Copyright affects so much of the creative content we interact with and create... not just a painting we may see in a museum or a novel we are reading, but also the emails we ourselves send, the blogs and articles we write, and the photos we take and post. In this webinar, presenter Kiowa Hammons discusses exceptions and limitations in U.S. copyright law, and the ways they play a part in how libraries operate. These include the first-sale doctrine, library exceptions under Section 108 of U.S. copyright law, and fair use. Some key takeaways are: How exceptions in U.S. copyright law grant libraries the ability to lend physical materials and make copies for patrons An examination of the four factors of fair use, and how they apply to specific copyright cases Ways in which copyright law has adapted to the digital age This webinar is the second in a three-part series focusing on basic principles of U.S. copyright law and its impact on us as library professionals, and in our own creative lives.  Part 3, taking place live on Tuesday, March 29, 2022 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm ET, will cover licensing and risks. Register here.

Facebook broke news in 2021 that it is creating an umbrella company through which it is poised to create a virtual reality. Living life through avatars in a new world has long been the subject of science fiction; now, though, technology is moving closer to making virtual reality, well... a reality. Data privacy + security experts Dan Ayala and Gary Price joined METRO’s Davis Erin Anderson for a discussion on what the Metaverse could mean for library services, how we might prepare for a new mode of human interaction, and how data privacy issues could fare as folks begin to imagine life as citizens of the Metaverse. In this webinar, you will learn: How and why data privacy issues will be impacted in virtual reality settings How library services might change should virtual reality become a thing  The implications for a continued shift in how humans interact with the internet

Want to learn more about prison abolition? Looking to explore the role of information in the prison industrial complex? Excited to discuss ways we can collectively offer resources to address violence caused by mass incarceration? Join the club (literally!). This monthly discussion group with Prison Library Support Network will look at a rotating calendar of media resources for discussion, meeting the 2nd Monday of each month at 7:30pm. While the group's facilitators (and host) are affiliated with libraries, you do not need to be a librarian or information professional to attend this group. We will share our discussion calendar regularly through METRO and the PLSN listserv, so that folks can plan ahead to attend the months that sound interesting to them. Join us this month for a special Valentine's Day podcast discussion about love and romance behind bars. Ear Hustle episodes (45 minutes) can be listened to directly from the website, Spotify, or however you get your podcasts. For our discussion please listen to the following episodes: Prime Real Estate Hold That Space I Want the Fairy Tale Optional: The Boom Boom Room (note that this episode is about sex and while not explicit, listener discretion is advised) Please review our Code of Conduct, our Statement on Viewpoints, and details on Interpreter Services.

2021 was quite a year for Facebook. New details that emerged from leaked documents proved that, as nefarious as Facebook is for users here in the United States, the reality for other countries is far worse. In this webinar our data privacy + security experts Dan Ayala and Gary Price join Davis Erin Anderson, METRO's Assistant Director for Programs and Partnerships, for a discussion on how Facebook functions behind the scenes, how their corporate decision-making makes its users vulnerable, and the implications of these decisions on populations around the world. In this webinar, you will learn: How likes, shares, and thumb-stoppers create an online environment where mis- and dis-information spreads rapidly How recent revelations shed light on how Facebook prioritizes the needs of governments over the needs of residents Why we as library workers should stay informed on the way Facebook (mis)uses information, and what it means for library patrons

Oak Park Public Library in Illinois built a comprehensive combined social services and public safety model over the past six years. Rob Simmons, Oak Park's Director of Social Services and Public Safety, has been instrumental in creating innovative programs including free mental health assessment and counseling services, educational support for low-income students, supportive housing advocacy, and employment assistance. In this webinar Rob shares insights on what's worked best, highlighting the engagement strategies and strategic partnerships that play a crucial role in serving the library’s most vulnerable patrons. Viewers can expect to: Understand how a public library system can integrate a social services model into its organization Learn best-practice engagement strategies that are effective with vulnerable patrons Learn ways to engage community-based partnerships to help serve vulnerable patrons About the presenter: Rob Simmons started his role as Director of Social Services and Public Safety at Oak Park Public Library (IL) in March 2016. Rob is one of the first social workers hired to integrate a social services model into a public library system in the United States. His innovative work has resulted in programs that provide resources such as: free mental health assessments and counseling, educational support for low-income students, supportive housing advocacy, and employment assistance. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University, and a Master’s degree in Social-Service Administration from The University of Chicago.

