[00:02.620 --> 00:03.960]  All right, what are we talking about?
[00:04.160 --> 00:05.800]  We're radicalizing our communities about the Internet.
[00:07.080 --> 00:08.920]  We're... you guys are too nice.
[00:09.340 --> 00:10.860]  All the whooping and yelling.
[00:12.280 --> 00:16.360]  We are some librarians, and we're going to tell you about our work.
[00:16.480 --> 00:20.900]  But let's start with a little introduction of who each of us is.
[00:21.080 --> 00:23.600]  So the slide is out of order of our names, but that's fine.
[00:23.760 --> 00:24.460]  We're going to roll with it.
[00:25.000 --> 00:26.280]  My name is Allison Macrina.
[00:26.920 --> 00:28.200]  My pronouns are she, her.
[00:28.200 --> 00:33.300]  And I have been a librarian for like 20 years.
[00:34.920 --> 00:51.300]  I got really interested in the intersections of privacy and anti-surveillance and free software while working as a librarian because I started to recognize, like, how much the same things that the hacker and free software community cares about are
[00:51.300 --> 00:53.700]  the same things that the librarian community cares about.
[00:53.980 --> 00:55.720]  Open access, privacy.
[00:56.020 --> 00:56.600]  Y'all know.
[00:56.760 --> 00:58.060]  I don't have to list them for you.
[00:58.200 --> 01:02.660]  And it just seemed like a really obvious thing to make a connection about.
[01:02.920 --> 01:12.400]  I also came from, like, an activist background and, you know, was already kind of, like, finagling with free technology, free software and stuff like that.
[01:12.540 --> 01:18.180]  And then I got even more radicalized about it, thanks to a guy named Ed Snowden.
[01:18.600 --> 01:19.780]  Folks know who he is.
[01:20.020 --> 01:26.220]  So that... I mean, basically, there's many, many flowers that have bloomed from the Snowden revelations, but Library Freedom Project is one of them.
[01:26.400 --> 01:28.040]  So we're going to be telling you about that today.
[01:28.260 --> 01:31.280]  I'm going to pass it over to my colleagues so we can all introduce ourselves.
[01:33.440 --> 01:34.840]  Hi, my name is Eliza Bettinger.
[01:35.000 --> 01:38.600]  I'm a digital scholarship librarian at Cornell University Library.
[01:38.600 --> 01:46.460]  And I came to this work because librarian values have always included privacy as a foundation of intellectual freedom.
[01:46.960 --> 02:00.100]  But in our current information environment, it's very difficult for researchers and students to read, think, or correspond in private, which threatens the very underpinnings of the systems in which new knowledge is created.
[02:00.100 --> 02:16.500]  So I work with my colleagues to help educate researchers and students, build awareness, bring bring technical solutions, but also to bring like new ways of thinking about the Internet privacy surveillance and these and intellectual freedom.
[02:18.720 --> 02:26.320]  Hi, I'm Kimberly Springer, and I came to the Library Freedom Project, I think, actually through a workshop that Allison gave.
[02:26.320 --> 02:27.220]  I was smitten.
[02:27.400 --> 02:29.580]  I was like, privacy is very cool.
[02:30.060 --> 02:37.760]  But also having taught on the faculty side of things and realizing I wanted to help people make things.
[02:37.760 --> 02:39.700]  I went back to Info Science School.
[02:39.880 --> 02:54.380]  And so it was very useful for me to do archives and libraries, but also sit in classrooms with very young people who were going to be designing everything we've seen come to fruition now.
[02:54.380 --> 03:06.980]  And that was really where my concerns about privacy and what we know about history and how we think about social dynamics all came together to participate in the Library Freedom Project.
[03:09.420 --> 03:11.020]  Hi, my name is Tess Wilson.
[03:11.260 --> 03:13.400]  I'm the Deputy Director of Library Freedom Project.
[03:13.700 --> 03:20.800]  Before that, I was in one of our Library Freedom Institute cohorts, which we'll talk about this afternoon.
[03:22.220 --> 03:29.320]  And after I finished that cohort work, I was also smitten and just kept volunteering and volunteering.
[03:29.540 --> 03:31.400]  And now I get to work for Library Freedom Project.
[03:33.160 --> 03:40.600]  And before that, I was a public librarian and was part of a research project called the Youth Data Literacy Project.
[03:40.600 --> 03:48.840]  And it took a look at how teens felt about privacy and also how teen librarians were teaching teens about privacy.
[03:49.120 --> 04:02.100]  It was a really eye-opening research project and just got me really excited about the ways the library can educate patrons and their communities about privacy issues.
[04:03.640 --> 04:05.380]  Hi, I'm Rhianna Esmail.
[04:05.580 --> 04:07.940]  I am an instruction and reference librarian.
[04:08.600 --> 04:14.300]  I became involved with Library Freedom Project after the summer of 2020.
[04:14.300 --> 04:19.340]  It was part of some organizing around police divestment from libraries.
[04:19.380 --> 04:21.800]  A lot of libraries actually house police records.
[04:22.040 --> 04:23.760]  And I met Allison through that.
[04:23.880 --> 04:29.700]  And then also with the encouragement of one of my colleagues, Eliza, I joined LFP.
[04:34.320 --> 04:35.840]  Actually, Kimberly, you can...
[04:35.840 --> 04:36.360]  Should we just start?
[04:36.500 --> 04:36.620]  Okay.
[04:38.220 --> 04:41.880]  Okay, so we're going to first, I think, outline the problem.
[04:41.880 --> 04:45.220]  But I think that this is a group that's very well aware of the problem.
[04:45.260 --> 04:50.900]  So I just want to contextualize a bit how Library Freedom thinks about this problem.
[04:51.200 --> 05:03.920]  And what we find is that just people in our everyday lives and also patrons can be overwhelmed by the scale and scope of the dilemmas that technology puts in front of them.
[05:04.420 --> 05:06.640]  And they might think that they don't have any agency.
[05:06.960 --> 05:11.780]  So there can be some hopelessness, like this idea that the horse is already out of the barn.
[05:12.700 --> 05:16.040]  I like to think of a Hobson's choice with the two horses.
[05:16.260 --> 05:18.360]  So which horse are you going to choose?
[05:18.460 --> 05:21.060]  Are you going to choose convenience or are you going to choose privacy?
[05:22.180 --> 05:28.220]  Also, somebody mentioned in a panel yesterday, and I think it's very prevalent, people think, oh, well, I don't have anything to hide.
[05:28.220 --> 05:31.020]  So why do I need to think about privacy?
[05:31.560 --> 05:35.960]  And we like to, you know, debunk that through personal examples.
[05:36.300 --> 05:40.040]  There are things that have happened in people's lives that we can tie this work to.
