“Every generation needs a new revolution.” — Thomas Jefferson

ALA’s new privacy rights initiative, “Privacy for All: Rallying Americans to Defend Our Freedoms,” is intended to inspire library patrons to stand with librarians as they fight to usher in privacy standards in the digital age. The initiative responds to ALA Council’s resolution calling for a national conversation on privacy, passed at the 2006 Annual Conference in New Orleans.

To help kick off the initiative, OIF is sponsoring a panel at this week’s ALA Annual Conference that promises a stimulating discussion about privacy, libraries, and society.

“Privacy: Is It Time for a Revolution?” will feature author Cory Doctorow, Wired senior writer Dan Roth, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse director Beth Givens in a discussion about the state of privacy in the 21st century. Do people – young people in particular – still care about privacy? How has the rise of online social networking changed our attitudes and reality? How can we get people thinking about the importance of privacy?

“Privacy: Is It Time for a Revolution” will be on Sunday, June 29, 2008; 1:30-3:30 p.m. in room 201D of the Anaheim Convention Center.

In conjunction with the program, OIF has just launched an online survey for librarians, library users, and others about the issues related to privacy today. Please visit www.privacyrevolution.org and take this (short) survey today! [Note: the survey will only be online for a couple of weeks, so don’t delay!]

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For those unable to join us at Sunday’s program, there are a couple of bloggers who will be there, and you also can follow the action via twitter!

Jessamyn West of librarian.net is accepting suggested questions via the comments section on the blog post she wrote on Thursday. As she mentions, the twitter stream for the program is at http://twitter.com/privacyala. ALA staff member Jenny Levine of the Shifted Librarian will be blogging as well.

ALA’s “Privacy for All” initiative is made possible by a $350,000 grant from the Open Society Institute.