Library Juice 2:24 - June 16, 1999


Contents:

1. PC Webopedia
2. Information Technology - Unintended Consequences
3. PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOREALISM
4. Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies
5. Technology and Culture (Journal)
6. Media, Culture and Technology (Journal)
7. _Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart_
8. LITA experts identify trends to watch
9. Fred Stoss's comment on use of internet in academic libraries
10. raging against the library machinery - an info worker's rant
11. Culture, Class, and Cyberspace - Resource Compilation
12. Join Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
13. Telephone History Website


Quotes for the week:

  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is
broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year.
Not all bits have equal value."

-Carl Sagan
  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

"Man is not a machine... Although man most certainly processes information,
he does not necessarily process it in he way computers do.  Computers and
men are not species of the same genus... However much intelligence
computers may attain, now or in the furture, theirs must always be
an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns."

-Joseph Weizenbaum:
  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

"If you aren't scared, you just don't understand."

- UUNet's internal catch-phrase, cited in:
"Editorial: NGN - A Fancy Feast of Networking Ideas"
Business Communications Review, Dec. 1998, p.6

UUNet was the first company to sell internet access commercially and
is a leading isp for corporations.  What they are scared of is the
speed of change in the internet business and the speed of its effect on
society, specifically the threat it might pose to their market dominance.
  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

"Creating new forms of enlightenment"

-Nortel Networks' internal slogan.  Nortel Networks makes telecommunications
and internet hardware for phone companies, paving the way for telephone
connections as spotty as your internet connection.
  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

"There is no escaping from ourselves.  The human dilemma is as it has
always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in
technological glory."

-Neil Postman, "Informing Ourselves to Death"
http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Criticisms/informing_ourselves_to_death.paper
____________________________________________________________________________

1. PC Webopedia
http://thetech.pcwebopedia.com/

Ever wonder what a Routing Switch is? How about CMOS or seek time? Look no
further than the PC Webopedia. Provided by The Tech Museum of Innovation,
this encyclopedia of computer terms contains over 4,000 entries. Users may
search by keyword or browse within 25 categories. Terms are briefly but
clearly explained, with links to related terms and, when possible, related
Websites. [MD]

>From the Internet Scout Report:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/
____________________________________________________________________________

2. Information Technology - Unintended Consequences

Terry Link's link page at MSU

http://www.lib.msu.edu/link/infotech.htm

____________________________________________________________________________

3. PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOREALISM

http://www.technorealism.org
(You can go to the site to "sign on" to the principles and learn
about the organization's conferences, etc.)

1. Technologies are not neutral. A great misconception of our time is
the idea that technologies are completely free of bias -- that because
they are inanimate artifacts, they don't promote certain kinds of
behaviors over others. In truth, technologies come loaded with both
intended and unintended social, political, and economic leanings.
Every tool provides its users with a particular manner of seeing the
world and specific ways of interacting with others. It is important
for each of us to consider the biases of various technologies and to
seek out those that reflect our values and aspirations.

2. The Internet is revolutionary, but not Utopian. The Net is an
extraordinary communications tool that provides a range of new
opportunities for people, communities, businesses, and government.
Yet as cyberspace becomes more populated, it increasingly resembles
society at large, in all its complexity. For every empowering or
enlightening aspect of the wired life, there will also be dimensions
that are malicious, perverse, or rather ordinary.

3. Government has an important role to play on the electronic
frontier. Contrary to some claims, cyberspace is not formally a place
or jurisdiction separate from Earth. While governments should respect
the rules and customs that have arisen in cyberspace, and should not
stifle this new world with inefficient regulation or censorship, it
is foolish to say that the public has no sovereignty over what an
errant citizen or fraudulent corporation does online. As the
representative of the people and the guardian of democratic values,
the state has the right and responsibility to help integrate
cyberspace and conventional society.

Technology standards and privacy issues, for example, are too
important to be entrusted to the marketplace alone. Competing
software firms have little interest in preserving the open standards
that are essential to a fully functioning interactive network.
Markets encourage innovation, but they do not necessarily insure the
public interest.