[05:40.820 --> 05:54.460]  Also, at a very basic level, people are scared, and they are scared by something that's either real or imagined or something that a media hype cycle puts in front of them about privacy and security.
[05:55.060 --> 06:00.480]  And so we like to think about how we can help people embrace their own agency.
[06:01.160 --> 06:06.640]  And, like, whether you feel you have agency, I think, can fluctuate.
[06:06.780 --> 06:08.240]  It can depend on the day.
[06:08.240 --> 06:10.860]  It can depend on from moment to moment.
[06:11.200 --> 06:20.160]  So one of the ways that I like to interact as a privacy advocate is to help people think about where do they have agency in their lives?
[06:20.660 --> 06:21.960]  Where are the threats?
[06:22.240 --> 06:25.000]  Where are the places where they can find refuge?
[06:25.300 --> 06:31.240]  And how do the tools and services that we can provide help them foster that agency?
[06:32.520 --> 06:33.760]  Next slide, please.
[06:34.340 --> 06:34.680]  Thank you.
[06:36.660 --> 06:55.100]  So this conceptualization of radicalizing our communities and radicalizing library workers, I think it's worth pausing and thinking about, even today, how the idea of being radical or being radicalized is being manipulated and used against people and
[06:55.100 --> 07:00.920]  instead return us to the etymology of, one of the etymologies of the word radical, which is from the root.
[07:01.300 --> 07:09.260]  And so this idea of from the root or primary, I think, helps me to think about what are libraries' primary functions?
[07:09.380 --> 07:12.020]  And what are librarians' primary functions?
[07:12.020 --> 07:16.680]  And I believe that that function is to help communities cohere.
[07:17.260 --> 07:21.400]  So we actually live in a time where caring is radical.
[07:21.760 --> 07:27.380]  And what we would like to do is to nurture connections through each of these methods.
[07:28.380 --> 07:32.460]  Also, encouraging inquiry and curiosity and not shutting it down.
[07:32.680 --> 07:41.720]  Some of you may have experienced that with the public libraries in your communities and attempts to restrict what people can look at or to have their records exposed.
[07:42.660 --> 07:51.240]  Also, educating people or at least pointing them in the right direction in a sea of misinformation and disinformation.
[07:52.280 --> 07:53.220]  Thank you.
[07:57.790 --> 08:05.510]  So one of the things that we think is really important, and we'll talk about this idea of a community of practice a little later in this talk.
[08:05.810 --> 08:14.050]  But as a community of practice of librarians, I have told Allison this, but I'm not a joiner, really.
[08:14.350 --> 08:21.850]  But Library of Freedom is like the group that I have been with the longest because I feel a sense of community there and I feel cared for.
[08:21.850 --> 08:25.010]  And that helps me to care for other people.
[08:25.070 --> 08:27.310]  So it kind of keeps giving and multiplying.
[08:27.730 --> 08:39.810]  And so each of these elements of what Library of Freedom does, I feel like, are they're about community formation, but they're also about community building and then also sustaining that work.
[08:39.810 --> 08:47.890]  So not just parachuting in, telling people what they need, giving people their broccoli.
[08:48.090 --> 08:50.530]  I'm like, just no, don't do that.
[08:51.170 --> 08:52.750]  People will tell you what they need.
[08:52.750 --> 08:56.690]  So that's a really useful way of approaching this privacy work.
[08:56.870 --> 09:01.710]  And then also providing practical support and easy skills to learn.
[09:01.950 --> 09:13.970]  And we'll also talk a bit about our approach in terms of thinking about harm reduction as one way to help people try to get a rein on all of these privacy issues, but then also organizing.
[09:18.850 --> 09:20.150]  Oh my gosh.
[09:23.320 --> 09:24.500]  We're going to run out of time.
[09:24.520 --> 09:25.520]  You guys are so great.
[09:28.080 --> 09:29.520]  Is that picture not working?
[09:29.680 --> 09:30.620]  Oh, that's fun.
[09:31.060 --> 09:31.420]  Great.
[09:31.720 --> 09:33.140]  Well, there's a photo there.
[09:34.960 --> 09:37.080]  Is it going to happen over and over again?
[09:37.180 --> 09:37.760]  Let me just see.
[09:37.920 --> 09:38.320]  Oh, shit.
[09:38.340 --> 09:39.260]  I think it's going to happen.
[09:39.260 --> 09:41.420]  I think our pictures are not displaying.
[09:42.320 --> 09:42.480]  Really?
[09:46.580 --> 09:47.220]  Okay.
[09:47.440 --> 09:54.600]  It's a beautiful photo of like 50 or 60 librarians that are members of our project.
[09:57.700 --> 09:59.380]  Please hold your applause.
[09:59.800 --> 10:00.460]  Love you.
[10:01.480 --> 10:02.200]  Oh, man.
[10:02.360 --> 10:03.660]  It's so annoying that that's going to...
[10:03.660 --> 10:03.880]  Whatever.
[10:04.080 --> 10:04.580]  Free software.
[10:04.580 --> 10:07.420]  It means you have infinite free time to fix it.
[10:10.360 --> 10:11.380]  Made that one up.
[10:13.300 --> 10:14.260]  It's a picture.
[10:14.260 --> 10:14.860]  It's true.
[10:15.000 --> 10:15.340]  I know.
[10:16.320 --> 10:17.600]  We love volunteering.
[10:18.100 --> 10:22.340]  It's a great picture that we can show you like one-on-one later if you want.
[10:22.640 --> 10:31.560]  Just smiling faces of our amazing community taken at one of our like massive social events events that we do where we rent a whole summer camp in New Jersey.
[10:32.280 --> 10:38.060]  But yeah, just like demonstrating that we have this incredible crew and here they are.
[10:38.880 --> 10:41.660]  So basically, we're a Library Freedom Project.
[10:42.660 --> 10:43.180]  We...
[10:43.180 --> 10:58.640]  I started LFP about 10 years ago because, you know, all the issues, the problems, and the theory of change that Kimberly outlined seemed really obvious to me as something that libraries can be working on and supporting.
[10:58.640 --> 11:05.020]  The library is really well positioned to address the issues that we face when we go on the Internet, when we use different connected technologies.
[11:05.720 --> 11:13.440]  That libraries are a place where those issues and the various contradictions with free speech and access are really felt extremely potently.
[11:14.800 --> 11:22.940]  So what we do in Library Freedom Project is we work on political education and organizing with library workers around these issues.
[11:22.940 --> 11:27.200]  We collaborate widely to teach and enact change.
[11:27.200 --> 11:33.760]  We believe in a combined approach of long-term organizing as well as shorter-term harm reduction.
[11:33.860 --> 11:38.040]  And our community is made up of many different types of librarians.
[11:38.040 --> 11:40.920]  We have, like, an over-representation of academics here.
[11:41.020 --> 11:41.460]  Love y'all.
