Library Juice 2:12 - March 24, 1999
Contents: 1. Miningo.com collection on library access issues 2. Electronic Journal Collection at FIS, University of Toronto 3. H-HistBibl: Study & Practice of History Librarianship 4. Library Philosophy and Practice, vol. 1, no. 2 (Spring 1999) 5. International Superunion of Information Workers (Australia) 6. Nolo Press sues for the right to sell books in Texas 7. Call for Papers - Special Topic Issue of JASIS 8. LITA Scholarship deadlines April 1st 9. Spectrum Initiative applications due April 1st 10. Two Resources on Electronic Publishing and Copyright 11. Timeline: A History of Copyright in the U.S. 12. Excerpt from a debate about copyright on librarians[at]tao.ca 13. The Fourth Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair 14. Article on homeless people who use the internet in libraries 15. Civil War Women Quote for the week: "The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, [and] the right to read ... " Supreme Court, Grisold v. Connecticut, 1965 _____________________________________________________________________________ 1. Miningo.com collection on library access issues The librarians.miningco.com website (done by Tim Wojcik) is heavy with ads but otherwise done very well. This page is a compendium of links to documents covering library access issues. The URL is: http://librarians.miningco.com/msubaccs.htm _____________________________________________________________________________ 2. Electronic Journal Collection at FIS, University of Toronto http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/ejournals/ejfinal.htm As part of the Electronic Resources Project of the Faculty of Information Studies of the University of Toronto we have been building a collection of electronic journals in the area of library, archival and information sciences. As is fitting in this age, this is a virtual collection with some titles held at FIS and others at their home sites. Here is a list of the titles we have identified to date as being of interest to our faculty and students. (From the FIS website -ed.) _____________________________________________________________________________ 3. H-HistBibl: Study & Practice of History Librarianship http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~histbibl/ Affiliated with the Association for the Bibliography of History [ABH] and the History Section of the American Library Association, this new discussion list from H-Net is aimed at "librarians, archivists, curators, and scholars interested in the practice and study of bibliographic and library services in support of historical study and teaching." The H-HistBibl site offers subscription information and will include searchable discussion logs, discussion threads, and related links. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _____________________________________________________________________________ 4. Library Philosophy and Practice, vol. 1, no. 2 (Spring 1999) is now available at http://www.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/lp&p.htm This issue contains articles by Ellen Gilbert on diversity in collection development, John J. Doherty and Kathryn Kaya on teaching critical thinking while teaching information skills, and Joanne Twining on the use of diagrammatic reasoning and its relationship to information architecture. Still available at the same site is the Fall 1998 issue, which contains articles by Eugene E. Engeldinger on technology infrastructure and information literacy, Paul Metz on philosophy and practice in collection development, and Karen Summerhill incorporatng the values of the legal profession in research instruction for law students. Library Philosophy and Practice is a peer-reviewed electronic journal which will appear twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. Library Philosophy and Practice publishes articles that demonstrate the connection between library practice and the philosophy and theory which are behind it. Library Philosophy and Practice publishes reports of successful, innovative, or experimental library procedures, methods, or projects in all areas of librarianship, including both public and technical services. These reports are set in the context of applied research, with reference to current, past, and emerging theories of library practice. Contributions are now being accepted for vol. 2, no. 1 (Fall 1999) and vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring 2000) Editors: Mary K.Bolin, Head, Technical Services, Associate Professor mbolin[at]uidaho.edu Gail Z. Eckwright, Humanities Librarian, Associate Professor, gze[at]uidaho.edu University of Idaho Library, Moscow, ID 83844-2350 _____________________________________________________________________________ 5. International Superunion of Information Workers (Australia) An international superunion representing more than 15 million information workers worldwide won support from delegates at the FIET World Congress in Sydney this week. http://labor.net.au/workers/magazine/5/news3_merge.html >From Workers Online, weekly Online Newspaper dedicated to giving a voice to working people, no matter what their collar - blue, white or gold. With news, features, columns and letters about union issues, politics, culture, humour and sport, Workers Online will be a vibrant, provocative and independent new voice in the media for those with a progressive bent. Latest issue: http://labor.net.au/workers/magazine/latest/ _____________________________________________________________________________ 6. Nolo