From Debra Bade:

SLA 2012 News Division Programming (Preliminary)

Saturday, July 14:  Library tour TBA

Sunday, July 15:
5:00-7:00 p.m.: SLA General Session, keynote speaker
7:00-10:00 p.m.: News Division Silent Auction and Open House in the Suite.

Monday, July 16:
8:00-9:30 a.m.: WikiLeaks Controversy (Government, News Division, Military)
10:00-11:30 a.m.: The New Face of Journalism, featuring Jim O’Shea, founder of Chicago News Cooperative, former editor of the Los Angeles Times, and former Managing Editor of the Chicago Tribune. Jim will speak on the current state of journalism and about his recent book “The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers.” Jim will do a book signing in the Exhibit Hall immediately following this session.
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Annual News Division Business Meeting. This meeting is open to and recommended for all News Division members.
6:00-10:00 p.m.: Annual News Division Awards Reception and Banquet, location TBA. This is a $55 ticketed event.

Tuesday, July 17:
8:00-9:30 a.m.: From InfoPro to Info Hero: 5 easy ways to turn information into insight. (Solo Librarians, News Division, Pharm, Tech)
10:00-11:30 a.m.: Global Economic Outlook: The Global Economy and a day in the life of an EIU Researcher. (Business & Finance, News Division)
2:00-3:30 p.m.: Photo Digitization and Archive Developments. (News Division, Archives Caucus).
4:00-5:30 p.m.: Success Stories of Solos. (SOLO, News Division)

Wednesday, July 18:
8:00-9:30 a.m.: News Division CE/Education Session/Ticketed Event. Limited to 40 attendees. $35 members, $45 non-members, $30 students.
12:00-1:30 p.m.: Digital Asset Management: Techniques for Indexing Non-Textual Content (News Division, Taxonomy.)

Via Celia Donnelly on NewsLib:

“Ace researcher Stephanie Chambers just received one of 6 internal awards given out each year in the newsroom.  The description is below: 

The Stephen Godfrey Prize for newsroom citizen recognizes those whose contributions transcend skills and talent and whose collegiality and commitment to integrity benefits all.

Stephanie was applauded and toasted with champagne and orange juice by a jubilant newsroom. 

Here is what our Editor-in-Chief read to the gathered masses regarding Stephanie’s superb work.

‘Her enthusiasm and energy never flags.  She’s always the first to volunteer to work on projects of any size.   She is now on her 2nd round of re-imagination teamwork.  The feedback from team leaders from all departments is overwhelmingly positive which is no surprise.

She helps people resolve computer issues, trains reporters and editors in best research practices and extols the virtues of using Excel for sorting and analyzing data for stories.  

She is unfailingly positive, cheerful and willing to work with everyone to ensure that the best work is produced for the Globe.’”

 Congratulations, Stephanie!

Hey? How come the site looks different? Where did the logo go?

Per SLA request from Daniel Lee, now that the site lives on the SLA server, we are required to confirm to SLA’s WordPress design.

While perusing some UT alumni news, I came across a profile of Emily Vinson, an assistant archivist “working at WNYC (New York City’s Public Radio Station) on a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project to digitize, catalog, and make available to the public 660 hours of recordings from the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC collection.”

Sounds like an interesting project, especially the creative use of Twitter to publicize what they have uncovered.

Via Newslib and Debra Bade:

“Some very sad and stunning news – our dear friend and colleague, Dana Gordon, has died. Many of you will remember Dana from her years with Newsweek and more recently with Crain’s. Dana was so smart, and charming, and accomplished — I know that she has had an impact on many of us, both professionally and personally, and we miss her tremendously.

This is the message on facebook from her husband this morning for those who may not have seen it:

‘Dana Gordon 1961-2012   Dana Gordon passed away early this morning from cancer. She was my wife. We loved each other dearly and I will miss her terribly. I will post funeral / condolence plans as soon as they are available.’ “

We’ve moved!

SLA wanted all chapters and divisions to be on the same platform and have similar sites, so the News Division has moved to WordPress.

We’ve also moved the News Library News/NewsliBlog content to the same place, so now you can find everything News Division related on one site.

A special thanks to News Division webmistress Alice Pepper, as well as Carolyn Edds, for all their hard work in moving content from the old site to the new one. Alice is moving on, so if anyone out there is interested in wearing that webmaster beanie, please let me know.

The site is, of course, always ready for new information. If you have an idea for a post or a page on the site, please send it to me. Same goes if you would like to write a quarterly column or otherwise help out.

Carolyn is converting the old News Division site into one devoted to the history of news libraries. She will be keeping us posted as to how her work is progressing.

We hope you like the new version of the website, but even if you don’t, comment away.

Via Linda Deitch on NewsLib:

Harvey K. Elsaesser of West Seneca, N.Y., a former librarian for The Buffalo News who was known for his knowledge of local history, died Feb. 7 after a lengthy illness. He was 86.

From the obituary, ” ‘He was a walking history book,’ said Robert J. McCarthy, News political reporter. ‘Whenever there was a question about Buffalo history, it was ‘Ask Harvey.’ ‘ ”

Via Margot Williams on NewsLib…

“U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the accuracy and uses of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. The hearing will take place on Thursday, February 2, 2012 in B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 9:00 a.m. . . .

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) stated, ‘Since 1980, Social Security has been required to publicly make available Americans’ personal information through the so-called Death Master File. Nearly anyone can get this information, including identity thieves. Identity theft affects swindled businesses, American taxpayers and grieving families. Also any one of us could find ourselves on that list by mistake – a mistake which could cause severe financial hardship. Americans deserve better so I introduced H.R. 3475, the Keeping IDs Safe Act of 2011, a bill that would stop Social Security from making this information public.’”

Thanks, Margo, for bringing this information to all of our attentions.

While potential fraud is never something to take lightly, the SSDI information is useful for preventing fraud as well. Reporters and researchers use that information to root out con artists using other people’s information for their own personal gain, to verify facts about deceased persons and a multitude of other purposes.

Today, while looking for the free SSDI database online I have used in the past, I came across this message on RootsWeb: “Due to sensitivities around the information in this database, the Social Security Death Index collection is not available on our free Rootsweb service but is accessible to search on Ancestry.com.”

And so it begins again…

UPDATE: The SSDI debate reminded me of a request — famous in researcher lore here at the Express-News — where then-researcher Carolyn Edds (now at the Tampa Bay Times) broke a story by connecting a minister, found with a new identity after being presumed dead, to a stolen SSN. Being able to search SSNs (just search them, not view an entire number) was invaluable to making the connections and verifying the facts of the story. Carolyn recounts how she researched the story here. By the way, the minister obtained the fraudulent SSN by a phone call to a university. No data mining there.

Interesting piece from the Nieman Journalism Lab on Deep Dive, a project from the New York Times that is still in demonstration mode.

It uses the Times‘ “massive cache of metadata from stories” to help pull archived stories related to the one a reader is currently looking at. I’m curious to know about the metadata itself: who came up with it, who applies it, how it is applied, etc.

–Julie Domel

This site is a work in progress.

Per SLA’s request, this is now our official website.

To view the old site, which will be dedicated to the history of news libraries, visit http://www.slanews.org

You can send questions or comments about the old site to Carolyn