[11:41.600 --> 11:47.380]  But, like, we have a lot of public librarians, community college librarians, and folks from other kinds of libraries in our community.
[11:47.380 --> 11:55.660]  And we also collaborate with people across the tech, free software, hacker world, academics, lawyers, civil rights people, you name it.
[11:57.400 --> 11:59.480]  Next up, we have Tess.
[12:00.300 --> 12:00.620]  All right.
[12:00.740 --> 12:01.860]  Your image is just flying up.
[12:02.400 --> 12:02.980]  Nice.
[12:03.180 --> 12:03.260]  Good.
[12:03.880 --> 12:09.520]  So some of our work looks different than it did when LFP started, and it continues to evolve.
[12:09.740 --> 12:23.460]  But since the beginnings of Library Freedom Project, we've radically reimagined the library professional organization by creating a network of values-driven, values-driven librarian activists acting together to build information democracy.
[12:23.460 --> 12:34.500]  And we've started using the term information democracy to describe what we're working toward, and I wanted to provide a quick definition, or at least explain how it embodies the work that we do.
[12:34.920 --> 12:48.260]  We believe that true intellectual freedom is achieved when there's equity of access to information, and we're working towards a system in which people can access the information they need safely and freely without barriers, and where people feel
[12:48.260 --> 12:52.040]  informed about the power dynamics of who controls that information.
[12:52.580 --> 12:56.620]  And plus, this term incorporates more than just privacy and tech.
[12:56.760 --> 13:03.780]  It includes social justice issues, intellectual freedom, access to information, and those values also guide our work.
[13:07.750 --> 13:14.190]  So I want to tell you a little bit about, like, what our core values are and how we try to live them and the work that we do.
[13:14.330 --> 13:15.970]  So this is a list of our core values, right?
[13:16.030 --> 13:17.410]  I'm going to summarize them really briefly.
[13:17.410 --> 13:20.410]  The first one is that we aim for a people-first community.
[13:21.270 --> 13:30.150]  What this means is that the relationships within our group of librarians as well as, like, our extended community with people that we collaborate with...
[13:30.150 --> 13:30.670]  Oh, that's fun.
[13:30.910 --> 13:32.190]  I didn't do anything.
[13:33.870 --> 13:34.810]  Oh, yay, yay, yay.
[13:35.930 --> 13:36.850]  Well, that's okay.
[13:37.090 --> 13:37.890]  Close your eyes.
[13:38.110 --> 13:39.670]  Let me take you on a journey.
[13:41.730 --> 13:43.590]  Don't be distracted by the blinking screen.
[13:45.210 --> 13:46.010]  Doing great.
[13:46.590 --> 13:48.990]  People-first community, the relationships are the most important.
[13:49.210 --> 14:01.310]  That all the skills and the education and stuff, like, that can be taught and obviously it matters, but, like, that having this community and having solidarity between and among ourselves and getting to know people, building genuine relationships, is
[14:01.310 --> 14:02.310]  why we are successful.
[14:03.250 --> 14:06.690]  We also believe that labor creates all value.
[14:07.610 --> 14:09.730]  And as part... yeah, exactly.
[14:10.030 --> 14:11.090]  We know what that means.
[14:11.470 --> 14:13.090]  Yeah, you can applaud that one.
[14:14.810 --> 14:16.610]  And people are labor, right?
[14:16.810 --> 14:18.350]  So, you know, that's important to us.
[14:18.590 --> 14:25.730]  The ethic of care is about, like, related to the relational values, but, like, more specifically, this is why we take the harm reduction approach.
[14:25.930 --> 14:27.830]  We try to be trauma-informed in our work.
[14:27.910 --> 14:31.590]  We recognize the real harms that technology can create in people's lives.
[14:31.690 --> 14:35.250]  Obviously, it creates some good, too, but, like, we're a little more focused on the harm.
[14:35.770 --> 14:40.310]  And we just generally try to be really welcoming and inclusive in all of our programs, all of our efforts.
[14:41.250 --> 14:52.350]  Solidarity with oppressed people means, you know, pretty straightforwardly showing up for the people who are most marginalized in our society, in our current political system, and in our current technological landscape.
[14:52.350 --> 14:56.730]  But it also means that whenever possible, we try to take an internationalist approach.
[14:56.810 --> 15:00.910]  We are a pretty, like, North America-focused project for a number of reasons.
[15:01.190 --> 15:04.410]  But that said, like, it's a big world out there.
[15:04.470 --> 15:08.470]  And lots and lots of people around the world experience different forms of oppression.
[15:08.470 --> 15:21.110]  So this also means that it has been extremely important to us to take one of the most important moral issues of our time, which is a permanent ceasefire now for Palestine, and a completely free Palestine.
[15:26.880 --> 15:29.060]  And if you disagree, I'll fight you.
[15:31.860 --> 15:32.860]  Librarianship is political.
[15:33.060 --> 15:35.680]  You know, the very existence of libraries is pretty political.
[15:35.680 --> 15:40.020]  You know, the fact that we have these free spaces for open inquiry and learning.
[15:40.280 --> 15:42.820]  Like, you know, we have to defend them all the time.
[15:42.960 --> 15:48.740]  And there are members of the right wing who are attempting to dismantle exactly the very existence of the library.
[15:49.160 --> 15:54.120]  We also take an explicitly anti-fascist and anti-racist approach in our work.
[15:54.240 --> 15:58.000]  And then the last one, you know, tough to keep this one in mind, right?
[15:58.180 --> 16:03.700]  Because I am, as the kids say, pretty black-pilled these days.
[16:03.700 --> 16:12.300]  But we do try to remember that an abundant future is possible, and we want to fight for it, and that we need the collective power to build that.
[16:13.200 --> 16:18.980]  I'm going to tell you really briefly a little bit of our history just to kind of situate it on the timeline.
[16:19.340 --> 16:32.380]  So folks might have gotten... if you already were familiar with our work, you might remember about 10 years ago, one of the main focuses of our work was getting Tor Browser in libraries and running Tor relays in libraries.
[16:32.380 --> 16:34.580]  We used to be part of the Tor project.
[16:34.720 --> 16:36.040]  We were, like, under their umbrella.
[16:37.440 --> 16:39.420]  We have just left the nest.
[16:39.640 --> 16:41.920]  You know, we still love them very much, and we work with them sometimes.
[16:41.920 --> 16:44.700]  But we were, like, a sponsored project of Tor.
[16:45.420 --> 16:50.360]  Back in 2015, when we started this work of Tor and libraries, we got, like, quite a lot of pushback.
[16:50.400 --> 16:54.340]  And we got... actually, the Department of Homeland Security tried to stop us.
[16:54.340 --> 16:57.380]  But, you know, the... boo, hiss.
[16:58.000 --> 17:02.340]  But, you know, the Streisand effect is real, and it totally backfired on them.
