Hi All, Just an update to offer a reply to these questions about the Franklin Law Library and other county law libraries which can still be saved but are seriously at risk. We are in the process of writing up a short report on our research. Here are some responses for now: They say that everything that has been shredded has been digitized, but I have it from three separate reliable sources that most of what was shredded has not been digitized. The original Franklin Law Library comprised 30,000 volumes. They definitely did not provide a budget to digitize 25,500 volumes of books. They have already closed and disappeared New Bedford and Fitchburg's county law libraries. Lawrence, and Hampden have had partial deaccessionings. This is also part of a global trend of shredding books in libraries all over the world. Stand guard over your books, because our cultural history is being shredded. If you do google searches, you will find libraries all over the world quietly destroying books that we thought were sitting safely in our libraries. Look at the Wikipedia pages for Cultural Cleansing, and Lost Libraries. There are other citings (NPR - We are in a book burning period again <https://tinyurl.com/n9r9pm6>) Furthermore, digitizing is a Red Herring. Digitizing is NOT considered archival. This is a direct statement from the director of the Social Law Library in Boston, which is the oldest, and most important law library in the country (it is by subscription, it is the library that our supreme court justices use, but we, the citizens, are allowed only limited use. Their books are not getting shredded). This statement is confirmed by many scholarly reports and white papers on this subject. Here is one such: http://blog.archive.org/2011/06/06/why-preserve-books- the-new-physical-archive-of-the-internet-archive/, and another; "Why Print and Electronic Resources Are Essential to the Academic Law Library <http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1784&context=facpub>" by Georgetownn University Law Center. Our Founders meant to have the history of our jurisprudence archived in many places. Intentional redundancy is an important part of our Founders plan for national security. On August 24, 1814, the British attacked and burned Washington DC. They burned the Capital and the White House. Our first Library of Congress, all 3000 volumes, was burned to ashes. The seizing of DC by the British happened late in the War of 1812. Early in 1815, after the peace, there was a flurry of law library acts. The inference is clear. Our Founders realized that we needed to have our historic law books in many places so that we could recover, if an important library was lost. The first Massachusetts act creating law libraries, Act 177 was signed into law on March 2, 1815. When our first law libraries were created, books had been the proven archival method of storing important information for many hundreds of years. Now fast forward to the present. The internet is a 20 year experiment. Although it is an ideal medium for enhancing access to our books and documents, IT IS NOT FIT FOR DUTY as a method for archiving. Already there are reports of tampering with text content, when the digital version is the only one left. Not to mention server crashes, and then there are the intentional deletions of public records by those who find them politically inconvenient. This has already happened. The EPA libraries were shut down, and thousands of scientific research documents were destroyed by the Bush Administration in 2006. Furthermore, we were contacted by a publisher of a law library newsletter that goes to recipients around the world. He told us that big legal publishers lobby behind the scenes to get print libraries destroyed so that they can then "charge through the nose" for database services, which become an ongoing citizen expense. He has been reporting on this for 20 years. And then, when one company is bought by another, certain databases become innaccessible, or are removed, creating "swiss cheese <http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=btlj>" in the continuity of records. In this, as in many things, systems that have long been in place that support, democratic stability, and the independence and self sufficiency of citizens, are being forcibly replaced by systems that render us dependent. Generations of stewards of our cultural history have carefully curated, and loyally handed on, our historic records from one generation to the next, for two hundred years, for the benefit and security of future generations. Now, one generation, not even of citizens, but of stewards, have decided behind closed doors, without consulting the citizens who these books belong to, that they have a right to destroy access to our history of jurisprudence, for ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS. NELLCO - New England Law Library Consortium, has proudly announced their project to centralize all the law libraries, which means that they are keeping one copy of every book in one huge storage facility, and destroying the rest of the copies. They apparently have forgotten the history of why they were created. Already this idea of redundancy has proven important. When a law library in Georgia had lost ll its records in the Civil War, Franklin Law Library, which had retained some of those important Georgia records, was able to deaccession our copy, and restore it to Georgia. If we now lose our one lone copy of these books, how will we be able to recover as our Founders intended? The public relations story about why the books are being destroyed is "We need to shred the books to make room for the court services departments which get use." They have used distorted data to claim that no one uses the law libraries. This is categorically not true. Franklin Law Library before it was robbed of all but 15% of its books, was the most used law library per capita in all of Massachusetts. We have seen this statistic, but we are being blocked from gaining access to this data. Maria Fournier, Head of the Court Services Department has used a distorted statistic from ONE MONTH, the month of January 2017, in a highly dysfunctional temporary location of the law library, where the internet and computers didn't work most of the time, and usage had drastically fallen off due to the dysfunction of the space, in the last month before the law library was to open in its new space, to indicate that the law library wasn't being used. So of course they are trying to block the citizens from getting the real statistics. And by the way, Massachusetts is the only state in the country, where the Judiciary, The Executive, and the Legislature are all exempt from the public records law. The Head Law Library Coordinator for Massachusetts, is also Head of the Court Service Centers for Massachusetts. She is destroying the citizens law books (they are "property of the Commonwealth") to make way for court service centers without any public notice (which the judiciary is not required to give, having deemed themselves not answerable to the citizens). To have one person destroying one department that they head to make provision for the other department that they head is a definite conflict of interest, which is prohibited by the 1983 Guidelines for the Delivery of Law Library Services, which prohibits Law Librarians from acting with a known conflict of interest. Furthermore, The Head Law Library