Recommended by Tom Linden
Page 52 of 147
April 14 Saturday – Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility presents (with some help from ibiblio)
- Bruce Schneier internationally renowned security technologist and author. Described by The Economist as a “security guru,” Schneier is best known as a refreshingly candid and lucid security critic and commentator. When people want to know how security really works, they turn to Schneier.
- Privacy Journal’s Robert Ellis Smithrecognized as the leading expert on the right to privacy in the U.S. He is an experienced journalist, a lawyer, an author of several essential books on privacy. Twice he has been asked to write the definition of privacy for the World Book Encyclopedia.
- Jim Harper of the CATO Institute a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. Recently, Harper wrote the book Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood. Harper is the editor of Privacilla.org, a Web-based think tank devoted exclusively to privacy, and he maintains online federal spending resource WashingtonWatch.com.
- Sen. Janet Cowell
More details at the date approaches.

The ibiblio site dedicated to the missing bomb, Broken Arrow, made by Cliff Nelson, Nick Harrison, Andrew Leung and Megan Butler in my class back in 2000 was just discovered by Fark.
See the discussion here. Over 12,000 reads and over 135 comments so far and climbing.

On a little walk I took around town of Wednesday, I noticed a couple of sign additions.
One welcome and even better when further updated was in front of one of Chapel Hill’s ugliest buildings, the former Wicked Burrito.
The other more disquietening was/is at the crosswalk at mid-Franklin Street.
I mentioned the Alien Invasion posting in an earlier article.
I’ve wondered for a long time why UNC coeds seem to be blonder as an average of the population as opposed to the perceived (by me) general North Carolina population. Now looking over Tea Birds, I notice that blondes dominate the pictures. Why?
By the way is it “blond” or “blonde”? Here’s what Wikipedia says, but do you agree?
And where are the Red-Heads!
I’m on the planning committee for DigCCurr2007, an international symposium on Digital Curation, April 18 – 20. Naturally I’ll be there and I’m looking forward to it.
But as I posted earlier, Duke, a nearby educational facility, will be running the HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface thingy billed as “an unprecedented three-day mashup of ideas, demos, art, and conversation, driven by digital visionaries and practitioners from across domains and disciplines” on April 19 – 21.
Yikes! At least Steve’s Theremin concert will come after the DigiCur reception. I might can get to that. Friday is the real problem though.
I had to miss out on Harry Halpin‘s talk at Duke recently. Not to worry; he sent a link to his slides. He’s into the Semantic Web, Microformats, Folksonomies vs taxonomies, and gives a great overview and discussion.
Harry being a web guy doesn’t use PPT; these slides are a lovely read right in your browser with no ugly download or proprietary reader required. There is one wonderful link to a YouTube video about Trust which relates to Harry’s work.
The talk is titled “The Next Generation of the Web” but there is more there there than in most talks of that name.
NOTE: Harry is an ibiblio contributor.
Among the interesting and inspiring people that I was able to spend time with over the past 36 hours were:
Henry Copeland of BlogAds.com who took time off to come and talk to my class about his experiences doing start-ups and the current state of advertising on blogs. (Thanks Henry. There’s no substitute for real world experience when it comes to entrepreneurship and you showed us a lot in a short time).
Cory Doctorow, who was generous with his time at UNC and at Duke — we did sell out of Overclocked — and with Red Hat Magazine — see articles below for more on Cory’s visit and see the ibiblio Speakers page for a video of his UNC talk soon. Cory’s Salon article “Steve Jobs iTunes Dance” is worth going through the obligatory commercial to read.
Bob Bradley, “Rock and Roll Poet,” who took time over coffee this morning to talk about his plans for a multistate multimedia project that I am proud to say that ibiblio will try our damnest to be a part of. Bob’s working out of Tennessee State University on this.
Steve Buttry of American Press Institute who stopped by the UNC J-School to talk about the Newspaper Next project with my brilliant colleagues: Richard Cole, Phil Meyer, Frank Fee, Morris Rosenberg and Louise Spieler. A wonderful conversation.
Nan Lin, whose work on Social Capital I’ve taught for several years now, was here at UNC to meet with the TRLN Fellows. I can’t believe that he’s been only 15 miles away, at Duke, and we’ve never met. A couple of hours with him is sure to have uplifted all of our ideas and conceptions of Social Capital and will I think move our Social Software researching groups in the School of Information and Library Science forward in a big way. Great colleagues there too. (Again I was on the run today and had to hog the first few minutes of questions and then run. Better questions were in the offing as Fred was talking as I ran out).
Cory Doctorow was here at UNC and at Duke yesterday speaking. Don’t worry if you missed the UNC talk; it’ll be online at the ibiblio speakers site early next week (Thanks, Joey).
Today we shot some video for Red Hat Magazine. One thing we didn’t talk about is: Who in the room is most closely related to E. L. Doctorow? Several folks have made the claim for Cory including his Wikipedia entry. I confess as you may have guessed; I am much more closely related to Uncle Edgar than Cory. E. L. “Uncle Edgar” Doctorow is married to my Grandmother’s sister. They met at Kenyon College. She from Hickory, NC and he from New York City.