Join the code4lib NYC for a code & coffee Zoom the first Friday of each month this winter and spring. Attendees will have the option of joining breakout rooms to socialize and talk about current projects or to quietly work together in a virtual space. Are you interested in joining code4lib NYC as an organizer? Stop by one of these events to chat with current organizers and share your ideas.

What is the decentralized web, why is it important, and where is it along the path of development? What are the problems the decentralized web seeks to solve? Who are the players working to realize this vision? Why is the Internet Archive, a library, a leader in the decentralized web movement? Find the resource guide to this session here. About The Presenters Wendy Hanamura is the Director of Partnerships at the Internet Archive, one of the world’s largest digital libraries. She helps to steward the DWeb community that now encompasses ten global nodes of technologists, policymakers, artists, and activists all working to build a better web. Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. This online library now preserves 99 petabytes of data—the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 800+ library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all. Mai Ishikawa Sutton, Founder & Editor, COMPOST Mag, an experiment in new forms of collaboration, payment, and creative publishing. COMPOST available both over the World Wide Web and the DWeb. Paul Frazee, Founder of Beaker Browser, a peer-to-peer Web browser built on the Hypercore protocol. About This Series The World Wide Web started with so much promise: to connect people across any distance, to allow anyone to become a publisher, and to democratize access to knowledge. However, today the Web seems to be failing us. It’s not private, secure, or unifying. The internet has, in large part, ended up centralizing access and power in the hands of a few dominant platforms. What if we could build something better—what some are calling the decentralized web? In this series of six workshops, “Imagining a Better Online World: Exploring the Decentralized Web,” we’ll explore the ways in which moving to decentralized technologies may enhance your privacy, empower you to control your own data, and resist censorship. Join us to hear from experts in the leading peer-to-peer technologies, from identity to data storage. We’ll see demonstrations of how decentralized tech is being used in publishing, data management and preserving cultural assets. Learn how the decentralized web might yet create systems that empower individuals by eliminating central points of control. This series is a partnership between Internet Archive, DWeb, Library Futures, and Metropolitan New York Library Council.

Copyright affects so much of the creative content we interact with and create... not just a painting we may see in a museum or a novel we are reading, but also the emails we ourselves send, the blogs and articles we write, and the photos we take and post.  Copy That! Copyright Basics for Library Professionals is a three-part series from Kiowa Hammons focusing on basic principles of U.S. copyright law and its impact on us as library professionals, and in our own creative lives. Part 1 gets into what intellectual property is, what copyright law in the U.S. protects (and what it doesn’t), and how long it lasts. It also briefly touches on how U.S. copyright connects to other countries through treaties. Some key takeaways are: An understanding of the types of rights granted to creators under U.S. copyright law How the law determines copyright ownership of a particular work The duration of copyright protections and how works enter the public domain For more on the other sessions in this series, see: Part 2: Exceptions and Limitations Part 3: Licensing and Risks

Join the Prison Library Support Network (PLSN) for a virtual book drive extravaganza! The goal is to get as many books as possible to the library collections available to people detained on Rikers Island. You’ll learn how to contact publishers from a list that will be provided to ask for book donations, which will go to the departments at Brooklyn Public Library, The New York Public Library, and Queens Public Library that coordinate library services at Rikers. Plus, throughout the book drive, you’ll have a chance to win a variety of raffle prizes that have been donated by the PLSN community and supporters! Please note that registration will be capped at 50 volunteers.