Press sues for the right to sell books in Texas March 17, 1999 Contact: Jennifer Spoerri For Immediate Release Fax: 510-704-2251/jennifer[at]nolo.com www.nolo.com Nolo Seeks Justice in Texas State Court Berkeley, CA-After nearly 30 years of publishing high-quality self-help law books and software without incident, Nolo Press has found it necessary to go to court to establish Nolo's right to publish-and its customers' right to obtain-plain English self-help law products. On March 17th, Nolo Press filed a Petition for Declaratory Judgment in the Travis County District Court (Austin) against the Texas Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee. Nolo is jointly filing this suit with two major library associations-the Texas Library Association and the American Association of Law Libraries-and six concerned individual Texans. In its lawsuit, Nolo expects to establish that: self-help books and software do not practice law because they do not have clients a ban on plain-English self-help law resources violates the Texas Constitution, and Texans are sufficiently competent to make the choice to use self-help law products without an undue risk of harm. In the words of Associate Publisher Steve Elias, "What is at stake here is the right of consumers to have access to information that they can understand when undertaking their own legal tasks or representing themselves in court. Take away the type of information that Nolo and other self-help law publishers provide, and self-help law itself will surely vanish from the State of Texas." And Pete Kennedy, of George & Donaldson, the Austin, Texas law firm representing Nolo Press, adds a particularly Texan viewpoint: "The UPLC's efforts to remove these useful publications from the stores and libraries in Texas runs contrary to this state's long and proud history of individuality, independence and self reliance." For more information on the lawsuit, the background leading up to it, and on Nolo Press and its products, visit our special Website at http://www.nolo.com/Texas. There you will find: FAQs on Nolo's Texas struggle Nolo's Petition for Declaratory Judgment Cases, articles and discussions about the legal issues A Chronology of Events with Links to Important Documents Links to examples of Nolo's self-help law products Information on who supports Nolo in this struggle, and why. Questions sent by e-mail to jennifer[at]nolo.com will be promptly answered. _____________________________________________________________________________ 7. Call for Papers - Special Topic Issue of JASIS Information Science at the Millennium The next Special Topics Issue of the _Journal of the Ameri- can Society for Information Science_ (JASIS) is scheduled to appear at the end of 2000 on the topic of Information Sci- ence at the Millennium. The guest editor for this special issue will be Terrence A. Brooks, Associate Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at The University of Washington. What are the forces shaping the science of information as we step into the 21st century? What information problems have information technology solved, and what problems have been introduced by information technology? How has information technology redefined familiar information objects such as documents, books and libraries? How has information tech- nology modified familiar acts such as reading and writing? What decisions and standards are we creating now that will influence information structures, sharing, storage and retrieval in the 21st century? There are numerous research issues facing Information Sci- ence at the Millennium. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following: * How has information technology redefined the docu- ment, the act of writing, the act of reading? * How does information technology make the private public? How does it defy corporate boundaries and span national frontiers? * How does information technology change publishing? The role of the scholarly journal? The tenure process? Teaching? * What happens when the computer, the television and the telephone meld into one machine? When the latest music can be downloaded? When the latest movie is on the Web? * What are the new economic models? Pricing struc- tures of electronic information? * What are the impacts on human society when infor- mation machines mediate sociability? * What information science research methods retain value in the 21st century and which should be discarded? What are our new objects of study? How have they changed? The guest editor seeks papers that discuss Information Sci- ence at the Millennium. Inquiries can be made to Terrence Brooks at tabrooks[at]u.washington.edu or by calling (206) 543-2646, fax at (206) 616-3152. Manuscript submissions (four copies of full articles) should be addressed to: Terrence A. Brooks School of Library and Information Science University of Washington Box 352930 Seattle, WA 98195-2930 The deadline for accepting manuscripts for consideration for publication in this special issue is March 1, 2000. A select panel of referees will review all manuscripts, and those accepted will be published in this special issue of _JASIS_. Original artwork and a signed copy of the copy- right transfer agreement will be required for all accepted papers. An electronic version of the final draft can be sub- mitted, and is encouraged. A copy of the call for papers will be available on the World Wide Web, as is further information about JASIS at http://www.asis.org/. _____________________________________________________________________________ 