[17:02.540 --> 17:10.000]  And it was, you know, it was beneficial both to the local community that was... that they were trying to fight, and also to us as a project.
[17:10.280 --> 17:12.640]  And, you know, it was a really fun time.
[17:12.780 --> 17:15.700]  We got a lot of amazing support from EFF and other orgs at that time.
[17:16.320 --> 17:21.220]  But, yeah, so we basically just tried to branch out more and more into a community-centric endeavor.
[17:21.620 --> 17:28.240]  We started doing beyond just our, like, tour in libraries and doing kind of one-off privacy trainings in libraries.
[17:28.240 --> 17:33.060]  We started to build into something more and more where we now have this community of practice all over the country.
[17:33.580 --> 17:38.680]  Back in 2015, we were very fortunate to win the Free Software Award for social benefit.
[17:38.680 --> 17:39.720]  That was really exciting.
[17:39.880 --> 17:43.960]  And then last year, we won the EFF Award for information democracy.
[17:43.960 --> 17:45.480]  So, that was cool.
[17:45.940 --> 17:46.940]  Yay, winning awards.
[17:47.340 --> 17:52.860]  This was a cover of The Nation that we had, like, a really big article in, but I fucking hate the headline so much.
[17:53.000 --> 17:54.540]  Like, not your grandmother's librarian.
[17:54.660 --> 17:56.520]  Like, get... don't talk about my grandmother like that.
[17:57.660 --> 17:59.420]  My grandmother was a bad bitch.
[17:59.440 --> 18:00.980]  I am definitely her librarian.
[18:01.900 --> 18:03.220]  Maybe your grandmother.
[18:04.400 --> 18:04.840]  Journalist.
[18:05.240 --> 18:05.600]  Anyway.
[18:06.880 --> 18:08.800]  Tess, you want to take us up to the next thing?
[18:11.710 --> 18:19.030]  So, throughout all that growth, we've expanded and adapted what our work looks like on the ground and what we're able to offer our network.
[18:19.410 --> 18:24.350]  So, we're going to go into more detail about each of these aspects of our work that are on the screen.
[18:24.350 --> 18:30.910]  But I wanted to give you a quick overview of what we actually do and show you how each element sort of builds on the others.
[18:31.410 --> 18:41.490]  Because our information democracy approach is values-based, rather than specific to library or tech fields, we collaborate with a lot of civil rights and tech organizations.
[18:42.150 --> 18:46.670]  So, this way, we're able to offer our own expertise to a wider variety of groups.
[18:46.690 --> 18:51.790]  And we can filter the work of others through the lens of what library workers might find helpful.
[18:52.410 --> 19:01.510]  And with these partners, we offer a lot of community events, including off-site happy hours and get-togethers at large conferences, at regional workshops, and more.
[19:02.430 --> 19:09.070]  And another large part of what we do is offering deliverables and tangible resources that are all free to print from our website.
[19:09.310 --> 19:16.370]  We have a ton of free flyers, zines, other stuff that have all been created for libraries to share with their communities.
[19:16.770 --> 19:19.790]  A lot of resources exist already, but we're also...
[19:20.330 --> 19:22.910]  These are perpetually being created by our members.
[19:23.390 --> 19:31.350]  And aside from those physical and digital assets, our members present at in-person and virtual trainings for a wide variety of audiences.
[19:32.170 --> 19:35.510]  We've presented hours-long pre-conference workshops.
[19:35.810 --> 19:41.670]  We've led teen zine workshops and local libraries, designed privacy curricula, and pretty much everything in between.
[19:42.590 --> 19:54.170]  Our certain areas of expertise or the specific perspectives we bring make our workshops highly unique and really tailored, endlessly adaptable to audience, field, subject, format.
[19:54.770 --> 20:00.050]  And one of the intensive trainings we offer is Library Freedom Institute, which we'll talk more about in just a bit.
[20:00.050 --> 20:05.450]  But we also offer free hour to two hour long workshops that cover a wide variety of topics.
[20:05.850 --> 20:09.910]  We also maintain a tightly knit and strong community of practice.
[20:09.910 --> 20:14.450]  It's mostly made up of members who have gone through our Library Freedom Institute training.
[20:15.070 --> 20:19.790]  We work as a collective to organize resources, offer support, move to action.
[20:20.430 --> 20:25.330]  LFP exists as a response to what people wish was available in our profession.
[20:26.150 --> 20:32.990]  LFP is full of people who feel like there isn't enough values-driven work in the library field and who want to build that environment together.
[20:36.410 --> 20:43.750]  So about Library Freedom Institute, it's a training program that Allison and Tess run for library workers around the country.
[20:43.750 --> 21:03.250]  So this includes academic librarians and archive workers from large universities to community colleges, public libraries, librarians and library workers from special libraries such as museums and state archives, as well as workers from library and
[21:03.250 --> 21:04.870]  archive adjacent fields.
[21:07.610 --> 21:19.970]  Interested participants apply, and then they take part in this sort of train-the-trainer model with the idea that, like, what they learn at the institute, they will take to their libraries and their institutions and kind of feed it outwards.
[21:20.290 --> 21:35.770]  The program is mainly synchronous and free to remove some barriers to entry, especially for those library workers who don't come from an Ivy League library, who don't have funding for those types of things.
[21:36.330 --> 21:50.030]  Personally, I joined the institute during the sort of tail end of a targeted harassment campaign against me, which unfortunately has become increasingly commonplace for a lot of library workers.
[21:51.530 --> 22:04.730]  And so in addition to, like, providing community, the institute for me personally helped me learn a lot more about harassment networks, as well as the way widespread data surveillance has made these networks possible.
[22:06.090 --> 22:06.950]  Next slide.
[22:08.750 --> 22:11.930]  And so kind of bring it back to the community of practice.
[22:12.490 --> 22:17.050]  First off, I'll define what a community of practice is for folks who aren't familiar with the term.
[22:17.050 --> 22:22.370]  A community of practice is a strategy for building community and action around a shared topic.
[22:22.710 --> 22:37.870]  So here, taking library workers as practitioners who are coming together to discuss current issues in libraries, archives, and the overall information landscape, which includes the Internet, to create resources, try out new strategies, and ultimately
[22:37.870 --> 22:38.750]  to build support.
[22:38.750 --> 22:51.750]  This model of building trust and a network of privacy-engaged library workers allows LFP to be more flexible than the institute, as members can collaborate with one another, lead sessions.
[22:52.090 --> 23:10.650]  This also means there's collaboration across a bunch of different information institute types, including public and academic, as well as like state libraries and library adjacent fields, as Allison mentioned, as well as it removes some of the deficit
[23:10.650 --> 23:21.050]  thinking that can prevent people from engaging in these topics, especially as folks who are still learning, because communities of practice are built on collaboration and continual learning.