Want to learn more about prison abolition? Looking to explore the role of information in the prison industrial complex? Excited to discuss ways we can collectively offer resources to address violence caused by mass incarceration? Join the club (literally!). This monthly discussion group with Prison Library Support Network will look at a rotating calendar of media resources for discussion, meeting the 2nd Monday of each month at 7:30pm. While the group's facilitators (and host) are affiliated with libraries, you do not need to be a librarian or information professional to attend this group. We will share our discussion calendar regularly through METRO and the PLSN listserv, so that folks can plan ahead to attend the months that sound interesting to them. This month we'll be discussing selected Searching for Justice spotlights from PBS News. Each video is 5-9 minutes long and tackles the issues of life after incarceration: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Optional: For girls with mothers in prison, summer camp offers support Business owners with records are haunted by the past How arrest records become invisible handcuffs

How can librarians integrate discussions on digital citizenship, even without the benefit of a designated technology class, with tweens and teens? Manuela Aronofsky is a middle school technology integrator who engages with 10- to 14-year-olds on a daily basis. She shares some of the things she's learned from discussing online habits, trends, and activities with this age group. For those who want to start these conversations in their own library spaces, she shares prompts and lessons that have been implemented successfully in the classroom. Viewers can expect to: Learn where and how tweens and teens are spending their time online, as well as a few prevailing online habits Discover where collaboration opportunities exist for information professionals to discuss digital wellness with tweens and tweens Better understand the middle school tech spectrum, including what changes from 5th to 8th grade, and what differences exist even within a single age group Receive prompts and talking points for starting communication with tweens about their online habits. Learn what works to get the conversation started, and what doesn't Manuela Aronofsky is the Middle School Technology Integrator and Digital Essentials teacher at The Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn, where she previously worked as Middle School Library Assistant. She serves on the ALSC Children + Technology committee, and is interested in youth data and digital literacy; expanding inclusivity and cultural competency in the school library environment; coordinating volunteer work with the Prison Library Support Network; art librarianship; and teaching the act of reading as a community-building experience. She earned her MSLIS from Pratt Institute, with a concentration in Youth, Literacy, and Outreach.

Library workers can make great use of NYC Open Data to both answer questions from library visitors and conduct their own research. NYC Open Data is a treasure trove of free information that can be tapped into easily, whatever your experience with data thus far. Through this presentation you will gain a deep, conceptual understanding of open data and practical experience using digital tools to find, filter, and visualize thousands of datasets about New York. Viewers can expect to: - Learn to search and find relevant NYC Open Data datasets - Learn to perform basic analyses - Contextualize NYC open data to anyone seeking municipal information themselves This webinar is led by Małgosia Rejniak, Project Manager, NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics (MODA) and Onedeige James, Civic Innovation Apprentice, BetaNYC.

Join the code4lib NYC for a code & coffee Zoom the first Friday of each month this fall. Attendees will have the option of joining breakout rooms to socialize and talk about current projects or to quietly work together in a virtual space. Are you interested in joining code4lib NYC as an organizer? Stop by one of these events to chat with current organizers and share your ideas.

Videotape (and audiotape) preservation is all about equipment: sourcing equipment, getting the right equipment for the formats you’re digitizing, paying attention to how your equipment is functioning, repairing or finding experts to repair equipment for you, and putting all of these pieces together. In this hour-long webinar, Ben Turkus, audiovisual preservationist and member of the XFR Collective, offers a tour of videotape/audiotape preservation gear, focusing on strategies for creating high quality but super streamlined digitization set-ups. Topics include: Gathering the right gear for your needs Overcoming institutional bureaucratic procurement issues Determining what gear is essential and what gear would be preferred but optional Interoperability issues, particularly between computers and capture cards Format-specific considerations This workshop is designed for librarians, archivists, and community members with some experience with tape-based digitization and access workflows. The instructor focuses on the most prolific formats (VHS, audiocassette, MiniDV) and some other formats as well. About the presenter:  Benjamin Turkus (he/him) is the Assistant Manager of Audio and Moving Image Preservation at the New York Public Library. He's also an adjunct professor at New York University, where he holds an MA in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. Previously, he was the Preservation Project Manager at the Bay Area Video Coalition. He is a member of XFR Collective.

The goal of this three-part series is to help people manage difficult conversations in spaces with school-aged children in relation to the current cultural moment (e.g. conversations about race and equity in schools and Covid protocols). Led by Jessica Hochman and Tonya Leslie of We Need 2 Talk, each webinar introduces Epoch Education’s RIR Protocol (Recognize, Interrupt, Repair): a tool for managing difficult conversations. In this session, the third in the three-part series, the presenters draw from examples in current events as well as the concerns expressed by the METRO community in session 1. They do a deep dive into the “Interrupt” part of the RIR protocol, because as library folks themselves, We Need 2 Talk often approaches interruption through inquiry. In this session, viewers will learn strategies for asking questions that help build understanding and uncover what’s below the surface in moments of conflict, toward potential repair.