8. LITA Scholarship deadlines April 1st DEADLINE FAST APPROACHING! LITA/LSSI Minority Scholarship in Library and Information Science. For work toward a MLS degree in an ALA-accredited program with emphasis on library automation. Limited to a qualified member of a principal minority group. Donor: Online Computer Library Center, Inc., $2,500. LITA Deadline: April 1, 1999. LITA/OCLC Minority Scholarship in Library and Information Science For work toward a MLS degree in an ALA-accredited program with emphasis on library automation. Limited to a qualified member of a principal minority group. Donor: Online Computer Library Center, Inc., $2,500. LITA Deadline: April 1, 1999. For information and procedures for applying, contact the ALA Awards Office Member Programs & Services, 1-800-545-2433,x3247, or email awards[at]ala.org. For more information, see http://www.ala.org/work/awards/index.html. _____________________________________________________________________________ 9. Spectrum Initiative applications due April 1st Please remember that April 1 is the deadline for Spectrum applications for the class of 1999-2000. IF YOU KNOW IF ANYONE IS APPLYING, please check in with them to see how their application is coming along...AND IF IT IS COMPLETE. IF YOU ARE WRITING A REFERENCE LETTER - please get it in on time for the applicant. And please spread the word to your colleagues about how important it is to TAKE AN INTEREST IN THE APPLICANT process. Can you spread the word on your discussion lists? IF YOU ARE APPLYING yourself, please be sure and get your application in on time. For more information on the Spectrum Initiative, check out the article: "Can Librarians Play Basketball?: Participantscin ALA's Spectrum Initiative Embody the Diversity of the Profession", p. 58....in the March 1999 issue of American Libraries. Highlighted are scholars: Tracie Hall, Barbara-Helen Hill mentors: Ramiro Salazar, Marlore Brown, and Mohammed Aman Spectrum steering committee member: Khafre Abif as well as 2 of the Spectrum posters.... Thank you Christine Watkins (author) for putting a PERSONAL and HUMAN touch on Spectrum. Thank you. For more information: http://www.ala.org/spectrum Sandra Rios Balderrama Diversity Officer, Member Programs & Services American Library Association 50 East Huron St. Chicago, IL 60611 1-800-545-2433 x5020 1-312-2805020 fax: 1-312-280-3256 e-mail: sbalderr[at]ala.org _____________________________________________________________________________ 10. Two Resources on Electronic Publishing and Copyright Who Owns What Intellectual Property, Copyright, and the Next Millenium -- Journal of Electronic Publishing http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-03/glos0403.html "The New Age of the Book" -- <I>New York Review of Books </I> http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?19990318005F Anyone interested in scholarly electronic publishing will want to visit these sites. The first, the latest issue of the Journal of Electronic Publishing, examines the challenges and opportunities for intellectual property and copyright in the digital age. The featured articles examine topics such as the current state of electronic publishing, managing rights electronically, the future of scholarly publishing, libraries as publishers, and even open source software as a model for managing intellectual property. The second resource, a ten-page article by cultural historian Robert Darnton, explores the potential and pitfalls that arise from the electronic publication of scholarly monographs. Darnton discusses the prospects of electronic monographs in relation to issues such as recent changes in publishing in general and to university presses in particular, publishing and tenure, and the pricing of journals. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1999. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ _____________________________________________________________________________ 11. Timeline: A History of Copyright in the U.S. http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html Timeline: A History of Copyright in the U.S. - from the Association of Research Libraries. Outlined here are copyright milestones, especially those of interest in particular to libraries and information service providers. Summaries are included for major court cases and revisions to the U.S. Copyright Act. Included also are recent activities undertaken by the U.S. Commerce Department in its efforts to develop the National Information Infrastructure. This timeline is considered a work in progress and suggestions for additions are welcome. Send comments to Patricia Brennan (patricia[at]arl.org). Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC Web Design by Ann Doty Maintained by ARL Web Administrator Last Modified: April 30, 1998 _____________________________________________________________________________ 12. Excerpt from a debate about copyright on librarians[at]tao.ca >>Howard Besser >Chaz Bufe Howard Besser Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 22:10:59 -0800 (PST) From: Howard Besser <howard[at]SIMS.Berkeley.EDU> > From: Chaz Bufe <seesharp[at]earthlink.net> > Without copyright protection for authors, they haven't got a leg to > stand on if their works are misused or misappropriated. It ain't perfect, > but it's all we have. I may be naive, but I really can't think of anything that anyone I know might write that someone else would want to republish and make money off of. I can think of situations where someone might take something