Hello to Library Associations in the US, Canada, and Britain:
I am a recently retired public health librarian, of 30 years duration, who is researching Web use statistics to analyse what the world public is searching for on the Internet. I have undertaken this project in view of the fact that mainstream media lacks coverage in relation to certain kinds of events.
For example, a recently published article by myself in the Toronto Star (Canada's largest daily) at (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1142549411996), was the first article in the mainstream media to draw attention to the Canadian Government stance on Terminator seeds. This article was forwarded to the Canadian delegation at the recent high-level UN Convention on Biodiversity in Brazil, just as the Convention was convening, and the global moratorium on Terminator seeds was upheld -- perhaps in some small measure because of the constraint this article placed on Canadian negotiators.
This example is symptomatic of a much larger and more controversial issue. As I write, the public interest in unanswered questions about September 11, 2001, is exponentially rising, day by day, into millions of hits on Google. Search results from 9/11 + conspiracy, 9/11 + "controlled demolition", 9/11 + "loose change", and 9/11 + fraud, are doubling every 3 weeks.
Simply by Googling 9/11 itself produces over 200 million hits. Of the first 20 ranked websites -- which are ranked mostly by popularity -- fully one-half belong to the "9/11 truth movement". The searches are thus split down the middle -- those which hit the official (White House Commission) version, and those which hit alternative Internet-based versions.
In the last two weeks, there have been 3 advances into the mainstream media from previously alternative versions regarding the events of September 11th. Be ready for a possible surge of information requests, following:
San Francisco Chronicle, March 29th
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/03/29/notes032906.DTL
New York Magazine, March 27/06
http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/16464/index.html
http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/16464/index8.html,
and, on March 22nd, the first emergence into mainstream, Charlie Sheen on
CNN's Shhowbiz Tonight, which is available online at http://stoplying.ca/
Follow the bloggers to http://blogsearch.google.com/ -- enter 9/11, and witness the hour-by-hour submissions of the people who want to know.
Check out the Chomsky-like Dr. David Ray Griffin, the acclaimed US philosopher/logician and process theologian whose seminal works on 9-11 have never been reviewed in the mainstream media. Check his CV -- at http://www.ctr4process.org/about/CoDirectors/drg_cv.pdf -- which lists 30 authored/edited books, and over 150 academic articles. Link to his treatise "The New Pearl Harbor" on amazon.com and see the 193 book reviews that have been penned by ordinary people looking for truth.
We librarians are more able than many to determine trends in world information seeking -- and sometimes, information impoverishment -- via analysis of Internet-based activities. This very fact lends responsiblity to our profession to be prepared and ready for what people need to know -- people, everywhere, who are seeking to fulfill their responsibility as informed citizens of democratic nations.
Elizabeth Woodworth
Writer/Novelist/Professional Librarian
British Columbia, Canada
(This article may be freely linked to or downloaded, if the author is acknowledged.)
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