“Anonymous library cards allow you to wonder, ‘Who was that masked patron?’”. Originally published in Computers in Libraries, June 2005.
...With an anonymous library card [associated with a cash deposit], the library is willing to loan materials to anyone because it knows it can’t really lose anything. Since the library would never loan more than it could recoup from a cash deposit, it would be able to loan controversial items without storing personally sensitive information. If the user doesn’t return the material promptly, the fines would be deducted when it’s finally checked in (or once the accrued fines reach the price of the material). ...
“Quiet revolution: librarians teach and preach Open Source software”. Originally published on NewsForge (now Linux.com), June 17, 2002.
...Librarians have always understood the value of sharing information. The hacker librarians in Atlanta for the American Library Association’s annual convention, which continues through Tuesday, have been living out their creed by developing freely distributable software and teaching others how to use it. Their peers—human search engines at the public library, scholarly bibliographers in academia, and the rarefied ranks of competitive intelligence researchers—have arrived by the busload for sessions on Linux, BSD, and Open Source tools. ...