EDITOR S NOTE Learning 2 0 N o matter how old we get the crisp autumn feel o f September still conjures up mem ories of heading back to school, mad e all the sweeter w ith a new box of Crayolas, a big three-ring binder, a nd a handful of freshly s harpened No. 2 pencils. OK, the tools toda y for the back-to-school scene are slightly dif ferent. Think smartphon es, iPads, and Facebook. This issue seemed to be the per- fect place to talk about our theme of innovation fo r academic communi- ties. Our three features this month cover all the bases, from elearning to innovation to iSchools. First, in Up Close With Steph en Abram, Miriam A. Drake gets this globed thinker talk ing about his dedi- cation to librarianship and his mission to merge learning vsdth the w ork of li- brarians. Abram offers his insights as a librarian as well as the vice pres- ident of strategic partnerships a nd markets at Gale Cengage Learning. Then, author Robert S. Benchley takes a look at the crossroads of crowd- sourcing and think ing outside the box in NineSigm a: Finding Innovation in Unexpected Places. CEO Andy Zynga helps enterprises forge innovative partnerships to meet ever-changing technology needs in the marketplace. Finally, we step into the virtual classrooms at three top iSchools tha t represent the academic creativity involved in shapin g the minds of to- morrow's librarians and information scientists in iSchools: Shaping the Information Landscape. Whether their titles are records management specialists, business intelligence an- alysts, or digital initiatives librarians, they're librarians to the core. This issue is packed with infor- mation about new products, tools, and services designed especially for the academic com munity, from ed2go (Gale, part of Cengage Learning) to the Turnitin plagiarism tool (iPara- digms, LLC). Enjoy t he issue. EHINDTHELENS Where Privacy IVIeets Security by DICK K SER A uthors Daniel Garrie and Yoav Griver, who are attorneys, quickly advised the audience at SoMoLo@NY (part of the info360 confer- ence in mid-June) that their forthcoming comments did not constitute legal advice. But I've already heard their comments many times before: Cloud comput- ing is not necessarily safe. Garrie a nd Griver were on a speaking tour celebrat- ing their book. ispute Resolution and e Discovery (Thomson Reuters Westlaw, 2012), which is now in its second edition. Down the hall in New Y ork City s Jacob K Javits Con- vention Center, the info360 show, the ON DEMAND Expo, and the Cloud Expo were all taki ng place simul- taneously, as the two lawyers address ed the legal is- sues involved in moving data to, or using application s residing on, remotely hosted computers, such as the ones that provide YouTube, Gmaü, Microsoft Office 365, Salesf orce.com, TurboTax, and Tw itter. The cloud may even be a part of your operational infrastruc ture if re- mote service providers are helping your operations. The la-wyer s actually sounded a lot like realtors. You know, it's all about location, location, location. Where is your data? What local law governs it? Who owns this data in that place? Who is allowed to access it? And what are they required to do if you demand it back? Who is liable to your custom ers if those rem ote servers go do-wn or get attacked, the d ata gets corrupted, or (heaven forbid) the service provider goes out of business? If this has n't scared you enough, bear in mind that Google apps are made available over thousands o f servers, and under the terms o f service you signed when you clicked the Accept button, those servers can be located an3rwhere, they warned. Afew weeks later at the ALA Anaheim 2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition, I was reminded that even if those servers are in the U.S., your privacy may also be at risk, ironical ly enough for security reasons. Speaking about the pen- ding U.S. legislation. Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), an d its cousin in the S enate, the Cybersecurity Act, Rainey Reitman, who is the acti- vism director at the Elec- tronic Frontier Foimdation, said, CISPA would have allowed fo r cybersecurity purposes social sites to pass along data without a Ramey Reitman, activism director at the Electronic Frontier F oundation, spolie at the ALA Anaheirr) 2012 Annual Conference Exhibition. douds cover New Yori City s Jacob K. Javits Conve ntion Center during the Cloud Expo. warrant to NSA [National Security Agency]. Its sister bill in the S enate m ay be better, but the two will need to be reconciled. Our watchdogs in Washington, D.C., are paid to make us worry about such things. These bills are about censorship, she warned the audience at ALA. These buls are about surveillance. I attended a special preconference session at ALA Anaheim titled Who Do I Trust to Protect My Privacy? The session was pa rt of an ALA initiative to promote a national dialogue about privacy by using a deliber- ation format. It's not a discussion or a debate; the meth od pro-v ides a way for the pu blic to weigh in and establish common ground by weighing pros and cons. Carolyn Caywood developed an approach for raising awareness about privacy. Carolyn Caywood, who was the facilitator ofthe session, said, It cuts right across the red and blue political lines. And based on the session I attended, I must say it really works. Librarians anywhere can download the materials and hold a session in their hometowns from the Privacy Revolution website (www .privacyrevolution.org/index.php/resources/for_ libraries/civic_engagement). I find myself wondering whether it isn 't the cloud where the interest of security and privacy meet. I know one thing for sure, but I'll defer to Reitman to say it for me. She told the audience at ALA, Li- brarians are the ethical backbone of this country, so when you're on the side of librarians, you know you are on the right side. I Dick Kase r is Informati on To day , Inc. s vice president of content. Send your comments about this column to [email protected]. SEPTEMBER 2012 INFORM TION TOD Y