Hello, just for fun!

The New York Public Library cetainly does rock!

This is an update on recent acquisitions-Jessica

HeLa and the local library

I immensely enjoyed this book. I also enjoyed Rebecca Skloot's lecture to a great extent. I do, however have more questions that were not addressed in this book. For  instance, what is up with the local library in the town where the Lacks's live? Do they have many other materials that can or could aid Deborah Lacks and her family in finding more information about HeLa and what it was, where it has been and what that means to the world? There was a few sentences about Rebecca being taken to the local library by Miss Courtney Speed. Skloot was lucky enough to speak with Miss Speed when she drove to Turners Station hoping to visit the family. Miss Speed took her to the library and checked out a book for Rebecca to watch at Speed's Beauty Parlor. Obviously, from this part of the text, the local library was holding at least one important record which is the tape of the show the BBC produced about Henrietta and her cells. Rebecca was made to sit down and watch it but does not really tell us what she learned from it.

Libraries become, in some ways and some places, the keepers of local history. How important is this? How could the library have helped the Lacks family more than they did. I realize that many of the issues were just recently discovered when Rebecca researched them and compiled them but there was information out there available to the family, wasn't there? I guess my whole point in writing about this, is to say how important it is for the local libraries in places like Turner Station to keep track and make their patrons aware of what goes on or went on in their communities.

Obviously I enjoyed other parts of the books as well. Really, the thing that I enjoyed the most was Rebeccas' truthfulness in telling the perceptions she had of meeting the family and friends of Henrietta. She really did need to be a part of this story, because she was. As she said at the book lecture, Deborah told her that there were issues which she had access to because she was white, not just despite it. Anything else that she needed to know, people who were not white told her. She has written a truly remarkable book and I have been bragging about it to everyone I encounter since I have read it. I was really blown away by this one!

Decontextualization, Information Values and the Older Generations

Museums, Management, Media and Memory: Lessons from the Enola Gay Exhibition
by: Elizabeth Yakel

This is quite an interesting read. One of the most important first questions posed here is:

"Who has the authority to interpret history to the public-indeed, who 'owns' history?"

We already know what the answer was in the time of the atomic bombing of Nagaski and Hiroshima; the government and other great lords of censorship. However a person feels about this part of our history, they cannot deny that things are very different now. Whether good or bad, the media should uncover and present all sides of an issue to the public. I believe it is safe to say that we all know that this is not always the case in real-life, but it is not a crime to dream of a more balanced and truly democratic country.  My belief is that if scholarship is presented honestly, it can only aid in the public's intellectual and emotional decision-making process. Unfortunately, in some cases, more fully researching our past is not considered to be patriotic. I believe that we all need to have a more fully fleshed-out discussion about our past, as a country; but this is because I am from a certain, younger generation. My Grandfather was almost old enough to have been on of the potentionally dead as the time that the atomic bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay, referring to President Truman as "MY President." This is a source of true pride for him and I would never wish to rob him of that pride. On the other hand, I also believe that teaching the future generations of young people in this country to ask the tough questions and research the OTHER side of the issue is necessary for building a better and more humanitarian country.
Mom and Me: A difference in Information Values
I have never gone to a dealership to purchase a new car but I did purchase a used car and it was probably one of the worst car experiences ever for me! Wayne Wiegand's article in American Libraries was relatable, sweet and heart-felt, showing how the issues of the field of Library and Information Studies can be applied to everday life. I understand totally what he is saying because when I worked in public libraries, I would rarely see or be asked to pull out Consumer Reports for products. Few people think to do that when looking for a car unless they have used that information resource before and it has worked. It would be the first thing a librarian would do, but it is not the best way to decide for everyone. Color of a car, how it feels, and how it makes you feel emotionally when you see it or drive it are all factors that cannot be described as well thought-out or proven in a scientific sense but they are still the deciding factor for most people anyway.
Science isn't always the deciding factor. Information recieved from television, radio and discussion with other people like us can be the most important information for us. He uses as personal story to illustrate why we, in the field of Library and Information Studies, need to be sure to include all different kinds of ways of getting information and why one, cutting-edge, technological way may not be the best way and should certainly not be the ONLY way,Cute!

Information, gender and the miscellaneous.

Information as Thing
by: Michael K. Buckland

According to this article in the Journal of the Amercian Society for Information Science from 1991, there are three uses of the word "information." The first use is active, it is information as a process and this information is in the process of changing someone's knowledge and is in itself also in the process of being changed by that person as they process it. What a person gains from the process of taking in this information is known as knowledge. Finally, information as thing refers to the physical object which contains the information which then leads to knowledge. Buckland refers to the fact that sometimes, when given information which becomes knowledge, a person may become more confused because what they thought they knew has been changed in a process of information. Buckland writes about the differences between the first two definitions, information as process and information as knowlege, which are intangible, untouchable notions and the tangible and increasingly real information as thing. Just as the JSC (joint steering committee) for AACR2 was charged with updating the meanings of work, expression, manifestation and item; work and expression being closer to what Buckland calls information as process or knowledge and manifestation and item being closer to information as thing. Here, manifestation and item are tangible items, whereas work and expression are more ideas and intangible. This is an incredibly complicated way of saying something that I believe to be very clear, concise and simply understandable.

