LISNews: Librarian Blog Since 1999

Where should our information literacy standards come from?
"The ACRL Information Literacy standards have often frustrated me. I struggle to find their usefulness to my day-to-day work, since the content of most of my information literacy sessions comes from conversations with the professor of the class, and are geared directly to student assignments. As such, use of the standards usually involves fitting what I’m already doing back into the structure of the standards. And because the standards are meant to apply to all disciplines, they suffer from being both too vague and too specific at the same time."

Are these the same for in person reference questions in a library?

According to a survey by About.com, people do it for one of three reasons. They want answers, they want to be educated or they want to be inspired.

Study revealed three distinct search types:
1. Answer Me (46% of all searches) – People in a “answer me” search want exactly what they ask for, and no more, delivered in a way that allows them to get to it as directly as possible.
2. Educate Me (26% of all searches) – People in an “educate me” search want 360 degrees of understanding, and multiple perspectives on critical topics. They will search until their goal is achieved – this may stretch over long periods of time and through related topics.
3. Inspire Me (28% of all searches) – The fun “browsy” type of search, where people are looking for surprises, have open minds and want to be led.

The Bits Blog online with The New York Times reports that programmer Aaron Swartz was indicted for allegedly stealing 4 million documents from MIT and JSTOR. According to documents posted to Scribd, the arrest warrant cites alleged violation of 18 USC 1343, 18 USC 1003(a)(4), 18 USC 1003(a)(2), 18 USC 1003(a)(5)(B), and 18 USC 2.

The Boston Globe summed up the charges stating:

Aaron Swartz, 24, was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. He faces up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Activist group Demand Progress, of which Swartz previously served as Executive Director, has a statement posted. Internet luminary Dave Winer also has a thought posted as to the indictment. Wired's report cites the current Executive Director of Demand Progress as likening the matter to checking too many books out of a library.

(h/t Evan Prodromou and Dave Winer)

(Update at 1641 Eastern: The Register has reporting here)
-- Read More

NPR's OnPoint Radio program today looks at Google and the way of words. They look at what 500 years of word usage tells us about our culture with the Google NGram Viewer. It airs live today, Wednesday December 22nd at 11:00 AM EST with an online stream and will be available later in the day as a podcast.