4. Information is not knowledge. All around us, information is moving
faster and becoming cheaper to acquire, and the benefits are manifest.
That said, the proliferation of data is also a serious challenge,
requiring new measures of human discipline and skepticism. We must
not confuse the thrill of acquiring or distributing information
quickly with the more daunting task of converting it into knowledge
and wisdom. Regardless of how advanced our computers become, we
should never use them as a substitute for our own basic cognitive
skills of awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.

5. Wiring the schools will not save them. The problems with America's
public schools -- disparate funding, social promotion, bloated class
size, crumbling infrastructure, lack of standards -- have almost
nothing to do with technology. Consequently, no amount of technology
will lead to the educational revolution prophesied by President
Clinton and others. The art of teaching cannot be replicated by
computers, the Net, or by "distance learning." These tools can, of
course, augment an already high-quality educational experience. But
to rely on them as any sort of panacea would be a costly mistake.

6. Information wants to be protected.  It's true that cyberspace and
other recent developments are challenging our copyright laws and
frameworks for protecting intellectual property. The answer, though,
is not to scrap existing statutes and principles. Instead, we must
update old laws and interpretations so that information receives
roughly the same protection it did in the context of old media. The
goal is the same: to give authors sufficient control over their work
so that they have an incentive to create, while maintaining the right
of the public to make fair use of that information. In neither context
does information want "to be free." Rather, it needs to be protected.

7. The public owns the airwaves; the public should benefit from their
use. The recent digital spectrum giveaway to broadcasters underscores
the corrupt and inefficient misuse of public resources in the arena
of technology. The citizenry should benefit and profit from the use
of public frequencies, and should retain a portion of the spectrum
for educational, cultural, and public access uses. We should demand
more for private use of public property.

8. Understanding technology should be an essential component of
global citizenship.  In a world driven by the flow of information,
the interfaces -- and the underlying code -- that make information
visible are becoming enormously powerful social forces. Understanding
their strengths and limitations, and even participating in the
creation of better tools, should be an important part of being an
involved citizen. These tools affect our lives as much as laws do,
and we should subject them to a similar democratic scrutiny.

____________________________________________________________________________


4. Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies


Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 00:11:56 -0500 (EST)
From: resource center for cyberculture studies <rccs[at]otal.umd.edu>
To: lishilde[at]ACSU.Buffalo.EDU
Subject: Cyberculture Studies


This is to announce the second anniversary of the Resource Center for
Cyberculture Studies, an online, not-for-profit organization devoted to
the study of issues surrounding the Internet. RCCS is located at:

                <http://otal.umd.edu/~rccs>

New additions include an extensive listing of academic conferences and
symposia; an updated archive of university courses devoted to the Net
and cyberculture; and one to two original, full length book reviews each
month.  Recently reviewed books include:

  * Stacy Horn, Cyberville: Clicks, Culture and the Creation
    of an Online Town;
  * Juan Luis Cebrian, La Red: Como Cambiaran Nuestras Vidas
    los Nuevos Medios de Comunicacion;
  * James J. O'Donnell, Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to
    Cyberspace; and
  * Llana Snyder, Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth.

Contact:

David Silver <rccs[at]otal.umd.edu>
Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies
American Studies, University of Maryland
____________________________________________________________________________

5. Technology and Culture (Journal)


Vance Bell wrote:
From: vbell[at]dept.english.upenn.edu (Vance Bell)
Subject: Technology and Culture
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 14:57:00 -0500 (EST)

Technology and Culture

http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/technology_and_culture/

ISSN 1097-3729

Technology and Culture is the foremost international vehicle
for the scholarship of professional historians of technology
and for the historical writing of scholars and professionals
in a variety of neighboring desciplines.  In addition to
essays, eash issue features extensive book reviews as well
as reviews of important new museum exhibitions. Published ny
Johns Hopkins University Press quarterly.

Contact:

Editor-in-Chief: John Staudenmaier
Email: john.stsj[at]bc.edu

[From NewJour-L]
____________________________________________________________________________

6. Media, Culture and Technology (Journal)


Vance Bell wrote:
From: vbell[at]dept.english.upenn.edu (Vance Bell)
Subject: Media, Culture, and Technology
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:04:38 -0400 (EDT)

Media, Culture and Technology

http://www.kk.kau.se/mct/start.html

M/C/T is a journal/e-zine concerned with Media, Culture and Technology.
M/C/T is a new journal for a new medium for a new millenium.

