Freedom of Information US government sends itself a takedown notice As you may know, works of the U.S. Government are not protected by copyright in the U.S. (17 USC §105), but we often discover copyrighted government publications that one would reasonably think would be in the public domain and, more recently, we see works that [...]

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Freedom of Information Debate Continues Over Enhanced, Interactive eBooks “Last week, The Guardian ran an article about the introduction of “next generation” ebooks at this year’s London Book Fair. Publisher Faber&Faber unveiled an updated, gaming-style edition of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, created with the help of The Story Mechanics, with enhancements like hand-created digital [...]

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Annual Joint Meeting of the San Francisco Bay Region and Silicon Valley chapters of SLA An Evening with Phoebe Ayers: Librarian, Author, and Notable Wikipedian Wednesday, May 22, 2013, 5:30 – 8:00 pm South Sea Seafood Village, Millbrae Phoebe Ayers is a science and engineering reference librarian at the University of California, Davis.  Since 2003 she has been an [...]

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Freedom of Information Wikileaks opens Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with large cache of 1970s US diplomatic and intel documents Wikileaks today announced the launch of the Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), a searchable database with the release of Special Project K: the Kissinger cables — ostensibly, PlusD will include other records in [...]

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SLA named San Francisco Chapter member Kendra Levine one of this year’s “Rising Stars.” An award presented to information professionals who show exceptional promise of leadership and contribution to their profession and to SLA. Kendra is research, outreach, and Web services librarian at the Institute of Transportation Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley. [...]

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Freedom of Information Bipartisan ECPA Reform Bill Introduced in;Technology – Keeping the Internet Open, Innovative and Free Washington — Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) today introduced a bill that would reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).  The Leahy-Lee bill would amend ECPA to require government officials to obtain a warrant [...]

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I’m happy to introduce the SF Bay Region Chapter’s first annual Conference Buddy Program! Are you going to the conference in San Diego as a first-timer or relative novice? If you’re feeling a bit new at all this, or would like to be introduced to other SLA members, sign up today! We’ll pair you with [...]

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Freedom of Information Sunshine Week in Review “As Emily recently shared, last week marked the ninth annual Sunshine Week, a time to reflect on the state of public access to government information and work together to make our government more transparent. In addition to the release of two new reports to which AALL contributed, we [...]

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Taxonomies: What are they and how are they useful with Marjorie M.K. Hlava, President and Chairmanof Access Innovations, Inc. An SLA-SF Professional Development Webinar By Lisa Ngo Margie Hlava makes the world better one search term at a time. If you’ve ever conducted a search online or tagged a photo in social media, you’ve likely [...]

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Freedom of Information Sunshine Week: In Celebration of Open Government “As President Barack Obama has stated, “Openness will strengthen our democracy, and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.” This week, we celebrate Sunshine Week — an appropriate time to discuss the importance of open government and freedom of information, and to take stock of how [...]

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