Freedom of Information and Open Government

Freedom of Information Day is on March 16, the birthday of James Madison, who is "widely regarded as the Father of the Constitution and as the foremost advocate for openness in government" (ALA).

Each year, the American Library Association (ALA) presents the James Madison Award and the Eileen Cooke State & Local Madison Award to "recognize those individuals or groups that have championed, protected, and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know" (ALA).

Freedom of Information Day coincides with Sunshine Week (March 15-21), a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.

Check out related NYC events going on this week.

Library Journal 2009 Movers & Shakers List is Out

Congrats to all the 2009 Library Journal Movers & Shakers, including one of my mentors, Joe Murphy. Also, check out the map that Library Journal put together of the locations of the 2002-2009 Movers and Shakers.

Public Space and Libraries

A friend and I were walking around Union Square tonight and noticed this giant tri-fold science fair type of board with "public space" written very big on one side. There were groups of people around it - some reading, some writing, some even drawing. It was interesting to see the messages that people put on the board. My friend and I decided to contribute and this is what we wrote:


I'm thinking now that I should've taken a picture of the entire board to really show what was happening. Would've also been a good picture for one of my class assignments. Next time...

Libraries = Collections?

Over the past few years, based on conversations with people, libraries are associated with books, audiobooks, DVDs, CDs, e-books, databases, etc. - basically resources or collections of resources, regardless of the media type. Yesterday, I was doing shelf-reading of a print reference collection. Today, I had a conversation with a few colleagues about collections and circulation statistics. Overall, libraries are deeply connected and defined by its collections. My colleague, Nate Hill recently blogged a post about the changing role of public libraries which covers a bit of what I discussed in my last post and will discuss in this post.

For a long time, libraries have been and are still defined by their resources and collections of resources. Increasingly, people are finding information online on their own, which has brought up questions like why do we need libraries and how can libraries stay relevant. It's not only the resources that defines what libraries are, the library staff plays a crucial role. Why not encourage and support an environment for library staff to use their ideas, skills, creativity, and knowledge to collaborate with the community to develop, organize, create, and coordinate events, programs, wikis, blogs, etc. while using the collections? I think there's potential in libraries playing this kind of role and it's great to see that it's happening.

Community Health Information and Public Libraries

Yesterday I attended a workshop "An Apple A Day: Providing Consumer Health Information at Your Library" presented by Arpita Bose from the Mid-Atlantic Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. It was a great workshop. The workshop prompted me to think again about the lack of health information available, particularly easy-to-read, multilingual, and community-based resources. I feel like there is so much that we, as librarians and information professionals, can do, not just in terms of health information, but any information, in general. We can and should play a more active role in working with organizations, institutions, and communities in creating tools and resources to provide access to community-based information and going beyond the resource guides that libraries have been creating and using.

I was in Philly last weekend and visited the Mutter Museum. Pretty interesting museum. What I also found interesting at the museum is Philly's local health information website maintained by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Philly Health Info.org is "a comprehensive directory of health services, events and information for Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties." I wonder if the Free Library of Philadelphia and other libraries in Philly participate in this. It is similar to NOAH - New York Online Access to Health since it also links to other resources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and MedlinePlus. It links to NOAH as well. What's different is that it also includes information on health services and events. I wonder how many people use their site, if people find it useful or find it all, can people find it without directly searching for it. I wonder the same thing about NOAH.