M/C/T encourages writing that challenges given assumptions about the
information society. We seek to analyse, critique, probe and raise
questions about the intersecting vectors of media, culture and technology.
We invite our readers to join in the conversation and write for M/C/T. We
encourage open hypertexts/ cybertexts.

We are interested in publishing short, medium and full length
articles, debates, reviews, multimedia, digital art, and just about
anything that concerns media, culture and technology. We will publish 3
issues during 1999. We hope to increase that number in 2000, but that
depends upon you!

This journal has it's home (and server) at the Department of Media
and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden. It is an initiative of the
Communication: Media and Information Technology research group. Our current
editorial board consists of, Robert Burnett, Managing Editor; Andreas
Kitzmann, Text Editor; Steve Gibson, Multimedia Editor; and Peter Bergting,
Art Editor.

      You can contact M/C/T in the following ways:

      By mail: M/C/T - Journal of Media, Culture and Technology
      Media and Communications
      Karlstad University
      S-65188 Sweden

      By e-mail:

      General Inquiries: Robert.Burnett[at]kau.se
      Article submissions: Andreas.Kitzmann[at]kau.se
      Multimedia submissions: Steve.Gibson[at]kau.se
      Art submissions or commentary on the web site: Peter.Bergting[at]kau.se

We would like to acknowledge our sister journal, M/C out of the Media and
Cultural Studies Centre, University of Queensland, Australia. We encourage
you to check out M/C.

http://english.uq.edu.au/mc/indexmain.html

[From NewJour-L]
____________________________________________________________________________

7. _Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart_


Date:    Mon, 26 Apr 1999 21:11:09 -0400
From:    librefed <librefed[at]kent.edu>
Subject: FWD: Information Ecologies
MIME-Version: 1.0

>===== Original Message From Dave Tyckoson <dave_tyckoson[at]csufresno.edu> =====
     I want to make all of you aware of a new book that should be of
interest.  The book is titled "Information Ecologies: Using Technology
with Heart"  was written by two scientists, Bonnie A. Nardi and
Vicki L. O'Day, and was published by MIT Press in 1999.  I wish that I
could tell you that I discovered it through an exhaustive search of
the literature on human-computer interaction, but in reality I just
found it on the approval plan truck.

     This book discusses a variety of "information ecologies", or
information environments in which we live and work.  Examples include
hospitals, schools, designers, and (of course) libraries.  The authors
spent time to observe how people working in these environments
actually used information, much as a biologist would observe an animal
in the wild.

     What they found is that librarians are a "Keystone Species"
within the information ecology.  Librarians play a key role not only
for themselves, but are also a link around which other "species"
(i.e., researchers) function.  If the librarians disappear, other
users of information will suffer.  They provide some excellent
examples (which I plan to use in my own work) on how librarians,
particularly reference librarians, operate and why those librarians
cannot be replaced by software.  The authors focus on how librarians
humanize technology for others while using it expertly themselves.

     I bring this up because as librarians our efforts are often
ignored or misunderstood by those outside our profession.  This work
is important because it is highly complimentary and is written by
researchers who have no vested interest in our field.  All in all, it
says a great deal about how we are (or at least how we should be)
viewed from outside.

Dave Tyckoson
Head of Reference
Henry Madden Library
CSU-Fresno
davety[at]csufresno.edu
____________________________________________________________________________


8. LITA experts identify trends to watch


FROM PUB_LIB listserv
----------
From: JackLSmith[at]aol.com[SMTP:JackLSmith[at]aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 9:14 PM

I came across this web page I thought would be of interest
- Jack Smith

http://www.lita.org/committee/toptech/trendsmw99.htm
Technology and library users:

LITA experts identify trends to watch

One of the top trends in technology for libraries is: you don't have
to pay attention to all the trends! Ten experts who are members of
the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division
of the American Library Association, met for discussion in
Philadelphia on January 31, 1999. They agreed that librarians have
permission to ignore the "trends of the week" breathlessly and
regularly announced in computer industry publicity.

