F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote - "How we stopped SOPA"

Aaron Swartz Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer and Internet hacktivist who was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS[3] and the Markdown publishing format,[4] the organization Creative Commons,[5] the website framework web.py[6] and the social news site, Reddit, in which he became a partner after its merger with his company, Infogami.[i] He committed suicide while under federal indictment for data-theft, a prosecution that was characterized by his family as being "the product of a criminal-justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach".[7] Swartz's work also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.[8][9] He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Life and works[edit] W3C[edit] Markdown[edit]

Prosecutor as bully | LESSIG Blog, v2 Aaron Swartz on information privilege. – info-mational The concept of information privilege situates information literacy in a sociocultural context of justice and access. Information as the media and messages that underlie individual and collective awareness and knowledge building; privilege as the advantages, opportunities, rights, and affordances granted by status and positionality via class, race, gender, culture, sexuality, occupation, institutional affiliation, and political perspective. In an extended period of relative disengagement with writing I have started and stopped and restarted this post so many times that it’s become a bit ridiculous, but based on the interest generated by discussions of information privilege in my teaching and speaking contexts it’s clearly time to finish. information privilege in practice Any type of information worker can examine this phenomenon and develop strategies to counter it. information privilege as pedagogy scaling the paywall “Why in the world does it cost so much?” “It doesn’t make sense!”

Full text of "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto" Guerilla Open Access Manifesto Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences?

processing the loss of Aaron Swartz The last 24 hours have been an emotional roller coaster. I woke up yesterday to find that a friend of mine – Aaron Swartz – had taken his life. My Twitter feed went into mourning – shock, sadness, anger, revenge. I spent the day talking with friends who were all in various states of disarray. For better or worse, I’ve known a lot of people over the years who have committed suicide. There’s no doubt in my mind that depression was a factor. I’ve known Aaron for nine years and I both adored him to pieces and found him frustrating as hell. What made me so overwhelmingly angry yesterday was the same thing that has been boiling in my gut for the last two years. Reasonable people can disagree about tactics and where and when a particular approach pushes too far. Yesterday, there was an outpouring of information about his case, including an amazing account from the defense’s expert witness. There is a lot of justifiable outrage out there.

The Life and Afterlife of Aaron Swartz Years before he hanged himself in his Crown Heights apartment, the hacker, writer, and activist Aaron Swartz used to debate with his then-girlfriend Quinn Norton whether the Internet would mourn him if he died. It was Swartz’s stubborn belief that no one would notice or care if he died young, as he often thought he was fated to do. Like many young men of great promise and fluctuating moods, Swartz was an unstable compound of self-effacement and self-regard—among the most empowered, well-connected young people in America, yet convinced that his very existence was a burden to others, even those who loved him. There is a category of young person able to do things like contribute to the building of the Internet in their teens, or sell their tech start-ups for millions of dollars when they are 19, or rally a million opponents to a major piece of legislation when they are in their twenties. By the time he was 17, Swartz had already secured a permanent legacy written in code.

Beyond the Collection Diversity Audit: Inclusion is More Than a Book, Why we should be auditing all of our library services for inclusion and best practices When I first began doing collection diversity audits, I had no idea that was what they were called. It was actually SLJ editor Kathy Ishizuka who gave me a name for what I was doing. I had Tweeted out pictures of me trying to figure out how inclusive my collection was and she said, “Oh, you’re doing a diversity audit”. And I thought, “Yes! That’s what I’m doing.” Doing diversity audits has radically changed how I approach and think about library services. Since doing that first collection diversity a few audit years ago, I have changed my approach in the ways that I do a lot of things, keeping an eye always towards analyzing myself for inclusive practices and challenging myself to step out of my personal default, which is a white cisgender Christian perspective. 1. I have not done storytimes for a really long time. 2. Although I am not currently in charge of doing any displays, at my last position I spent a lot of time analyzing and rewriting guidelines for how we approached displays.