NJSLA Blog

Zee Members, ZeeMap, Zee Widgets

The New Jersey SLA Chapter, as of April 17, has 287 members. You can see a graphical representation of our where our members are, in the ZeeMap on the right-side menu (sidebar) of this blog.

The map uses the official member roster from SLA. In your SLA profile, you can specify that your business address or home address be primary. (This is where you receive Information Outlook and other SLA and vendor mailings.)

Of our illustrious 287:

• 163 list their home address as primary.
• 124 list their business address as primary.

We hail from seven states. (Remember that a member's home and business addresses can be in different states, so the map reflects the primary address.)

• New Jersey: 261
• New York: 11
• Pennsylvania: 10
• California: 2
• Connecticut: 1
• Hawaii: 1
• Illinois: 1

I was thrilled to find ZeeMaps as a TypePad widget, because I've been hunting for a while to find a way to map our membership (no names, no exact addresses).

A widget is a mini-application that can be integrated into a Web site. When you see a YouTube video built into another site, it's using a widget. When you post photos to Flickr and then display them within your site, you're also using a widget. Facebook is full of widgets.

Wikipedia and Webopedia define Web widget (the type of widget we're talking about here), and BusinessWeek explains why you won't make any money off advertising using widgets. You can have a lot of fun with them, though.

-- Eric Schwarz - NJSLA president-elect

Who has time to read Information Outlook?

One of the benefits of SLA membership is the subscription to the association's monthly magazine Information Outlook.  That sounds good but, in reality, I am sure there are many of us who glance at the cover, perhaps flip through the pages and toss it into a pile of "things I will read when I retire."

I would urge you to take a few more minutes with your next issue when it arrives. The magazine has recently gone through a complete overall and focusses on practical tips, profiles of special librarians and information about new services and benefits of SLA membership.

Three interesting things I have learned from recent issues include:

• Google has a custom search engine that provides the ability to create a place where your users can focus exclusively on information relevant to them 1
• Some Info Centers have purchased flat screen televisions and put them in high traffic locations to increase awareness of their services 2
• In content licensing agreements, you should avoid setting yourself up to police unauthorized uses of licensed content.  It is far more practical to indicate that you will notify the licensor upong becoming aware of any unauthorized use 3

One of the hallmarks of our profession is not knowing everything but where to find out.  Reading Information Outlook will help you acheive that goal.

And don't forget to register soon for Steve Abram's talk on "Transforming Ourselves and Our Association" on May 5.  It is easier now than ever with a Paypal option on our web site.  Hope to see you there!

Barbara Burton

1 Metz, Edward, "Making the Most of Google's Toolkit", Information Outlook, Vol 12, No 1, January, 2008, pps 1-16

2 Guevera, Sophia, "Proactive Marketing:  Connecting with the Corporate Client", Information Outlook, Vol 12, No 2, February 2008, pps 20-22

3 Harris, Lesley Ellen,  "Striving for Consistency in Your Digital Content Licensing Policy", Information Outlook, Vol 12 No 4April 2008, pps 38-39

 

Freedom Of Infomation--The Great Firewall

This is my first blog post on Freedom of Information, and I’ve tried to pick a timely subject.  I scanned some topics  and came across on some stories on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) urging the Chinese authorities to open the internet during this summer’s Olympic games. 

Ever since China was chosen  to host the games, I’ve  been very interested in how they will play out in light of such issues as Tibet and severe air pollution, etc..  I’d thought of the general restrictions of China, but not specifically of restrictions on foreign journalists during the games.  The IOC says that China is obligated to temporarily lift these restrictions because of a “host city agreement”, and  exposure to media scrutiny is one of the  reasons the  the IOC awarded the Olympics to China. 

It is one thing to have frustration from information overload,  it is another to have it from  bumping up against systematic censorship.  In researching this topic I found that  China has become more open than it previously was and that individuals not searching sensitive issues may not notice internet restrictions (known as the Great Firewall); however it is still a controlled society, and internet restrictions are just one facet.

There are two  very good recent articles from the Atlantic “The Connection Has Been Reset” and “Penetrating the Great Firewall” which I used to gather much of the information here. 

China has internal sites, such as the search engine  Baidu, which removes   “sensitive” information beforehand from its contents,  but it also needs to provide access to outside sites like Google.  This is not only because of foreign businesses which operate there and are an important part of the Chinese economy, but also because it would be such an obvious restriction.   Some foreign sites are completely restricted.

Within the Great Firewall there is an apparatus known as the “Golden Shield” which is used to monitor and block information from external sites.  The idea is to make getting to some information such an annoyance that people will stop attempting to do so.   As the Atlantic Monthly article notes, there are four main ways of doing this:

1.    A DNS block , which blocks an ip address
2.    Resetting a connection trying to access a site on an IP “blacklist”
3.    A keyword block
4.    Scanning the contents of each page —if something offensive is found your connection is broken and your computer is given a time out.

Specific sites and pages can be restricted and explanations are not provided, so users are never really sure of what they can and can’t access.  However, there are two main ways around the Great Firewall, proxy servers and VPNs (virtual private networks), which  encrypt messages from the censorship system.  Foreign businesses in China depend on VPNs to operate and it would not be feasible for the Chinese government to eliminate them.  The same goes on a smaller scale for the proxy servers, which are much less expensive and can be used by individual citizens. 

Hopefully China is becoming more open and the summer Olympics will play some part in this process,  but from what I’ve read, there is a long long way to go.

Here are some additional articles of interest I found:

The Great Firewall: China’s Misguided and Futile—Attempt to Control What Happens Online—Wired, 10/07
Great Firewall of China Faces Online Rebels—NY Times 4/08
Stop blocking the internet, Olympics committee tells China—Times Online  4/08
IOC: Beijing must open Olympics during Olymics—USA Today 4/08

Arda Agulian