To see more thoughts on the idea of predicting the technology future
please see Futurespeak: A Preface to Top Technology Trends in
Libraries, an essay by LITA's Telecommunications Electronic Reviews'
Editor, Tom Wilson.  The discussion group assembled by LITA included
Karen Coyle, Walt Crawford, Pat Earnest, Elizabeth Lane Lawley,
Clifford Lynch, Roy Tennant, Carol Tenopir, Joan Frye Williams, Tom
Wilson, and Milton Wolf. The experts stay informed about top trends
by reading technology related publications, attending computer
seminars/workshops, and networking with others in library and
computer related fields.

The LITA experts agree that the following trends are worth keeping an
eye on.

· TREND 1: Library users who are Web users, a growing group, expect
customization, interactivity, and customer support. Approaches that
are library-focused instead of user-focused will be increasingly
irrelevant. The University of Washington's MyGateway and North
Carolina State University's MyLibrary[at]NCState are examples of
customized portals.

· TREND 2: In dealing with electronic information resources, what
librarians bring to the table is evaluative guidance. Comprehensive
lists and catalogs aren't possible any more (if they ever were!), but
librarians can help the overloaded information user by selecting,
evaluating, and adapting features such as "people who liked this book
also liked*."

· TREND 3: It's time to put a human face on the virtual library.
What's the crucial factor in the success of the nonvirtual library?
The people who work there and serve the user! What do libraries
emphasize on their Web sites? Resources, collections, facts * with no
human guidance or presence! On many library Web sites, the user is
hard-pressed to identify the staff, whose names, if they're there,
are five levels down. The human factor is still important.

· TREND 4: Why reinvent the wheel? Co-opt existing technologies that
haven't been used in libraries, and take advantage of cooperative
efforts in information access. Libraries can afford less and less
wasteful inefficiency and duplication of effort. You can't catalog
the Web yourself; instead, tune in to OCLC's Project CORC or the
ISAAC Network. And those folks in the fast food industry with the
telephone headphones * why aren't we all using those in customer
support?

· TREND 5: The isolated scholar is out there, and she wants your
resources! That widespread distribution tool, the Web, is making
library resources available to more people than ever before and
blurring the lines between audiences. The farmer online from Two Egg,
Florida might be just as interested in your one-of-a-kind research
material as a graduate student is. Who are you going to serve on the
worldwide network and how?

· TREND 6: Authentication and rights management: who has the right to
use this, but not that, and how much will they be charged? And is that
document the real thing? The World Wide Web allows more access by more
people to more connected information than ever before in history, but
documents and identities are also more malleable than ever before.
Libraries are going to have an increasing interest in verifying that
you are who you say you are, you do have the right to access this
resource, and the resources you are receiving are authentic.

· TREND 7:Don't run aground on submerging technologies! Often just as
important to libraries as emerging technologies are submerging
technologies. For example, you need to be planning now to migrate
away from CD-ROM and toward the Web as a delivery mechanism for
index, abstract, and full text databases.

LITA president Barbra B. Higginbotham noted, "LITA is the preeminent
professional organization in this country for librarians working in
the fields of systems and information technology. Our members, and
the library field as a whole, look to LITA for guidance about both
their professional present and future. Our 1999 LITA National Forum
in Raleigh, North Carolina, to be held November 5-7, will include
programming that expands on many of the trends these LITA leaders
have identified, better equipping LITA members for the 21st century."

____________________________________________________________________________


9. Fred Stoss's comment on use of internet in academic libraries


Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 14:21:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Frederick W Stoss <fstoss[at]acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: "Dorothy M. Broderick" <dbroderick[at]erols.com>
cc: member-forum[at]ala1.ala.org
Subject: Re: More than information
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: member-forum[at]ala.org
Sender: owner-member-forum[at]ala.org

Dorothy,

You raise an excellent point. I imagine a day not in the too-distant
future when teaching and research faculty are going to get VERY concerned
that their students have lost all contact with the literatures of their
respective major (and minor) courses of studies.

