InfoMatters

I am simultaneously heartened and horrified by reading the online diary of Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraqi National Library and Archive (www.bl.uk/iraqdiary.html). The library has been extensively looted, causing some to liken the current situation to the 13th century sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols. In the abstract this is depressing but Eskander’s diary puts a much more human face on recent events. He writes of the fear that drives people from the library, the threats that his staff routinely receive, the difficulties in tracing collections that are known to have been stolen and distributed, including rare treasures traded on the black market. His library has 39 armed guards, and part of his job is to track down staff who are kidnapped. What is heartening in any of this? The fact that he lives and he continues to work on developing this precious resource. The fact that he can communicate to the outside world what is happening so that we cannot claim ignorance of the plunder in the years ahead. Libraries appear quaint to many people in the ‘developed’ world, but we lose sight of the value and role of curated knowledge and free exchange of ideas at our peril. History shows that those who seek to control always want to limit both the flow of information and the accurate recording of events. You can learn how the ALA is responding at www.ala.org/ala/iro/iraq.htm

I learned today of the death of one of the legends of IR, Prof Karen Sparck Jones of University of Cambridge — there’s a nice note about her at:http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007040403. The expression above about the need for more women to study CS is hers, and she was right. Her work crossed boundaries from automated language processing to privacy. Gender aside, we just need more thinkers like her in this field.

The Irish government has a Minister of State with responsibility for the Information Society — an interesting governmental appointment that reflects the realities of life in modern Ireland and the claim of the current government that the creation of an inclusive knowledge society is a priority. He speaks of encouraging and enabling the user of ICT’s in everyday life, even using phrases such as ‘e-inclusion’. It’s a bold idea but the financial commitment so far seems to have been limited to about 1mEuro per year since 2004, aimed at various projects which provide better information to citizens. To what extent the program will deliver on the stated mission of enabling access to those without resources (often the elderly, poor, and disabled) remains to be seen. See: www.egovmonitor.com/node/10008