*apologies for cross-posting*
Digital Odyssey 2012
Friday June 8, 2012
Bram & Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge Street Toronto Ontario
Directions and Parking
<http://salonrentals.torontopubliclibrary.ca/directions-and-parking/>
Registration
Members $130 / Non Members $150
Register here
<https://secure.e-registernow.com/cgi-bin/mkpayment.cgi?state=1109>
Digital Odyssey is a one-day conference organized by The Ontario Library
and Information Technology Association (OLITA
<http://www.accessola.com/olita/bins/index.asp>) that focuses on themes
of research, learning, accessibility, and usability associated with
technology in libraries.
This year's theme is *Liberation Technology.*
Liberation Technology as a field of study seeks to understand how
information technology can be used to pursue a variety of social goods.
This includes any technology that enables citizens to express opinions,
deepen participation in society, and expand their freedoms.
With the intersection between social justice issues and technology
making headlines, through the Arab Spring, Anonymous, and the Occupy
movement, OLITA felt that focusing specifically on liberation technology
would make a timely topic for this year's Digital Odyssey.
*Keynote: Kate Milberry, PhD University of Alberta
**The Knowledge Factory Hack: From Open Access to Anonymous ...or why
information wants to be free *
From the internet's inception and the birth of hacker culture at MIT's
Artificial Intelligence lab, the big idea was that information could not
be contained. Physical locks could not keep out the curious computer
geeks who were designing the software that made computers sing, and
digital locks were anathema to the web of code that would eventually
interconnect them on a global scale. The ethos of openness, and the very
political position that information must be free if society is to
advance, was built into the technical infrastructure of the internet and
emerged in the culture of the digital commons.
Today corporate, criminal and governmental forces are working to lock
down the internet through cybersurveillance, cyberwarefare and
legislation aimed at wresting control away from the user multitude
reared on access to information. Intensifying over the last decade, this
enclosure movement has been met with fierce opposition from computer
geeks dedicated to the hacker ethic. Beginning as a self-referential
subculture, the internet liberation movement has become increasingly
internetworked, global and political, embracing free software hackers,
tech activists and open access evangelists who understand that
information is inextricably linked to human freedom, justice, equality
and progress. Building and deploying technologies of liberation, tech
activists and hacker allies from Indymedia, Anonymous, the Arab Spring
and #ows are bringing the full force of the internet to bear against
those who would subvert its democratic potential. Librarians, as
historic gatekeepers of information, are key collaborators in this
struggle, and have an important role to play in the unlocking of
information, and its free passage over the open web.
*Program *
Click here to access the updated program and abstracts for each session.
<http://bit.ly/digitalodyssey>
