Geneaologists Concerned about Threat to SSDI Access

A White House Petition to stop fraudulent tax refund claims is supported by genealogists, who are alarmed by the possibility that public access to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) could end. WLA members  Mary Rieder, President of the  Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and Anita Doering, Archivist at the La Crosse Public Library, recently brought this issue to WLA's attention. Here's Mary's discussion of what lack of access to SSDI would mean to genealogists:

Would you believe that the IRS doesn’t automatically check Social Security Numbers on tax returns before issuing a refund check?  Because of this, people have been using the SSNs of deceased people to claim tax refunds.  Two weeks ago a grieving father testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that someone had stolen the SSN of his recently deceased daughter and used it to file for a tax refund.  When the legitimate parents filed their tax return to claim some of the medical expenses they had paid for the child’s care, they were refused because that number had already been issued a refund.  So, in its infinite wisdom, the Committee is considering entirely closing the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) from public use rather than telling the IRS to do their job and check the numbers.  The main problem with this is that many businesses, insurance companies, loan officers, banks, etc., routinely use the SSDI for what it’s supposed to be used for:  stopping the fraudulent use of SSNs.  If the federal government closes off public access to it, more fraud will happen, not less.  No one has presented proof that these SSNs are being stolen from the publicly-accessible SSDI.  They could also be taken from dumpster-diving, unscrupulous staff stealing the numbers in banks or medical facilities, or even someone looking over someone else’s shoulder while they’re filling out a form requiring the number, so closing the SSDI isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem. 

This issue has become a big one with the genealogical community because genealogists also routinely use the SSDI to gather information on death dates and parents’ names.  By looking up a person’s SSN you can request a copy of the SS-5 form the person filled out when they applied for an SSN which often gives further family information such as parents names, address at the time of application, etc.  Forensic genealogists use this information to assist them in locating surviving family members of soldiers whose remains have been recovered (some from as far back as WWII and the Korean War), and helping coroners identify next of kin of unclaimed bodies, so that the family can have some closure on what happened to their loved one.  Megan Smolenyak is one of these forensic genealogists, and she wrote a great blog post about this in December:  http://megansmolenyak.posterous.com/are-we-going-to-lose-the-social-security-deat  after Ancestry.com (the company of the “shaky leaf” you’ve been seeing on TV ads – but don’t get me started on how EASY they make genealogy look!) shut down the free version of SSDI which had been on their RootsWeb site, moved everything behind their pay wall at their commercial site, and redacted the SSNs from any record for a person who had died within the last 10 years.

The Ways and Means Committee held a public hearing on the issue on February 2nd, but they restricted who could speak publicly at the hearing, and no one from the genealogical community, or even in favor of keeping this information public, was allowed to testify.  In light of that, the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC), a joint committee of the National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, and International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, has started a petition on the WhiteHouse.gov site asking the White House to require that the IRS start checking SSNs before issuing refund checks as soon as possible to prevent fraud, preferably this tax season.  The petition needs 25,000 signatures by March 8th, however, or it won’t even be looked at.  Only about 3,000 people have signed it as of today, though, so I’m sending this out to ask you to look at it and sign it if you agree.  You’ll have to create an account on the site to sign it, which asks for your name, e-mail address and zip code.  The site will then e-mail you a message, and you have to click a link in that message to activate your account.  You can then go back to the survey and sign it.  It will display your first name, first initial of your last name, your city and state, and the date you signed.  (I’m #50, if you want to scroll down that far! ;-)

For more information (from genealogists’ points of view), please see the RPAC blog at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/, and a blog post which a genealogist from Illinois, Michael John Neill, who spoke at our WSGS Fall Seminar a couple of years ago, put up recently at http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-take-on-ssdi.html.

The petition is online at http://wh.gov/khE.  Please feel free to pass this message on to anyone else you think might be interested (especially you librarian-types! ;-).  Writing to your federal legislators about this issue will also help bring it to their attention.

Thank you.
--Mary Rieder, President, Wisconsin State Genealogical Society

AB 224 Awaits Governor's Signature: Allows Gift Transfers

A bill recently approved by the legislature, AB 224, authorizes school boards and school libraries to transfer an unrestricted gift or grant to certain charitable organizations, such as a school foundation or a community foundation. The bill, introduced by Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) awaits the governor's signature to become law.

