Who Knows What You’re Reading? Surveillance Technologies, Libraries and Privacy

As part of the Information Awareness Month, Dr Stuart Ferguson presented a very informative and thought provoking paper entitled “Who Knows What You’re Reading: surveillance technologies, libraries and privacy”.

The presentation centred on an examination of the privacy concerns of using RFID. While RFID is expected to provide many benefits, particularly in supply chain management, there are many legal, ethical and privacy issues that need to be acknowledged and addressed. In particular this can involve intruding on the privacy of citizens without their knowledge, monitoring customer behaviour and the reading of tags from a distance. In relation to libraries in the US, law enforcement agencies are increasingly able to access data held in libraries.

There are three key privacy principles to be noted

a) notice and consent

b) choice – de-activation, i.e. opt in, opt out

c) control – the right to have personal information kept separate from other data

Dr Fergsuon then went on to discuss the benefits of RFID to libraries as well as factors that needed to be considered if considering the implementation of RFID. An important point for libraries is the moral question – “what moral duties do libraries have in the protection of the privacy of patrons?”. Also the questions “What is the obligation of libraries to the user and to the state?” and “Do libraries need a code of ethics?”.

This paper raised a lot of issues which public libraries in particular need to be aware of when considering these surveillance technologies. At a time when RFID is being considered by many libraries, the full implications of its use, in terms of function as well as privacy, moral and legal rights, needs to be understood and addressed before any move towards implementation of this monitoring tool.

This paper will be a contributing paper as part of a series being presented at an International Ethics Conference next month.

Jan Bordoni

Library Manager
Treasury

Information Awareness Month May 2009.

Information Awareness Month commenced with a launch at the National Archives by Minister John Faulkner well attended by the diverse range of the Information Management professionals in the ACT. The Month is a collaboration between many organisations involved in Information Management including in the ACT: ALIA, AGLIN, RMAA, ACTKM, ASA and the National Archives. The theme for this year was “Diversity” and a wide range of presentations and events were held in the ACT over the month. The closing ACT IAM event was held at the National Portrait Gallery and included a presentation on information management in the new Defence Strategic Command headquarters.

The AGLIN/ALIA event for this month was a presentation at the National Library titled “Using SharePoint for Libraries”. Key speakers were Alison Jones from Meyer Vandenberg Lawyers and Kathy Stapleton from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Alison Jones commenced the session and presented quite a detailed overview of how SharePoint is being used by her law library. Her starting point was an examination of how alerts, or “announcements” as they are called in SharePoint, can be used to facilitate targeted announcements from the library to her users. This is seen as an alternative option to a traditional “Library News” service. In addition, her Library also provides a legal news service created from a compilation of news sources. Quite notably this service can transition any Library away from push technology to pull technology and aids in streamlining information.

Templates are also deployed by Alison to create a wiki and to use as a survey tool. The wiki enables the creation of shared content between the librarian and the users.

Alison has also ambitiously deployed SharePoint as a library catalogue. In this section Alison openly shared her successes and challenges with SharePoint and offered very useful insights into the challenges that searching SharePoint presented.

Most notable in the presentation was Alison’s willingness to impart her experiences, document her journey and share her learnings. It proved a very informative session and her notes should certainly be read by any librarian thinking of starting down the SharePoint path.

Following Alison was a presentation by Kathy Stapleton and the use of Sharepoint in her library. Kathy has only recently worked with SharePoint and her detailed explanation of the advantages and limitations of the systems functionality was very useful. Kathy used screen shots to demonstrate how she has deployed SharePoint. Like Alison, Kathy has used the announcements facility. The survey instrument has been used as the vehicle for client forms. Kathy also pointed out the usefulness of the alerts functionality and a range of options for its use.

Sharepoint also links to TRIM, the electronic document management system and can be used for many other functions such as provision of statistics, use of widgets to make applications such as the search box transportable (see the ppt graphic provided by Jan Bordoni to demonstrate this, apologies for the lack of clarity) and can embed its forms into systems such as an LMS. Kathy is also using SharePoint to manage her electronic documents accessed from the library’s catalogue.

Lastly Kathy suggested these tips:

• It is important to set up a style guide and user’s manual for consistency. It is important that this is done as you go and not retrospectively as there are different ways that functionalities can be deployed

• Look carefully at the functionality and think about what you want to achieve.

- work out what data is required then how to do it

- set user permissions for appropriate access and control.

- while branding is possible, there is a limitation in the use of colours

In addition to the key speakers, Jan Bordoni briefly demonstrated the ability of bringing the Library to the user workspace. As users, teams or groups can have their own space in SharePoint, information specific to them can be selected and exposed. This enables great flexibility in being able to customise information for that user, team or group and to ensure that other “noise” is filtered out. In a very significant way it can transition the future library model to something very different as the library moves away from being the central focus via a single gateway to gaining even greater exposure on the user, team or group SharePoint space and also highlights the increasing importance that provision of value-added services will become to the success of any library.

