Tag Archives: information

Advocacy

Wikipedia founder to fight fake news with new Wikitribune site

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Check out this article, excerpted here:

“Crowdfunded online publication from Jimmy Wales will pair paid journalists with army of volunteer contributors

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is launching a new online publication which will aim to fight fake news by pairing professional journalists with an army of volunteer community contributors.

Wikitribune plans to pay for the reporters by raising money from a crowdfunding campaign.

Wales intends to cover general issues, such as US and UK politics, through to specialist science and technology.

Those who donate will become supporters, who in turn will have a say in which subjects and story threads the site focuses on. And Wales intends that the community of readers will fact-check and subedit published articles.

Describing Wikitribune as “news by the people and for the people,” Wales said: “This will be the first time that professional journalists and citizen journalists will work side-by-side as equals writing stories as they happen, editing them live as they develop, and at all times backed by a community checking and rechecking all facts.”

Although the site is launching at the beginning of the UK general election campaign, Wales said the impetus for the project came from the US.”

(Read the rest of the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales-to-fight-fake-news-with-new-wikitribune-site)

Communication, Resources

Why is federal government data disappearing?

Censored section of Green Illusions by Ozzie Zehner

Your library probably uses federal data to help your patrons with their research and information needs. You definitely have access to an enormous amount of information, generally presumed to be reliable and valid, produced by an enormous range of federal agencies – all paid for with tax dollars and belonging to all of us.

Libraries of all types have relied on being able to provide this information to our communities – health information from the CDC, planning visits to our national parks, NASA ideas on space travel, photos from your state in the National Archives, knowing what shots to get before traveling from the Dept of Health and Human Services, information on worker’s rights from the Dept of Labor, studies done on pesticides and industrial waste in the water and soil in your neighborhood from the EPA, plans for bridge safety from the Dept of Transportation, George Carlin’s FBI file, raising chickens in your back yard from the Dept of Agriculture, and so much more.

But some of this information is disappearing, and for libraries – committed as a profession to providing and sharing information freely – this is a serious problem. In addition to the ethical challenges of hiding and censoring information, this reduces the material we can share with our communities – always a problem for us!! Continue reading Why is federal government data disappearing? →

Academic, Check this out:, Communication, Public, School Media Specialist, Services, Special

Libraries improving Wikipedia: Are you in??

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information is cool – and better when it’s accurate!

Library people: We all know our patrons use Wikipedia. We use Wikipedia. It’s a pretty awesome tool! But it can be better!! We are passing on some information about strategies you can use to help Wikipedia to be better and more accurate.

Try it for yourself! Set up a Wikipedia event in your library! Use this as a starting point to make our of our frequently-used resources to be stronger!

Continue reading Libraries improving Wikipedia: Are you in?? →

Check this out:, CMLE, General, Services, Training

Quick overview of the Needs Assessment survey

results
Information is great!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our needs assessment survey! The winners of the $25 Amazon gift cards have been notified.

As with all surveys, we wanted to learn more about the needs of our community. In our case, our community is our member libraries; and our need is figuring out what you guys need so we can better serve you. In any organization with a new director, it is valuable to spend this time asking around about things people want so we can keep building on successful partnerships from the past, as well as helping with the new needs a rapidly-changing profession like ours creates. Combining the information we learned here with the information learned in visiting our member libraries gives us a better picture of the things we can do to help support our libraries!

This will be a quick overview of the highlights of the results from the information received. We will be working on this for a while, and using this information to build services and materials we can offer to you. In any sort of partnership, things will keep changing and the work we do today will change too. We will be sending out another needs assessment survey in about a year and a half, to see where we are then, and what other kinds of things we can be doing.

The results here are not necessarily representative of all members, but they are giving us a basis to start thinking about things. People who are really interested in statistical testing and analysis should contact me, because I love to talk about that stuff! But this is designed as an overview, a place to start, and to have other information filled in from visits, discussions, and other sources around the system. So it may not be perfect, but every plan needs a starting point!

Continue reading Quick overview of the Needs Assessment survey →

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

We’ve Learned: Staffing News & Updates From Around the Region

CMLE-Central_Minnesota_Libraries_Exchange_

We’ve Learned… is designed to keep our readers informed about news concerning personnel in CMLE libraries/media centers. Please keep us informed of any “happenings” regarding staff members in your area so that we can include them in the next write-up!  Happenings can include: changes in staffing, awards, honors… you get the idea!

Announcements

  • Jacob Grussing has accepted a new position with Scott County as the Library Director.
  • Michelle Kiley has accepted a permanent position with The Initiative Foundation as the Community and Economic Development Specialist.
  • Minnesota Educational Media Organization (MEMO) will officially change its name to Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota (ITEM) as of July 1, 2014.

Career Opportunities