The number of students who feeling "if it is not on the Internet it is
not worth examining" is alarming. I have known situations where a graduate
student refused use of health statistics in a CDC handbook and newsletter
because they could not be cut-and-pasted into a spread sheet or table text.
I know of students using online, bibliographic services that provide
full-text access and restricting their searches only to full-text articles
and the shortest ones.Trying to convince an undergraduate student that the
information they need is in a book much more readily than spending hours
scouring the 'Net for junk is a realty. I think it would be possible to
count on one hand the number of students using the print version of an
abstracting or indexing service for which we have an online equivalent.

Part of our jobs as librarians is trying to convince students that
everything they need is NOT on the Internet or the World Wide Web. Making
that presentation a lively discussion that stimulates students' interests
and desires to explore the literature of their disciplines is the greater
challenge. Working with faculty (to have them assign a project requiring
students to read a series of classic papers) can be fruitful.

The good old printed word is still a viable commodity! Pogo that lovable
cartoon character summed up the situation (when commenting from a fox hole
during a war in Viet Nam), "I think we have met the enemy and it is us!"

Fred Stoss
____________________________________________________________________________


10. raging against the library machinery - an info worker's rant

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:40:12 -0800
From: Chuck0 <chuck[at]tao.ca>
Organization: Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: librarians[at]tao.ca
Subject: No War but Information War: raging against the library machinery
Sender: owner-librarians[at]tao.ca
Precedence: bulk

Interesting rant from the KASPAHRASTER web site.
http://www.teleport.com/~jaheriot/kr.htm

Chuck0

=============
NO WAR BUT INFORMATION WAR

by P. Cloak

The library I work in is very modern -- it is the modern virtual
electronic library.  It is the tower of information babel in all
its banal stupid soul-destroying lack of splendour.

There are about a dozen computers used to search at least ten
dozen databases in the reference section where I work, and
dozens of different brands of database searching software.
September is the start of the Fall semester, and so there is
always a full house of brand new people hunched in their seats
peering at the screens, who have never used the particular search
language in front of them, ever before.  And, this is the telling
point, can't convert the knowledge they've gained from using
other databases to using this database.  They look at me,
embarrassed, baffled, "I used the computers at my last library,"
they protest, "but this one is different."

You said it, kids.  All of them are different.  Well, different
for you maybe, but all too repetitious for me.  Welcome to what
used to be reference service but what is now become the remedial
computer training lab from shit out of hell.  After eight hours
of this, having 'helped' about a hundred people, all you want to
do is get falling-down drunk.  After one week, you want to step
in front of a bus.

Not that I blame the students, fear not -- a good part of my
anger is on their behalf.  It's the proliferation of hundreds of
database search languages that's insane.  It is a full-time job
for library staff to keep on top of dozens of different search
languages, let alone expect the newbies to master two of them for
their first assignment.  Two is the bare minimum though - one for
a periodical index, and one for a library catalogue.  The
students, rightly, can't understand this.  Why isn't it all the
same they ask over and over.

Why indeed - why different search interfaces for SilverPlatter,
BRS, FirstSearch, Wilsondisc, Ovid, Dialog, BRS, Lexis/Nexis,
Carl Uncover and more, plus a half dozen individual things like
NTDB or HAPI cdroms and a half-dozen different idiosyncratic
online library catalogs, just to cover your local libraries?  And
we haven't even got to stuff like web searching, or gopher, or
all the other internet tools that may be necessary depending on
the research project.

All search languages are doing roughly the same thing.  But
unless you are familiar with database systems, you would never
know this to look at their infinite superficial variety.  When
the assholes who write a database search language get ready to
pick a truncation symbol, for example, they evidently first look
around very thoroughly to make absolutely certain it is unique in
the universe.  God forbid there would be any convention for
people to fall back on.

I shudder to think how much of my burned-out brain is devoted to
trivia like remembering truncation symbols! Asterisks, colons,
hache marks, dollar signs, plus signs, on and on and on.  Yet
this illustrates why the students are forever clamouring for my
help.  (and it is also why I understand too well why tech support
people want to scream at people to read the fucking screens!)