Everything Is Miscellaneous
by David Weinberger

Well, I personally think the ideas represented in this book are marvelous. I am a huge fan of Google Earth and bits have saved us both time and space. No system is perfect and I certainly let my digital photographs get out of control like most people but the idea of the "third order of order" where bits replace atoms and there is now enough room for all, subjects can be searched indefinately and automated according leaves me both swooning. I am just so amazed at how fast all of this has taken over and how much it has made our lives richer and more complicated. Although we now have less time to devote to these bits, they don't take as much time out of our days so I figure the pros and cons sort of even out eventually.


The Power to Name: Representations in Library Catalogs
by Hope Olson

National Digital Library

This is an article that I found from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Enjoy,
Jessica

Access to Online Local Govt. Public Records: The Privacy Paradox

I really enjoyed this article. I agree with the author that local governments are doing a pretty good job protecting certain sensative information from falling into the wrong hands. In the case of Joe the Plummer. Yes, he was thrust into the spotlight without his concent, really, but why should he be able to hide his personal life from the media. I would not be ashamed of people knowing my past. I've never been arrested or anything but I am sure people could have some interesting things to say about me. I say to those people who want to know about me, "bring it." I am not ashamed of anything I've ever done or if I am, there is a reason behind it which can be explained. If celebrities, in our society can be outed so easily, why can't the average man? If Joe, the plummer needs to pay his taxes, then maybe he should do that instead of going to political rallies and speaking about the corruption of Govt. all while being a goddamn hippocrite. If poor Joe can be discredited, than maybe he should be. If Joe has issue, it should be taken up with those who thrust him into the spotlight unwittingly, the McCain people, not the media. The McCain people were the ones responsible for changing Joe's status to "political ploy." The media was just doing their job. I think that it is hippocritical of us, as citizens to expect for our government to be transparent, while at the same time preferring non-transparency for our own personal cases.

On the other hand, after reading a bit about the case of Rebecca Shaefer, I would like to state that I do feel that maybe certain items such as place of residency, SSN and other such personal information (certain authorship and instrumental mapping information other than NAME) should not be made so easily accessible to the general public although they may be available elsewhere. This private information should be redacted from public records no matter what the cost and persons should be aware of what they are disclosing when they state their place of residency online. For those parts of a persons record which need to be kept secret, like SSN, personal address or phone #, perhaps there could be some kind of password for the govt. employees who need to have access. A person would have to go through some sort of verification process to get to that information from the Govt. agency, even if they can easily obtain it elsewhere. In other words, I feel that if you are arrested for an impropriety, have a domestic record which needed to be handled by a govt. agency, such as a divorce or some sort of dispute over property of business, this information should be disclosed to whoever has access to it, either on paper or through the internet.
I think that one of the major issues that we are really speaking of here is that not all records should be public. There will have to be much more care when placing documents into a publicly accessible database that the public is blocked from retrieving such information and that those who leak this information are prosecuted. I do not believe that it is right to block or seal the entire record from public view although states like Wisconsin and Oklahoma have chosen to do this either altogether or on a case-by-case basis.
In those cases where a person needs to pay money and register to access a record, I feel that registration can be required but people should not have to pay because this limits the access to only people who CAN pay, which is wrong as was done in the State of Rhode Island. I don't believe that having to pay for access would limit data-mining anyway, since much more money can be made by mining the data on a site than it would take to access it. I do like those little boxes on webpages where you have to enter the numbers and letters to access a site. This does help with computer program bots who are set to data-mine but it will not stop humans doing the same thing.
The real issue here is whether or not Govt. laws concerning open-access to records that are financial and personal in nature should be treated with the same as open to anyone while personal non-govt. records remain mostly closed. I believe that they should be treated differently but I also think that one should be able to do research on an individual if needed but without having easy access to their ultra-personal information which could potentially reak havoc on their lives and reputations if gotten hold of by the wrong parties.
I must say that one of the reason why I think I feel so strongly about certain descriptive and criminal data being fully disclosed about individuals online is because of my background as an art historian. We would not know anything about certain artist like Frans Hals for instance if it were not for Dutch court records and the birth and death dates of his children or wife. This information needs to be kept accessable while also keeping certain information unaccessible except maybe by specific request on a case-by-case basis.

Body of Research and Informed Consent
I found the article "Informed Consent" to be very interesting. I have tended to let the whole stem cell debate pass me by. I used to live right next to a large corporation for stem cell research in K.C. called the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. One day I was walking to my apt. from my parked car on the street right outside of Stowers and was inundated by hand-scrawled signs of all sizes being held  by protestors of all ages protesting stem cell research as "murder";  I thought to myself, "oh, these are the people who make it necessary for my local Planned Parenthood to employ such stringent security practices. I also thought of the Fred Phelps people in Topeka being ridiculous and protesting a Tori Amos concert with signs which stated "god hates fags." In other words, I just felt that these people were whiney, uneducated troublemakers forcing their imposed morality on others and using their president, George W., to justify their outbursts.

After reading this article, I understand more fully the justification for reform in the areas where consent forms are needed. Although I may still disagree with the protestors, I do believe that people need to be better informed about what the donation of their cells could mean and the NAS guidelines seem a perfect pattern to follow when revising these forms, which obviously needs to be done. Now, I certainly wouldn't protest this outside Stowers but I do feel that writing an article in a respected journal is the perfect way to protest, which our author has most skillfully done.  Valuable research needs to be performed to find new cures for old diseases and I don't think that putting more restrictions on everything is the answer. I agree with the author that after we overhaul these forms of consent, there will be no reason to reconsider federal funding. Obviously, this article would not have been possible without the Freedom of Information Act enabling the author to recieve copies of the forms from the NIH.