Freedom of Information Day & Sunshine Week

Today is Freedom of Information Day!

Freedom of Information Day is an annual event on or around March 16, which is the birthday of James Madison who is considered the Father of the Constitution and one of the foremost advocate for openness in government.

This week is Sunshine Week!

Sunshine Week is national intiative to create a dialogue about the importance of openness and transparency in government and how vital freedom of information is.

Celebrate these events locally:

Freedom of Information Day & & Award Ceremony
1:00-2:00 Monday, March 16, 2009
Pohlad Auditorium, Minneapolis Central Library

Opening Doors: Finding the Keys to Open Government
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Noon—2:00 pm
Minneapolis Central Library

For more information, visit http://mncogi.org/events.htm

Listen to an Interview with the 2009 winner of the John R. Finnegan award for open government citizen lobbyist Rich Neumeister on Minnesota Public Radio.

Great Online Resources about Sunshine Week and Freedom of Information Day


Sunshine Week: Your Right to Know @ http://www.sunshineweek.org

First Amendment Center @www.firstamendmentcenter.org

The Sam Adams Alliance @ www.samadamsalliance.org

Sunshine Review: Your Source for Government Transparency @ http://sunshinereview.org

Freedom of Information Act: Sunshine Review Wiki @ http://sunshinereview.org

Welcome!

The St. Kate's chapter of the student movement Students for Free Culture is now a registered organization with the College of St. Catherine and also with the student organization, Students for Free Culture!

Why should I be interested in this group?

Well, if you are in the MLIS program at St Kate's the importance
and impact of copyright legislation and enaction has no doubt
been made clear in multiple syllabi in various courses.

Libraries function due to a *restriction* to copyright, the First Sale Doctrine, which allows libraries to lend copies of books that they have lawfully purchased. So, any changes to restrictions and enaction or interpretations of copyright law, eventually effect libraries.

As librarians it is in our code of ethics to care about intellectual freedom.

The student movement Free Culture is an excellent way to educate yourself about
intellectual freedom, learn about interesting open source and open access initiatives that you can provide to future or current patrons and ways to enrich the public domain and library collections with these resources. Also, copyright is confusing, but it is also incredibly fascinating. It has a rich and long history. Learn about it and figure out what your copyright ideology is.

Christina Buckles, and I, Laura Clark, have started this group, which is the first Free Culture student group in all Minnesota!

We are in the early stages of planning events, resources and ways to communicate the goals of the Free Culture Movement and would love any and all ideas and input.

This blog will be a temporary go-to website for our organization. I am working with another member, Emily Kittelson, on creating a *real* website, designed to provide resources on Free Culture, give some information on the movement and copyright, and highlight particularly passionate advocates of the movement, who I like to call Free Culture Iconoclasts (see the List).

Get involved! We will probably meet every month, or every other month, so it is not a huge time commitment and we promise to keep it interesting and informative!

Want to Join? Questions?

Email us:
Laura Clark: laclark@stkate.edu
Christina Buckles: cmbuckles@stkate.edu