The goal of this three-part series is to help people manage difficult conversations in spaces with school-aged children in relation to the current cultural moment (e.g. conversations about race and equity in schools and Covid protocols). Led by Jessica Hochman and Tonya Leslie of We Need 2 Talk, each webinar introduces Epoch Education’s RIR Protocol (Recognize, Interrupt, Repair): a tool for managing difficult conversations. In this session, the second in the three-part series, the presenters set a historical context for conversations around equity. America has always had to fight for racial equity, but today’s battle has a different tone. In this webinar they discuss how conversations about equity and Critical Race Theory have made their way into mainstream conversations. Using the RIR protocol, they demonstrate ways for participants to manage these conversations.

The optics of weeding is an often-overlooked part of the weeding process. No one wants to have to lock their dumpsters or appear on the news accused of book burning! In this webinar with Rebecca Vnuk, author of The Weeding Handbook: A Shelf-by-Shelf Guide, viewers will: Learn how to get your staff (or administration) thinking positively about the weeding process Learn how to best communicate with the public on the topic of weeding Discuss weeding as overall ongoing collection management, helping avoid the need for intimidating projects that can be misconstrued Rebecca Vnuk is the Executive Director of LibraryReads. She has an MLIS from Dominican University and worked as a public librarian for a decade before becoming the editor for Collection Management and Library Outreach at Booklist magazine. Rebecca is the author of three reference books on the topic of Women’s Fiction, as well as a best-selling book on weeding library collections. She was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2010 and was the 2010 PLA Allie Beth Martin Award Winner for distinguished Readers Advisory Service. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two tween sons (both of whom still love to read, whew!).

The goal of this three-part series is to help people manage difficult conversations in spaces with school-aged children in relation to the current cultural moment (e.g. conversations about race and equity in schools and Covid protocols). Led by Jessica Hochman and Tonya Leslie of We Need 2 Talk, each session introduces Epoch Education’s RIR Protocol (Recognize, Interrupt, Repair): a tool for managing difficult conversations. Time is spent considering relevant scenarios and practicing the protocol. In this session, the first in the series, we introduce our framework for discussing equity. School librarians and stakeholders in school communities  share their concerns and discuss some of the incidents that are occurring in these spaces. This conversation helps provide nuance and relevance to the later sessions.

Join the code4lib NYC for a code & coffee Zoom the first Friday of each month this fall. Attendees will have the option of joining breakout rooms to socialize and talk about current projects or to quietly work together in a virtual space. Are you interested in joining code4lib NYC as an organizer? Stop by one of these events to chat with current organizers and share your ideas.

Weeding library collections can be hard work, with lots of small details that come into play. This general overview of the weeding process, based on Rebecca Vnuk's book The Weeding Handbook: A Shelf-by-Shelf Guide, is suitable for anyone who has questions on weeding projects of all kinds. This webinar presents information on current best practices for weeding specific areas of the collection. Learn tips and tricks to make weeding easier, and gain confidence to approach any kind of weeding job, from emergency projects to year-round collection management.  About the presenter: Rebecca Vnuk is the Executive Director of LibraryReads. She has an MLIS from Dominican University and worked as a public librarian for a decade before becoming the editor for Collection Management and Library Outreach at Booklist magazine. Rebecca is the author of three reference books on the topic of Women’s Fiction, as well as a best-selling book on weeding library collections. She was named a Library Journal Mover and Shaker in 2010 and was the 2010 PLA Allie Beth Martin Award Winner for distinguished Readers Advisory Service. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two tween sons (both of whom still love to read, whew!).

The Organizing Resource Library (ORL) is a free and fully accessible digital library and archive of mutual aid organizing tools and oral histories—created for, by, and in collaboration with mutual aid organizers in New York City. It exists to preserve, and make openly available, materials from mutual aid work in marginalized communities across NYC that were devastated during the COVID-19 crisis. In this presentation representatives from the ORL share what they’ve accomplished during the grant period, successes that were made possible through the support of the grant, and challenges the collective encountered. Learn more about the project here.

