Declaration from Buenos Aires – Social Forum of Information 2004: “Information, knowledge, documentation, archives, and libraries are communal cultural goods and resources. They are based upon and promoted by democratic values, such as: freedom, equality, and social justice, as well as tolerance, respect, equity, solidarity, communities, society, and the dignity of individuals.

Every documentation center contributes to democratic practice in the social and political spheres. Conscious of this dimension, the foundation and organization of these cultural goods and resources must be constructed under the principal of knowledge and information access that is free, open, and egalitarian for everybody.

Social and political elements also are present that librarians, documentalists, and archivists must take into account in order to contribute to the formation of cultural and civic identities sustained by civil and socially responsible values.
“

——–

this is important stuff…

It’s Miller Time at UM: “

UM Medical School announced a $100 million gift today, from the family of the late Leonard Miller, a longtime South Florida businessman and philanthropist.. The Medical School will be renamed the “Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine”.

Officially, anyway. That same announcement also refers to it as “The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine”.

The Med School Miller School is the biggest academic unit at UM. I bet for half that, or even less, you could name the law school almost (but not quite) anything you wanted.

Meanwhile, this enormous gift means that the university is 80% of the way towards its billion-dollar fund-raising goal, with $500+ million going to the Med School.

“

(Via Discourse.net.)

——–

this is yet one more example of age demographics serving their own interests…. don’t you think? i expect to see many med schools getting similar large gifts….

Times Online – World: “The hospital said that it had drawn up guidelines on involuntary euthanasia and carried out four such killings of babies in 2003. All cases, done with the consent of parents and independent doctors, were reported to government prosecutors, but no proceedings were started.”

(Via .)

finally someone does the right thing.

The New York Times > Job Market > Choosing a College Major: For Love or for the Money?: “Trudy Steinfeld, director of career services at New York University, tells students that majors should be less about preparing for one career and more about preparing for many options, and probably several careers, over a lifetime. She agrees with the Northeastern data showing that finance, accounting and technology degrees will lead to higher salaries. But she says she also sees liberal arts majors who become equally successful.”

——–

this is pretty clear…. individuals can become equally successful, but the populations cannot become equally successful…. so don’t fool yourself, being the exception to the norm means you can be on the high end, or the low end, but it is more likely that you will be normal.

Patrick C. Doherty, “An Economic 9/11″: “”

(Via Interactivist Info Exchange.)

—–

the question of course…. is how bad will it be?

EU invites applications for IT grants of 1.12 billion euros: “The fourth call for proposals under European Commission the Information Society Technologies (IST) Research Programme has just been published.

The total financial allocation for this call is 1.12 billion euro. It funds 5 types of projects: Integrated projects (IPs), Specific Targeted Research Projects (STREPs), Networks of Excellence (NoEs), Coordination Actions (CAs),Specific Support Actions (SSAs).

The areas addressed within this call include applied IST research addressing major societal and economic challenges, communication, computing and software technologies, components and microsystems, knowledge and interface technologies, knowledge and interface technologies, IST future and emerging technologies.

http://www.cordis.lu/ist/“

(Via Information Policy.)

—–

this is pretty big… games, open source, etc. etc. are covered.