Greetings and Summarizations!

Hi there -- My name is Mel and I'm a second year SLIS student (and also a pseudo student in the Art History department). I'm in the process of applying for Art History PhD programs with an emphasis on artist books (which means studying for the GRE *cringe*). My goal is to work in a rare book library or or at an art museum outside of the US as a curator of the collection. In addition to those lovely academic things, I work and volunteer at various locations in Madison: Special Collections (the Rare Book Library), the Chazen Museum of Art, The Kohler Art Library (working with their artist book collection), and at the LGBT OutReach Center Library. If you have any questions about the magic of books and art combined -- I'm your gal.

While reading the blog post about blogging (heh) by Alex Halavais, I was nodding my head in agreement at several points. First, I'm a big "Googler", meaning before we even go out on a first date, I know way more than I should about you and simply act surprised when you tell me about your trip to Egypt (since I already found your Picasa album). Creepy? Maybe. Informed? Yes. I've avoided several bad dates simply by "stumbling" upon someone's Twitter page. But, I don't think I'm alone. You have to be aware of what you're throwing out there, especially because employers are now using the likes of Facebook to scope you out before they even call you for that first date -- the phone interview (my manager at the Chazen does it all the time and just today shared that a new hire likes "Kayne West" as he scrunched up his nose). You must treat the web, as Alex states, as a national newspaper -- you are publishing information about yourself that your grandchildren may see someday.

There was one point I wanted to touch upon with the Fallis reading (since my fellow A-K'ers touched on the Mills four main points before I could snatch them up as Sarah suggested) that is mentioned on page 25. "It is not always clear how library professionals should apply these principles to concrete cases." This is exactly where I'm looking for more direction: the pragmatic side of information ethics. I have these concepts and an understanding of what I should do theoretically, but what do I *really* do when a certain situation arises?  I was happy to read further that these codes and theories should be backed up with real cases and classroom instruction of these examples. That's all fine and well, but where do I, as the potential library instructor, gather these case studies to share with my students? If I had experience (and hopefully a good, code-abiding librarian), I could draw on that. But, shouldn't the ALA publish some how-to's or does that cross into territory that no organization really wants to be responsible for (i.e. ALA TOLD me to say/do/think that!)?