Animals can enhance the library experience

There have been many studies about pet ownership and the positive affects a furry, feathery or leathery friend can have on our physical and emotional health.  They can help relieve stress, combat loneliness, reduce high blood pressure, speed recovery from heart attacks and other ailments, and, especially if you own a dog, get us up and out of the house.

Most of us have heard about children reading to a dog.  Turns out that because a dog never judges a child’s abilities, participants can relax and enjoy the experience of reading out loud – maybe for the very first time. The Pima County Public Libraries have a very successful Read to a Dog program. Click here to read about the program, view the schedule and meet the four-legged volunteers.

Probably the most famous library cat is Dewey, who resided at the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa, from 1988 until his passing in 2006. Librarian Vicki Myron has written two books about him, documenting the impact he had on the library’s patrons, the staff and the community: Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world and Dewey’s Nine Lives: the legacy of the small-town library cat who inspired millions.

When I was Children’s Librarian at the Aldrich Public Library, I “library sat” a cat for a month while the owner was away on vacation. I will never forget how much the children loved coming into the library and seeing an animal. Many of them were unable to have a pet and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to shower the cat with love – and for those who had never held a cat before, it was a teachable moment. It helped that this particular cat was incredibly laid back and tolerated all of the little hands, loud voices and squeals of delight.

Having a companion is a basic human need that can be fulfilled by a pet – and it doesn’t matter if that pet lives with us or at the library.  We all benefit from the unconditional love they have to offer.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King

The Spring semester at the University of Arizona began last week and I have spent the weekend doing homework for my class, Ethics for Library and Information Professionals. 

We were assigned to read the first two chapters of the textbook, Library Ethics, by Jean Preer. In Chapter 1, the author talks about the code of ethics for specialty librarians and how they can differ slightly from the code for public librarians depending on the materials in their care and/or the governing/funding structure of their organization and/or specific relationships with their constituents.

I was struck by the way the 2005 version of the Code of Ethics for Archivists defined an archivist in its preamble.  It is quite succinct and combines general attributes with specific professional values:

The term ‘archivist’ as used in this code encompasses all those concerned with the selection, control, care, preservation, and administration of historical and documentary records of enduring value.

The papers of Martin Luther King certainly qualify as “records of enduring value” and today, in celebration of the holiday, 200,000 documents, including letters from his children, the I Have A Dream speech (complete with notes), and a draft of his acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, have been made available online.  Anyone can access them at www.TheKingCenter.org/archive.

And the 300 JPMorgan Chase staff members, college students and veterans hired for this project along with 100 volunteers spent 9 months as 'junior' archivists.  Those involved donned lab jackets and Latex gloves to sort through boxes of personal papers, documents, and handwritten notes. A digital image was taken of each item; it was then indexed and placed in an acid-free container with a bar code.

Thanks to funding and leadership provided by Chase, supplemented by support from AT&T Business Solutions and EMC, these items – national treasures – are available to all of us. We can access them without having to travel to Atlanta, get special permission, or worry that we may be damaging a fragile resource.

But there are other benefits to this project. According to an article in USA Today, the people involved made new friends and had a chance to interact with different types of people. One participant realized that he had been judging people based on stereotypes and now knows that he needs to see each person as an individual.

Dr. King continues to teach and inspire.

There are hackers - and there are hackers

Having just completed “Introduction to Technology” at the University of Arizona taught by Trevor Smith, my senses are on high alert when I see anything related to technology. So when I was channel surfing and came across Kevin Mitnick on BookTV, I paused to listen. He is promoting Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker (Little, Brown & Company, 2011) and, as part of his lecture, he demonstrated some of the more pedestrian techniques he used to gather information.  Thanks to Trevor, I knew basically what he was talking about, even when he used “words” like RFID, FTP, etc.

Kevin spent most of his late teens, 20s and 30s hacking into systems to view source code, accessing networks and reading private e-mails, obtaining passwords without permission, and making free calls. He was apprehended the first time in 1988 and spent 12 months in prison; near the end of his probation, he hacked into the Pacific Bell voice mail computers and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Kevin was a fugitive for 2.5 years and, when finally apprehended in 1995, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison. For 8 months he was placed in solitary confinement because, according to Kevin, law enforcement thought he could “start a nuclear war by whistling into the phone.” Since his release, he has run Mitnick Security Consulting, a computer security consulting company, testified before Congress about hacking and advised the FBI.

There are several aspects to his stories that I find very interesting:

1)    when he was in high school, he became obsessed with the inner workings of the telephone company’s switches and circuits, a hobby know as “phone phreaking”, popular during the 50s, 60s and 70s.  Practitioners spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the phone system worked, including Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It is clear that, like them, Kevin was bright, loved the thrill of discovery and was very persistent – I wonder what he might have accomplished if he had channeled his energies into computer hardware or software development?

2)    Kevin took the term “social engineering” that had been associated with the social sciences and applied it to computer sciences. It is commonly understood to mean “the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information” (Social Engineering, Wikipedia, retrieved 12/20/11) and Kevin used it brilliantly, getting people to share passwords and other information that should have remained confidential.  His success is one of the reasons we are constantly admonished to be careful when asked to share personal information.

3)    during his presentation, he stated several times that he was only interested in the thrill of the chase, not in destroying computer systems, stealing secrets for financial gain or to exact revenge. For example, he had many opportunities to steal credit card numbers and ignored them – he was looking for computer code so that he could understand how a particular system worked or gaining access to win a bet. He spent time in prison with former Wall Street trader Ivan Boesky and told him “I didn’t do it for the money; I did it for the entertainment” (Biersdorfer, 2011).

Kevin is an “old-school” hacker now using his considerable knowledge, experience and expertise to help protect us from folks whose motivations are not as benign as his. Class begins on January 11 and I am taking Ethics for Library and Informational Professionals. I am sure that we will have many lively discussions regarding the use of technology within that setting. Who knows - maybe even Kevin's name will come up!

If this topic is interesting to you, in addition to Kevin’s book, you might want to check out Phil Lapsley’s website, The History of Phone Phreaking.