The CUNY Digital History Archive (CDHA) used its 2020-2021 METRO Equity in Action grant to support the digitization and curation of historical materials documenting three movements that aimed to make access to public higher education more equitable toward and inclusive of New York City’s diverse residents. Based at the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), the CDHA, established in 2011, is a community-curated digital public archive and portal that provides scholars, students, and the broader public online access to archival materials related to the rich history of CUNY, the nation’s largest urban public university system. Working under the direction of Professor Stephen Brier (CDHA Co-Director and Chief Historian) and Chloe Smolarski (CDHA Collections Manager), the CDHA hired three Urban Education doctoral students to select documents, create metadata, and add descriptive materials to make accessible collections related to: The efforts in the late 1960s of African American residents in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood to push CUNY to found a new public college in their community (Juliet Young) The movement to found a Puerto Rican Studies Program at Brooklyn College in the early 1970s (Gisely Cólon López) The activities of SLAM! (Student Liberation Action Movement), a group of CUNY activists in the 1990s that fought for increased public funding for CUNY (Lucien Baskin) The new materials are accessible via the CDHA website.

Designing and building out websites with their "archivability" in mind from the early planning stages will ensure that the content being produced is more readily preservable and will remain accessible to users and cultural heritage researchers well into the future. Sumitra Duncan, Head of the Web Archiving Program at the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) and Web Archive Lead at the Frick Art Reference Library, presented from her perspective as a web archivist on recommended practices for developing more easily archivable websites. Recordings of the presentation, divided into three parts, can be found below. Viewers can expect to: Gain insights on the significance of the practice of web archiving Identify known challenges to archiving certain types of born-digital content Get practical guidance and recommendations for producing web-based content that is more likely to be successfully web archived and preserved in the long term Sumitra Duncan is the Head of the Web Archiving Program for the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC), which consists of the Frick Art Reference Library and the libraries and archives of the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. She co-founded and co-coordinates the Web Archiving Special Interest Group of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Archive-It New York Users Group. Sumitra has previously led web archiving workshops for the Digital Preservation Outreach and Education Network (DPOE-N), the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO), ARLIS/NA, the Frick Art Reference Library's Digital Art History Lab, and The New School’s Parsons School of Design. She holds an MSLIS from Pratt Institute with Advanced Certificates in Archives and Museum Libraries.

Join the Prison Library Support Network (PLSN) for the first volunteer orientation for the new and entirely volunteer-powered Reference Project. After attending this orientation, you will be able to remotely answer reference questions mailed to PLSN from people incarcerated in correctional facilities. What is this project about? Controlling and restricting information access is a powerful form of violence used by the prison industrial complex. PLSN is committed to helping incarcerated people access information and do research on their own terms. PLSN has created a structure for volunteers (that's you!) to remotely answer research questions mailed to us by people in facilities around the country with care and expertise. PLSN does this work as volunteers to ensure our professional and institutional safety is never prioritized over the people who need our solidarity. Please email plsn_nyc@protonmail.com with any questions and visit the in-progress Reference Project site for more info.

With the support of METRO’s Equity in Action grant program, the Brooklyn Public Library and The New York Public Library worked in partnership with BookOps, which serves the cataloging needs of both institutions, to begin aligning their public catalogs with their values by identifying and replacing the subject headings “illegal aliens” and “aliens” with more inclusive terminology. An investigation by the project team determined that controlled vocabulary at the local level would be the most effective route for changing these headings. The project also included a number of public-facing initiatives to educate library professionals and the general public about the larger context of these cataloging efforts, resulting in workflow documentation for the library profession as well as curricular materials for educators. The project team partnered with THE CITY newsroom to convene a series of focus groups with staff and patrons to better understand the impact of language choice on library access for immigrant communities in New York City. At the same time, both libraries developed a robust programming series including panel discussions, film screenings and youth conversation groups to bring the themes raised by the project to a larger audience. This presentation addresses all three components of the project: cataloging, programs, and community engagement. Panelists give an overview of the metadata work, which focused on the creation of new subject authority records to replace the Library of Congress headings in the public catalogs of both libraries, as well as detailing how the project team approached the community-focused programming series and engagement efforts, and the outcomes of those activities.