I just finished reading The Body Toxic by Nena Baker. What a frightening book. Frightening, but full of essential information that every American needs to know about what the FDA doesn't do to protect us from harmful chemicals in the products we buy and use every day. I wish I had seen the extensive notes in the back of the book before I started reading it. As it is, I'm planning to now go back and look at the articles and sites Baker references throughout this book. The focus of this book is primarily on chemicals that are known as endocrine disrupters and how our daily exposure to them affects our physiology and, in the case of women, even the health of our grandchildren. Whereas in Europe they have developed REACH to protect consumers from unnecessary exposure to some toxic chemicals, we in the US do not have a similar organization protecting us. Baker takes an in-depth look at the effects and uses of commonly-used chemicals in manufacturing and agriculture in the US such as atrazine, phthlalates, PBDEs, bisphenol A, PFOA, and PFOS. She also explores how the influence of large corporations on our government has been keeping the US behind relative to many other developed countries in identifying toxic chemicals and banning their use. She further looks at cases where big business has retaliated against scientists reporting on their discoveries of the effects of these chemicals with "damage control" campaigns and cries of "junk science." After reading this, I have a renewed appreciation for how careful consumers need to be about who they believe when it comes to these issues, and how important it is for all of us to be informed about the context of anything we read, including any unmentioned conflicts of interest that may exist in any author's, website's, government's, or organization's background. Baker's book is incredibly eye-opening and I highly recommend getting ahold of a copy. Here she is giving a presentation about her book:
As a person concerned about our environment, one thing that I try to minimize is how much I throw
away and what can be recycled. But I also am concerned, as everyone is these days, about my money, which is why I've chosen to take advantage of my health insurance's mail-order prescription plan. But when I receive packages from Aetna Rx Home Delivery such as the one shown here, where massive amounts of waste is generated by the shipping of a very small product, I am just appalled. And the fact that my complex doesn't offer recycling makes it that much more difficult to tolerate it.
Speaking of recycling, I recently heard about RecycleBank, a company that pays its users to recycle materials from their home. What a great idea. I'd love to see this in my neighborhood.
If you've ever seen a copy of Bitch magazine before, you know what a high-quality independent magazine this is. If not, and you're into pop culture, why not subscribe now while you still can? You won't be disappointed. These donations are tax deductible and even the tiniest bit helps.
Oh, Internet Librarian 2007, I am sorry I missed you. Perhaps we will meet next year. In the meantime, I've heard some great things about the conference from several of my colleagues who came back bursting with enthusiasm and frustration - enthusiasm for all the great new technology out there and dreams of what our library could be doing with it; frustration from being unable to go forward with almost all of it due to IS constraints that are out of our library's control. One of those returning made what I thought was a very important point today during a meeting - 2.0 technology is already the norm. It's not new anymore. And our library in particular (although I'm sure there are many others with the same problem) is getting more behind the times every day because of some very unreasonable web filtering that keeps staff from becoming web 2.0 literate. Which, of course, keeps us from helping our community with it. What's the easiest way to make a librarian's life a living hell? Take away their freedom to access information.
Anyway, one of the neatest things I heard about from the conference is The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County's fine-payer for teens in Teen Second Life. Apparently, they have something like an ATM that the teens can use in-world to pay off their fines. What I love about this idea is that it's practical, it's located in a place where teens already are ("go where your users are"), and it has the potential to be used in some rather creative ways. Okay, they can pay off their fines in Lindens; now how about extending the service by making it possible for them to work off their fines in-world by reading, building, scripting, hosting events, etc.? It's great that this public library has taken initiative to reach their teen population in Teen Second Life. Here's hoping that more libraries will see the importance of creating a presence in virtual worlds in order to stay relevant to the part of the population who could become life-long library users.
As an information professional, it is part of my job to be able to recognize and pass on creditable information, particularly online where it can be tricky. I believe it will become more of a responsibility of our profession to
teach media literacy as time goes on. Our patrons depend on us for
accurate information, just as they always have, because of our professional training. We would be doing the public much good if we'd work more on
teaching them the critical evaluation skills so needed to navigate a world where the media sells even the airwe breathe and a questionable website may look as "real" as a creditable one.
So today I present you with Havidol and ask you - if you hadn't read this article, would you know this was a parody site? If yes, how? If no, what sold it to you? Was it the professional-looking wesite? The graphics? The similarity to other sites you've seen for familiar products? How does the Havidol site compare with those for other pharmaceuticals such as Zyprexa and Depakote? What makes one more believable than the other?
There are lots of good places to get information on media literacy, but for now, I'll leave you with these:
As much as I hate a corporation being the messenger here, the message itself has merit. Take a look at this ad from Dove that shows the "evolution" of a woman as she goes from normal woman to billboard model.
