Libraries in a Time of Conflict; Library Journal, April 14, 2022

Hammad Rauf Khan , Library Journal; Libraries in a Time of Conflict

"In the future many library collections in Ukraine will need to be replenished, and unfortunately some rare items may be lost forever. We need to work together across borders in making sure to preserve endangered library collections. The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is working with Blue Shield International and UNESCO on plans of action to safeguard library collections. It will be interesting to see the action they take for Ukraine, but why don’t we already have steps in place to make sure if a crisis happens, we can protect our rare and culturally valuable items from harm? While many of our library organizations ask us to develop disaster planning and community resilience guidelines, these often don’t address issues around war and how to protect special collections from invaders. While we hope that none of us find ourselves and our communities in a conflict like the one playing out in Ukraine, we as library professionals should work towards creating a guidebook on protecting rare books, historical materials, documents, and maps during times of war. It is better to be over prepared than to not be ready at all.

We must collaborate, cooperate, and coordinate our efforts in preserving and inventorying our unique library materials. We need to generate data on the condition of materials as they are stored, the conditions under which they are used, the security around the collection, and the policies that affect their care, storage, and handling. Libraries transmit culture, have the unique ability to uplift individuals and society, and continue to enhance democracy even in conflict. To do that best, we must make sure we are prepared to work together to save what can’t be replaced."

Hawaii governor: I was slow to correct the bogus missile scare because I forgot my Twitter password; Vox, January 23, 2018

Emily Stewart, Vox; 

Hawaii governor: I was slow to correct the bogus missile scare because I forgot my Twitter password

"Hawaii’s ballistic missile scare earlier this month took the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency 38 minutes to correct. It took the state’s governor 17 minutes to tell everyone it was fake on Twitter — which, while faster, still isn’t ideal.

Now we know the explanation: Gov. David Ige didn’t know his Twitter password.

Ige, after delivering his State of the State address on Monday, told reporters the reason it took him nearly 20 minutes to tweet, “There is NO missile threat,” is that he didn’t have his ducks in a row, password-wise. “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that’s one of the changes I made,” the Hawaii Democrat told the Honolulu Star Advertiser. “I’ve been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly.”"

Whose Lives Should Be Saved? Researchers Ask the Public; New York Times, 8/21/16

Sheri Fink, New York Times; Whose Lives Should Be Saved? Researchers Ask the Public:

"Charles Blattberg, a professor of political philosophy at the University of Montreal, said he worried that the effort could result in overly precise guidelines.

“The kind of judgment that’s required to arrive at a good decision in these situations needs to be extremely sensitive to the context,” he said. “It’s not about just abandoning one lone doctor to their own devices to make it up on the spot, but we can’t go the other extreme in thinking we have the solution to the puzzle already; just follow these instructions. That works for technical problems. These are moral, political problems.”

Ruth Faden, the founder of Johns Hopkins’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, which participated in the project, said she saw value in the exercise far beyond a pandemic.

“It’s a novel and important attempt,” she said, “to turn extremely complicated core ethical considerations into something people can make sense of and struggle with in ordinary language.”"