Is Wi-Fi bad for your health

An interesting article in GQ about the health hazards of cell phones and Wi-Fi.

“In April 2008, the national library of France, citing possible “genotoxic effects,” announced it would shut down its Wi-Fi system, and the staff of the storied Library of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris followed up with a petition demanding the disconnection of Wi-Fi antennas and their replacement by wired connections.”

Independent research consistently shows that cell phones and Wi-Fi pose real health hazards, while research funded by the cell phone industry consistently demonstrates there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

Would a librarian who advocated shutting down Wi-Fi services be taken seriously, or dismissed as a crank?

Filed under: Uncategorized, posted by: David Davisson

Open Access Guru Lawrence Lessig to Speak in Video Lecture

Free Culture @ USF is hosting a Wireside Chat with Lawrence Lessig on February 25th, from 5:30-7:30 pm, in MSC 2702 in the Marshall Center.

Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig will give a for a live webcast lecture and Q&A session on copyright and fair use in the digital age.

Check out http://openvideoalliance.org/event/lessig/ for more details.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Open Access, Posted by: Leslie Trinkle

Suncoast Information Specialists Meeting

If you attended the first Brown Bag of the semester, you will remember Betsy King, the corporate librarian from CAE.  Betsy is very active in the Suncoast Information Specialists, an inclusive group open to all information specialists.  To join, go to their website; the membership fees are low and the benefits are priceless.  Please consider attending the next SIS workshop.  See the announcement below:

The next Suncoast Information Specialists meeting will be held at CAE in Tampa on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, from 5:30pm – 8:00pm. Guests are always welcome and we encourage students to attend.

Program: The New Way to Market Yourself – How to Utilize Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media. Our guest speaker will be Jessica Voss, Communication and Information Officer at the USF School of Library and Information Science. For details, times, directions, etc., please go to the website, http://tblc.org/sis/meeting.htm.

RSVP: RSVP Online [*new*], or contact Betsy King (betsy.king@caemilusa.com or 813-887-1658) no later than Monday, March 1, 2010. Please specify whether or not you plan to eat. Late reservations will be accepted only as space allows. The meal is optional; however if you RSVP to eat, please consider it an obligation to pay even if you cannot make the meeting.

Online RSVP form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGZrSmFpank0ZHJmYXNYd18xVXpaT3c6MA

I am testing out this new online RSVP form, and welcome feedback about how it works.

Hope to see you at CAE in a couple weeks.

Betsy King

CAE Librarian

SIS webmaster

Filed under: Professional Organizations

First Friday Journal Club!

For those of you interested in being part of the Journal club, meetings are every first Friday of the month from 1-2 pm at the Shimberg Library, room 2215.  Last week’s Brown Bag speaker Barbara Wood generated a lot of interest last week in the Journal Club.  Topics are interdisciplinary.  The next meeting will be March 5th.

Hope to see you there!

Filed under: USF Libraries

Haiti Library Relief Brown Bag

Hello everyone,

This week’s Brown Bag will be an informal discussion of the Haiti earthquake, in particular, its devastating effect on Haiti’s libraries.  While we won’t have a speaker per se, it will be a great opportunity to engage in some high-quality discussion.  We will also be collecting donations for the ALA Haiti Library Relief Fund. Bring questions, opinions, and a lunch! As usual, Brown Bag is held in CIS 2020 from 1-2 pm every Wednesday.

For those of you who missed last week’s wonderful speaker, Barbara Wood, I will be posting the podcast shortly.  Stay tuned for next week’s Brown Bag, with school media specialist Darlene Meginnis, from Randle Middle School, thanks to our own Dr. Dunkley!  As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions for speakers.

See you tomorrow!

Ava Iuliano
SLIS Archivist

Filed under: Uncategorized

Library Students at TEDxTampaBay

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) touts itself as a conference for “Ideas worth spreading.”

“The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).”

This year TED will host about 50 speakers, including Bill Gates, David Byrne, Valerie Plame, and Stephen Wolfram. But the best talks are often from folks you’ve never heard of. (For example this year check out Jane McGonigal, Stewart Brand, and Ze Frank.)

In the interest of spreading the TED model around the world TED launched TEDx. A “program that enables local communities such as schools, businesses, libraries, neighborhoods or just groups of friends to organize, design and host their own independent, TED-like events.”

Arlen Bensen

This year is the first year for TEDxTampaBay and two three USF School of Library & Information Science students are involved.

Arlen Bensen is a co-host and has been instrumental in organizing, stage design, and bringing in speakers.

Arlen is currently doing his fieldwork student work at Safety Harbor Public Library and is a Graduate Assistant at USF School of Library and Information Science.

Helping with the event is David Davisson. Dave is assisting with the social media and will be tweeting, blogging, and streaming information to the Facebook fan page throughout the day.

Nancy Petty will also be on hand to help speakers monitor their speaking time and act as support staff for the event.

TEDxTampaBay is this Friday, February 12. Be sure to check out the event. Speakers this year include Jimmy Wales (Jimmy’s talk was canceled due to inclement weather), founder of Wikipedia, and James Tokley, first official Poet Laureate of the city of Tampa.

Filed under: Conferences

Brown Bag Podcast: Pam Tucker

Didn’t make it to the last Brown Bag?  Can’t make it to campus?  No problem!  Now, Brown Bag comes in podcast form, so you can listen and learn anytime!

Last week, Pam Tucker from the USF Tampa Library spoke on her experiences as an academic reference librarian and as a business librarian.  She shared her career advice as well as her thoughts on the developments in academic librarianship.  Thank you, Ms. Tucker, for speaking to us!

Please go to Ava Iuliano’s page to access the Brown Bag podcast.  While not available through this blog currently, Brown Bag podcasts may be available here soon.  Stay tuned for future developments!

Filed under: Uncategorized