that I or a friend might write and recontextualize in a way that I didn't like. But I certainly wouldn't want to use copyright law to try to prevent that because of the horrible precedent that would set. (That precedent would be used against me when I took corporate advertisements and tried to satirize them, for example.) Personally, I see using copyright laws to protect one's work from recontextualization as having a parallel with free speech issues; if we support laws limiting free speech for Nazis, those laws are eventually going to be used on us. > If you really want to see exploitation of writers and musicians, > get rid of copyright laws and let the corporations use their works > without fear of retribution. That situation pertained in the 18th and > 19th centuries, and authors got screwed royally. It's easy enough for > those writing materials of little commercial value to declaim against > copyrights, but those of us writing commercially viable works need some > form of protection from the corporate sharks. If not copyright > protection, what do you suggest? Actually, it was the 19th century British publishers that really got screwed (and a new large set of American publishers emerged from this). First of all, it's hard for me to imagine writers and musicians being more exploited than they are today. A few rich big names are not exploited (and, incidently are the heaviest invokers of their copyrights), but most writers and musicians are highly exploited. And for many of these (for example Negativland), copyright laws were the thing that really did them in. (Negativland did an album parodying U-2 and were sued by copyright violation in a case that was incredibly expensive and they ended up losing.) As I said before, copyright is a LEGAL remedy. Copyright cases end up in court, where the one with the deepest pockets almost always wins (even if they don't win legally, they can end up bankrupting the other party). I have no idea of what you do. What are you writing that you think has a high enough commercial value that someone will go to the trouble of republishing it and making money off of it? And if they did, don't you have other legal remedies than copyright law to go after them (like false attribution, false advertising, etc.)? > > Few copyrights even belong to individual authors. Most authors are forced > > to sign over their rights to a publisher in order to be published. > Source? I doubt this. All of the authors that I (dba See Sharp Press) > publish retain the copyright to their works. Look at APA (American Publishing Association) statistics. Most APA book publishers as well as journal publishers require all but their best-selling authors (who can write their own ticket) to relinquish copyright to them. Most newspaper publishers have the same requirements (see NY Times freelancer and Nat'l Writers Union president Jonathan Tasini's "They Get Cake, We Eat Crumbs"). Most academic publishers (of both journals and books) have the same requirements. But the academic publishers tend to be a little nicer about it; they require authors to cede copyright to them but sometimes grant back to the author a one-time right to republish a journal article as a book chapter (accompanied by a statement thanking the journal publisher for granting that right). > > I've > > spent a good part of my adult life making a living off of my writings, and > > I've had frequent run-ins with publishers over the rights to my own > > writings. I've even had publishers threaten to sue me unless I paid them > > for showing my students copies of articles I had written in their > > publication! > Yes, such abuses occur. The remedy for that is for authors to do a > better job of negotiating with commercial publishers, or to publish > their works > themselves. No one places a gun to authors' heads and forces them to > accept such odious provisions. I agree that authors need to be more aggressive in refusing to knuckle under. But commercial publishers will almost never back down. In my experience, a few academic publishers will, but only occasionally, and only with very forceful authors (usually ones that the publiser needs more than they need the publisher). And for authors who want wide distribution, small publishers have a hard time making it into visible places in bookstores (particularly as big chains squeeze out the independent bookstores, but that's another sotry). > > I think it's contradictory and shameful for professed anarchists to > > champion copyright. > If you want to get personal, I'll comment that it's even more "shameful" > for "professed anarchists" to accept salaries from the state. The point > here is that we live in a capitalist economy, and if you want to make a > living from writing or being a librarian, you have little choice but to > operate within the limits imposed by that economy--which means, in > the case of librarians, taking salaries from those who operate the > libraries, and in the case of writers, protecting one's works. I wasn't trying to get personal. I have no idea whether you consider yourself an anarchist. You're not a part of the Anarchist Librarians list. As to your point about accepting salaries from the state, I really can't see how that's any different than accepting salaries from a corporation or other commercial source. Wage labor is wage labor, wherever it comes from. (I won't delve into self-managed wage labor because i think it'll take us way off-track.) But what I still don't understand here is the link that you keep making between earning