LFI 2024/Month 1

Month 1: Introduction

• Real time lecture: Friday May 17, 2-4PM Eastern / 11-1PM Pacific on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/9129428892

• Welcome everyone! We’re so thrilled to be starting Library Freedom Institute with such an excellent cohort! This month, we’ll be getting acquainted with the course, including curriculum, technology, goals, and each other.

Course overview

Course themes

• Surveillance capitalism: politics, ideology, and money behind technologies
• Privacy and intellectual freedom with a justice-based approach, not just a rights-based approach
• Privacy strategies and tools with a harm reduction lens
• Individual vs collective action

LFP background

• Tess intro
• Alison intro
• Brief LFP history
• How LFI came about
• What to expect

Syllabus and monthly layout

• Undergo intensive training (6 months, 1-2 hours/week)
• Monthly commitments: lecture, discussion, readings, tasks, small group work
• Monthly meetings are a mix of lecture and discussion, so please be ready to participate each month!
• Tasks and discussions are things you’re expected to complete every month. There aren’t other assignments except for the final projects you’ll present either alone or with your small group. We’ll check in halfway through about the status of those projects, and when that happens you can share drafts or just outlines or thoughts.
• Let Tess know if you need to be absent from one of the real-time lectures for any reason.
• Review code of conduct.

Class technology

• Discord channel for discussion (LFI participants will be given a link)
• Zoom video/audio chat/recordings (Zoom meeting ID 912-942-8892)
• Riseup mailing list: [email protected]
• Wiki: libraryfreedom.wiki (register an account)
• Vimeo archive of lectures: https://vimeo.com/libraryfreedominstitute

Please note that all class technology (with the exception of Discord) is publicly accessible! That means that the mailing list archives and wiki can all be viewed by others. We’ve set it up this way so that the materials we create can easily be shared.

Outcomes for this cohort

• Learn to use privacy software that can be installed on patron machines or library workstations.
• Teach your own train-the-trainer workshops to other librarians in your region.
• Approach members of your community regarding privacy concerns and teach privacy-related community workshops.
• Use your new role as a Privacy Advocate to influence policy and infrastructure.
• Encourage community engagement with privacy policy issues.
• Work with your small group to develop a privacy plan that can be implemented in your library or others.

Final projects

The final project will be a comprehensive privacy plan for a library. Every group will work together on components of the final project. This final project should choose from and expand on the following components:

• A library privacy policy and/or example vendor agreement
• 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
• Other ideas that the group wishes to add can be submitted when the group submits their roles, or can be added later

Your final project should be practically-focused and should reflect your own interests! You can see examples of previous final projects on the LFP website.

Small groups for final projects (TBD)

• Small group work proved to be really difficult in the third cohort because of the pandemic. Let's discuss how we want to organize our final projects, whether small groups might work for some of us and some other method might work for the rest.

This month only!

Readings

• The Surveillant Assemblage, Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson (2000)
• Exposing America's Surveillance State by Byron Tau (2024)
• Capitalism's New Clothes by Evgeny Morozov (2019)
• How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism by Cory Doctorow (2020)
• None of Your Business by Katie Fitzpatrick (2019)

Guest lecturer

No guest this month; Tess will lead the lecture

Recording

• LFI 2024 Month 1 Recording

Discussion

• What do you think your focus or final project might be? (Note: You don't have to know precisely at this point!)

Tasks

• Lecture, readings and discussion forum on Discord
• Read through materials on libraryfreedom.wiki
• Start readings for Month 2