oct13_b.indd


October 2013 495 C&RL News

Jazzy Wright is press officer of the ALA Washington 
Office, e-mail: jwright@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eJazzy Wright

ALA president speaks on NSA leak; 
organization launches privacy toolkit
In July, ALA launched “ALA Liberty,” a new 
Web site that contains tools libraries can use 
to host educational sessions and public forums 
that help Americans understand their First and 
Fourth Amendment rights. The launch of ALA 
Liberty comes as a response to revelations that 
the U.S. government obtained vast amounts of 
big data on the activities of millions of innocent 
Americans. The Web site contains guides and 
tip sheets for libraries interested in informing 
members of the public about their civil liber-
ties. The tools provide an overview of the 
deliberative process and outlines ways that 
the public can demand government oversight 
and transparency from legislators.

Later that month, ALA joined an unprec-
edented coalition of Internet companies 
and advocates to deliver a letter to the U.S. 
government demanding greater transparency 
around national security-related surveillance of 
Internet and telephone communications. Key 
civil liberties organizations and major com-
panies, such as Apple, Facebook, and Twit-
ter, joined in the effort with dozens of other 
companies and organizations, both large and 
small. WeNeedToKnow, the newly launched 
petition directed at the White House, invites 
the public to contribute to the call for greater 
transparency around government surveillance.

ALA, IMLS detail Affordable Care Act 
resources for library staff
The Institute of Museum and Library Services 
and ALA recently announced information 
resources for libraries to use to assist pa-
trons about the Affordable Care Act. OCLC’s 
library program WebJunction will provide 
online educational Webinars, tip sheets, and 
other resources to help library staff members 
respond to increased patron information 
needs related to the new health insurance 

marketplace. Library staff can access materi-
als, online resources, Webinar registrations, 
and archived Webinar recordings at www.
webjunction.org/explore-topics/ehealth 
/get-involved.html.

Google, ALA host Webinar: Revisiting 
CIPA ten years later
ALA and Google recently hosted a national 
symposium where library, education, technol-
ogy, legal, and policy experts considered the 
impact of the Children’s Internet Protection 
Act (CIPA) on access to electronic informa-
tion. In July, participants joined a wide range 
of experts to discuss insights looking at legal, 
ethical, and political implications of how the 
CIPA requirements have been implemented in 
the past ten years. “Revisiting the Children’s 
Internet Protection Act: 10 Years Later” was 
part of the Office for Information Technology 
Policy and Office for Intellectual Freedom’s 
larger project on CIPA and access to infor-
mation, made possible through support of 
Google, Inc. A white paper will be released 
this fall. 

2. Anthony C. Holderied, “Instructional 
Design for the Active: Employing Interactive 
Technologies and Active Learning Exercises 
to Enhance Information Literacy,” Journal 
of Information Literacy 5, no. 1 (2011): 
24, http://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JIL 
/article/view/LLC-V5-I1-2011-2.

3. Nigel Morgan and Linda Davies, “In-
novative Library Induction: Introducing the 
‘Cephalonian Method’”, SCONUL Focus 32 
(Summer/Autumn 2004): 4–8. 

4. Ryan Sittler and Douglas Cook, The Li-
brary Instruction Cookbook (Chicago: ACRL, 
2009), 44–45.

5. Ibid., 36–37.
6. Esther S. Grassian and Joan R. Kaplow-

itz, Information Literacy Instruction: Theory 
and Practice (New York: Neal-Schuman 
Publishers, 2009), 34–35. 

(“MacEwan University...,” cont. from p. 482)