AGLIN and ALIA Active would like to thank both Alison and Kathy for the very generous volunteering of their time and experiences. Anyone also doing interesting work with SharePoint is also encouraged to share their experiences on the AGLIN discussion list. In addition, anyone interested in becoming involved in an open Libraries’ Innovation Group should contact Jan Bordoni at jan.bordoni@treasury.gov.au or call 02 6263 3182. If you would like to be involved in the 2010 Information Awareness Month committee or activities please contact Kym Holden at Kym.Holden@deewr.gov.au or call 02 6121 9133.

For further details of Alison Jones’ presentation and the Jan Bordoni’s graphic, see the AGLIN wiki at https://wiki.nla.gov.au/display/AGLIN2/Events+and+Training

Jan Bordoni
Library Manager
Treasury

Postgraduate library studies at University of Canberra

It seems like a few nights ago that I stood as a guest of ALIAActive at its Midwinter dinner, prattling on about the joys of moving to Canberra to take on development of the Librarianship specialisation in University of Canberra’s new online Master of Information Studies; now I’m marking the final assignments of Semester 1. The wonderful thing is I’m still having a great time – the students are essentially doing a fifth year (twelve months full-time equivalence) of tertiary studies and it has been marvellous to work with them.

There has also been the opportunity and support (which is important) to progress a couple of new research projects:

In the field of information ethics, I delivered a seminar during Information Awareness Month at the National Library organised by Jan Bordoni of AGLIN. The presentation, entitled “Who Knows What You’re Reading: Surveillance Technologies, Libraries and Privacy”, was a work-in-progress seminar, based on early findings into a study of the ethical implications of RFIDs in libraries. It is a collaborative project, involving work with Professor Forbes Gibb (University of Strathclyde), Dr Clare Thornley (University College, Dublin) and Professor John Weckert (Charles Sturt University and the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Professional Ethics, based here in Canberra). We’ll shortly be meeting as a group to present a panel discussion at an computer ethics conference in Corfu (http://cepe2009.ionio.gr/), which sadly will mean missing part of the lovely Canberra winter.

Another research project in its early stages is a study into the application of Knowledge Management guides such as the Australian Standard in Australian government and industry. The researchers are Sally Burford (University of Canberra) and I. Knowledge Management is a discipline in which the University of Canberra has a significant history, with its Master of Knowledge Management having commenced in 2002.

Sally Burford’s research is in the area of effective Web Information Architecture and how it is achieved in large organisations,

We offer PhD programs and a Master of Information Studies (Research) so please contact me if you are interested in researching in the Knowledge and/or Information fields of study.

I’ll be course convenor while Sally Burford is on sabbatical in Semester 2 2009 and will be preparing for an ALIA Course Recognition visit in December. Because University of Canberra has formally applied for course recognition, you will now see the course listed on ALIA’s website: http://www.alia.org.au/education/courses/librarianship.html

I’m sure you’ll agree that, after a few years absence, it’s great to see an ACT program listed up there among the country’s Postgraduate Courses!

Stuart Ferguson, University of Canberra

National Archives of Australia and Australian Bureau of Statistics Metadata Seminar 27 May 2009

Stephen Ellis (NAA), Michael Beahan (ABS), Senator Kate Lundy, Michele Berkhout (SEMA Group)

The National Archives of Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics co‑presented a program, “Sharing Data, Sharing Ideas” as part of Information Awareness Month on 27 May 2009. The aim of the forum was to bring together a diversity of metadata communities to share experiences, collaborate and look to the future.

Senator Lundy, a long-time advocate for metadata and the only parliamentarian to have uttered the word “metadata” in the chambers, opened the program with her perspectives on the digital revolution and the place of metadata in managing the information space. Senator Lundy sees that metadata can be a key enabler for:

• making information easily accessible to Australian citizens when and where they need it; and
• enabling the development of innovative and robust government policy and programs based on good, timely, open information.

Michele Berkhout, a data professional from the SEMA Group in Queensland, delivered the keynote address and put “sharing data, sharing ideas” into a global context for us all by “using metadata to interpret our world”. Attendees participated in a group exercise SMSing a word or phrase in response to a series of images which were compiled live into a kind of tag cloud at the end of the presentation – a new form of audience participation!