[23:34.480 --> 23:43.160]  So here are some of the topics we've talked about in both the institute, as well as in community practice.
[23:43.160 --> 23:49.640]  It's a broad curriculum covering many aspects of their surveillance issues and tech issues.
[23:49.640 --> 23:52.680]  It's rooted in a power analysis.
[23:53.440 --> 24:06.560]  Ultimately, we want librarians to have a well-rounded and critical understanding of tech in order to better support the communities and to help more equitable information access overall.
[24:14.960 --> 24:19.940]  I might have moved one of the slides with my finger just now, so I'm sorry if I did that to you.
[24:22.500 --> 24:26.460]  So in addition, so we have the Intensive Training Library Freedom Institute.
[24:26.740 --> 24:37.860]  But as Tess mentioned earlier, we have these kind of like, you know, one off like staff development or like webinar type trainings that we refer to as our open workshops.
[24:38.920 --> 24:45.700]  You know, what we try to do with these is have online monthly offerings for our extended community.
[24:45.700 --> 24:53.100]  And we also do visit a lot of libraries in person and like show up for their staff development days and library conferences and that sort of thing.
[24:53.340 --> 25:07.320]  And the idea with the open workshops is to try to cover more kind of emergent issues, high interest issues of whatever the moment is, and try to be nimble to the things that our community is thinking about.
[25:07.320 --> 25:13.740]  These are aimed like a lot of our work at library workers, but they are open to all.
[25:13.940 --> 25:18.760]  And we record them when they're not like, you know, a higher risk sort of situation.
[25:19.040 --> 25:21.180]  So we can see, you can see, you know, they're a little bit.
[25:21.360 --> 25:25.100]  These are just some examples of some of our recent trainings are a little bit all over the map, right?
[25:25.180 --> 25:39.920]  We've done a lot of FOIA stuff for library workers, both in helping them understand the necessity and value of using public records, but also as ways to bring it to their patron communities and make that more of a local community skill, especially
[25:39.920 --> 25:42.680]  for people who are engaged in different kind of community organizing.
[25:43.240 --> 25:55.580]  We're doing a lot lately around power mapping and open-source intelligence, trying to understand where power is concentrated locally, but like also using power mapping as a framework for a lot of different kinds of things.
[25:55.580 --> 26:03.320]  So like one example is we've used it a lot recently looking at some of our vendors in the library world and like, who are these people?
[26:03.500 --> 26:05.160]  What kind of relationships they have?
[26:05.260 --> 26:19.240]  You know, what are the major mergers and acquisitions that have resulted in even bigger companies that have changed their business model from maybe like traditional publishing to analytics and like data hoarding and selling, et cetera.
[26:19.660 --> 26:25.200]  And then we also try to keep our group like up to date on things that are happening with major movement work.
[26:25.200 --> 26:39.860]  So we did an incredible event recently with organizers from Stop Cop City looking at the ways that surveillance and different policing tactics have been used against the Stop Cop City organizers, as well as like the kinds of repression that they're
[26:39.860 --> 26:53.520]  facing, like recognizing that the things that are happening to Stop Cop City folks, you know, are just kind of scratching the surface of what might become the norm for more people who are engaged in different forms of activism, especially around
[26:53.520 --> 26:56.000]  policing, especially around environmental issues.
[26:57.300 --> 27:00.080]  And, you know, this is just scratching the surface of some of the work that we do.
[27:00.240 --> 27:06.940]  You can look at Vimeo.com Library Freedom Institute to see a list of the talks that we've had recorded.
[27:06.960 --> 27:11.400]  And also at the end, we're going to say how to like stay in touch with us and be on our newsletter.
[27:11.400 --> 27:17.920]  In our newsletter each month, we publish what our upcoming monthly talks are going to be.
[27:18.700 --> 27:19.300]  Tess.
[27:22.580 --> 27:27.960]  So I mentioned our community events a little while ago, and I just wanted to expand on what that looks like.
[27:27.960 --> 27:34.840]  So every other year, as Allison mentioned, we travel to a YMCA in the wilds of New Jersey, and we hold LFP camp.
[27:35.240 --> 27:38.160]  So this started as a way to be nimble during COVID.
[27:38.700 --> 27:42.160]  So if we can't be together inside, let's just be together outside.
[27:42.420 --> 27:44.760]  But it's also our version of an unconference.
[27:44.980 --> 27:49.280]  The library world holds a ton of conferences throughout the year, you wouldn't believe.
[27:49.580 --> 27:56.420]  And most of them are held in the convention center that's connected to the hotel under fluorescent lights in the middle of downtown.
[27:56.420 --> 28:03.740]  And our membership wanted something that gave us the literal space to have important conversations we couldn't have elsewhere in our field.
[28:03.920 --> 28:05.700]  So we build our agenda together.
[28:05.900 --> 28:09.280]  So the sessions are topical, timely, tailored to the group.
[28:09.500 --> 28:18.260]  Our next camp is in mid-September, and we'll be centering Palestine, intellectual freedom, and other things that have a real current impact on library workers across the world.
[28:19.080 --> 28:25.740]  In 2023, we decided to build a new model for regional engagement, and we had meetings in several different parts of the country.
[28:25.740 --> 28:32.160]  They were a great way to bring together library workers who might be dealing with similar issues in their region.
[28:32.640 --> 28:44.620]  And these events fostered current LFP member engagement and created partnerships with local library workers in those regions, and also helped us identify opportunities for new training and resources.
[28:45.620 --> 28:50.160]  We also attend and present at some of those large conferences in the field of library and tech.
[28:50.400 --> 28:56.200]  But we work hard to be present at smaller, more regional, or specific conferences as well.
[28:56.340 --> 29:00.620]  So we can expand our network to include a wider range of library workers.
[29:01.080 --> 29:05.880]  For example, did you know that there's a conference held specifically for Bookmobile library workers?
[29:06.400 --> 29:08.960]  Well, we will be sharing our resources with them.
[29:10.160 --> 29:22.080]  And we try to hold at least one social or happy hour during those big, huge conferences as a way to share new resources and trainings, and also to take advantage of lots of our members being in one place at the same time.
[29:22.320 --> 29:29.340]  Our members are all over the country and in Canada and Mexico, so it's great to have these opportunities to connect in person.
[29:29.340 --> 29:37.880]  We also co-host radical book buzzes with small indie presses like Seven Stories, Verso, and others at those big conferences.
[29:38.200 --> 29:48.720]  And that gives them the opportunity to share new titles and strengthen their relationship with libraries, which is extra important because small presses are also in that fight for intellectual freedom.
[29:48.940 --> 29:55.140]  Because they publish work that features voices from underrepresented communities, they're often the ones getting censored.
