRIOT Act reauthorization, and the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act.

Hearings include: Safety of Imported Pharmaceuticals, International Maritime Security, Response by Charities to Hurricane Katrina, and Avian Flu

Previous issues are archived on the website.

answers.firstgov.gov

For those experimenting with question and answer databases, answers.firstgov.gov might be an interesting example. It allows you to filter Q&As by topic, and also has a "People who viewed this answer also viewed:" feature.

Bibliographies Compiled at Air Univerity Library

This is an impressive collection of topical bibliographies compiled by librarians at the Air University Library. See www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bi...

At long last, new Thomas look

The new Thomas look was heralded back in July, and was supposed to look like this , but now that they're finally up and running they look like this. Amazing to note how much web-aesthetics change in just 6 months!

Easier ways to post to ircworld and other blogger.com blogs

There are (at least) two shortcuts to posting to blogger.com blogs that bypass the cumbersome "go to blogger.com, remember your password and enter it, login, select create new post" procedure. One is to download the Google toolbar with the "Blog this" button. When you see a webpage you would like to post to the blog, just click on the button and it will bring up your blogger.com editing screen.

A newer and more interesting variation, for Firefox users only, is the "Blogger Web Comments for Firefox" utility. This pop-up allows you to see what other people have said about a web page, and also allows you to send a post to the blog (to ircworld or any other blogger.com blog you're a member of) without leaving the page. It's an extremely handy tool...read all about it at
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/webcomments/index.html

Link Harvester and Hub Finder

The monthly "Worthwhile Web" column on the OSIS net is always a reliable source of interesting web discoveries; this month I was delighted to find out about www.linkhounds.com . There are two tools here of particular interest; Link Harvester is a sophisticated tool for analyzing links to a particular domain or web page. Hub-finder identifies sites that have co-occurring link to sites on a particular topic. This can be very useful, and draws on the same logic that citation indexes used to identify relevant resources in the pre-online days. Let us say say you are looking for good sites on defense/security information. You submit up to 10 of your favorite security info sites to Hub Finder, and it will find additional sites that are linked to from at least two of the sites you entered. For example, I entered www.fas.org, www.cdi.org, and www.globalsecurity.org. Hub-finder then found 22 other sites with at least two matching backlinks, including several interesting sites that I'd not been aware of.

National Archives

The National Archives website has a new look and lots of tantalizing information. Of particular interest is the new Access to Archival Databases (AAD) section, which enables common searching in multiple archives. See AP story (thanks to Resource Shelf for catching this)

For hours and hours of browsing pleasure...

...check out the Washington Post's new "U.S. Congress Votes Database" It let's you browse every voice in the U.S. Congress since 1991. Enjoy! Also a useful reference site..

Telling America's story....

Ordinary people are sometimes better public diplomats than government officials, and storytelling is an effective medium for creating people to people empathy and mutual understanding. Marylaine Block's December 9 "Ex Libris" article ( "Tell me a story") reviews several excellent storytelling sites on the web. Storytelling, and StoryCorps's Oral History Project, is also the cover story in this month's issue of American Libraries.

Library 2.0

The Talis white paper Do libraries matter? The rise of Library 2.0 offers some interesting perspectives on the future of libraries. The authors propose a strategy for libraries to adjust to the emergence of Web 2.0, which incorporates some of those trends that have been discussed her lately, e.g. social bookmarking, the web as a platform for running applications, increasing democratization of the web, syndication (ie. pushing content rather than pulling audience), etc.

More fun in the classroom

National Center for Education Center's has some neat tools in its "Student's Classroom", including a handy "CreateAGraph" application that generates graphs and charts on the basis of input data.

Social bookmarking entering mainstream?

The November 22 edition of PC Magazine takes a look at what it describes as "community search engines", including del.icio.us (which by the way gets a poor score). For IRCworlders who are wondering what social bookmarking is all about, and enjoy the PC Mag style of comparing products, this article, "Never Search Alone" by Rick Broida, may be worth a quick glance. An indication that this type of online collaboration may be entering the mainstream?

More on del.icio.us and social bookmarking

Del.icio.us and the social boomarking phenomenon is an interesting development worth looking into. An excellent introduction, that includes an overview of several social bookmarking tools (including CiteULike), is the article "Social Bookmarking Tools: a General Review" from the April 2005 issue of Dlib magazine. Jon Udell, creator of the wonderful "Walking Tour of Keene" screencast (see enthusiastic posting at ircworld in March, 2005) has also created a nifty screencast that provides a whirlwind 5 minute tour of del.icio.us from a user's perspective.

Fun in the classroom

Here a couple of creativity outlets that educators might find useful for teaching and/or silencing pupils. Imagination Cubed provides an online whiteboard for collaborative drawing. Neat! Sodaplay is an online Java-based simulator that allows users to construct robots and other mechanical creations and watch them walk, move, or fly.

Neat marketing tool

Here's an excellent marketing tool for your next IRC event...just tell Albert what to write on the blackboard, and post it on your website.

Web Applications List

If you're interested in web applications, this is a goldmine:
http://www.webapplist.com/

Help drown out Oslo!

Couldn't resist reposting this, from ellensjourney.org - she's so right, especially about that Oslo IRC blabbermouth. I wish he would shut up - or better, that others would speak up.(send me an email if you forgot/need a userid/password) I also like her quote, "Library school is for geeks who don't do math."

Interesting library blog

The most (potentially) interesting library blog I have come across in a while is the ircworld blog - a team blog of all the Information Resources Centers at U.S. embassies around the world. Hopefully it will get off the ground more than it has so far, since right now it’s pretty much dominated by the Oslo IRC, which was the one that started it.

Eccentric Star

Eccentric Star is a public diplomacy blog by former USIA FSO Ann Driscoll. Contains many useful links to PD related blogs, websites, articles, etc.

CiteUlike

CiteULike "CiteULike is a free service to help academics to share, store, and organise the academic papers they are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can click one button and have it added to your personal library. CiteULike automatically extracts the citation details, so there's no need to type them in yourself. It all works from within your web browser. There's no need to install any special software." This is neat - particularly for academic librarians, who might appreciate being told about this..When visiting certain supported sites (see list at http://www.citeulike.org/post), CiteUlike automatically extracts citation details. For sites that are not supported, you can type in the citation information manually. This is a nice way to build your personal library of "to read" items on the web.

PandemicFlu.gov

PandemicFlu.gov: The official U.S. government Web site for information on pandemic flu and avian influenza.

Phil Bradley's "I want to" list

This is great...here is Phil Bradley's own description:
"I want to..." is a page of utilities, such as social utilities, social bookmarking and various other software packages that let you do things. (Added 27/10/05)

Most important govdoc reference sources

What are the essential 3-5 print Government Document reference sources that you can't work without in answering reference questions? Diane Kovacs posed the question to librarians on Govdoc-l, publib, libref-l, LIS-LINK, DIG_REF, ERIL-L, Buslib-L LawLibRef, Law-Lib@ucdavis.edu, LawSource, and the results are posted here.

Red Light Green

RedLightGreen is a useful tool from the Research Libraries Group for finding books and generating subject bibliographies. See Gary Price's short review in SearchEngineWatch 10/31. From the RLG website:
"RedLightGreen is one of our newest projects. It is designed specifically for undergraduates using the Web—and the libraries that support them. RedLightGreen.com delivers information from RLG members about more than 130 million books for education and research; and it links students back to their campus libraries for the books they select."