There followed a number of presentations on various Australian web portals, online information systems and web tools utilising metadata:

• Joanne Evans, a Research Fellow for the Smart Information Portal Project at Monash University, led a project to develop a consumer portal for breast cancer information, BCKOnline, (http://www.bcna.org.au). While the project was successful, the project team is still grappling with the most efficient means to produce quality metadata.
• Vanessa Scott (Information Victoria) is the Content Manager for Victoria Online (http://www.vic.gov.au), a government information portal for Victorian citizens. Vanessa creates all the metadata for Victoria Online and she described how the portal’s flexibility and degree of customisation can be exploited to respond to client needs and current events.
• Gary Anderson (Attorney-General’s Department) has been involved in the development of the Emergency Management Metadata Application Profile with XML Syntax (draft) using AGLS Metadata Standard Part 2 as part of the AusDIN (Australian Disaster Information Network) portal project (http://www.ausdin.gov.au).
• Mary Jane Stannus (ABC) gave us some interesting insights into the management of content using metadata on their websites and the development of “ABC Core” metadata for key entities produced by the ABC (http://www.abc.net.au).
• Barry Thomas spoke about the development of the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS, http://www.necs.gov.au) due to go live in 2011. In this case, metadata was used to solve the problem of data interoperability between parties who would not otherwise be inclined to collaborate.
• Ross Wilkinson explained how ANDS (Australian National Data Service, http://ands.org.au) is building a data commons for Australian researchers. Metadata will be used for data citation, to support data re-use, for data management, and for data collections to enable discovery.
• Ron Chernich, University of Queensland, is developing metadata tools for e-Research, leveraging IT to assist research data sharing and researcher collaboration (http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch).
• Peter Alexander from AGIMO told us why australia.gov.au (http://www.australia.gov.au) doesn’t use AGLS metadata for search: the quality of Australian Government metadata is, with a couple of exceptions, too low to be an effective resource discovery tool.

Some common themes emerging from the presentations were:

• Metadata is being utilised for resource discovery and information sharing

• In general, good quality metadata is not available for harvesting
• Manual metadata creation gives fine control and good quality, but the cost is too high
• Automated systems for metadata creation are not yet good enough
• Who bears the costs and where do the benefits accrue?

All of the presentations are available from the National Archives of Australia website: http://www.naa.gov.au/whats-on/outreach-and-advocacy/forums/metadata/.

Catherine Brady

HealthInsite Editorial Team

National Library Technicians Day 2009

L-R Julie-Anne Wolfe, Colleen Gammage, Roxanne Missingham, Trish Olsson , Nicola Cross

The ACT ALIA Libtech Group held their celebration for 'National Library Technicians Day 2009' at 'Functions' located at the Canberra Institute of Technology, with drinks and nibbles. Our guest speaker was Stephen Collins from 'Acidlabs' (http://www.acidlabs.org) who is well known for his work in the areas of Knowledge Management, Web 2.0 and Social Networking. Stephen's speech entitled 'Libraries and social media -

better together' was informative, educational and practical. Stephen spoke about ways of using Web 2.0 and Social networking effectively and encouraged Library Technicians to get out be proactive and promote Web 2.0 technologies in our workplaces. The function was attended by 30 Library Technicians including many current students. Roxanne Missingham our current Parliamentary Librarians and past ALIA president spoke a few words on ALIA's behalf.

Colleen Gammage

Convenor of the ALIA ACT Library Technicians Group

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA)