The brave new electronic library _barely_ works smoothly
when the students are smart and ready and have that
detail-oriented aptitude for mind-numbing clerical trivia that is
the central theme of the computer age.  But not all students have
that aptitude, and not all students at this school are even
100% literate, such is the blind lust for head-count in today's
money-hungry university.  And not all of the smart and literate
students came from well-endowed high schools or middle-class
homes that had computers.  I wish I had a dollar for every time a
student typed the letter 'f' and then the number '2' when I
pointed to the instruction on the screen to press F2; I could
retire last year.

Man, I tell ya, it is frightening sometimes.  Sometimes I raise
my head and look around and get the same final feeling I get when
driving on the freeway -- this is bad news today and it's headed
nowhere.  It's not just the Haves and Have-nots, the Cans and
Can'ts that worry me.  It's the mental pollution of all that
bogus detail and trivia, the way we must bring ourselves down to
the level of an obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive meticulous
little info-accountant.  I think we are all going to end up with
mechanical brains like robots.  Yes/no?
____________________________________________________________________________

11. Culture, Class, and Cyberspace - Resource Compilation

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 03:04:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Art McGee <amcgee[at]igc.org>
X-Sender: amcgee[at]igc
To: media-l[at]tao.ca
Subject: [10/14/1998]: Culture, Class, and Cyberspace
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: owner-media-l[at]tao.ca
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: media-l[at]tao.ca

[The date in the subject indicates the last time this list was updated]

Greetings,

I don't agree with all the conclusions, but listed below are some very
interesting and important resources, dealing with the intersection of
ethnicity, culture, class, poverty, computers, and cyberspace.

Even if you're busy, please be sure to at least browse them.

If you have a web page, and you agree that these links are important,
please do me a favor and add them to a section on your site. Thank you.

By the way, many of the links lead to original material, not the
summarized articles with similar titles that you may have read
in a newspaper or magazine.

---

[Ethnicity and Culture Section]

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being:
African American Critical Theory and Cyberculture
<http://www.kalital.com/Text/Writing/Whitenes.html>

Cultural Uses of New, Networked Internet Information and
Communication Technologies: Implications for US Latino Identities
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/jlillie/thesis.html>

Bridging the Digital Divide:
The Impact of Race on Computer Access and Internet Use
<http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/papers/race/science.html>

What it Means to be Black in Cyberspace
<http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/cz/identity/blakCMC.html>

Cyborg Diaspora:
Virtual Imagined Community
<http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~radhik/sanov.html>

Race In/For Cyberspace:
Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet
<http://acorn.grove.iup.edu/en/workdays/Nakamura.html>

American Emissaries to Africa:
>From John Barlow via James Bond to James Baldwin and Back
<http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive/1292.html>

What Color is the Net?
<http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/97/11/index2a.html>

WIRED 3.12: Idees Fortes - Race in Cyberspace?
<http://www.wired.com/wired/3.12/departments/berger.if.html>

Book Review: The African-American Resource Guide to the Internet
<http://www.otal.umd.edu/~rccs/books/battle.html>

Black Pioneers of the Internet
<http://www.delphi.com/blackpioneers/>

Forsaken Geographies:
Cyberspace and the New World 'Other'
<http://eng.hss.cmu.edu/internet/oguibe/>
<http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/madrid.htm>

On Digital 'Third Worlds':
An interview with Olu Oguibe
<http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/springer.htm>

The Virtual Barrio [at] The Other Frontier
(or the Chicano inerneta)
<http://www.telefonica.es/fat/egomez.html>

Cultural Survival Quarterly:
The Internet and Indigenous Communities
<http://www.cs.org/csq/csqinternet.html>

Nils Zurawskis' Ethnicity and Culture in Cyberspace Papers
<http://www.uni-muenster.de/Soziologie/Home/zurawski/papers.html>

Buying into the Computer Age:
A Look at Hispanic Families
<http://www.cgu.edu/inst/aw1-1.html>

[The next link is to some comments I made a few years ago]