WLA also supported an earlier bill that would give public libraries the same authority to transfer gifts and grants to a library-related foundation or friends group. AB 224 would clarify that public libraries may also transfer this type of funding to a community foundation. The money must be used for a library-related purpose - or in the case of a transfer by a school, for a school-related purpose.

The bill would provide more flexibility to schools and libraries in the management and investment of such funds. WLA urges Governor Walker to sign the bill.

Register for National Library Legislative Day

Registration for the 2012 National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) is now open! To get started simply click here. On that page, you will also find information about making a hotel reservation at the official NLLD hotel. This year’s event will be held at the Liaison Hotel in Washington DC on April 23 and 24.

For 38 years, there has been an annual National Library Legislative Day in the nation’s capital. Each year, over 400 library supporters travel to DC where they receive training and briefings to prepare for meetings with their members of Congress. Many continue their advocacy activities when they return back home by building on the relationships they established at NLLD.

There is a funding opportunity available for NLLD. The White House Conference on Library and Information Services Taskforce (WHCLIST) and the ALA Washington Office are calling for nominations for the WHCLIST Award. Each year, the award is granted to a non-librarian participant in National Library Legislative Day (NLLD). The winner receives a stipend of $300 and two free nights at the NLLD hotel. Click here to apply.

WLA's state coordinator, Julie Schneider, arranges the meetings with legislators, communicates with the ALA Washington Office and serves as the contact person for each state delegation. To reach Julie, call (608) 263-5755 or email jschneider@library.wisc.edu.

Charlotte Zolotow Award Goes to Patrick McDonnell for "Me...Jane"

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) announces that the 2012 Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a book for young children will be given to Patrick McDonell for his picture book Me ... Jane (Little, Brown, 2011) at an award ceremony and reception on Saturday, March 3, 2012, 1:30 - 3 p.m., at the Pyle Center on the UW-Madison campus.

Mr. McDonnell will be in attendance to receive the award in person.  One or more of the Zolotow Award honor book recipients may also be present.  Books will be available for purchase, and there will be autographing following the formal presentation.

The event is open to the public. PLEASE RSVP to Megan Schliesman if you want to attend.

Go to http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/books/zolotow.asp to read the 2012 Zolotow Award press release and find out more about the award, which is sponsored by the CCBC of
the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Friends of the CCBC, Inc.
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian, CCBC, 608/262-9503
schliesman@education.wisc.edu

Work Group to Revise Statewide ILL Guidelines Announced

Resources for Libraries and Lifelong Learning and the Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) Resource Sharing Roundtable are convening a statewide working group to revise statewide interlibrary loan guidelines.  Feedback on the current guidelines was solicited through conference presentations and surveys distributed throughout the state in 2011.

The guidelines, which were last revised in 2005, will be reviewed by the working group.  Suggested updates will be shared and input will be gathered from the statewide library community.   The group will read and review the current Wisconsin and American Library Association guidelines and the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States Explanatory Supplement.  Additions, deletions, and changes to the existing guidelines will be recommended and discussed.  New language will be drafted to bring the Wisconsin guidelines up to date. The revised guidelines will be shared as online/electronic documents.  The working group does not anticipate distributing a formal, printed version of the guidelines.

The group will meet four times beginning Friday, February 3, 2012, and will complete the draft revisions by April 30.  It will be presented at the 2012 Wisconsin Association of Public Libraries (WAPL) conference by team members in May.

The working group includes representatives of the Wisconsin library community from around the state, including:

Linda Bailen – Northern Waters Library Service
Maureen Welch – Indianhead Federated Library System
Chris Hamburg – Two Rivers Public Library
Matt Rosendahl – Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College
Angela Milock – Wisconsin Library Services (WiLS)
Fred Marini – Melrose – Mindoro Area School District
Nell Fleming – Wisconsin School for the Deaf
Amelia Osterud – Carroll University
Brian Hanneman – Milwaukee Public Library
Bob Zabkowicz – Wisconsin Department of Corrections
Martha Berninger – Resources for Libraries and Lifelong Learning

For more information on this project, please contact Martha Berninger, Resources for Libraries and Lifelong Learning Director, at martha.berninger@dpi.wi.gov or 608-224-6161 or Christine Barth, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator, at christine.barth@dpi.wi.gov or 608-224-6171.
--DPI's Channel Weekly, Vol. 14, No. 17 -- January 26, 2012

The continuing debate in Wisconsin re broadband

The Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association is maintaining their pressure on the legislature in opposition to the bill which would extend the WiscNet sunset for a year.