wage labor and the need for copyright for authors. A librarian is paid for the hours worked. An author may be paid piece-work or on commissions (based on how many sold). The only place I can see that copyright might kick in is if someone turns around and republishes what you wrote, and makes money on that that would have gone to your publisher. As I said before, this seems a highly unlikely scenario, and one for which other legal remedies (if one's into that) seem to exist. And to support the brutal and oppressive copyright system that is used to inhibit free speech and social commentary -- just because someone might possibly republish your works and make a few bucks that should go to your publisher -- that seems like a really bad trade-off to me. > > The recent strengthening of intellectual property > > laws are a very conscious attempt to shift information from its > > traditional role as a public benefit, and solidify information as a > > marketable commodity. This general societal trend is part of why > > social > > institutions that foster knowledge (but do not directly generate > > revenue > > streams) are in crisis. The process of commodification of information > > is closely related to why our libraries are facing massive cut-backs > > in an era of supposed economic prosperity. > Fine, Howard. I propose that you back up your words with action and > return your salary to the institution you're getting it from. That would > be at least a symbolic act against the "commodification of information." Again, I really don't understand what you mean (aside from being snide). I earn wage labor. How would returning it be an act against commodification of information? _____________________________________________________________________________ 13. The Fourth Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair The Book Fair is happening again in 1999! The Fourth Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair will take place on Saturday, March 27, 1999, 10am - 6pm, at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park by Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way. Admission is free. Artists and Speakers include: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (now poet laureate of SF) Harry Britt (gay ex-supervisor) Ed Mead (member George Jackson Brigade, just release after 20 years in jail) Eli Rosenblatt (California Prison Focus) Stephen Dunnifer (Pirate Radio) Approximately 60 anarchist groups and alternative book, magazine, and publishing people will be represented at tables selling and distributing materials and examples of their work. the plans for this event also include a cafe and bar, spoken word, and gallery. For more info: Bound Together Books 1369 Haight Street San Francisco, CA 94117 web: http://www.infoshop.org/bookfair.html _____________________________________________________________________________ 14. Article on homeless people who use the internet in libraries FWD St. Louis Post-Dispatch - February 24, 1999 Cyberspace and Technology Beat HOMELESS PEOPLE HOMESTEAD IN CYBERSPACE By Margie Wylie Newhouse News Service SAN FRANCISCO -- Okra P. Dingle checks his e-mail most everyday. Like hustling spare change, hopping freight trains or scoping out a dry sleeping spot, the Internet has become a regular part of his hobo lifestyle. Today, the 33 year-old Dingle -- he made up the name -- is hunched over a computer keyboard in the airy atrium of San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar main library. He wears roughly patched yellow overalls and sturdy work boots. His army green backpack, festooned with Boy Scout patches, beer logos, and duct tape, rests nearby. The sides of his head are shaved smooth, leaving a patch of orange-ish hair that tails off into a short braid that points up and down as he glances from keyboard to screen. Plumbing-supply bracelets ting on his heavily tattoed forearms as he pecks out e-mail messages. One is a poem for his 16-year-old stepdaughter. Another goes to friends inviting them to meet him in New Orleans. They're all homeless, too. ``I do this in every city,'' Dingle smiles, the silver ball of a tongue piercing clicking lightly against his teeth, giving him a faint lisp. ``It's really catching on. You go to a library, and I'd say about 30 percent of people using the Net are homeless.'' 'Dingle is one of a contingent of homeless people homesteading cyberspace, thanks mostly to free public libraries. For the most part, the homeless aren't looking to cyberspace to change their lives. Like other people, they're turning to the Net to make the lives they have a little easier to live. But their homesteading has created dilemmas for librarians, who are generally sympathetic and want to see their libraries open to all kinds of users. ``Ideally, anybody should have access to the library, but realistically, I've heard of guys coming in with cockroaches crawling out of their bags,'' said Cathy Camper, a librarian with the Minneapolis Public Library. ``One guy passed out in foyer and lay there face down for half an hour while we waited for the police and paramedics to come. We're just not trained for this. We're librarians.'' About 2 million Americans were homeless for some period last year, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (http://www.nlchp.org) in Washington. That includes everyone from politically committed anarchists, like Dingle, to runaway teens, families and, increasingly, the working poor. More than 20 percent of homeless people have jobs. A third are veterans, a