AFROAM-L Archives - February 1995:
Race, Ethnicity, Culture, and Cyberspace
<http://www.afrinet.net/~hallh/afrotalk/afrofeb95/0796.html>

[Lastly, a link to a resource page that contains general and
gender-based papers on net sociology/identity]

The Media and Communication Studies Site
Resource Page for Gender, Ethnicity & Class: Social and Personal Identity
<http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/gender05.html>

---

[Class and Poverty Section]

Possible Roles for Electronic Community Networks and Participatory
Development Strategies in Access Programs for Poor Neighborhoods
<http://www.unc.edu/~jlillie/310.html>

High Technology and Low-Income Communities:
Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology
<http://web.mit.edu/sap/www/high-low/>

Losing Ground Bit by Bit:
Low-Income Communities in the Information Age
<http://www.benton.org/Library/Low-Income/>

Falling Through the Net II:
New Data on the Digital Divide
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/>

Impact of CTCnet Affiliates:
Findings from a National Survey of Users of Community Technology Centers
<http://www.ctcnet.org/impact98.htm>

Cybersociology Magazine:
Issue 3 - Digital Third Worlds
<http://members.aol.com/Cybersoc/issue3.html>

---

[Definitive Quote Section]

Lastly, in case you're wondering why I even bothered to put this list
together, one of my "white" colleagues said it better than I ever could:

"We're resisting the tired-but-still-commonly-accepted idea that the
virtual world provides a somehow "level" playing field, in which race,
gender, [and] culture(s) no longer matter. We think that such ideas are
based on the false notion that there's a normative white male middle-class
culture to which all folks can gain access, now that the barriers imposed
by the physical body have been miraculously removed. We want [to see]
essays, articles, and examples of work which show that the "politics of
identity" is alive and well on the internet, and that instead of regressing
to a sort of Eisenhowerian procession of the bland leading the bland, there
are people out there using electronic technology to emphasize and celebrate
and motivate and defend their own communities and cultural ideals."

"There's been a lot of talk (mostly by white men) about the "liberating"
potential of the internet and of virtual spaces.  What they usually mean
is a liberation *from* the body, to some kind of higher plane. But we're
interested in how folks whose bodies are usually threatened by the power
structure (nonwhite folks, women, poor people, queer folks) are using the
internet as a platform for making themselves more visible (a liberation
*of* the body), and how that connects to other contemporary activist
movements."

            Kali Tal
            Lecturer, University of Arizona

---

------------------------------------------------------------------
| Arthur McGee (Staff)                    <amcgee[at]igc.org>       |
| Institute for Global Communications     <http://www.igc.org/>  |
| Voice: +1-310-515-BYTE                  Fax: +1-415-561-6101   |
| PeaceNet  *  EcoNet  *  ConflictNet  *  WomensNet  *  LaborNet |
------------------------------------------------------------------
|      "Connecting the People Who Are Changing the World"        |
------------------------------------------------------------------

New Yorker Cartoon (Internet Savvy Dog):

"On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog."

Art McGee (Internet Ignorant Dog added to cartoon):

"What's wrong with being a dog?"
____________________________________________________________________________


12. Join Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

If you are not already a member of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility, we'd like to invite
you to join.
https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html

What do you get? You get a chance to become active in
one of the most dynamic organizations working for cyber
rights and the socially responsible use of computers.

AS A MEMBER OF CPSR, YOU HAVE ALMOST
UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITY TO GET INVOLVED AND
MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN.

Unlike many socially-conscious organizations, the work
of CPSR is not carried out by a centralized staff. In this
organization members take the active role. Our members
write articles, factsheets, web pages, journals and books;
speak at conferences and legislative meetings; speak to the
press; meet locally to socialize and put on events; and talk
to students about the need to consider the impact of
technology on their world.

"SOUNDS GOOD. HOW DO I GET STARTED?"

JOIN COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY!
https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html
******************************************************

PROGRAM AREAS
CPSR's areas of activity are developed by, and depend on,
the interests of members. Take a look at
http://www.cpsr.org/program/.

"HOW DO WE DO THINGS?"