Their press release of two days ago suggests that the UW either doesn't know their own business or is attempting to mislead us all, referring to "misleading statements made by Ray Cross, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Extension."
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/January12/0126/0126wsta.pdf

As Lisa noted in an earlier blog post, we received a favorable vote in committee as the "Senate Agriculture, Forestry and Higher Education Committee voted 6 – 1 to recommend SB 375 for passage. The bill would delay the restrictions on participation by the University of Wisconsin System in selling or providing telecommunications service, including terminating participation in WiscNet."

The WSTA is attempting to sell the idea that the current law would not prohibit the UW from participating in WiscNet -- which might be a meaningful argument if no-one else were participating in WiscNet.

We can accept that the legislature intended that the UW should not subsidize the provision of telecommunications. What seems unclear is if there are ways in which the UW might collaborate or participate without throwing out other participants. The WSTA appears to chastise the UW, stating:

If WiscNet’s role in providing service to the UW is critical in maintaining the UW’s $1 billion research engine, it seems like a pretty simple choice. Even with only two options, it is unclear whether the UW and WiscNet have actually identified a course of action in order to prepare for the July 2013 sunrise provisions."

But from the point of view of UW, as well as schools, libraries and other WiscNet participants, the audit only recently begun by the Legislative Audit Bureau is critical -- not merely pro forma. At the Senate Committee hearing, the WSTA representative conceded that no-one knows what a new WiscNet configuration might look like. So let's not be hasty.

We believe that getting findings and recommendations from the recently begun LAB study will be critical to forming a plan of action -- and with some participants required to make erate decisions within a few days or weeks of the study's conclusion, more time is needed.

The WSTA position might make sense if the University of Wisconsin were completely separate from the rest of the state. But education and business concerns are woven throughout the fabric of our school, library and university community. Allowing enough time via a one year extension of the deadline will give us a much-needed opportunity to make sure questions are addressed in a way that will benefit the entire state, not just WSTA member profits.

I encourage all WLA members to contact their legislators in support of SB 375 and AB 473. The advocacy tools on the WLA website (http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/legis/advocacy/index.htm) make this easy to do. We are fortunate to enjoy bipartisan support for these bills, but opponents are working hard to stop them. We need to work equally hard and not take anything from granted.

Terry Dawson, Chair
WLA Library Development & Legislation Committee

ALA President Urges Signing White House Petition on School Libraries

The following is a letter from ALA President Molly Raphael.
Dear Colleagues,
I hope that by now you have heard about AASL President Carl Harvey’s White House Petition on School Libraries. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 4, 2012, in order for this petition to reach the desk of the President. We are more than halfway there, but time is running out!

In addition to signing the petition, please take these steps to ensure that this petition is a success:
1. Spread the word and see that at least ten of your friends or family members also sign;
2. Work with local educational groups, including the local PTA or PTO, and ask them to mount a signing campaign;
3. Work with other community groups and ask them to get involved.

School libraries are everyone’s issue. Cuts in staffing or elimination of school library programs in a specific community affect all libraries in that community, whether it’s the public library now tasked with serving a school curriculum, or higher education librarians teaching remedial information literacy skills. In order for any of us to succeed, we must be willing to work on these issues together to support our broader library eco-system. Please get involved and help create awareness about the need to ensure that every student has access to an effective school library program.

Please note that the petition is a two-step process. You have to create an account, and then return to the web page to sign. We’ve heard reports that it’s also temperamental: if you have trouble signing, please try working in a different browser, or try in off-peak hours. It might not be easy but please be persistent! Our school library programs, and the children we serve, are so worth it.

Let’s show the world that we can mobilize people to speak out for libraries. Anyone 13 or older can sign the petition. Help us make this an issue that commands attention. Thank you in advance for your efforts.

Sincerely,
Molly Raphael
2011 - 2012 ALA President

Register for WAAL Conference: Quest for Excellence in Lake Geneva

Have you registered for WAAL 2012: Quest for Excellence in Lake Geneva April 18-20?  If not, read on.  You certainly don't want to miss these programs:

• Keynotes from Jenica Rogers and Kim Leeder will get us motivated and invigorated.
• Luncheon Speakers will take us into another world with "Lots of Dungeons, No Dragons" by Margaret Weis and "Monsters of Wisconsin" by Linda Godfrey.
• PLUS: programs and posters presented by innovative librarians from right here in Wisconsin!

