DPLS News DPLS News contains articles about local, national,
and international data issues.
It is published twice a semester by the library staff.
Editor: Joanne Juhnke, Associate Special Librarian
Contributors:Lu Chou, Senior Special Librarian, Jay Dougherty, Library
Assistant, & Cindy Severt, Senior Special Librarian
No tenet of the library profession is perhaps more important than the idea of intellectual freedom. Through intellectual freedom, librarians are able to disseminate controversial information to the public. In the wake of September 11, however, the ideal of open dissemination of information is being repeatedly challenged by Federal agencies.
These challeges to open access have been brought upon by the Federal Government
in numerous ways. Joy Suh, a documents librarian at George Mason University,
was recently issued a letter by the Justice Department asking her to destroy
a CD-ROM that contained information on the nation’s water supply. Suh disposed
of the controversial CD-ROM. Other librarians have been faced with similar letters
from the Federal Government asking them to dispose of potentially dangerous
material regarding the infrastructure of the U.S.
There has also been radical restructuring of the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES. In the past, NCES offered a statutory guarantee of confidentiality to education records. Under the USA- PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act which was passed in October 2001, however, the Justice Department now has open access to NCES data. In the event the Justice Department wants access to student records, the NCES will have no grounds to argue against the injunction. To read a copy of the PATRIOT Act, go to http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20011025_hr3162_usa_patriot_bill.html.
The PATRIOT Act also allows the Federal Government to look at web sites frequented
by users. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s analysis of
the PATRIOT Act (Available at
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.html),
“The government may now spy on web surfing of innocent Americans, including
terms entered into search engines, by merely telling a judge anywhere in the
U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is ‘relevant’
to an ongoing criminal investigation. The person spied on does not have to be
the target of the investigation. This application must be granted and the government
is not obligated to report to the court or tell the person spied on what it
has done.”
Laws such as the PATRIOT Act will substantially affect the role of intellectual
freedom in the profession by curbing access to users and making controversial
information less available to the public. Hopefully, librarians will still be
able to provide relevant information to the public without constraint.
Please
join us in welcoming the newest member of the DPLS family, Lydia Rose Oakleaf,
born February 11, 2002 to proud parents Joanne Juhnke and Mike Oakleaf. After
a 12-week maternity leave Joanne will return to DPLS in May to resume her duties
providing reference, editing our Newsletter, and managing our web site.
As a baby name, “Lydia” appears to be part of a trend of old-fashioned
female names that have made a comeback in recent years. Those who watch
the Top Ten baby-name lists that appear in newspapers and magazines every year
may be interested to know that much more detailed baby-name numbers are available
from the Social Security Administration. Their website for baby names
can be found at
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/note139/note139.html.
In the first 8 months of 2001, based on a 1% sample of Social Security card
applications for newborns, the name Lydia was ranked 102 in popularity for female
names. This represents a leap up the charts, as Lydia was ranked 152 in
1998, 151 in 1999, and 150 in 2000 (100% sample).
By decade, Lydia has not enjoyed such popularity as a name since the first decade
of the century, when it was ranked 111 overall (5% sample). The Social Security
Administration baby-name rankings include each unique spelling as a unique name
(for example, Lidia is considered a separate name, and ranked 981 in the 1990s).
The data were not edited for coding errors. In earlier decades, female
applications were often mistakenly coded male, producing such odd results as
the name Mary ranking 462 among male names in the 1910s.
As profiled in the February 2002 DPLS newsletter, the Palestinian Central Bureau
of Statistics was raided on the night of December 5, 2001. During the week of
April 15, the Palestinian Ministry of Education was scoured by Israeli soldiers.
Other important facilities such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry
of Health were also ransacked by the Israeli Army. Hard drives from many of
these institutions were reported missing, as well as disks that contained important
information about the Palestinian Authority. International organizations that
have helped finance the Palestinian government, such as the World Bank, have
speculated that this is a direct attempt by Israel to create widespread chaos
in the P.A.’s infrastructure.
The New York Times reported on April 15 that, “The damage to the ministries is only a fraction of the destruction up and down the West Bank from the Israeli incursion. But in contrast to the physical damage, the loss of data could create long-term complications. At the Finance Ministry, officials said all payroll data for the Palestinian Authority seemed to be gone, so paying salaries, benefits and insurance to teachers, hospital workers, civil servants and police officers would pose a serious problem.” DPLS will continue to follow the tribulations of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics as well as the impact that loss of data will have on the Palestinians.
Internet
Corner 
2001 Data and Program Library Service, University of Wisconsin-Madison