j's scratchpad

The Boston Globe’s digital initiatives folks are speaking at MIT’s Center for Civic Media about, well, digital efforts at the Globe.

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MIT’s Center for Civic Media has a number of exciting upcoming events focusing on, well, civic media, citizen journalism, and other related topics. During this Thursday’s lunch, Jeff Moriarty will talk about digital initiatives at The Boston Globe. (RSVP for food at least 24 hours prior to the event via the form on the event page.) That evening, Rebecca MacKinnon discusses the worldwide struggle for Internet freedom. On Wednesday, February 15, ideas from the book The Information Diet are the topic.

I did not find information on the center’s site about webcast or remote participation options.

bunnie Huang, who got in a bit of a quagmire a few years back when hacking an Xbox while an MIT student, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (commonly known as the EFF) are coordinating a petition to the Library of Congress to attempt to change the part of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) that prevents device owners from modifying their devices in a way called “jailbreaking.” Many people want to be able to run whatever software they want on their devices or be able to creatively adapt them for purposes other than what the manufacturer intended. The DMCA makes some of these activities illegal. Some people liken it to being jailed for customizing, say, an email program. Information Week reports a DMCA alteration a few years ago addressing jailbreaking phones is up for renewal. bunnie plans to send the petition on Friday, February 10.

(Thanks for sharing, Alejandro!)

(Forgive me, but I appreciate the humor in Too Big to Know at Harvard.)

David Weinberger, an appreciator of librarians and information science and prolific author and thinker on related topics, will speak about his new book Too Big to Know on Tuesday, January 24, most likely somewhere at Harvard University. The Berkman Center’s page indicates the location will be announced the day before the talk to folks who RSVP (via that page).

Their summary of his talk:

We used to know how to know. Get some experts, maybe a methodology, add some criteria and credentials, publish the results, and you get knowledge we can all rely on. But as knowledge is absorbed by our new digital medium, it’s becoming clear that the fundamentals of knowledge are not properties of knowledge but of its old paper medium. Indeed, the basic strategies of knowledge that emerged in the West addressed a basic problem: skulls don’t scale. But the Net does. Now networked knowledge is taking on the properties of its new medium: never being settled, including disagreement within itself, and becoming not a set of stopping points but a web of temptations. Networked knowledge, for all its strengths, has its own set of problems. But, in knowledge’s new nature there is perhaps a hint about why the Net has such surprising transformative power.

Addendum 01/19/12: The location of this RSVP-required talk is Austin North Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School.

Addendum 1/24: “Unsettling Knowledge” is the title on David’s intro slide. I can’t wait to learn what’s unsettling about it! There’s a webcast link somewhere, probably on Berkman’s site. And David’s offering to sign anything we want him to after the talk. Well, ok, almost anything …

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The SLA New England Chapter* and SLA Pharmaceutical and Health Technologies Division are organizing a free brown bag lunch about, well, Text Mining, Query Formulation and the Role of Information Professionals on Tuesday, January 10, 12-1:30 p, at Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Suite 1100, 75 Kneeland St Boston MA. Register by Friday, January 6 and don’t forget to bring your lunch.

*The Special Libraries Association Boston Chapter voted to change its name to “SLA New England” during their December annual business meeting. The name “SLA New England” reflects the states where chapter members live and work better than the name “SLA Boston.” The Boston Chapter has been more than just the chapter for Boston for some time.

Addendum 1/24: This talk ended up being a product demo instead of being a general talk about developments concerning text mining, query formulation, and information professionals.

Berkman Center Fellow Alison J. Head’s thoughts about the information-seeking behavior of college students might interest some of you. RSVP-ing to attend in person is required via the form on the page about the event. These discussions are usually webcast and later archived.

Tuesday, January 10, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor

PS–Congrats, John Palfrey, former Berkman Center leader, on your new role at Phillips Academy Andover.

Addendum 01/19/12: The archive of this talk is available.

Wishing j and her family, the other Scratchpad contributors and the Scratchpad readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Posted by Rich

a particular librarian stereotype, of which BCJ reminds me. I personally prefer to think of this profession as the best of all possible worlds.

15 librarians, a driver named Lazaro, and a tour guide named Jesus. (No, really. Would I kid you about such an important trip … ?) I just need to condense one of the most amazing weeks of my life into a blog post. (Good thing I don’t use Twitter!)

The 2011 Boston Book Festival is being held on Saturday, October 15, 2011 around Boston’s Copley Square and it is free!

Michael Ondaatje, author of the English Patient and his new novel, The Cat’s Table, will be the keynote speaker.

One of the marquee panels will be on the Civil War with Adam Goodheart, author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Tony Horwitz, author of Midnight Rising, Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, and Charles Bracelen Flood, author of Grant’s Final Victory as the panelists.

For more info:

http://www.bostonbookfest.org/

Posted by Rich