INFORMATION UPDATE "Offering Information Solutions" September, 2002 Number 36 A Monthly Publication of Shamel Information Services mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com ============================================================ Welcome to INFORMATION UPDATE, the free monthly newsletter for people who need to know. ------------------------------------------------------------ IN THIS ISSUE ------------------------------------------------------------ => Do It Yourself - September 11 => Did You Know - The Public's Right to Know (or Not) => Notes, News and Announcements => Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information ------------------------------------------------------------ DO IT YOURSELF - September 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ September Eleventh. Nine one one. Nine eleven. The date that needs no explanation. We can all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard about the planes crashing into the ground, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center buildings. The last thing we want is to relive those hours, but it is important that we record those events for retrieval and for our collective memory. Websites change daily, and without archives, this electronic ephemera could be gone forever. However, it is still possible to examine pages posted as a result of the events of September 11, including news sites and e-mail messages. A great place to begin a search is the Librarians Index to the Internet http://www.lii.org Besides links to information on Afghan Women, Islam, and Refugees, this site includes a link to Television Archives. The archives include video clips from around the world covering the story. Fascinating. The September 11 Archive at http://september11.archive.org/ was created through a collaboration between the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov, the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org and webArchivist.org http://www.webarchivist.org. The September 11 Archive can be searched or browsed. Sites are categorized by topics such as Press, School/Educational, Religious, Non-English, and Individual/Volunteer. The September 11 Digital Archive http://911digitalarchive.org/ uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11. Funded by a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and organized by the American Social History Project at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, the Digital Archive will contribute to the on-going effort by historians and archivists to record and preserve the record of 9/11 by: collecting first-hand accounts of the 9/11 attacks and the aftermath. The goal is to create a national memory of the attacks. The researchers and compilers are collecting stories, e-mails, images and voices with experi- ences and recollections of the events. Visit this site and considering taking time to "Tell your story." ------------------------------------------------------------ Did You Know? - The Public's Right to Know (or Not) ------------------------------------------------------------ Recent government decisions are making public information harder to get. Without offering opinion or commentary, here are the facts: The Department of Energy has decided to discontinue PubSCIENCE. http://pubsci.osti.gov PubSCIENCE is a searchable compendium of citations including abstracts of peer reviewed journal literature with a focus on the physical sciences. The President announced, early in his administration, that he would not obey the Presidential Records Act which requires the release of presidential papers after twelve years. The Attorney-General on October 12, 2001 authorized federal agencies to stall on Freedom of Information Act requests until a "full and deliberate consideration" of the security implications could be conducted, revers- ing the previous policy under which agencies were required to justify any refusals. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget told government agencies that they no longer needed to use the Government Printing Office and should make their own printing arrangements. This increases the likelihood that federal depository libraries will not receive copies of government documents which would otherwise be avail- able to the public. The Patriot Act allows federal agents to demand records of what library customers borrow and what bookstore customers buy. Not only that, but librarians and store clerks are not even allowed to tell anyone that this has happened. Thanks to Marylaine Block for compiling the above information. http://marylaine.com/exlibris For more information go to Electronic Frontier Foundation at http://www.eff.org; American Civil Liberties Union at http://www.aclu.org; American Library Association at http://www.ala.org For the text of the Patriot Act go to the House website and click on HR3162 "Uniting and Strengthen- ing America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot Act) Act of 2001" http://thomas.loc.gov/home/terrorleg.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ Notes, News, and Announcements ------------------------------------------------------------ Independent information professionals attending Online Information 2002 in London, December 3-5 will want to look for information about the breakfast sponsored by the Association of Independent Information Professionals on Tuesday, December 3. For more information, e-mail cshamel@shamelinfo.com The Internet Librarian conference will be held November 4-6 in Palm Springs, CA. http://www.infotoday.com/il2002 ============================================================= The Shamel Information Services web site at http://shamelinfo.com contains Information Update archives. Just click on "Newsletters" and check for any issues you might have missed. -------------------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE -------------------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions to INFORMATION UPDATE are free. You may subscribe or unsubscribe by sending a message to: mailto:InfoUpdate@shamelinfo.com with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Copyright 2002 Shamel Information Services Please feel free to forward this issue to colleagues, in its entirety. Other uses without permission may violate copyright. Online archives at http://shamelinfo.com/newsletter.htm =============================================================== Cynthia L. Shamel, editor Shamel Information Services Poway, California mailto:cshamel@shamelinfo.com Ms. Shamel is currently President-Elect of the Association of Independent Information Professionals http://www.aiip.org and a member of the Special Libraries Association. Telephone: 858-673-4673 Toll Free: 800-330-9939