CIPR Director, Michael Zimmer, has been invited to join a gathering of national library, education, technology, legal and policy experts for a national symposium hosted by the American Library Association and Google considering the impact of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) on access to electronic information July 29 and 30. Librarians & researchers nationwide can join the virtual conversation with two Google Hangouts on July 30.

The first Hangout will start at 11 a.m. EDT and focus on an “Introduction and Overview of CIPA 10 Years Later.” The second one will share “Symposium Themes and Conclusions” starting at 12:15 p.m. EDT. Participants will join a wide range of experts as they share insights looking at legal, ethical, and political implications of how the CIPA requirements have been implemented in the past 10 years. Did CIPA meet its intended goals, and have there been unintended consequences?

“Revisiting the Children’s Internet Protection Act: 10 Years Later” is part of ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and Office for Intellectual Freedom’s (OIF) larger project on CIPA and access to information, made possible through support of Google, Inc. A white paper will be released this fall.

Here’s how to join the conversation:

• You can watch the live stream directly on YouTube on the ALA Washington Office channel. ALA will tweet the URL using #CIPA_ALA13 at 10:45am EST, right before the Hangout goes live.
• You can also tweet @oitp using our hash tag #CIPA_ALA13. We’ll be watching the Twitter feed and passing these comments to the speakers, as well.

Participants are encouraged to actively share their experiences, reflections and questions via tweets and online comment boards. ALA will use the back-channel conversation to inform our ongoing work on libraries and the impacts of filtering on access to information.

The Hangouts also will be archived on the ALA Washington Office YouTube channel after the event.