Check out the full program for all of the Excellent offerings to fill your conference Quest.

Check out the fabulous accomodations at the Grand Geneva. If you are going to attend a conference, why not do so in the best possible environment?!

Come for an amazing three days of learning, networking and sharing while...
• Enjoying a martini in a world class lounge,
• Experiencing a massage and spa treatment,
• Experiencing a hay-ride with friends at a tranquil resort,
• Networking to your heart’s content in luxury with colleagues from around Wisconsin,
• Enjoying an elegant room with television, WI-FI, and stunning view, AND,
• Soaking in the multiple pools or water park.

But you can't enjoy this wonderfully relaxing learning experience if you don't register!

Register today!

See you in April in Lake Geneva!

--Ane Carriveau, WAAL Chair and Conference Publicity Chair

SB 375 Approved in Senate Committee, 6-1

Today, the Senate Agriculture, Forestry and Higher Education Committee, voted 6 – 1 to recommend SB 375 for passage.  With Senators Harsdorf, Moulton, Schultz, Hansen and Shilling voting in favor  and Sen. Kedzie opposed, this indicates strong support for the bill.

Next, the bill will be discussed in the Senate Organization committee and then scheduled for a floor vote in the Senate.

Please take the time to thank the Senate committee members for their support.  Thanks to all who have already contacted their Senators and Assembly members about SB 375 and AB 473. (See prior blog post about WLA testimony at the Senate hearing held last week.)

Libraries Support Read to Lead Task Force Recommendations

The following editorial, distributed to newspapers statewide, is by Rhonda Puntney, youth services and special needs consultant at the Lakeshores Library System and WLA's immediate past president.

The Wisconsin Read to Lead Task Force recently released important recommendations to improve literacy in Wisconsin by ensuring that each child can read by the end of 3rd grade. I applaud the attention to children’s literacy; after all, in my career as a youth services librarian and consultant to libraries, I have been connecting children with books and getting them excited about reading for many years.  As the immediate past president of the Wisconsin Library Association, I want to remind teachers and parents alike about important role that all school and public libraries and librarians play in developing literacy skills.

As a youth services consultant for a public library system in southeastern Wisconsin, part of my job responsibilities including coordinating summer library programming for our fifteen member libraries in Racine and Walworth Counties. I work with the libraries to encourage literacy for children and their families.  As any youth services librarian will tell you, a large part of what we do EVERY DAY is encourage children to read.

We begin encouraging reading at birth.  Most public libraries provide storytime programming for babies and toddlers, focusing on early literacy skills and modeling literacy behaviors for parents and caregivers to continue at home.  We then progress to programming for preschoolers, providing safe and nurturing environments and encouraging these children to continue building on their literacy skills.

In fact, Wisconsin has a rich history of providing such programming.  Public librarians in Wisconsin were among the first to provide library programming for school aged children as early as 1898.  And the Racine Public Library has the distinction of providing the first preschool time in the United States on February 10, 1932.  In 2010, programs provided by Wisconsin’s public libraries that were geared toward children had an attendance of over 1.6 million.  Summer library program attendance for children and young adults was nearly 500,000.

A study conducted in 2006 on the benefits of school library media programs commissioned by the Department of Public Instruction showed that student test scores at all grade levels were higher when the school libraries had full-time certified staff who collaborated with planning and teaching with classroom teachers.  And the role of school librarians in promoting literacy and instilling in children a love of reading cannot be dismissed.

I’d like to think the task force recommendations that encourage parental involvement were written with the school and public libraries in mind.  “Support should be given to programs that put books into the hands of low-income children and encourage parents and caregivers to read to children.”  Wisconsin’s librarians are already doing this, and we’ve been doing so for over 110 years.

It’s encouraging that Governor Walker, who chaired the task force, chose to promote the task force recommendations by reading in a school library. I trust that this is truly the beginning of a conversation about how libraries can work more closely with other educators to improve literacy in our state.

Rhonda Puntney Gould is the youth services and special needs consultant at Lakeshores Library System in Waterford.  She is the immediate past president of the Wisconsin Library Association; the 2011-12 President of the Collaborative Program, a grassroots organization that coordinates summer reading programs for all 50 states; and on the board of directors of the Association for Library Service to Children.