[29:55.900 --> 30:09.780]  We also host a book club that meets about every other month, and this allows us the opportunity to talk about privacy and tech through a variety of lenses, but also talk about things beyond privacy and tech and gives us the chance to read and promote
[30:09.780 --> 30:12.120]  titles from those small indie presses as well.
[30:12.900 --> 30:25.740]  All those community events are aligned with our values and our goal with all outreach of any kind is to get people to know each other, to realize you're not alone, that there are other people out there working towards similar ends, and that together
[30:25.740 --> 30:28.880]  we can move the needle of what's possible in our field and beyond.
[30:35.460 --> 30:37.500]  Taking advantage of our mic pass.
[30:37.980 --> 30:39.500]  I guess I'll let you do it.
[30:39.720 --> 30:41.160]  Y'all should really join our book club, though.
[30:41.280 --> 30:41.760]  It's really fun.
[30:41.860 --> 30:42.440]  It's online.
[30:43.180 --> 30:47.560]  And this... well, our next meeting is literally two days from now.
[30:47.780 --> 30:51.320]  But we do have a thing where, like, you don't have to have read the book to come to book club.
[30:52.120 --> 30:56.280]  The book that we're reading, if you can't make it, you should just read it, because it is a scorcher.
[30:56.580 --> 30:59.880]  It's called Black Scare, Red Scare by Charisse Burden-Stelly.
[31:00.080 --> 31:08.460]  It's about the relationship, you know, it's the relationship between anti-black racism in the U.S. and anti-communism, and how those things kind of co-developed.
[31:08.680 --> 31:10.180]  It's so fucking good.
[31:12.360 --> 31:21.780]  Anyway, so in addition to, like, you know, all these other things that we've talked about today, we have, like, all these events that we try to organize people to in person and online.
[31:22.400 --> 31:27.680]  We really want to meet people... we try to meet our library workers and their community members everywhere that they are.
[31:27.760 --> 31:33.280]  So in that vein, we also have a lot of downloadable resources on our website.
[31:33.540 --> 31:36.680]  Sometimes they directly correspond to a training that we've run.
[31:36.680 --> 31:43.300]  So for example, you know, we've done a lot of stuff around reproductive privacy and access, and we have a whole toolkit that backs it up.
[31:43.500 --> 31:46.120]  But sometimes they're kind of their own standalone thing.
[31:46.240 --> 31:55.900]  And again, it's about, like, emergent issues that our community is really interested in, that represent our values, but are also really practical resources that can support them.
[31:56.540 --> 32:02.780]  We have all kinds of stuff in these resources, presentations that library workers can offer to their communities.
[32:02.780 --> 32:09.600]  We have, like, a lot of passive resources that they can have at the reference desk, like bookmarks and flyers and things like that.
[32:09.800 --> 32:11.580]  Posters that they can put up in the library.
[32:12.020 --> 32:15.940]  Handouts that they can include in different events that they do.
[32:16.820 --> 32:25.740]  We... it's sort of a set of either, like, teaching tools for librarians, or passive resources for library patrons to pick up in the library.
[32:26.520 --> 32:41.780]  One just, like, quick anecdote that we were talking about last night is, one of our members who's really engaged in the reproductive privacy and access part of the fight, she slips some of these flyers into books that, like, she thinks people will
[32:41.780 --> 32:45.720]  pick up if they're coming to the library looking for reproductive materials.
[32:45.880 --> 32:50.420]  So it's, like, how to find... like, give clandestine access to some of these things.
[32:50.580 --> 32:54.620]  So we're always trying to be creative about our... how we're making those different offerings.
[32:54.620 --> 32:58.300]  So Tess is going to tell you a little bit more about just a couple of our resources.
[33:00.440 --> 33:00.820]  Thanks.
[33:01.380 --> 33:04.540]  I just wanted to give you a taste of what some of these resources look like.
[33:04.740 --> 33:06.220]  So this is one example.
[33:06.420 --> 33:11.140]  It's a resource we made to support library workers who might encounter law enforcement in their space.
[33:11.640 --> 33:12.680]  Oh, sorry.
[33:13.180 --> 33:17.580]  So like all our resources, this was a topic that our members expressed concern about.
[33:17.620 --> 33:21.600]  And so we built this one pager that can be printed and kept by the library's front desk.
[33:21.600 --> 33:27.880]  It includes helpful tips for talking to officers, protocol when it comes to warrants and libraries, and more helpful information.
[33:29.180 --> 33:35.300]  This next one, data brokers and the market of personal data is a huge aspect of our training.
[33:35.300 --> 33:40.000]  So we made this one pager that addresses that concept in an accessible way.
[33:40.980 --> 33:50.040]  Like all our resources, we hope it's educational for users with a range of tech literacies, and it arms them with information that gives them some pathways for action.
[33:53.080 --> 33:55.720]  And here are a few more resources.
[33:55.720 --> 34:05.400]  As you can see, we offer information, like Allison said, in a lot of different formats, specifically made so that library workers can easily share them with colleagues and the communities they serve.
[34:05.400 --> 34:07.520]  Here are some of our bookmarks.
[34:07.760 --> 34:13.660]  You can see our all-seeing Amazon iFlyer here that addresses the risk of engaging with ring devices.
[34:14.060 --> 34:19.900]  This one was so popular we made it into a sticker, which was also so popular that I don't think we have any left.
[34:21.740 --> 34:25.220]  And yeah, you can see the bookmark at the top of the screen.
[34:25.520 --> 34:28.540]  It examines part of the journey of connecting to the Internet.
[34:28.540 --> 34:39.040]  And then on the side of the screen is what is AI or what is AI bookmark that we hope can break down what is a pretty big topic into bite-sized introduction for everyday library users.
[34:41.240 --> 34:41.960]  Oh, yeah.
[34:42.420 --> 34:43.000]  And I think...
[34:43.000 --> 34:44.720]  Yeah, you can just like...
[34:44.720 --> 34:46.860]  We wanted to talk a little bit about how each of the...
[34:46.860 --> 34:47.540]  Yeah, sorry.
[34:47.540 --> 34:48.360]  So are you being accessible?
[34:49.180 --> 34:55.520]  Just like a little vibes-based discussion of how we use what we learned in LFP in our work.
[34:55.520 --> 34:57.660]  So like whoever wants to go for that.
[34:59.980 --> 35:01.380]  Wait, where did you want?
[35:01.500 --> 35:02.760]  I thought you could just go down the line.
[35:02.980 --> 35:03.580]  Oh, yeah, sure.
[35:03.740 --> 35:03.920]  Okay.
[35:04.080 --> 35:08.020]  So a couple of things I do with Rihanna.
[35:08.200 --> 35:17.440]  Rihanna and I together teach anti-doxing and surveillance self-defense workshops and consultations with people.
[35:17.680 --> 35:24.900]  As Rihanna mentioned, you know, harassment campaigns are on the rise among library workers of all types.
