Main Page/Crash Courses/Systems and Policies/Week one

Week 1: Introduction

• Recording from this week: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/683440034

• Real time lecture: March 1st, 8:30 - 10:30 Pacific/11:30 - 1:30 Eastern on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/9129428892
• Welcome everyone! We’re so thrilled to be starting the first LFP Crash Course on Systems and Policies. This week, we’ll be getting acquainted with the course, including curriculum, technology, goals, and each other.

Course overview

Syllabus and weekly layout

• Ten weeks, roughly five hours a week
• Weekly commitments: lecture, discussion, readings, tasks.
• Schedule overview
• Weekly meetings are typically one hour of lecture, one hour of discussion, so please be ready to participate each week! Sometimes the discussion will be in small breakout groups, and sometimes it'll be with the whole group. The first hour (lecture) will be recorded each week, but the second hour will not.
• Tasks are things for you to complete every week. Usually they'll be discussion board prompts, diving deeper into weekly topics that we've covered in readings and conversations. If you have to miss some, that is fine! They're meant to help you engage more deeply in this course, so you'll get back what you put in.
• Let Alison know if you need to be absent from one of the real-time lectures, or if you need to miss a whole week for any reason.
• Review and abide by the code of conduct.

Class technology

• Discourse messageboard: libraryfreedom.chat (register an account)
• Zoom video/audio chat/recordings (Zoom meeting ID 912-942-8892)
• Riseup mailing list: [need to add Crash Course mailing list here]
• Wiki: libraryfreedom.wiki (register an account)
• Vimeo archive of lectures: https://vimeo.com/libraryfreedominstitute

Please note that all class technology is publicly accessible! That means that the mailing list archives, messageboard, and wiki can all be viewed by anyone. I’ve set it up this way so that the materials we create can easily be shared, but also, I understand that sometimes we might want to talk amongst ourselves, so I’ve created a “private” category on the Discourse messageboard that’s only viewable to our group. You can use this category whenever you want to talk about something that you don’t want the whole world to see. Likewise, we are not recording the second hour of our weekly conversations, so that this can also be a more private space for discussion.

Outcomes for this cohort

• Gain a more holistic understanding of the data environment in libraries.
• Learn how to use threat modeling to determine how the loss of privacy impacts our communities, and to determine priorities when implementing better privacy practices.
• Learn the language of privacy, and use it to talk to talk to library stakeholders and craft effective, comprehensive policy.
• Understand some of the endemic vendor privacy issues and discuss opportunities for resistance and harm reduction.
• Understand privacy issues and best practices affecting public computer environments.

Optional final projects

Lots of LFP folks have found it valuable to work on a final project as part of their work in these cohorts. Sometimes folks have worked alone, sometimes in groups. These final projects are optional, but if you choose to work on one, Alison will be ready to work with you as much as you need in bringing it to life. Our graphic designer, Mike Finch, may also be able to help with the aesthetics of your project.

Some final projects that people have worked on in the past:

• A library privacy policy and/or example vendor agreement
• An analysis of vendor privacy issues
• A privacy class
• A privacy program that isn't a class
• A display about privacy
• A flyer or poster about a privacy concept
• A staff training
• Something focused on privacy work outside of the library walls, like a letter to a legislator
• A privacy audit plan for a library
• A comprehensive privacy plan for a library

Some examples of these projects can be found on the LFP website.

Readings

There will be readings most weeks; please come to the weekly conversation ready to discuss them!

This week, I'm sharing just a few foundational pieces on the early internet which give some background into the problems we face today. We will probably only be discussing them on the message board (libraryfreedom.chat) during week 2. In future weeks, we'll be discussing the readings during our real time discussion.

• The Surveillant Assemblage, Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson: this is a foundational piece in the realm of "surveillance studies" that can help ground our understanding of the problem.
• A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace A text written in 1996 by John Perry Barlow, which has been enormously influential in the cyber-libertarian ideology that has dominated the development of the internet, which critics say has led to many of the problems with Big Data that we face today.
• The Californian Ideology A critique of the cyber-libertarian ethos, written in 1995.
• Pandora's Vox Another view of the early internet (1994), and a warning about what it was to become, from Carmen Hermosillo aka humdog.
• Read through and familiarize yourself with libraryfreedom.wiki
• Read through libraryfreedom.org

Discussion board prompt

• What brings you to LFP? What are your personal goals for this course? https://libraryfreedom.chat/t/cc-3-intro-week/932

Tasks

• Create a libraryfreedom.chat account
• Post your discussion board response to libraryfreedom.chat