Watch for the videos soon (I’ll post as soon as I learn they are available).
Those of you who attended the Fred Kilgour Fest will have noticed that Michael Tiemann is a voracious reader and that that reading informed his talk well.
I asked Michael if he had a reading list or references to the books mentioned in his talk. He’s responded with this link which I think many of us will find interesting and useful.
Another first for Chapel Hill and the state of North Carolina (via Duncan Murrell on OrangePolitics.org with links added by me):
“It is extremely interesting to know, for instance, that the phrase “Shit happens†was introduced to print by one Connie Eble, in a publication identified as “UNC–CH Slang†(presumably the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), in 1983.â€
Every poet aspires to write at least one poem that someone will remember and think good after a number of years. We usually don’t live to know whether we’ve accomplished that. But e-mail today gave me some hope and confirmation.
In 1980, I won or was finalist in The Cold Mountain Review Poetry Contest. As a result, I was invited to Boone, NC and to Appalachian State University for a dinner, a panel and a reading and later, as was the style of the period, late night drinking.
I met the editors, R. T. Smith (now at Washington and Lee University editing Shenandoah) and Charles Frazier (later known as the author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons). I was even more amazed that the home of the Department Head (I think) who hosted the late night party had central vacuum connections. Little portals that suck in each room. Much delight was obtained.
Now 27 years later the poem that took me up the mountain, “Feet,” [JPG of the poem] has been selected by 35th anniversary issue editor Joseph Bathanti to represent 1980.
Thanks, Joe and Rod and Charles.
A number of good friends are credited for their good works by Fiona Morgan in the current Independent. (The paper is online as I write this. I added the links to the articles at the page numbers).
Greg DeKoenigsberg and the One Laptop Per Child (Page 19)
Judy Hallman and RTPNet (page 23)
Jane Smith Patterson and e-NC Authority (Pages 20 – 21)
And Cory’s Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present is/are reviewed with a short notice about his talks here at UNC and at Duke TOMORROW!
(Page 34)
Old friend and former colleague, Rick Peterson, has just been named CTO of Washington and Lee University.
In my box this morning, a form from the Copyright Clearance Center. Supposedly, ibiblio has some money waiting for us based on use of material on our site. Errr we don’t have that kind of stuff. So shall I fill out the complex tax form that they sent me? Or possibly abandon the money if it were to exist?
Dan Lucas has Cory Doctorow posters made up and ready to print and post. Grab yours here and share with others.
At the “Legacy of Sharing Knowledge” celebration of the life of Fred Kilgour where OCLC CEO Jay Jordan is giving a biographical talk about Fred’s life. Very nice attention to the NYTimes obit for Fred which ended with a wonderful funny and illustrative bit about finding Fred’s book in WorldCat.
Jay ends with a quote from Longfellow‘s “Pslam of Life.”
Now a video of Fred speaking (late in life) about how he was inspired to work on sharing of catalogs between libraries and amongst book owners. He increased the number of available copies of “Gone with the Wind” by asking Harvard alums to contribute copies of that book.
Now an overview with testimonials. Appropriate since Fred was feisty and occasionally testy. Fred is now describing Google books and Amazon Search Within the Book without naming them directly as something to which he aspired. He wanted to deliver information directly to the readers based on their needs.
Joe Hewitt, former UNC Librarian, is giving a personal tribute to Fred.
Following Joe is Rebecca Vargas head of Special Librarians Association with her personal memories of Fred and of his birdwatching. Rufus Hummingbird was sighted on bird count day at Fred’s house. A rare sighting in the Eastern US. The Rufus is also described as feisty…
Gary Marchionini now speaks of his research discussions with Fred. “Fred didn’t talk to you but with you.” Fred as father of digital libraries.
Now Barbara Moran, who was Dean of the School of Information and Library Science, when Fred came to UNC. “Fred was splendid.” Fred always said he was splendid, himself. He quietly established emergency loan funds for SILS students at Schools across the country.
Next the current Dean, Jose-Marie Griffiths, is speaking about the Kilgour Faculty Development Fund and about her meetings with Fred including his talk about electronic information at the British Library.
Break then Michael Tiemann will speak.
“Sharing Knowledge, Multiplying Value” by Michael Tiemann. I’m not a very good slide blogger, but the talk is being recorded so you can watch it later. Michael makes many points and in particular ends by recommending The Generous Man: How Helping Others is the Sexiest Thing You Can Do
9:00 p.m [Thursday April 19] Reception in Nasher Museum Atrium. Music by Steve Burnett, thereminist. Exhibit pavilions will be open during the reception.
Now I have to check my calendar for those days! More on the lesser events here.
Don’t be Boston and start calling Homeland Security. But I saw these images pasted around town on little bits of plywood in several hard to reach places.
What are they?
Tuesday: Fred Kilgour Fest featuring a keynote by Michael Tiemann at 10:15
Thursday: Henry Copeland visiting my class at 11; Cory Doctorow at 2 at UNC; at 5 at Duke
Friday: Nan Lin at 3 at UNC

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