[35:24.900 --> 35:33.500]  So from public library workers in particular, as well as researchers and students at all types of colleges and universities.
[35:34.160 --> 35:43.060]  So that's something we try to be very involved with and help people feel less helpless when it comes to these harassment campaigns.
[35:43.060 --> 35:57.240]  You know, to try to help address the feeling that there's like nothing they can do at all to protect themselves or reduce the harm of a harassment campaign that comes after them.
[35:57.240 --> 35:59.040]  So that's a big thing we do.
[35:59.360 --> 36:11.800]  I also work with researchers who, you know, study people who might be vulnerable and when they want to protect those people's safety and identities.
[36:12.580 --> 36:23.560]  I work with people who travel internationally frequently and who need help keeping themselves safe, as well as people they're research collaborators and people they study.
[36:24.040 --> 36:26.800]  So those are some big ones for me.
[36:28.480 --> 36:30.660]  A couple of things that I would highlight.
[36:30.880 --> 36:33.180]  I work at Columbia University in the archives.
[36:33.180 --> 36:37.020]  You could Google what Columbia has been doing around archiving lately.
[36:37.940 --> 36:38.660]  I tried.
[36:38.880 --> 36:40.220]  I tried to tell them anyways.
[36:41.200 --> 36:42.680]  But a couple of projects.
[36:42.780 --> 36:44.940]  We have like a small, we call it a privacy lab.
[36:45.260 --> 36:52.880]  And really that was just a way to be in the university and get their money to do the research that I wanted to do that would be useful around privacy.
[36:52.880 --> 36:56.140]  So we had a graduate student who did research.
[36:56.460 --> 36:57.760]  That was part of her dissertation.
[36:58.100 --> 37:04.740]  But part of the remit for the fellowship was that there had to be a publicly accessible deliverable.
[37:04.960 --> 37:10.740]  And a lot of times when academics or maybe even tech people say accessible, it's not quite so.
[37:10.980 --> 37:15.640]  So we, you know, really worked to make it something that would be useful to people.
[37:15.640 --> 37:32.400]  And so she studied privacy data leaks via dating apps, but not by the apps themselves, but by users of the apps who were trying to assure their own security, but yet leaking the data of other people.
[37:32.660 --> 37:38.040]  So, you know, putting people on lists of people you shouldn't talk to and sort of doxing them in that space.
[37:38.420 --> 37:43.580]  And so she did a really amazing study about that that you could find on the platform medium.
[37:43.580 --> 37:53.200]  And then I also worked with an undergraduate to try to figure out in the city of New York, how much data or what data you needed to give up to get social benefits.
[37:53.360 --> 38:07.000]  So to get your housing benefits, to get food benefits, and then to try to distill our takeaways into something beyond like the stonewalling of the city and not telling us what they were taking or using.
[38:07.000 --> 38:17.360]  But like how to then talk to people about sort of in this harm reduction model of like you're trying to feed your children, but you also have to give them this, this data as well.
[38:17.480 --> 38:20.240]  So how can you try to protect yourself around that?
[38:28.430 --> 38:33.090]  I use library freedom project resources in what I do every day.
[38:33.610 --> 38:40.790]  But I, we're currently in the middle of our, our current cohort of library freedom Institute, which has been really great.
[38:40.910 --> 38:48.930]  One part of LFI is that at the end, or throughout the six months that this training takes place.
[38:48.930 --> 38:57.670]  You work with a small group on some kind of resource that your community needs or addressing a gap in services.
[38:58.090 --> 39:04.810]  And so we just started, we're about halfway through the small groups just started thinking about what they're going to work on.
[39:04.930 --> 39:15.890]  And it's always so exciting when, when those groups start talking about what their final project might be, because then it becomes part of what we can offer to our community of practice.
[39:15.890 --> 39:18.710]  And so that has been really exciting.
[39:19.490 --> 39:20.090]  Yeah.
[39:27.940 --> 39:28.900]  Eliza shared.
[39:29.100 --> 39:35.200]  So yeah, I teach with Eliza and hold consultations for privacy related topics.
[39:35.360 --> 39:48.560]  I did want to just mention that our, those sort of requests for those have gone up like 500% in the last like four, last, God, nine months now.
[39:49.540 --> 39:55.460]  Because students, faculty, staff are all being targeted who are pro-Palestinian.
[39:56.060 --> 40:02.500]  So that is something where in the, what I've learned with LFP has been really helpful.
[40:03.100 --> 40:10.280]  Outside of that, I oversee our information literacy program for the humanities and social sciences libraries.
[40:10.280 --> 40:12.740]  So we teach students how to find information.
[40:13.100 --> 40:17.160]  A lot of times that means just like helping them evaluate the information they're finding.
[40:17.320 --> 40:22.780]  But increasingly now we're trying to get them to evaluate both the process through which they're finding that information.
[40:23.060 --> 40:24.500]  Like, why are you seeing this?
[40:24.640 --> 40:33.520]  What, what does it mean to search Google versus searching a library resource and why things are ranked the way they are?
[40:33.520 --> 40:46.740]  And then with a bunch of other LFP members, I am currently part of an Institute for Museum and Library Studies grant project to build some open educational resources on algorithmic literacy.
[40:46.940 --> 40:49.880]  So particularly for library patrons.
[40:56.670 --> 41:09.490]  One other thing I'll just mention briefly is that I'm involved with some other librarians in creating new, trying to work on the contracts that libraries sign with information vendors like Read, Elsevier, LexisNexis.
[41:10.050 --> 41:19.450]  Which are these, as Allison mentioned earlier, which are these huge multinational companies which we used to think of as academic publishers or information publishers.
[41:19.450 --> 41:23.050]  But who now very much think of themselves as data analytics companies.
[41:23.750 --> 41:35.390]  So as you know, people are reading academic literature that's been published, these companies are collecting information about them, what they're reading, how long they're reading it for, what they're bookmarking, all of that kind of stuff.
[41:35.710 --> 41:42.530]  So the way that academic research is increasingly surveilled and monetized is a massive problem.
[41:42.730 --> 41:46.070]  And so that's something we're working on organizing with other library workers around.
[41:50.400 --> 41:59.780]  Like privacy for teens and young people, seniors, you know, like just policing in their communities, like a whole host of things.
[41:59.900 --> 42:03.140]  You can learn more about that if you subscribe to our newsletter, which we're going to mention in a second.
[42:04.300 --> 42:07.900]  And we try to focus on a different member each month.
[42:08.440 --> 42:09.840]  I'm getting a two minute warning.
[42:09.840 --> 42:12.180]  So I'm totally going through the last one really fast.
[42:12.320 --> 42:17.420]  So just to say the last aspect of our work that we haven't really talked about a ton yet is our collaboration.
