Location: Martin E. Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center

Contact Information: Amy Ballmer aballmer@gc.cuny.edu; 212-817-7059

The LACUNY Dialogues are an annual town hall style meeting where CUNY librarians gather to present on and discuss a timely issue relevant to academic libraries in general and CUNY libraries specifically. This program is meant to be a dialogue – there will be time for formal presentations as well as open discussion.

The 2012 LACUNY Dialogues will focus on the past, present, and future of library activism.

Librarians have long advocated for issues surrounding freedom of information, privacy, and information literacy. Is there still a need for such advocacy and activism? Where else are librarians focusing their political energies? Is it even appropriate for librarians to take public stances on political issues? Under what guise (has) does library advocacy and activism occur(red)? Historically, how have CUNY librarians advocated? What role do organizations like LACUNY play in the larger academic context?  Is the Open Access movement an activist cause? What about scholarly communications?

LACUNY Institute 2012

June 1, 2012 at the Graduate Center

The goal of the 2012 Institute is to explore the ways technology has transformed how users discover, access, and ultimately use information in academic libraries. Changes in library technology mean not only a re-imagining of traditional objects such as a book or a journal, but also involves configuring a library’s physical space and how that space can be best used to serve one’s user community. Finally, librarians are being challenged to find more effective ways to “organize, store and distribute information.”

Check back for updates and information regarding speakers and registration in the upcoming weeks.

http://lacunyinstitute.wordpress.com/

Dália Leonardo
LACUNY President 2011-12
212-817-7067
dleonardo@gc.cuny.edu

Hunter College New York,New York

 April 27, 2012

Keynote Speaker: Helen Nissenbaum, (Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU), author of Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life (Stanford Law, 2010)

Invited speaker: James Stacey Taylor (Philosophy, Religion, and Classical Studies, College of New Jersey), author of Stakes and Kidneys: Why Markets in Human Body Parts are a Moral Imperative (Ashgate, 2005).

In one sense information technology has been a boon for privacy. For instance, ATMs and online banking mean that we seldom have to present ourselves to a teller. Online shopping offers similar benefits. However, technology can also pose a serious threat to privacy, since so much of what we now do leaves an enduring digital record. This information can then be recombined to create detailed personal profiles that could not have emerged in pre-digital days. Moreover, this information can be distributed far, wide, and immediately without our consent or even knowledge.

Information ethics studies the value questions that arise from the creation, control, and access to information. The Information Ethics Roundtable is a yearly conference that brings together philosophers, information scientists, librarians, and social scientists to discuss ethical issues such as intellectual property, intellectual freedom, and censorship. This year’s conference will address conceptual, empirical, and ethical issues related to privacy and the connection between privacy and information technology. Questions addressed will include:

• Is privacy valuable?
• To what extent does privacy      benefit from technology?
• To what extent is privacy      threatened by technology?
• When is the sharing of others’      personal information appropriate or inappropriate?
• To what extent is privacy law      keeping up with changes in technology?
• Should people generally enjoy a      high degree of anonymity when in public?
• Does privacy have a future?

http://ier2012.wordpress.com/5-2/