Electronic Resources Australia (ERA) is a national initiative that is working towards national licensing of electronic resources for Australian libraries. It is the first consortia operation that covers all libraries within Australia and offers all Australian libraries a collaborative purchasing opportunity to provide access to quality online information.
The 2009-2011 Product Panel was recently announced at ERA’s annual Members Forum on 25 March 2009 and the new product offering enables a much wider range of full text resources, including for the first time humanities and social science resources. The full list of products available to Australian libraries through ERA are listed below and you can take a look at the product offerings on the ERA website at http://era.nla.gov.au/product_list/. Free product trials are also available by direct arrangement with the participating vendors.
Libraries can opt-in at any time for either Australian financial or calendar year subscriptions through ERA. Subscriptions can be pro-rated so that you can opt in at any time during the year and your subscription end date will be synchronised to either a financial or calendar year cycle. Note that you can opt in at any stage during the year regardless of whether you completed the product poll - it's never too late to take up an ERA subscription!
By purchasing through ERA you:
· Benefit from prices negotiated for all Australian libraries;
· Benefit from conditions negotiated including remote access for your users, ability to use material for inter-library lending and virtual reference;
· Purchasing through ERA will result in greater discounts from suppliers in future years;
· Are able to participate in setting future directions for nationally negotiated purchasing.
You can even transition your existing subscriptions to ERA, allowing you to realise savings against current expenditure.
Product pricing is based on participation: the more libraries onboard, the better the prices for everyone. This is an opportunity for you to join with other Australian libraries in cross-sectoral collaboration to achieve economies of scale and savings. Key licence terms and conditions (including pricing) have been negotiated on behalf of libraries and are included in Head Deed contracts for each product. This means that libraries can subscribe to these products by quoting the relevant Head Deed in their purchase order arrangments with vendors and don't have to negotiate individually.
2009-2011 Product Panel
‘Australian News & Business Information’
ABI/INFORM Complete™ (ProQuest LLC)
Asian Business & Reference™ (ProQuest LLC)
Informit Business Collection (RMIT Publishing)
ProQuest® Australia & New Zealand Newsstand (ProQuest LLC)
‘General Reference’
Academic Research Library™ (ProQuest LLC)
Britannica Online (Encyclopædia Britannica Australia Pty Ltd) – various editions
eLibrary® Australasia (ProQuest LLC)
Macquarie Dictionary & Thesaurus Online (Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd)
MacquarieNet (Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd)
World Book Web (Forward Learning Pty Ltd) – various editions
‘Health Information’
Health & Medical Complete™ (ProQuest LLC)
Health & Wellness Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Health Reference Center Academic (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Speaking from Experience (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
‘Humanities & Social Sciences’
Australian Public Affairs Full Text (RMIT Publishing)
Bloom's Literary Reference Online (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Global Issues in Context (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Good Reading Magazine Online (Good Reading Magazine Pty Ltd
Informit Humanities & Social Sciences Collection (RMIT Publishing)
Literature Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
‘Science & Technology’
ProQuest Science Journals (ProQuest LLC)
Science Online (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Science Resource Center (Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd)
Today's Science (Warner Books Pty Ltd)
Libraries interested in keeping up-to-date on ERA developments can do this by subscribing to the ERA eNewsletter and the ERAlibraries- discussion list online at http://era.nla.gov.au/for_libraries/. Alternatively, for more information, including answers to frequently asked questions, visit the ERA website at http://era.nla.gov.au/, or telephone 1800 182 937 (toll free within Australia), or email era@nla.gov.au.

Regards

Roxanne Missingham
Chair
ERA

Peak Bodies Forum, 22 May 2009:

I was very fortunate to attend the forum which was a meeting of the key Australian library groups, kindly organised and hosted by the National Library of Australia. In attendance were representatives from National and State Libraries Australasia, Council of Australian University Librarians, Library and Information Studies Educators, Australian Library and Information Association, CSIRO, Australian School Library Association, Association of Parliamentary Libraries of Australasia (APLA), Australian Government Libraries Information Network, Health Libraries Australia, Public Libraries Australia, Australian Law Librarians Association and the National Library of Australia. The Agenda and presentations are available at http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/peakbod/PeakBodiesForum2009.html Minutes should be available shortly. A short summary follows:

NSLA Re—imagining project – presentation is online. Some key directions:
One Library
A consistent experience across our libraries
Improved delivery of content and resources
Ability to create, transform, use and share content

Transform our culture
The development of a new organisational design
Capability to deliver the Re-imagining Library Services vision
A culture of innovation and exploration

Accessible Content
Improved access to our content
Increased efficiencies through collaborative collection development
Increased amounts of digital content
Improved management of digital and physical content

NSLA Report - presentation is online. Covered initiatives including social inclusion and digital products and services.

CAIRSS: CAUL Australian Institutional Repository Support Service - presentation is online. It has been running for seven weeks now and is to offer support for Repository Managers in the higher education sector in Australia.

Effect of the global economic crisis on library resource budgets- presentation is online. Key points were that overall budgets are shrinking and prices are rising. ICOLC, on which CEIRC (CAUL) is represented, has proposed that:
Flexible pricing that offers customers real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be most successful.
It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licences to remain as intact as possible without major content or access reductions.

Impact of GEC is significant.
CAUL plan a Think Tank on the GEC in August 2009 with publisher and content providers.

ALIA
· suggested that we didn’t know all the library associations (including regional and subject groups). Discussion occurred on the level and areas of collaboration needed.
· Public libraries summit (focused on federal stakeholders) to be held in July

Education/LIS workforce Much discussion and different points of view. Maureen Henninger provided a paper. Too many courses? The right graduates? Agreed Peak bodies would meet with Educators at a future meeting.

Libraries Australia and its relationship with libraries in Australia – demonstrated beta of service from the NLA which integrates all resource discovery services. You can see it online at http://sbdsproto.nla.gov.au/

ANPLAN – newspaper digitisation report from the NLA. See http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/about and http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/

Workflow efficiency improvements: the GetWise Project – using technology for greater productivity including tracker to acquire original materials. See http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/gateways/issues/95/story05.html

New Standards for bibliographic description – RDA to undergo three months of testing at LC, then a 3 month analysis. If all goes well NLA would implement in 2010 – will be training.

IFLA 2010 – general progress report – dates are 14-18 August 2010.

Roxanne Misssingham
Parliamentary Librarian