[42:17.420 --> 42:33.020]  So we work with folks across the civil rights and digital rights sphere, all kinds of people working on cool stuff in academia, the whole variety of organizers and activists, tech creators, critics, hackers, et cetera.
[42:33.420 --> 42:36.280]  We would love to work with you if you are interested in that.
[42:36.480 --> 42:38.540]  There's a bunch of people in this audience that we've already worked with.
[42:38.540 --> 42:40.380]  So just a few ideas.
[42:40.740 --> 42:44.300]  You know, if you want to reach a broad public, libraries are your place.
[42:44.400 --> 42:50.580]  If you want to try to test technology with an audience that really understands usability issues, that's librarians.
[42:51.220 --> 43:00.820]  And also, if you want to help us address some of the issues with our own in-house technology that we like, like talk shit about a little bit here, we would love to collaborate with each other.
[43:00.820 --> 43:08.260]  This is just an image from one of the campaigns that we did with the civil rights organization Mijente through their campaign No Tech for Ice.
[43:09.160 --> 43:11.720]  We can tell you more about that later since we are out of time.
[43:13.080 --> 43:16.640]  So just to say one last thing and Tess can take us home.
[43:17.820 --> 43:18.800]  That will be so fast.
[43:19.360 --> 43:21.080]  Thanks again for being here today.
[43:21.200 --> 43:24.360]  It really was a pleasure to tell you all a little bit about what we do.
[43:24.360 --> 43:29.880]  So we have been lucky enough over the years to have grant funding from some larger entities over the years.
[43:30.020 --> 43:32.120]  But we also do rely on public support.
[43:32.240 --> 43:36.720]  So if you ever feel inclined to support our work, you can do that through PayPal or Patreon.
[43:36.720 --> 43:39.780]  That also gives you early access to like events and our newsletter.
[43:41.280 --> 43:44.180]  And finally, if you'd like to learn more, you can visit our website.
[43:44.480 --> 43:48.920]  Like we said, you can download all of our resources and watch our recordings of trainings.
[43:49.740 --> 43:52.660]  Or you can email us to join our mailing list.
[43:52.660 --> 43:53.760]  It's really low volume.
[43:53.940 --> 43:54.960]  It's really just our newsletter.
[43:56.060 --> 43:57.700]  Or you can find us here at HOPE.
[43:57.860 --> 44:01.460]  We'd love to talk to you more about what we do and learn what you do.
[44:02.140 --> 44:04.620]  Plus we have some painfully cute swag.
[44:06.180 --> 44:08.680]  I'm wearing the shirt currently.
[44:09.240 --> 44:11.740]  So anyway, we'd love to talk to you more.
[44:11.880 --> 44:13.220]  Thank you so much for being here today.
[44:13.560 --> 44:14.880]  Thanks for loving libraries.
[44:26.150 --> 44:28.330]  I think we have a couple minutes for questions.
[44:30.690 --> 44:32.010]  This is the only mic.
[44:32.170 --> 44:33.490]  There's a couple minutes for questions.
[44:37.000 --> 44:38.240]  I'll repeat the question.
[44:40.080 --> 44:43.200]  Yeah, we have, I think it's four minutes technically.
[44:43.440 --> 44:43.860]  Yes, hello.
[44:44.620 --> 44:45.600]  Oh, that one works.
[44:45.680 --> 44:46.520]  Yeah, two mics.
[45:11.460 --> 45:13.620]  Can you all shut the fuck up while you're leaving?
[45:13.820 --> 45:14.300]  Thank you.
[45:14.540 --> 45:14.980]  Love you.
[45:15.220 --> 45:15.640]  Sorry.
[45:17.120 --> 45:23.060]  So I wanted to ask you if you have advice for us in our local communities.
[45:23.340 --> 45:32.880]  How we can best represent the fact that we don't want that to be the driving force of our libraries.
[45:32.880 --> 45:36.480]  And make sure that we can protect what libraries are doing.
[45:36.480 --> 45:37.140]  Do you want to take it first?
[45:37.840 --> 45:39.540]  Rihanna is raring to go.
[45:41.060 --> 45:42.620]  Join your library board.
[45:42.620 --> 45:43.080]  Rihanna is raring to go.
[45:44.380 --> 45:47.940]  Rihanna is raring to go.
[45:48.920 --> 45:49.280]  Yes.
[45:49.280 --> 45:49.300]  Rihanna is raring to go.
[45:50.120 --> 45:50.600]  That's true.
[45:50.620 --> 45:57.860]  But there's actual campaigns where they are training people how to join library boards and asking them to join.
[45:57.860 --> 46:09.320]  There's a ton of like for the book censorship, like both hiding, like censoring pride displays, but there's also like a movement to just check out all of the pride books in a display.
[46:09.640 --> 46:14.500]  And these are really like well, like organized campaigns.
[46:14.840 --> 46:22.760]  They have, they're coming from these right wing funded like think tanks that are providing resources, pre-made templates.
[46:22.760 --> 46:27.660]  So the best way to actually combat it is to get involved where you can.
[46:27.960 --> 46:36.720]  So joining your library board, sitting in on the meetings and like speaking is really important no matter how boring it is.
[46:36.880 --> 46:38.780]  Oh yeah.
[46:40.000 --> 46:49.160]  Libraries for the People, Library FTP is a great group that holds those trainings, that train people how to become advocates, serve on your library board.
[46:49.160 --> 46:53.580]  And we're also working on a toolkit to four library boards.
[46:53.780 --> 46:56.380]  So for people who are already on your library board.
[46:56.540 --> 47:05.060]  And also, they know that the meetings are boring and that's why they feel like they can infiltrate them without too many people being upset about it.
[47:05.600 --> 47:06.720]  Until it's too late.
[47:07.660 --> 47:07.820]  Yeah.
[47:08.800 --> 47:09.900]  I have a question.
[47:09.900 --> 47:17.720]  What kind of programs you have around kind of media skepticism in this era of AI generated bullshit?
[47:19.220 --> 47:20.220]  That's a great question.
[47:20.320 --> 47:30.260]  We have, we, we offer specifically to AI, we have an AI, like an introduction to AI, an AI overview and ethics workshop that we do.
[47:30.860 --> 47:39.740]  We did it for our community, but then we also take that and do it for library consortiums or, or library, individual libraries.
[47:40.900 --> 47:42.760]  Do we have other stuff we want to add to that one?
[47:44.500 --> 47:46.880]  Just that that's a good idea for something that we can offer.
[47:47.060 --> 47:54.600]  I think that like we infuse a lot of our stuff with that, like overall skepticism, but offering something specific, you know, that's definitely something we can look at.
[47:56.120 --> 47:56.620]  All right.
[47:56.820 --> 47:57.560]  We are out of time.
[47:57.740 --> 47:59.480]  Please join me in a huge round of applause.
[47:59.760 --> 48:00.420]  Thank you everyone.