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4 entries from August 2014

openIDEO...signed on - better late than never

We just signed on to openIDEO ... "a place where people design better, together for social good. It's an online platform for creative thinkers: the veteran designer and the new guy who just signed on, the critic and the MBA, the active participant and the curious lurker."

OpenIDEO PDF presThey have just offered their 'OpenIDEO Impact Book' – in PDF, a collection of stories featuring real-world impact that has emerged from 21 OpenIDEO challenges over the past three years. The book highlights just a few examples of individuals, teams and organisations who have been inspired to realise OpenIDEO ideas and bring positive change to their communities.

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Ferguson Library Refuge for Adults and Children

Libraries are relevant

Ferguson Oasis screenshot
screen shot:Ferguson Municipal Public Library

and important

and safe.

Libraries are where we go

for information

and hope.

This is what happened in Ferguson at the Municipal Library on August 20 2014:

 

 

The Ferguson Library has been an oasis of calm since the town's residents erupted in anger at the police after a Ferguson cop shot and killed an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, on Aug. 9.

It has used Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to offer residents a place of respite for them to get bottled water, check their emails, and avoid the unrest developing on Ferguson's streets.

We are here for all of our residents. If you want to come, get water, read, check email, we are here… http://t.co/56qhtfFoOz

As the Ferguson-Florissant School District postponed the start of the school year for more than a week, teachers set up shop at the Ferguson library, providing activities and instruction for children awaiting the start of class.

Today, about 120 children showed up to the library for lessons and activities, though staff only expected about 60. Teachers also began hosting classes in the nearby First Baptist Church."

source: ABC News Online, FERGUSON, Missouri, Aug 20, 2014, 3:17 PM ET, Colleen Curry and Micha Grimes

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Puppets. Goats. Gardens. Surviving. Libraries are relevant.

This beautifully paced TedxMildeHigh 2013 presentation by Pam Sandlian, Rangeview Library District director and the recipient of the 2010 Colorado Librarian of the Year Award presented by the Colorado Association of Libraries, is popular on YouTube, and timeless.

I want to include it in our space for the record.   

 

 

Pam Sandlian TedxMileHigh_2014 Aug-2
screen shot: Ms Sandlian

 

Idea UK
London, England rebrands their libraries as "the Idea Stores"

She presents her story so simply and well. Her point is clear and easy to grasp... libraries are important now, they always will be, to everyone for his or her own reasons and for democracy to flourish.

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there is no free anything ... ever

We aren't pleased that our warnings to our colleagues, friends and family are proving accurate.

The truth about 'free apps' for your Smart Phone has hit mainstream media and the news isn't pretty.

IPhone SamsungInformation is being harvested from mobile phones... information and money, out of bank accounts, all approved automatically because users are giving permission to access bank accounts and credit cards. We'd like to say that these people are victims and unsuspecting but more accurately one would have to say that they are willingly ignorant of warnings that have been common knowledge in a large chunk of web-time.

This willingness to guard our private information on our home computers whilst completely pretending that security isn't an issue on our mobile phones is inexplicable and perhaps lays somewhere in the area of cognitive dissidence.

Whatever the reasons, we have to sit up and take note. Our information is being mixed up with that of our places of business, compromising our and our employers' privacy, this information is a commodity. It is used legally (because we give them permission) by the app developers and of course, illegally by those people who will always be with us, stealing whatever and whenever, to make money at all costs.

This article - "As Facebook changes Messenger, 'risky' app behavior on the rise. A new report out says that the risks associated with mobile apps is continuing to rise, particularly for free apps on the iOS and Android platforms." by Jacob Axelrod, Staff Writer, The Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2014, succinctly describes further the ways people are finally waking up to this theft of and permission to use, our private data.

We are particularly interested in the reports that parents are finally paying attention to privacy now that charges are arriving on their credit card bills from 'purchases' made by their children when they downloaded apps. If only we could understand more about about privacy because it IS an issue and not just because it hits us in the bank account.

Here's one of the links in the CSM article that is worth a look if you haven't the time to read the whole article now.

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