quarter are drug or alcohol addicts, a quarter are mentally ill. Nobody knows exactly how many homeless people use the Net, but librarians say their ranks have grown noticeably in the last couple of years. ``As an interurban library we've always had people coming in here smelling bad or looking tattered,'' said Camper, the Minneapolis librarian. ``Our library has always been used in that way and the Internet is just an extension of that. My sense is what really changed things was Hotmail. When free services started popping up, that's when I noticed more people regularly coming in.'' Five years ago, Dingle, who puts his poems and stories about life on the road into his photocopied 'zines, gave up a small gardening business in Berkeley, Calif., and hit the road full time. For transients like Dingle, the Net offers a treasure trove of pointers and information on ``catching out,'' or hopping freight trains. Hobos who once communicated with scrawled symbols on train trestles now trade e-mail. Catching out has always been dangerous and illegal. A rash of thrill-seeking yuppie jumpers armed with cell phones, laptops and radio scanners brought down the wrath of freight train operators on all riders when they published their adventures on the Web in the early '90s. As a result, the most detailed train-hopping information is passed on the Net as it is on the road: person to person. And hoppers are careful who gets it. One guide tells riders where to catch freight trains after they are out of the yard, usually when they slow down and take on fresh crews. It used to be updated once a year, photocopied and handed around. Now it and others are circulated in e-mail, but not posted where just anybody can see it. ``The advice can be really specific,'' Dingle said. ``Like, `Find a welcome mat in the weeds on the north side of the yard; put your head on that mat and look at something hanging from a bush and from there, the bull (railroad policeman) can't see you.''' Dingle's circle also exchanges tips on which cities offer good welfare benefits, where to find friendly squats, hotspots to avoid, even where to find lightly guarded Internet terminals on college campuses. ``Yesterday I e-mailed a group of friends traveling around Spain,'' said Dingle. ``They probably don't know how to use a calculator, but they can get e-mail.'' Dingle's life may sound romantic, but day-to-day living can be stressful and boring for the typical homeless person, said Chance Martin, a volunteer with the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness http://www.sfo.com/.875coh). ``The Net is an important release from that. It's something where the user is in total control. It might be the one place where the person has a lot of options.'' For many, the Net has become a touchstone of normality, a constant in unpredictable lives. Taylor, a 25 year-old homeless woman, trundles a two-wheeled basket overflowing with all she owns into the San Francisco Library everyday. (Like many homeless Net users interviewed, Taylor wouldn't give a last name.) A former office manager, she checks the weather back home in Washington. ``Just to know what sort of day my father is having,'' she said. ``Is it raining? Is he out in a snow storm? It just helps me keep up.'' The Internet is also her only source of news. ``When you don't have a place of your own, it's hard to keep up with what's going on,'' she said. ``I try to come in here every day and check the news from, literally, around the world. It's great.'' Taylor was turned onto the Net by other homeless friends. Dingle got his first account when an old hobo he met on a freight train took him to the University of Albuquerque's library and set him up. Dingle returned the favor before he left Berkeley: ``I set up a HotMail account for these two tweaker (speed addict) kids and I filled a folder with information on train hopping,'' said Dingle. ``They'll do it for someone else, who'll turn on someone else. It's exponential.'' Homeless people take advantage of free services in ways their sponsors never considered. Jim, 60, a San Francisco man who has lived out of shelters for five years now, uses his free Yahoo e-mail account mostly as a virtual locker. He e-mails himself addresses, notes, anything he wants to keep but has no place to store. Likewise, Dingle keeps his address book in HotMail. And, when he recently lost a notebook with four months of poems and stories for his next 'zine, he was able to get most of it back because he had e-mailed his work to friends from the road. Jim is one of the 22 percent of homeless people who hold down jobs. He uses the Internet to find out more about the petitions he is paid to circulate. ``The first thing people ask is, `Who's backing this?''' said the 60-year-old former office equipment repairman. ``I try to find out at least that much before I go out.'' Many homeless people go online just to talk. Discussion groups and chat rooms let some escape, if only for a short time, the stares and wrinkled noses they face on the streets. Occasionally, the homeless will join in public discussions of homelessness, but for the most part, many go online to discuss politics, art, philosophy -- anything but homelessness. ``It's like that famous cartoon that says, `On the Net, nobody knows you're a dog,''' said Katherine Venturella, editor of ``Poor People and Library Services.'' ``Well, on the Internet, nobody knows you're homeless.'' Yet, for a great many, the Net is merely one more way to fill the hours between shelter beds. ``Some just chatter and chatter all day long. It's just a place to get out of the rain, something to do, like the movies and CD players downstairs,'' shrugs Thom, 47. The lanky laborer from Florida, said he uses e-mail mostly to keep in touch with his family back home. Shelters, food banks, and advocacy groups are all online, but the offerings are still slim, said Barbara Duffield, director of education for the National Coalition on Homelessness in Washington. She said she gets about six e-mails a week asking for help. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is developing a nationwide database on help for the homeless. Many communities have also started building databases. San Francisco's Public Library offers one such database, as do community networks, including one in Eugene, Ore. The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless (http://www.leveler.com) has automated its shelter bed registry and hopes to put it online soon, said Josh Dean, state coalition coordinator. Nonetheless, said, Dingle, ``I don't know anyone who's gotten off the streets using the Internet.'' Yet, in their own way, many homeless people are reaping some rewards just from being online. Take Don Paschal. Homeless in Santa Monica in the early '90s, Paschal was something of a pioneer. He communicated with city leaders through the Santa Monica People's Electronic Network (PEN), an early experiment in free Internet access. His comments spurred the city to start a program called Swashlock, for showers, washers, and lockers where the homeless could clean up and store their stuff while they look for jobs. Today, the 43-year-old is working two marketing jobs, one for an Internet startup. He lives in an apartment in Sherman Oaks, Calif., thanks in part to the contacts he made on PEN. Ironically, it was computerization that helped nudge Jim, the office machine repairman, onto the streets. ``I had no interest in computers,'' he said. ``If I'd known how much fun they were, I think might have stayed in my job.'' Now, at 60, he's contemplating finding part-time work with his recently acquired computer savvy. Not only does he log onto the Net at the library, but he's also taken several free (non-credit) computer courses at San Francisco City College. ``I'd like to work for a couple of years before I start drawing Social Security.'' Dingle is using online telephone directories to search for a mother he hasn't seen since she abandoned him some 25 years ago. And then there are less sublime uses. ``One guy prints out grainy black and white porno pictures and sells them to the other guys on the street,'' said Camper. Other homeless and formerly homeless people have learned to build their own Web pages for free using services such as Tripod (http://www.tripod.com) or Geocities http://(www.geocities.com). Theodore Latham, who has drifted in and out of homelessness himself built ``Tedricos,'' a Web page that covers every aspect of living on the street from panhandling to where to find shelter. ``Homeless People and the Internet'' offers homeless users an easy launching pad. ``That's the glorious thing about it, you don't have to be tech geek to build a Web site,'' said Paschal. ``It's a way to express yourself, of giving that person an opportunity to say, `Here I am.''' Some urban libraries have become virtual dumping grounds for homeless people who have nowhere to go during the day. They've struggled with the question of how to serve homeless patrons without short-changing others. ``The library is the crack that people have fallen into,'' said Camper, ``The upper echelon of society doesn't really have to use the library anymore so they just wash their hands of it.'' And that leaves Camper with situations like this: ``There was a runaway teen-age girl who was e-mailing people from the library and the police asked us to look for her. I don't remember what our answer was, but more and more we get stuck in the middle of the fight and you don't know who to side with.'' END FORWARD **In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.** HOMELESS PEOPLE'S NETWORK <http://aspin.asu.edu/hpn> 4,000+ POSTS by or via homeless & ex-homeless people Nothing About Us Without Us - Democratize Public Policy vegetarian, nonviolence, consensus -Food Not Bombs List fnb-l[at]tao.ca -distributing food in opposition to violence -archive: http://archive.foodnotbombs.ca -active cities: http://webcom.com/peace -send '(un)subscribe fnb-l' to majordomo[at]tao.ca _____________________________________________________________________________ 15. Civil War Women http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/cwdocs.html This site provides an extensive, annotated collection of "links to primary sources on the Internet that are directly related to women and the Civil War." It is organized into three categories: Diaries, Letters, Documents; Photographs and Prints, and General Civil War Pages. - ew Subjects: civil war | women - history Librarians' Index to the Internet http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/InternetIndex/ _____________________________________________________________________________` L I B R A R Y J U I C E | http://www.libr.org/Juice/ | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | publication edited by Rory Litwin. Original senders | are credited wherever possible; opinions are theirs. | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | mailto:Juice[at]libr.org
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Date: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 10:37 PM