Please check out my blog at:http://marytreacy.wordpress.com One time librarian and former executive director of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information I am currently a very happy independent consultant exploring untold options. My passion is to contribute the bit I am able to an informed and engaged community in which everyone's story can be told - and heard. This means using a dynamic array of media - newspapers, websites, television, radio, social media and whatever comes on line tomorrow. It means being willing to plumb the depths of a story - and it means having the courtesy, if not the intellectual curiosity, to learn from others. My sons are both enmeshed in the information maze. Rick Birmingham is the Manager of IT Services at MAP for Nonprofits. Steve Birmingham works his magic on the public access terminals in Hennepin County Library. Grandson Will Birmingham, 19 months, loves food, slides, puddles and books - in that order. A graduate of what was then the College of St. Catherine I went on to get a MS in Library Science. Truth to tell, I didn't work in real libraries that much, but I did work 18 years as Director of Metronet, a collaboration of nearly 600 public, academic, corporate, medical, school and other libraries and information services in the TC's. In recent years I've worked in a number of consulting positions, most notably the Sisters of St. Joseph Ministries Foundation. As a hapless volunteer I've worked with a host of nonprofits including the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information, Learning in Style, the DFL Education Foundation, the Village Farmers Market among others. I've also written several pieces for TCDP. In recent weeks I've been joined the throngs of scribe wannabes by launching my own little blog called Poking Around With Mary - because poking around is what I do a good deal of the time.
Open Access Week (October 20-26) just wasn’t long enough to explore all the permutations on the theme. And so we saved the best for last with celebration of a most wonderful open access book. Before the Museums Came: A Social History of the Fine Arts in the Twin Cities, is the brilliant and beautiful creation of publisher, social historian and attorney Leo John Harris. The book and the creator deserve a bonus day of celebration. Continue Reading
A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again. -Alexander Pope Continue Reading
Since my return from the Code for America 2014 Summit I have replayed – virtually and literally – the images of the presenters. One image keeps recurring – the image of creative young women working with users to craft techie tools that solve real-life human needs. For so many of these young women the story was not so much about the tool but about the ways in which the app improved someone’s life. That implicit purpose seemed uniquely explicit in the presentations of dozens of young female coders. Continue Reading
Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President One hopes it is the same half.
-Gore Vidal
If you’re a tweeter, texter, app-addicted news junkie you may be blissfully unaware that this very week, October 5-11, 2014, is the 74th Annual National Newspaper Week. Moreover Tuesday, October 7, is the first ever National News Engagement Day. Continue Reading
The challenge of genuine, sustained, respectful collaboration, both the hope and the life blood of the information age, fascinates me. Over time I have learned to value viable collaboration and to celebrate the power of a diverse community of human beings who share the serious work it takes to identify, then achieve, a common purpose. I understand that collaboration is organic. More important, I appreciate that, while people and organizations will pay for goods and services, no one wants to pay for collaboration. Continue Reading
More than ever, the right to know ranks as a priority with democratic people, from emerging nations in Africa to struggling democracies in Europe to U.S. Senators debating the bipartisan Freedom of Information Act. Political and social structures are overwhelmed by information and telecommunications technology that pose both solutions and threats to the people’s right to know. Continue Reading
The frenzy is on as the 113th Congress moves into its last lap and mid-term electioneering hits peak. Left in suspension is a rush of politically charged bills pulsating to get through committee, desperate to avoid sudden death at the stroke of a partisan pen.Standing apart from the teeming mass is one critical bipartisan bill, the FOIA Improvement Act, co-authored by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). By unclogging the flow of government information Senate 2520 will improve access to information by and about the federal government, thus to facilitate the transparency that undergirds government accountability. Because it is not sexy, pricey or viciously partisan the FOIA Improvement Act escapes the limelight; because it affects every American’s right to know, it deserves attention, understanding and discussion.FOIA has a deserved reputation as a wonkish tool wielded by investigative journalists and attorneys. Most of us have never taken the treacherous path that the Star Tribune’s James Eli Shiffer described in his recent series relating his “mystifying journey” into the world of FOIA.What we fail to realize is that the information that reaches us through the press, advocacy groups, social media, even distorted propaganda, depends on someone having delved into the public record to ferret out the facts. Continue Reading
For some among us the iconic Minnesota State Fair should eschew the politicians, dump the Skyride, douse the corndogs and replace it all with a tasteful gathering of bibliophiles, Minnesota writers, readings, book talks, exchanges of bon mots among the literati. That’s why we have the Twin Cities Book Festival, the ultimate antidote to the State Fair. Continue Reading
If the conversation on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis is politically charged this week, there’s good reason. Gathered at the Minneapolis Convention Center are several hundred elected representatives from around the nation and the world. All week I have had the opportunity to marinade in the lively presence of attendees at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)—elected representatives and staff of the fifty states’ very diverse governmental entities as well as an impressive contingent of international visitors. Continue Reading