WORKING GROUPS
Working Groups focus on specific program areas to
produce fact sheets, press releases, and other tools that
help members and others understand the issues.
Much of the Working Groups' activities take place over
email discussion lists. Check out
http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/workgrps.html.

EXPERTS
CPSR maintains a list of "experts" -- members who can
speak to the press or to the public on specific issues.
If there's an area of computing in which you are an
expert,let the office know.

CHAPTERS
CPSR has chapters throughout the United States
http://www.cpsr.org/chapters/chapters.html.
If you would like to form a new chapter, send a message
you would like sent to round-up local members to
cpsr[at]cpsr.org.

CPSR WWW PAGES
CPSR welcomes member volunteers to publish and
update our website.

CPSR NEWSLETTER
CPSR Newsletters are guest edited and written largely by
CPSR members. See
http://www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters

CPSR CONFERENCES
CPSR conferences are organized and led by CPSR
members.  The next conference will be in the San
Francisco Bay Area in early October '99.

CPSR COMMITTEES
Members can join committees that make
recommendations to the board.  The committees are:
 CPSR Annual Conference '99 Committees
 Organizational Development Committee
  (including membership and chapters)
 Program Committee (including working groups)
 Fundraising Committee
 Publications Committee
Committees usually conduct their work online.

THE CPSR BOARD
CPSR is currently accepting nominations from members
to the Board of Directors.  For more information see
http://www.cpsr.org/issues/elections99.htm


******************************************************
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, your
host of CPSR-ANNOUNCE, would like subscribers, who
are not current dues-paying members, to join CPSR to
support our work financially, get involved in the
organization, and become active computer professionals.
If you are unsure of your membership status, please write
to cpsr[at]cpsr.org.

TO JOIN:
Use the secure online form at
https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html
OR
Print and send the form below by postal mail to
CPSR, PO Box 717, Palo Alto, CA  94302 USA


CPSR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP FORM

Name  ___________________________________

Address __________________________________

City/State/Zip ______________________________

Work Phone _______________________________

Email ____________________________________

Company _________________________________

Type of Work ______________________________


CPSR CHAPTERS
o Acadiana   o Austin   o Berkeley   o Boston   o Chicago
o Denver-Boulder   o Georgia   o Los Angeles   o Madison
o Maine   o Michigan   o Milwaukee   o Minnesota
o New Haven   o Loyola/New Orleans   o New York
o Palo Alto   o Philadelphia   o Pittsburgh   o Portland
o San Diego   o Santa Cruz   o Seattle   o Washington, D.C.

INTERESTS
o The Internet    o Privacy & Civil Liberties
o Participatory Design/Workplace
o Working in the Industry
o Community Networks   o Women in Computing
o Weapons & Peace   o Intellectual Property
o Information Technology in Education
o Ethical Issues in Information Technology
o International Issues

CPSR MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES
o   $ 75 Regular Member (receive a CPSR gift)
o   $ 50 Basic Member
o   $ 200 Supporting Member (CPSR gift)
o   $ 1,000 Life Member (CPSR gift)
o   $ 20 Student/Low-income Member
o   $ 50 Library/Institutional
   *Add $15 for postage if living outside U.S.

Additional tax-deductible contribution:
o  $ 50      o  $  75     o $ 100      o  $ 250     o  $ 500


PAYMENT METHOD:   Check made out to CPSR       or

Visa/Mastercard # ___________________________________

Expiration Date: ________        Amount: $ _________

Return to:
       CPSR, P.O. Box 717, Palo Alto, CA   94302 USA

> --
Susan Evoy   *   Deputy Director
http://www.cpsr.org/
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
P.O. Box 717  *  Palo Alto  *  CA *  94302
Phone: (650) 322-3778    *   Fax: (650) 322-4748     *
Email: evoy[at]cpsr.org
Donations online:
https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/sec-membership-form.html

Melissa Riley
Librarian, San Francisco Public Library
(for identification purposes)

1721 Cedar Street
Berkeley CA  94703
510   524-2155
FAX  524-5938

____________________________________________________________________________


13. Telephone History Website

http://www.cybercom.com/~chuck/phones.html

____________________________________________________________________________


  L I B R A R Y   J U I C E

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|
| Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice
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