Coordinator, Shereice Perry has literally ordered all the head law librarians for ALL the county law libraries to refuse to talk to us. Even about things that are clearly part of the public record, such as, "When did your court service center open?" or "When did your deaccessioning of books occur?", or "Can we get a complete list of the books that used to belong to the citizens, before the deaccessionings?" We are directed to contact Shereice Perry, Head Law Library Coordinator, who is the one who authorized the shredding of our books. Shereice Perry has refused to return any of our phone calls. Through a lot of research about the books that were destroyed, we are beginning to learn that there are many citizens rights which are clearly outlined in the older books, that are being obscured or eliminated from the newer publications. Court service centers are about helping people fill out bureaucratic forms. Public law libraries are about helping people educate themselves and gain an understanding of the laws and legal situations that affect them. Why destroy the books!? First, in years past, deaccessioned books were offered back to the public and donated. They were not destroyed. Second, the idea that it is OK to destroy all but 15% of a 200 year old collection of books is radical and extreme. Third, one citizen offered to take all the books, and find new homes for them. He volunteered to get a moving van and rescue the books. The judiciary refused to return his phone calls for a week. That was the week that they were busy grinding up our 200 year old library for 2¢/lb., books that are Our Property. It is as if they were absolutely determined to destroy the books. We are three citizens doing this singlehandedly and we are exhausted. I personally have called every branch of government in Massachusetts for the last two months, trying to find one independent oversight department of Massachusetts where we can lodge a complaint and ask that a public process be conducted before any further deaccessionings and book shreddings occur. I must have made over 100 phone calls. What I have discovered is that there is no such branch of government. Our judiciary is acting as a law unto itself, not answerable to the citizens. Unlike other historic records that are governed by the Secretary of State's office, which are subject to open meeting laws, and request forms for permission to destroy historic records, these historic records contained within our County Law Libraries are governed under a heirarchical impregnable silo that our juduciary has become. This is the chain of command: Chief Justice Gants of the Supreme Judicial Court, Jonathan Williams, Head Court Administrator Executive Office of the Trial Courts and Paula Carey Chief Justice of the Trial Courts, Maria Fournier, Head of Court Services Department, Shereice Perry, Head Law Library Coordinator, and all individual County Head Law Librarians under this heirarchy. The head law librarians don't want to destroy the books, but they are being ordered to by their direct superiors. None of their direct superiors have any training in professional library science or archival expertise. This new crop of administrators have all come in since 2012. We have had word that before that, the law libraries had a collegial supportive culture where people helped each other. Now since these new department heads have come into power, the atmosphere, we've been told, is adversarial, hostile, threatening. Law librarians seeking help are ignored. Their concerns are brushed aside. I will leave you with these Constitutional Rights which are from the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights in our Massachusetts Constitution. I stongly encourage you to read the rest: https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution PART THE FIRST A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Art. IV. The people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State, and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in Congress assembled. Art. V. All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are the substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them. >From Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Edition: CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. A right guaranteed to the citizens by the Constitution and so guaranteed as to prevent legislative interference therewith. Delaney v. Plunkett, 146 Ga. 547, 91 S.E. 561, 567, L.R.A.1917D, 926, Ann.Cas.1917E, 685. I can tell you that after two months of calling every branch of Massachusetts government that I can think of, I still have found no branch of government who sees themselves as answerable to protect the Citizens history of jurisprudence from destruction. What I have experienced instead is pretty much wholesale bureaucratic obstruction of the Peoples concerns. I even had one lawyer in the judiciary, who was denying our request for public records tell me, when I quoted articles 4 and 5 of our Declaration of Rights, "well that's so etherial". When I mentioned that it was the only source from which legitimate authority to govern originates, he said, "Well OK, yah, it Is our constitution…" He also said about John Adams, "well some guy three hundred years ago couldn't have known about the internet". Three citizens alone can do a lot, but they can't nearly do it all. I haven't worked at my own career for two months, and after two months we still only three citizens. This is not sustainable. I can tell you that I want my life back. Three citizens can't indefinitely take on the entire judiciary, and those who are shredding are books know this and are counting on attrition. Without a great public outcry, we will lose our cultural heritage. Do we really want to sleepwalk-self-shred our way back to the stone age? So how do we as a people bring our government back into conformity with the intent, spirit, and letter of the Massachusetts Constitution that John Adams wrote for us? Losing all our constitutional rights is not a sane option. You are part of We The People. Without all of us we are done. What do you advise? Sincerely, Lisa Hoag On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 4:38 PM, Lisa Hoag <1world4all at gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Hidden Tech Folk, > There will be a Talking Stick Circle on May 15th, to discuss citizen > concerns about the destruction of most of Franklin Law Library, which > will be > facilitated by Lucinda Brown who heads the Restorative Justice Program > for Franklin County Courthouse. This will be in the afternoon, though > the exact time has yet to be determined. The purpose will be to gather > and identify citizen concerns about destruction of our county law > library. > We are hoping to have a good number of citizens at this first in a > series of meetings to address citizen concerns. Would anyone here be > willing to attend to help us represent the citizens, especially folks > who live in Franklin County? For this and for my prior email looking > for citizen stories about use of the law > library, you may email me here; you may also call me at 544-7894. > > Warm Regards, > > Lisa > > -- > Lisa Hoag Designs > PO Box 983 > Wendell, MA 01379 > http://www.lisahoagdesigns.com > -- Lisa Hoag Designs PO Box 983 Wendell, MA 01379 http://www.lisahoagdesigns.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20170501/64b922bb/attachment.html